Liendo
Hempstead, Waller County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A plantation home built in 1853 by Leonard W. Groce. The scene for many years of lavish Southern hospitality. Purchased March 4, 1873, by Dr. Edmund Duncan Montgomery 1835-1911), world-famed philosopher, and his wife, Elisabet Ney (1833-1907), pioneer sculptress of Texas. Retained as their homestead throughout their lives. Both are buried in the grounds.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Leonard W. Groce built Liendo in 1853 as a cotton plantation home famed for its lavish antebellum hospitality — a way of life sustained by enslaved labor. In 1873 it passed to the philosopher Dr. Edmund Duncan Montgomery and his wife, the pioneering Texas sculptor Elisabet Ney, who made it their lifelong homestead and are buried on the grounds.
Why it matters
Liendo bridges two chapters of Southern history — the antebellum plantation world and the intellectual, artistic life of Reconstruction-era Texas embodied by one of the state's first great sculptors.
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Related people
- · Leonard W. Groce
- · Edmund Duncan Montgomery
- · Elisabet Ney
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Waller County
Hempstead, TX
Carved from Austin and Grimes counties in 1873, Waller County was named for Edwin Waller, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence and first mayor of Austin. Its soil holds a dense history: the rich Groce plantations of 1831–1874, the later home of celebrated sculptor Elisabet Ney, and the railroad town of Hempstead that became the county seat. Since 1876 it has been home to Prairie View A&M, one of Texas's foundational institutions for Black higher education.
Liendo Plantation
Hempstead, TX
Named for Justo Liendo, the original Spanish grantee, this 1853 estate became the model plantation of Leonard W. Groce, who ringed his mansion with its own industries. During the Civil War it served as Camp Groce, first a training camp and then a Confederate prison, and in 1865 it was occupied by Gen. George Custer, years before Little Bighorn. From 1873 to 1911 it belonged to the family of celebrated sculptor Elisabet Ney, who is commemorated on the grounds.
Prairie View A&M University
Prairie View, TX
Authorized by the Texas legislature in 1876 as the "Agricultural and Mechanical College for Colored Youth," this land-grant school opened in 1878 on a 1,434-acre former slave plantation, making it Texas's second state college. After an early closure it reorganized as a normal institute to train Black teachers, then grew steadily into a full college by the 1930s. Integrated in the 1960s, it took its present name, Prairie View A&M University, in 1973.
Jacob E. Freeman
Prairie View, TX
Born into slavery in Alabama around 1841 and brought to Texas as a boy, Jacob Freeman rose during Reconstruction to join a determined group of African American legislators. Representing Waller and neighboring counties, he served in the Texas House in the 1870s and remained active in Republican, Greenback, and third-party politics for decades. He worked amid violence and hostility to defend the civil and economic rights of Black Texans.