Site of the Town of Belgrade
Bon Weir, Newton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established in 1839. A thriving settlement before the Civil War.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1839 in the piney woods of what became Newton County, Belgrade grew into a thriving settlement in the years before the Civil War. Like many East Texas river-country towns of the Republic era, it prospered briefly and then faded, leaving little but its remembered site along the Sabine.
Why it matters
Belgrade is one of countless antebellum Texas towns that flourished and then vanished, a marker of how quickly frontier settlements could rise and disappear as trade routes and fortunes shifted.
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Nearby & related markers
Fawil Sam Herrin Cemetery
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Sam and Mary Herrin homesteaded 106 acres in the Fawil community of the East Texas piney woods, raising eleven children to adulthood and setting aside an acre for a family burial ground. The earliest graves, from 1911 and 1912, belong to a granddaughter and a daughter, and most of the dozens interred here descend from that pioneer couple. The surrounding community once supported three churches, a school, a plywood mill, and a store.
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