Frazarville
Egypt, Wharton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Near this site once stood the community of Frazarville, founded in 1857 by Dr. Isaac James Frazar and his father, Col. James Watson Frazar. A locust infestation and Comanche raids force them to move from Cibolo Creek in Bexar County to this site, just over the Wharton County line. Dr. Isaac James Frazar practiced medicine in Eagle Lake. His son, James Azariah Frazar, developed the community of Frazarville into several businesses that included a general store, cotton gin, and a blacksmith shop. James Watson Frazar’s other son, George Watson Frazar, remained in Bexar County as Sheriff and Texas Ranger. James Azariah Frazar also owned bank stock in Henrietta, Clay County. When the bank began to fail, in 1889, James moved his family to Henrietta to become president of the bank. He served successfully for five years, continuing his interests in Frazarville until 1892. His sister, Annie Gertrude Frazar, and her descendents continued to own portions of the Frazarville property. Several Family members are buried in the Frazar Family Cemetery near this site, including Isaac James Frazar, His wife, Almira Kimbro Frazar, and Annie Gertrude Frazar. The James Watson Frazar family was followed by brother Micajah Frazar and family to Matthews and Eagle Lake, where the Frazar Opera House was built. The Frazar ancestors originally arrived from Inverness, Scotland, to North Carolina in 1678. They owned plantations in North Carolina, Alabama (later Mississippi), Tennessee and Texas. Their migration across the South exemplified many other Scottish journeys to Texas made in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. (2015)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Frazarville was one of countless small Texas communities born of a family's westward push and worn away by time. Dr. Isaac Frazar and his father Col. James Watson Frazar settled here in 1857 after locust and Comanche raids drove them from Bexar County, and the next generation built it into a cluster of enterprises—a general store, cotton gin, and blacksmith shop. The Frazars traced their roots to Inverness, Scotland, and their long migration through the Carolinas and the Deep South into Texas mirrored the journeys of many Scottish families who chased land across the antebellum South.
Why it matters
Places like Frazarville show how the settlement of Texas was built out of individual family fortunes—rising, relocating, and fading—rather than grand design, a pattern of restless mobility central to the American frontier story.
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Related people
- · Dr. Isaac James Frazar
- · Col. James Watson Frazar
- · James Azariah Frazar
Themes & tags
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