Site of Old Gilmer
Gilmer, Upshur County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Here on the Cherokee Trace was early Gilmer. On this spot in 1845 the first Upshur County Court convened under an oak. In spring 1846, Judge O. M. Roberts designated the nearby W. H. Hart home as courthouse until a permanent county seat could be "carefully located." Old Gilmer Cemetery is one mile north.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Along the old Cherokee Trace stood the first town of Gilmer, where in 1845 the inaugural Upshur County Court met in the open shade of an oak. The next spring Judge O. M. Roberts pressed the nearby W. H. Hart home into service as a courthouse until a permanent county seat could be carefully chosen. The Old Gilmer Cemetery lies a mile north.
Why it matters
This spot marks the improvised beginnings of county government in the young Texas Republic, where courts convened under trees before towns and courthouses existed.
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Related people
- · O. M. Roberts
- · W. H. Hart
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Cherokee Trace
Gilmer, TX
Around 1821, Cherokee people living near Nacogdoches blazed a trail north toward their kin in Arkansas, guided by a scout who set his course by dragging buffalo skins behind his horse while others marked the trees and planted Cherokee roses still seen along the route. Sam Houston, David Crockett, and thousands of settlers followed this road into Texas. The Cherokee were expelled from Texas in 1839 after Houston left the presidency, their chief killed in a two-day battle on the Neches River.
Site of an Indian Village
Gilmer, TX
Early in the nineteenth century a band of Cherokees established a village on this East Texas ground, part of the tribes that had migrated westward ahead of American expansion. They lived here until 1839, when the Cherokee and their allied peoples were forcibly driven from the young Republic of Texas.
Jefferson-Quitman Road
Gilmer, TX
One of three pioneer roads crossing Upshur County, the Jefferson–Quitman Road carried freighters and westbound settlers, along with cotton, hides, and produce bound for the busy inland port at Jefferson. Here it crossed the Cherokee Trace, the older path the Cherokee used traveling between reservation lands in Arkansas and their grounds near Nacogdoches. Nearby, the Mt. Gilead Primitive Baptist Church was organized in 1848 on land given by merchant Leonidas Cartwright.
West Mountain Cemetery
Gilmer, TX
On land once occupied by the Caddo and Cherokee and later part of a Republic of Texas grant, plantation owner Alpha Phillips established this burial ground in the mid-1850s. The first grave, his father William's, is marked by a stone cairn, and the family plot soon served neighbors and travelers alike. A volunteer association took up its care in the 1920s, and it has borne the name West Mountain Cemetery since 1933.