Robert Graves Stadler
New Summerfield, Cherokee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Born in Granville County, North Carolina, Robert Graves Stadler was a veteran of the War of 1812 and the Texas War of Independence. He purchased land in this area in 1845 and settled near the already established community of Griffin (2 mi, SE). By 1853, Stadler had encouraged relatives from North Caroline to make their homes here. He died just as the Civil War began, having laid the foundation for what became the farming community of Blackjack.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in North Carolina, Robert Graves Stadler had already served in the War of 1812 and fought for Texas independence before buying land here in 1845 near the community of Griffin. By 1853 he had drawn relatives from North Carolina to settle around him, laying the groundwork for the farming community that became Blackjack. He died just as the Civil War began.
Why it matters
Stadler embodies the chain migration that peopled rural Texas, as one veteran-settler's arrival pulled an extended kin network west to build a new community.
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Related people
- · Robert Graves Stadler
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Samuel Smith Homesite
New Summerfield, TX
Born in Switzerland in 1800, Samuel Smith emigrated to Tennessee at nineteen, earned his U.S. citizenship, and in 1849 joined a party of settlers bound for Texas, helping found the town of Knoxville in Cherokee County. He built this farmhouse in 1859, and his family went on to give land for a church and cemetery, run the settlement's first blacksmith shop, and connect with the railroad that arrived in 1872.
Site of Griffin
New Summerfield, TX
Settlers from Griffin, Georgia, founded this East Texas town, which flourished in the early 1850s before the railroad's arrival elsewhere after 1872 slowly drained away its people and trade. Its most famous son was John Benjamin Kendrick, born here in 1857, who went up the cattle trail to Wyoming and rose to become that state's governor and a U.S. senator. By 1930 Griffin's last store had closed, leaving a ghost town behind.
Emmaus
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The rural community of Emmaus took shape in the 1860s, with a Baptist church organized by the 1870s and a public school established after Dr. J. M. Brittain donated land in 1881. At its peak it held farms, two general stores, two churches, a school, and a cotton gin. Its cemetery, dating to 1886, is among the few physical traces left of the settlement.
Concord Cemetery
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Settlers drawn by cheap land and good water reached this part of East Texas in the 1840s, worshipping first in a brush arbor by Camp Ground Creek before building a church that doubled as a school. The Concord Cemetery grew alongside that congregation, its oldest documented grave dating to 1878, and land was deeded to it by the Martin family across the decades. Buried here are veterans of the Civil War, both World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam, tended each year in a cleaning tradition kept by pioneer families' descendants.