Old Jenkins Home
Bastrop, Bastrop County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built about 1836 for Sarah Jenkins, whose first husband was scalped by Indians, her second killed at the Alamo. Home to 7 generations. Its men were at Battle of San Jacinto, the Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I and II, and in the Texas Rangers. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1964
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Raised around 1836 for Sarah Jenkins—widowed once by a frontier killing and again by the fall of the Alamo—this Bastrop-area home sheltered seven generations of a single family. Its men answered the call in nearly every American conflict from San Jacinto through both World Wars, and rode with the Texas Rangers besides. Few dwellings so completely fold the sweep of Texas and American military history into one household's story.
Why it matters
The house is a living roster of American service, showing how one frontier family's fortunes tracked the nation's wars from independence to the 20th century.
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Related people
- · Sarah Jenkins
Related events
- · Battle of San Jacinto
- · Battle of the Alamo
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mina - Bastrop Pioneers Home
Bastrop, TX
This home stands on land granted in 1835 to Greenlief Fisk, Bastrop County's first district clerk, and was built in 1836–37 in the earliest days of the Republic of Texas. It later became home to Jesse Holderman and Campbell Taylor, two veterans of the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto that won Texas independence. It was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1964.
Robert Love Reding
Bastrop, TX
Robert Love Reding, born in Tennessee in 1810, joined the Army of Texas and took part in the capture of Goliad on October 9, 1835, one of the opening actions of the Texas Revolution. He was also a signer of the Goliad Declaration of Independence, an early call for Texas separation from Mexico. He died in 1849, and this marker in Bastrop County honors his part in the fight for Texas independence.
John Holland Jenkins
Bastrop, TX
This marker honors John Holland Jenkins, who as a young soldier fought in the San Jacinto campaign of the Texas War for Independence. The State of Texas erected the memorial in 1962 to commemorate his service. Jenkins later became known for his written recollections of frontier Texas life.
Stephen Scallorn
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Stephen Scallorn was one of the ordinary families whose migration built the Republic of Texas. A Maryland-born frontier physician who had preached and doctored across Kentucky and Tennessee, he followed his son's glowing accounts of Texas after San Jacinto and settled near Plum Creek in the late 1830s, helping plant one of the region's early Baptist congregations. His long life spanned the whole arc of the Republic and early statehood — and cost him two sons, killed with Dawson's men in the border fighting of 1842.