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.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Built about 1836, this home dates to the very birth of the Republic of Texas. That year, Texian settlers declared independence from Mexico, endured the fall of the Alamo, and then won the decisive Battle of San Jacinto—all in a matter of weeks. To raise a house in 1836 was to build in the middle of a revolution, on a frontier where survival was never guaranteed.
The Bastrop area sat on the edge of Anglo-American settlement, along the Colorado River in central Texas. This was contested, dangerous country, where new arrivals farmed within reach of both the upheavals of the Texas Revolution and the frontier conflicts that shaped daily life. A family that put down roots here was making a bet on a future that had to be defended.
The marker's own language reflects the harsh realities as they were recorded in that time. What is not in doubt is the setting: a household founded at the fragile beginning of Texas independence, in a place where the wider currents of American history would keep washing through, generation after generation.
People & events
The house was built about 1836 for Sarah Jenkins, a woman whose life had already been marked by hard frontier loss twice over—her first husband killed in a frontier attack, her second among those who died at the Alamo. She began this home as a survivor, and it became a refuge for seven generations of a single family.
What makes the Jenkins story extraordinary is its continuity. The same household endured, and its men answered the call in conflict after conflict: the Battle of San Jacinto that secured Texas independence, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and both World Wars. Some also served in the ranks of the Texas Rangers, the frontier lawmen woven into Texas legend.
Strung together, these threads turn one family's home into a chronicle of service. Few dwellings can claim to have sent sons into nearly every American conflict from the founding of the Republic through the twentieth century, all while remaining, at its heart, a family home.
Its place in the American story
This house is a living roster of American service. Trace the wars its men took part in—independence, the Mexican War, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, two World Wars—and you have traced the outline of American history itself, from a frontier republic to a nation on the world stage.
That one family's fortunes tracked the country's wars so closely says something larger about how the American story was carried. Great national events are often experienced not as abstractions but as the sons a single household sends off, again and again, across generations. Here that pattern is unusually complete and unusually visible.
The home also captures the frontier's cost, written into its very origin. Its first mistress had been widowed twice by the violence of her age, once by frontier conflict and once by the fall of the Alamo. A place born from such loss, and preserved through seven generations, folds the sweep of Texas and American military history into one enduring household.
If you visit
This is an old private homestead and a designated Texas landmark, so appreciate it respectfully from the vantage available rather than treating it as an open attraction. What you are really looking at is endurance—a structure that has stood since the Republic's first year.
As you take it in, let the imagination do the work the marker invites. Picture the generations who lived here and the long line of departures for distant wars, from the fields of San Jacinto to the battlefields of the twentieth century, each time from this same doorstep. It is the continuity, more than any single feature, that gives the place its power.
Set in the countryside around Bastrop, the home pairs naturally with a day exploring the town's deep history along the Colorado River, in one of the older corners of Anglo-American Texas. Let it stand as a reminder that the grand sweep of national history is ultimately made of individual households like this one.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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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
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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.
Thomas H. Mays
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Born in Virginia in 1802 and arriving in Texas from Tennessee in 1830, Thomas H. Mays became Bastrop's first municipal surveyor in 1834 and laid out the young town's streets. He was wounded in the leg at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836 while serving with Edward Burleson's "Mina Volunteers," then returned to a life of public service as county deputy surveyor, city alderman, and associate justice. He and his wife raised their family on a large Bastrop homestead that included this site.
William Dunbar
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William Dunbar, born in Tennessee in 1819, was a member of the ill-fated Mier Expedition of 1842–43, when Texans crossed the Rio Grande in a raid against Mexico and were captured and imprisoned. He survived that ordeal and lived until 1855, his grave in Bastrop marking a participant in one of the Republic of Texas's most dramatic military misadventures.
Robert Love Reding
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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.