Ellis County
Red Oak, Ellis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Created December 20, 1849 from Navarro County Organized August 5, 1850 Named in honor of Richard Ellis, 1781-1846 a Virginian by birth and education Jurist and statesman of Alabama 1813-1825 Moved to Texas in 1825 President of the Constitutional Convention, March, 1836 Member, Congress of the Republic of Texas Waxahachie the county seat
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Ellis County was created in December 1849 from Navarro County and organized the following August, with Waxahachie as its seat. It honors Richard Ellis (1781–1846), a Virginia-born jurist and Alabama statesman who came to Texas in 1825 and presided over the 1836 Constitutional Convention that declared Texas independence, later serving in the Congress of the Republic. The county's founding reflects the rapid organization of Texas government in the years just after statehood.
Why it matters
Naming the county for the president of the independence convention ties everyday Texas governance back to the founding moment of the Republic.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Richard Ellis
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fry - Butcher House
Red Oak, TX
In 1882 Sam and Sarah Jane "Jennie" Fry bought 150 acres of Ellis County blackland prairie, and the next year raised a farmhouse with the help of local carpenter Lewis Butcher. Its turned-wood porch posts, jig-sawn brackets, and gabled roof made it a proud example of the Queen Anne style then fashionable even on Texas farms. The home stayed in the family for over a century, passing to Jennie's son George A. Butcher before finally leaving family hands in 1986.
Graves Cemetery
Waxahachie, TX
Robert Russell Graves brought his family from Alabama to Texas in 1838, and by 1857 they had settled 510 acres in Ellis County near the Rockett community. The oldest grave belongs to Robert's father-in-law Joseph Hinkle, buried here in 1859, and in 1895 the Graves children formally deeded just over an acre as a family burial ground. Many early pioneer families of the area lie beside them.
Rockett Christian Church
Rockett, TX
Growing out of worship services begun around 1853, the Rockett Christian Church was formally organized in 1894 and raised this Carpenter Gothic sanctuary in 1900–01. Its lancet windows, octagonal porch, beaded-board wainscoting, and original pews survive, and the building reopened for services after a quiet stretch in the 1960s.
Ovilla Cemetery
Ovilla, TX
The Ovilla community grew from Peters Colony families who settled here in 1844, and in 1886 Benjamin and Erixna McFarlin deeded four acres to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for a burial ground. The earliest marked grave, from 1884, belongs to Rebecca Summers McElroy, and more than 440 people now rest here, among them early settlers and veterans of every American war from the Civil War through Vietnam. The cemetery reads as a roll call of the community's founders.