James Barclay Place, 1842
Woodville, Tyler County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Hand-hewn pine. Oldest home in county. Built by area's first Indian agent, an appointee of President Sam Houston. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Raised of hand-hewn pine in 1842, this is remembered as the oldest home in Tyler County, built by the area's first Indian agent—a man appointed to that post by Sam Houston, the towering figure of the Republic of Texas. In the young Republic, an Indian agent stood at the fraught boundary between Anglo settlers pressing westward and the Native peoples already on the land. The house survives as a rare wooden witness to Texas's earliest days of statehood-in-waiting.
Why it matters
It ties a modest frontier dwelling to the Republic of Texas and the delicate, often tragic relations between settlers and Native nations on the southwestern frontier.
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Related people
- · James Barclay
- · Sam Houston
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hart Mill Cemetery
Woodville, TX
This East Texas burial ground grew up around a water-powered mill on Sutton Lake and became the resting place of some of Tyler County's earliest Anglo pioneers. Families like the Barclays and Bevils arrived as Texas moved from a Mexican province to an independent republic in 1836, and their leaders helped organize the young county's government and courts, with John Bevil even serving as a delegate to the 1835 Consultation that set the Revolution in motion. James Walter Barclay's role as agent to the Alabama, Coushatta, and Pakana Muskogee peoples marks the uneasy meeting of settlers and Native nations on this frontier. In 1929 descendants formally deeded the ground as a community cemetery, and their families tend it still.
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This marker traces Tyler County from its deep past as home ground of East Texas tribes, through a 1756 visit by Spanish explorers wary of French traders, to Fort Teran on the Neches in 1831. When Texas joined the Union, the county was organized in 1846 and named for President John Tyler, who signed the annexation resolution; its seat, Woodville, honored legislator and future governor George T. Wood. Set in the dense wilds of the "Big Thicket," the community grew on timber, oil, and livestock.
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