Former Site of Liberty Hill Settlement
Dawson, Navarro County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A mile west of the 1838 Battle Creek Massacre site, this cemetery marks the location of Liberty Hill, an Anglo-American community begun during the following decade. Samuel and Prudence (Matthews) Wright, from Maury County, Tenn., settled here in 1849. They were relatives of Dr. George W. Hill, Indian agent and trading post operator at Spring Hill, half a day's wagon ride from here. The Wrights acquired land and attracted pioneer neighbors. In 1860, Liberty Hill Cumberland Presbyterian Church was organized by members of the Fullerton, Garner, McCandless, Moore, Richey, Slaughter, Wright, and Younger families. Wright donated a church site. After the Civil War (1861-65), in which men of this community served, a new influx of settlers included the M. A. Wilkes family, relatives of the Wrights. Prosperity prevailed in the settlement. Continuing his interest in the public good, Wright gave land (1876) for this cemetery and (1884) for public school uses. The rise of Dawson and Hubbard, Cotton Belt Railroad shipping points, drew population from the Liberty Hill area. The school was removed in 1917; the church dissolved in 1929. Land which once was intensively farmed has now reverted to grazing. Incise in base: Marker Sponsors: Mrs. Myrl W. Lawrence and other descendants of Liberty Hill pioneers
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Liberty Hill grew up in the 1840s as an Anglo-American farming community, taking firmer root when Samuel and Prudence Wright arrived from Tennessee in 1849 and drew in pioneer neighbors. By 1860 several founding families had organized a Cumberland Presbyterian church, and Wright later donated land for a cemetery and a public school. When the railroad towns of Dawson and Hubbard rose as Cotton Belt shipping points, they drained away Liberty Hill's population until its school and church closed and the fields returned to grazing.
Why it matters
The settlement's slow rise and fall traces the familiar arc of countless inland Texas communities that flourished on family farming and faith, then faded when the railroad chose another route.
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Related people
- · Samuel Wright
- · Prudence Matthews Wright
- · George W. Hill
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Town of Dawson
Dawson, TX
Dawson grew out of Spring Hill, the oldest settlement in Navarro County, which Republic of Texas Indian agent Dr. George Washington Hill founded in 1838 as a trading post to ease relations with Native peoples. Britton Dawson, a San Jacinto veteran who claimed his land as service bounty, settled at Spring Hill in 1846 and built a home that served as a stagecoach stop. When the Texas & St. Louis Railroad — the "Cotton Belt" — laid tracks through in 1881, Dawson's sons donated 100 acres for a townsite, and the population of Spring Hill promptly picked up and moved to the new railroad town.
Britton Dawson Home
Dawson, TX
Rewarded with a bounty of Navarro County land for fighting at San Jacinto in 1836, cattleman Britton Dawson settled here in 1847 and first lived in a three-room cabin. In 1858–59 he raised a two-and-a-half-story Greek Revival house of cypress hauled by oxcart from the Gulf Coast, complete with an unusual suspended second-floor gallery; the home sheltered his large family and doubled as a stage stop, and his sons later gave land for the town of Dawson.
United Methodist Church of Coolidge
Coolidge, TX
This Methodist congregation began in the thinly settled Armour community in 1873, its handful of charter members raising a one-room frame church with a spire and belfry the following year. When the Trinity & Brazos Valley Railroad bypassed Armour, the congregation simply moved its building to the new town of Coolidge in 1904, and in 1922 replaced it with the present edifice. The story traces how rail lines redrew the map of rural Texas, drawing settlement to the tracks.
Armour Cemetery
Coolidge, TX
Established in 1878 on land deeded by community founder James Armour—a Georgia-born Civil War veteran—this cemetery served the settlement that grew into the town of Sandy Creek, later called Armour. By 1884 the community had churches, a school, and gristmills, but it declined swiftly after 1903 when the railroad founded nearby Coolidge and businesses moved away. Divided into distinct sections, including a Norwegian and a Catholic "Mexican" cemetery, it is the last remaining trace of the vanished community.