Morris County
Daingerfield, Morris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Created and organized in 1875, with Daingerfield as county seat. Named for William W. Morris (1805-1883), who came to Texas in 1849, when the Civil War began in 1861, was in 8th Legislature that armed the state, enacted soldiers' families' relief laws and set up 2,000 mile frontier and coastline defenses. Also in 13th Legislature, 1873-75. Of the 254 Texas counties, 42 bear Indian, French or Spanish names. 10 honor such colonizers as Stephen F. Austin, "Father of Texas." 12 were named for Washington, Clay and other American patriots. 96 were named for men who fought in the Texas War for Independence (15 dying at the Alamo), signed the Declaration of Independence from Mexico, or served as statesmen in the Republic of Texas. 23 have the names of frontiersmen and pioneers. 11 honor American statesmen who worked for the annexation of Texas; 10, leaders in Texas since statehood, including jurists, ministers, educators, historians, statesmen; and 36, men like Morris prominent in the Confederacy during the Civil War. Delta and 8 others have geographical names. San Jacinto and Val Verde were named for battles; Live Oak and Orange, for trees; and Mason for a fort.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Created and organized in 1875 with Daingerfield as its seat, Morris County took its name from William W. Morris, who came to Texas in 1849. A state legislator, Morris served in the wartime 8th Legislature that armed Texas and built up its frontier and coastal defenses, and returned to the 13th Legislature in the 1870s. He was one of many Confederate-era figures memorialized in the naming of Texas counties.
Why it matters
The county's naming reflects how Texas honored its Civil War and Reconstruction-era leaders, embedding that generation's memory into the map itself.
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Related people
- · William W. Morris
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Daingerfield, C. S. A.
Daingerfield, TX
Founded about 1830 at a spring where Captain London Daingerfield was killed, this East Texas town became a Confederate hub during the Civil War. Several army units enrolled here, and local tanyards, sawmills, a gristmill, a distillery, and foundries supplied leather, meal, and iron to the war effort—those foundries foreshadowing the later Lone Star Steel Company. The square, laid out in 1841, had already seen frontier drama, including an 1842 trial tied to the killing of Robert Potter of the Regulator-Moderator Feud.
Site of Hussey & Logan's Mill and Gin Factory
Daingerfield, TX
This factory built the machinery that kept Texas agriculture running: gin saws to strip seed from cotton and grist mills to grind corn into meal. When the Civil War cut off imports, such local works became vital, letting Texas process the cotton that served as the "money of the Confederacy"—traded across the Mexican border for ammunition, medicine, and other goods. The war spurred a whole network of Texas plants making wagons, guns, powder, shoes, and cloth.
Old Coffeeville, C. S. A.
Gilmer, TX
A ferry crossing on Big Cypress Bayou, Coffeeville grew into a bustling 1850s East Texas town with an academy, churches, stores, doctors, a hotel, and a Masonic lodge. During the Civil War it lived up to its name by selling coffee when scarcity emptied other towns' shelves. It also hosted one of Upshur County's three Confederate camps of instruction, established at local citizens' expense after Governor Edward Clark's 1861 call, where infantry and cavalry trained for the fight.
Camp Talley
Gilmer, TX
This site marks a Civil War recruiting camp, one of the gathering points where Texas raised men for Confederate service during the conflict. Such camps were the first stop for volunteers and conscripts, where recruits were mustered, organized into companies, and sent on toward the front. They were a common but often short-lived feature of the wartime landscape across the state.