Sarah Bradley Dodson
Bedias, Grimes County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Born in Kentucky in 1812, eleven-year-old Sarah Bradley and her parents arrived in Texas in 1823 with Stephen F. Austin's old three hundred colonists, settling near Brazoria. Sarah married Archelaus Bynum Dodson of nearby Harrisburg on May 17, 1835. As tensions mounted between Mexico and the Texian colonists, a call for military volunteers was circulated in September 1835, and Archelaus Dodson became First Lt. in Captain Andrew Robinson's Harrisburg Volunteers. Sarah offered to design and make a flag for her husband's company. Using blue, white, and red calico, she fashioned a flag of three equal squares, with a five pointed white star in the center of the blue square. Reportedly the first Lone Star flag, the banner was displayed in the town of Gonzales in October 1835, and in December flew during the Siege of Bexar. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, two flags were seen flying over Convention Hall. One was described as a Lone Star flag and is believed to have been the one made by Sarah Dodson. Following the Texan victory at San Jacinto, the Dodsons lived in Fort Bend County, then moved in 1844 to Grimes County. They donated the land for Bethel Cemetery (5 mi. N) where Sarah was buried in 1848. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Sarah Bradley came to Texas as a child with Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred and, newly married in 1835, sewed a flag of blue, white, and red calico with a single white star for her husband's Harrisburg company as revolution loomed. Reportedly the first Lone Star flag, it was shown at Gonzales, flew during the Siege of Bexar, and is believed to have waved over the convention where Texas declared independence. She settled in Grimes County and donated land for Bethel Cemetery, where she was buried in 1848.
Why it matters
A homemade calico banner became one of the most enduring symbols in American state identity, and its maker is a reminder that women's hands shaped the emblems of the Texas Revolution.
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Related people
- · Sarah Bradley Dodson
- · Archelaus Bynum Dodson
- · Stephen F. Austin
Related events
- · Siege of Bexar
- · Texas Declaration of Independence
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sarah Bradley Dodson
Bedias, TX
A Kentucky native who came to Texas with Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred in 1823, Sarah Bradley married Archelaus B. Dodson in 1835 and stitched a blue, white, and red banner bearing a single white star for her husband's company during the Texas Revolution. Believed to be one of two flags flying as the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed, it is remembered as Texas's first tricolor Lone Star flag. The Dodsons donated the land for this cemetery, where she was later buried.
Grimes County Bethel Cemetery
Bedias, TX
During the Republic of Texas years, settlers gathered here to form the Bethel community, and the burial of a smallpox victim in 1843 began what became Bethel Cemetery. Among those resting here is Sarah Bradley Dodson, remembered as the 'Betsy Ross of Texas,' whose 1835 Lone Star flag flew over Washington-on-the-Brazos at the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Her husband Archelaus later deeded the ground to a Presbyterian congregation, and in 1904 an adjacent section opened for the area's African American residents.
Park Cemetery
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The story of Park Cemetery begins in 1852, when John and Elizabeth Park buried her brother Thomas Jefferson Kellett—a veteran of the Republic of Texas army—on their land. As more family members were laid to rest, the plot grew into a community cemetery, formally set aside in 1870 for burials and a school. More than 600 graves now include veterans of the Civil War and both World Wars.
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