Texian Land and Emigration Company
Farmers Branch, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site of the first agency, January 1845 Generally known as "Peters' Colony" in honor of William S. Peters who, under a colonization contract secured in 1841 from the Republic of Texas, introduced more than ten thousand settlers to 17 counties of North Texas. (4 mi. E. Farmers Branch, Dallas County)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This site marks the first agency, opened in January 1845, of the colonization venture better known as Peters' Colony. Under a contract secured from the Republic of Texas in 1841, William S. Peters and his associates introduced more than ten thousand settlers across seventeen counties of North Texas, seeding communities like Farmers Branch.
Why it matters
Peters' Colony was one of the great engines of North Texas settlement, drawing thousands of families to the region and laying the groundwork for the Dallas area's growth.
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Related people
- · William S. Peters
Related events
- · Peters' Colony
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Letot Cemetery
Dallas, TX
Clement LeTot, a Frenchman and Crimean War veteran, put down roots in northwest Dallas County in 1874 and by 1881 had founded the little rail-line town that bore his name. Following the frontier custom of the day, he set aside part of his land as a family burial ground, first for two young sons in the mid-1880s and eventually for himself in 1907. Long since absorbed into the sprawl of Dallas, the cemetery is one of the last tangible traces of an immigrant-founded community.
Warner Cemetery
Carrollton, TX
In 1852, Robert and Sarah Dean Warner emigrated from Ireland to Texas, joining the Peters Colony and establishing a farm in this area. The family graveyard began with the 1873 death of Robert Warner, Jr., and holds ten marked graves—most of them Warner kin—along with at least one unmarked burial. The Warners and their descendants went on to become leaders in the Carrollton community.
Furneaux Cemetery
Carrollton, TX
Furneaux Cemetery began in 1884 when English immigrant William Furneaux, who had come to Texas in 1857 and married into a Peters Colony family, was buried on farmland he had set aside as a public graveyard. A neighbor soon donated adjoining land for a church, a cemetery association was chartered in 1888, and the surrounding heights became known as Cemetery Hill. When a 1924 tornado destroyed the frame church, the association took over the grounds.
La Reunion Cemetery
Dallas, TX
In the late 1850s a company recruited French, Belgian, and Swiss colonists to found La Reunion, an experiment in European settlement on the Texas prairie near the young town of Dallas. The venture failed within a few years, but a number of families—Loupots, Remonds, Reverchons, Santerres, and others—chose to stay, becoming business, agricultural, and cultural leaders in the growing city. This cemetery, holding early colonists like an aged French grenadier and a colony director's young child, remained in family use into the 1930s.