HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

Jane Chandler Gill

Manchester, Red River County, Texas

Marker Inscription

(January 1, 1782 - September 20, 1816) An Englishwoman who died soon after settling in Jonesboro. Her grave is one of Texas' oldest Caucasian burials.

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Jane Chandler Gill was an Englishwoman who died in 1816, soon after settling at Jonesboro in what is now Red River County โ€” decades before Texas independence, when the region was still a remote borderland of New Spain. Her grave is counted among the oldest marked European-American burials in Texas.

Why it matters

Her early grave testifies to the first trickle of Anglo-American settlement into the Red River country years before the Republic of Texas existed, marking the leading edge of a migration that would reshape the region.

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Related people

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Themes & tags

Westward ExpansionImmigrationFrontier HistoryMemorial

Nearby & related markers

Robert Hamilton

Negley, TX

Robert Hamilton, born in Scotland in 1783, cast his lot with the Texas independence movement and on March 2, 1836, was among the delegates who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos. He settled in Red River County, where he died in 1843, during the years of the young Republic of Texas.

Jonesboro

Manchester, TX

On the Red River, Jonesboro was one of the earliest ports of entry into Texas for Anglo-Americans, in use by 1814 and busy by 1817, named for ferry owner Henry Jones. Claimed by both Mexico and the United States, it served as county seat of Arkansas's Miller County and counted some 2,350 residents by 1834. Sam Houston crossed into Texas here in 1832 and David Crockett in 1835 โ€” but by 1840 the town had lost its trade and settlers to rival communities.

New Haven Cemetery

Clarksville, TX

Founded on land given in 1859 by George M. Sargeant for a church, school, and graveyard, New Haven Cemetery has gathered the settlers of Red River County for well over a century. Its first grave held a veteran of the War of 1812, and among the pioneer families rests the infant Dimple Dee Crockett, whose name lives on in the nearby Dimple community. Later gifts of land from the Jamison family expanded the burial ground alongside a Baptist congregation.