Phillip James Shaver
Fayetteville, Fayette County, Texas
Marker Inscription
North Carolina native Phillip J. Shaver (1814-1875) settled in the Fayette County community of Rutersville c. 1840. Two years later, he joined the Texas Army to defend area settlers from Indians and Mexican soldiers and also received from the Republic 320 acres. After marrying Mary Ann (Bass) Holloway in 1847, Shaver purchased 525 acres at this site and he surveyed and platted a town that he named after a former home. He named the streets and donated lots for a school and community church, a masonic lodge and a city cemetery. Shaver continued to support Fayetteville until his death, and many of his descendants remain in the area today.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
North Carolina native Phillip J. Shaver settled in the Fayette County community of Rutersville around 1840 and, two years later, joined the Texas Army to defend area settlers, earning a 320-acre grant from the young Republic. After marrying in 1847, he bought 525 acres, surveyed a townsite he named for a former home, laid out its streets, and donated lots for a school, church, Masonic lodge, and cemetery. He supported the community he founded, Fayetteville, until his death in 1875, and his descendants remain in the area.
Why it matters
It embodies the founder-settler generation of Republic-era Texas, whose land grants and town plats turned frontier grants into enduring communities.
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Related people
- · Phillip J. Shaver
- · Mary Ann Bass Holloway Shaver
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fayetteville City Cemetery
Fayetteville, TX
Fayetteville's city cemetery has served the community since its earliest days, with the first recorded burial dating to 1851. Among those interred are the surveyor who platted and named the town and donated land for the burying ground, a physician and military leader, and veterans of conflicts reaching back to the War of 1812. Its rows of graves read as a roll call of the pioneer families, tradespeople, and officials who built the town.
Halamicek Cemetery
Fayetteville, TX
When the Pustejovskys' infant daughter Klara died in 1899, they buried her on land held by their Krystinek relatives; later that year the family conveyed an acre around her grave as a cemetery for the growing Czech community of Roznov. The settlement took its name from John Halamicek's birthplace in the old country. The stones here read like a roster of the Czech families who put down roots in Fayette County.
Pagel Cemetery
Fayetteville, TX
Gottfried and Friedrike Pagel came to Texas from Pomerania in 1850 with eight children, buying land in this vicinity in 1852; Friedrike died the next year after the birth of her ninth child. Their son Wilhelm built a stone house, ran a store, and served as first postmaster of the community then called Rock House, and his 1873 burial on the family land became the first marked grave in what grew into Pagel Cemetery. Many neighbors of German heritage joined the Pagels here, and their descendants still maintain the grounds.
Asa Hill of Rutersville
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Asa Hill came to Texas in 1835 and served the young republic in 1836, riding ahead of the enemy to warn settlers in the army's path. In 1842 he and two sons joined the ill-fated Mier Expedition into Mexico, where Hill drew a white bean in Santa Anna's deadly lottery and escaped execution, though he languished in prison until 1843; his youngest son, John C.C., was famously adopted by Santa Anna himself. Hill settled at Rutersville, enrolling eight children in its pioneering college before his death in 1844.