P.A. Watson Log House
Arlington, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
After his wife Margaret Ann (Armstrong) died, Patrick Alfred Watson (1810-1894) built this dwelling in 1855 near present Arlington for their six children. In 1858 he married Margaret's niece Mary Jane Donaldson and they had six children. A surveyor, educator, and religious leader, Watson gave land for the P.A. Watson Community Cemetery and for the original site of a church an school building. The congregation is now West Fork United Presbyterian Church in Grand Prairie. The house was enlarged and Watson family descendants occupied it until 1961. It was moved here in 1976.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Patrick Alfred Watson raised this dwelling in 1855 near present-day Arlington to house the six children left after his first wife's death; he later remarried and fathered six more. A surveyor, educator, and religious leader, Watson gave land for a community cemetery and for an early church-and-school building whose congregation endures today as West Fork United Presbyterian Church. Descendants lived in the enlarged house until 1961, and it was moved to this site in 1976.
Why it matters
Watson's log house embodies the settler-builders who laid down the churches, schools, and cemeteries that turned raw North Texas prairie into lasting community.
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Related people
- · Patrick Alfred Watson
- · Margaret Ann Armstrong Watson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
P.A. Watson Cemetery
Arlington, TX
The first burial here came in 1846, when a newly arrived family fashioned a coffin from their wagon bed and burned brush over the grave to hide it from Indian raiders. When Patrick Alfred Watson bought the land in 1853, he set aside an acre as a cemetery, and by 1870 he had donated ground for the community's first school and church, later West Fork Presbyterian. When the Dallas–Fort Worth Turnpike was routed past the site in 1956, the church was moved but the graves remained.
Isham Chapel Methodist Church
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Organized in the 1870s with eleven charter members, this congregation was named for its founding minister, the Rev. Marion Isham. In 1876 B. H. Ross donated land for a church and school, and the small frame building doubled as a community schoolhouse until 1891. In 1952 the growing fellowship moved to Hurst, where it worships today as First United Methodist Church.
Elisha Adam Euless
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Elisha Adam Euless left Tennessee for Tarrant County in 1867 and became one of the men whose enterprise shaped its rural map. A successful cotton-and-corn farmer and elected constable and later sheriff, he bought land around a two-story grange hall whose lower floor served as school and church, and later acquired a tract with a cotton gin. The community that grew up around the gin and grange took his name, and a post office opened as Euless in 1886.
Bedford Church of Christ
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