Site of the Home of John Marlin
Falls County, Falls County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built in 1835. On January 10, 1839 it was attacked by about 70 Indians who were repulsed and seven of their number slain. One of the four defenders of the home was injured.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
John Marlin built his home on the Central Texas frontier in 1835, in the uneasy borderlands of the new Republic of Texas. On a January day in 1839 a large party of Indians attacked the house, but its handful of defenders drove them off in a sharp fight in which one defender was injured.
Why it matters
The Marlin homestead marks the violent frontier of early Texas, where settlement pressed into Native lands and isolated families defended their claims by force.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John Marlin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sarahville de Viesca, Site of Colonial Capital
Falls County, TX
Sterling C. Robertson founded Sarahville de Viesca in 1834 as the capital of his sprawling colony, which reached across all or part of thirty future Texas counties. Set near the falls of the Brazos where a stony ford carried heavy traffic between east and southwest Texas, the town held the land office where colonists filed for their titles. Named for Robertson's mother and for the governor of Coahuila and Texas, it was struck by Indian attacks and abandoned in 1836.
Falls of the Brazos River
Marlin, TX
The falls of the Brazos, where the river once dropped about ten feet over a rocky ledge, long served Native peoples and settlers as a landmark, meeting point, and campsite. In 1834 colonizer Sterling C. Robertson founded Sarahville de Viesca here, abandoned in 1836; later came Fort Milam and the town of Bucksnort. As the only hard-bottom crossing for 200 miles and the head of steamboat navigation, the falls gave Falls County its name in 1850 before the river shifted course in 1866.
Fort Milam
Marlin, TX
In the anxious first years of Texas independence, this spot served as the capital of Robertson's Colony, briefly called Sarahville de Viesca before it was renamed Milam late in 1835. As Anglo settlers pushed into the Brazos country, a ranging company threw up a fort here to guard families against raids. It stood as one of the frontier outposts that marked the contested boundary between newcomers and the Native peoples whose lands they were entering.
Site of the Home of George Morgan
Perry, TX
On the night of January 1, 1839, in the frontier settlement of the young Republic of Texas, Indians attacked the home of George Morgan that once stood nearby. The raid killed George Morgan, his wife, Mrs. Jackson Morgan, and Miss Adeline Marlin. The tragedy was one of many violent clashes along the exposed edge of settlement in Falls County.