Site of Wood's Fort
West Point, Fayette County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Used by colonists of this vicinity as a protection against Indian attacks . 1828-1842 fortified residence of Zadock Woods, veteran of the War of 1812. One of the old "Three Hundred" of Austin's colonists. Oldest man killed in the "Dawson Massacre" September 18, 1842.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
From 1828 to 1842 the fortified residence of Zadock Woods served the colonists of this vicinity as a refuge against Indian attacks during the turbulent years of Mexican Texas and the Republic. Woods, a veteran of the War of 1812 and one of Stephen F. Austin's original "Old Three Hundred" colonists, was by then an old man. He was killed at the Dawson Massacre on September 18, 1842, remembered as the oldest man to fall in that fight against invading Mexican forces.
Why it matters
Woods's Fort marks the perilous frontier of early Anglo-American settlement in Texas, where a Revolutionary generation's veterans defended fledgling colonies through decades of conflict.
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Related people
- · Zadock Woods
Related events
- · Dawson Massacre
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Woods Prairie Cemetery
West Point, TX
Zadock Woods, a War of 1812 veteran and one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists, settled here in 1828, built a fortified home, and started this cemetery for family and neighbors. Woods himself died in the 1842 Dawson Massacre and lies elsewhere, but a fellow captive who survived imprisonment in Mexico, Joseph C. Robinson, rests here beneath a 1936 Texas Centennial marker. Pioneers bought and preserved the graveyard in 1875 to protect the resting place of the area's earliest families.
Henry Mordorff
Smithville, TX
Henry Mordorff, born in 1817, was among the volunteers who fought at San Jacinto in 1836, the battle that won Texas its independence. The State of Texas erected this marker in 1936, on the centennial of that victory, to honor his service and grave near Smithville.
Simon Peter Ford
Muldoon, TX
Simon Peter Ford came to Texas in 1830 as a teenager and, at twenty, fought at the Battle of San Jacinto in Captain William Wood's company—the decisive 1836 clash that secured Texas independence. He lived on into the 1890s, a link between the revolutionary generation and the settled state. Texas erected his marker in 1962, its Star and Wreath honoring a veteran of the founding fight.
Pitman Cemetery
Muldoon, TX
The Muldoon area traces its name to Father Miguel Muldoon, who held a Spanish land grant here in the 1830s, and settlers steadily filled the county through the century. In 1871 Methodist trustees bought land for a church and burial ground, and the graves that followed hold a cross-section of frontier Texas—San Jacinto veteran Simon Peter Ford, Civil War soldiers, pioneer families, and James Chambers Coulson, the English stonemason whose "Muldoon Blue" sandstone went into the Galveston Seawall and buildings across the state. An old Baptist church moved to the grounds in the 1940s still serves for funerals and meetings.