HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

John Robert Craddock

Rogers vicinity, Bell County, Texas

Marker Inscription

John Robert Craddock came to Texas from Kentucky in June 1833. He served in the Republic of Texas Army in 1836 and fought at the Battle of San Jacinto. He settled in this area soon after he arrived in Texas and in 1840 married Amanda Childers. They were the parents of thirteen children, some of whom are buried here in unmarked graves. Craddock ws interred in the family plot in 1891. His wife was buried next to him in 1900. Recorded - 1988

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

John Robert Craddock left Kentucky for Mexican Texas in 1833 and, three years later, took up arms in the Texas Revolution, fighting at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto that won the Republic its independence. He put down roots in Bell County, married Amanda Childers in 1840, and raised thirteen children on the land where the family—several of them in unmarked graves—still rests. His burial here in 1891, and his wife's beside him in 1900, closes a life that spanned Texas's passage from Mexican province to independent republic to state.

Why it matters

Craddock's story ties an ordinary settling family directly to San Jacinto, the battle that severed Texas from Mexico and set the stage for its annexation and the westward march of the United States.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • · John Robert Craddock
  • · Amanda Childers

Related events

  • · Battle of San Jacinto

Themes & tags

Military & WartimeWestward ExpansionFrontier HistoryMemorial

Nearby & related markers

Donohoe Cemetery

Bartlett vicinity, TX

Set aside by pioneer settlers Samuel and Helen Leatherman in the 1860s, this ground became the burial place for the community of Donohoe, its earliest marked grave that of the Leathermans' infant grandson in 1869. Among those laid to rest are unknown travelers who died passing through and veterans of the Texas Revolution, the Civil War, and World War I. The town is long gone; the cemetery is all that remains.

William Carroll Sypert

Davilla, TX

Tennessee native William Carroll Sypert joined the army of the Republic of Texas in 1836 at just twenty, in the year Texas won its independence. After marrying and making two covered-wagon journeys between Tennessee and Texas, he settled permanently in 1849 and built a life of public service—working as a schoolteacher and musician while serving as justice of the peace, postmaster at Bryant's Station, and later Milam County Judge.

Lilac Cemetery

Davilla vicinity, TX

Dr. John Herndon Graves settled this Milam County area in 1858, and in 1880 his daughter and son-in-law deeded land for Lilac Baptist Church and its burial ground. The earliest marked grave, from 1870, belongs to Calvin McCormick, while Dr. Graves himself was the earliest-born of those interred. Among the graves lie veterans reaching from the Civil War and Spanish-American War through World War I and beyond, marking the community's service across generations.

Fort Griffin

Belton vicinity, TX

In November 1836, just months after Texas won its independence, George B. Erath and twenty Texas Rangers threw up a picket fort on the Little River as a shield for settlers against Indian raids. Known variously as Fort Griffin, Fort Smith, and the Little River Fort, it had been abandoned as a military post by the time the Santa Fe Expedition camped nearby in 1841. Yet frontier families kept using the stockade as a refuge for years afterward.