Robertson County
Franklin, Robertson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Settled by people from Tennessee under an 1822 contract heldby Sterling Clack Robertson (1785-1842), who later signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. Colony and county were named for him. County was created Dec. 14, 1837, organized March 1838. County seats: "Old Franklin", 1838-1850; Wheelock, 1850-1855; Owensville, 1855-1869; Calvert, 1870-1879; Franklin, since 1879. Sent 5 troop companies into Confederate service in Civil War. Established mill to make flour, cotton and wool cloth. Furnished cotton cards, medicines, flour, bacon and salt to soldiers families. (1965) [ 1936 inscription: Robertson County, formed from Milam County, created December 14, 1837, organized March, 1838. Named in honor of Sterling Clack Robertson, 1785-1842, early Texas empresario, signer of the Declaration of Independence. County seat, Franklin, 1838, Wheelock, 1847, Owenville, 1853, Calvert, 1868, Franklin, since 1879]
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Robertson County grew from an 1822 colonization contract held by Sterling Clack Robertson, who recruited settlers from Tennessee and later signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. Created in 1837 and organized in 1838, the county shuffled its seat among a half-dozen towns before settling on Franklin in 1879. During the Civil War it sent five companies into Confederate service and turned its mills toward making cloth, flour, and supplies for soldiers' families.
Why it matters
It embeds the arc of early Texas—empresario colonization, independence, statehood, and the Confederacy—into the founding of a single county named for one of the republic's signers.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Sterling Clack Robertson
Related events
- · Texas Declaration of Independence
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Pin Oak Cemetery
Gause, TX
Stretching along Pin Oak Creek, this cemetery served a farming settlement whose earliest families, many related and drawn from Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and Alabama, were in place by the 1850s. Walker P. Perkins deeded the land to trustees in 1896, though the earliest known burials, of Charles Shafer and James D. Faubion, date to 1861, and older unmarked graves may lie beneath. Its obelisks, curbing, and veterans' graves reach back to the Civil War, and the community declined after World War II as families moved to the cities.
Cobb Cemetery
Thornton, TX
Brinkley Davis brought his family from Indiana in 1833 and received a Mexican land grant of some 4,500 acres in 1835, giving the surrounding 'Davis Prairie' its name. His daughter Mary Ellen married Alabama-born Pinckney Cobb in 1845, and the family cemetery was established on Cobb land in the 1850s, with Davis's 1852 grave the earliest marked. Its stones tell hard pioneer truths — many infants and children — alongside veterans of the Santa Fe Expedition, the Civil War, and the Spanish-American War.
North Elm Cemetery
Milam County, TX
Settlers from Alabama began arriving at North Elm in 1867, among them John George Lagrone, whose 1870 stone is the oldest here. Land was deeded for the cemetery beginning in 1883, with later additions. The graves include fourteen Confederate soldiers and two Texas Rangers, brothers Ellzey and James Perkins—a roll of the pioneers and veterans who settled the area.
Powell-Tull Cemetery
Chilton, TX
When John Powell was buried here in 1889, his family set the land aside as a burial ground shared among a cluster of pioneer families who had settled this part of Falls County. Among those laid to rest is Thomas Marion Tull, a Confederate veteran who had served in the Arkansas legislature and as a justice of the peace before coming to Texas. Descendants still tend the site, which reads as a record of the families who put down roots here.