The Faison House
La Grange, Fayette County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Started 1841 as two rooms of local pine wood. Acquired 1855 and enlarged by S. S. Munger. Owned 1866-1961 by estate of N. W. Faison (1817-70), who joined 1842 Dawson expedition resisting Mexican invaders. Captured near San Antonio when many Dawson men were massacred, Faison was later pardoned by Santa Anna. While serving 1843-56 as county clerk, he worked to return bones of his slain comrades for burial on Monument Hill in 1848.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This La Grange home began in 1841 as two rooms of local pine and was later acquired and enlarged by S. S. Munger. From 1866 to 1961 it belonged to the estate of N. W. Faison, who in 1842 joined the Dawson expedition to resist a Mexican invasion of Texas; captured near San Antonio when many of the Dawson men were massacred, Faison was later pardoned by Santa Anna. As county clerk, he worked to return his fallen comrades' remains for burial at Monument Hill in 1848.
Why it matters
The Faison House ties an ordinary frontier home to the violent border struggles of the young Republic, when Texas independence was still contested by Mexican arms.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In 1841, when the first two pine-walled rooms of this house went up, Texas was not yet a state. It was an independent republic, only five years removed from the revolution of 1836, and it was still fragile. Mexico had never accepted the loss of its northern province. Along the frontier, people lived with the real possibility that Mexican armies would march north again.
La Grange sat on the Colorado River in the heart of the young republic's farming country. Settlers were clearing land, raising cabins, and building the courthouses and churches of a new society. A two-room house of local pine was typical: practical, modest, and made from whatever the land around it offered.
In 1842 the fear came true. Mexican forces twice crossed into Texas that year, and in September they occupied San Antonio. Volunteers from the Colorado River settlements, Fayette County among them, rode west to meet them. For families in towns like La Grange, the struggle for independence was not settled history. It was news.
People & events
The man whose name the house carries, N. W. Faison, was one of those volunteers. In 1842 he joined the company led by Nicholas Dawson, which hurried toward San Antonio to help turn back the Mexican invasion. Near the city the small company was caught by a much larger force. What followed is remembered as the Dawson Massacre: many of Dawson's men were killed, and only a handful survived.
Faison was one of the survivors taken prisoner. Like other Texans captured during these border wars, he faced a long captivity in Mexico. His story took an unexpected turn when he was pardoned by Santa Anna, the same general whose name Texans connected with the Alamo and Goliad. Faison came home to Fayette County with his life.
He did not forget the men who died. As county clerk from 1843 to 1856, he helped bring his fallen comrades' bones back from the field where they had fallen, so they could be buried properly. In 1848 they were laid to rest on Monument Hill, on the bluff above La Grange. Meanwhile the house itself kept changing. S. S. Munger bought and enlarged it in 1855, and from 1866 until 1961, nearly a century, it belonged to the Faison estate.
Its place in the American story
The Faison House is a reminder that American expansion into the Southwest was contested and bloody, and that the fighting did not end in 1836. Through the early 1840s the Republic of Texas and Mexico stayed in an undeclared war of raids, invasions, and reprisals. That instability helped push Texas toward annexation by the United States in 1845, which in turn helped bring on the U.S.-Mexican War.
The house also shows how a young society chose to remember its dead. Faison's effort to recover his comrades' remains, and the reburial on Monument Hill, was an early act of public memory in Texas. Ordinary citizens decided who would be honored and how. That instinct would shape American commemoration for generations afterward.
Finally, the house's long life is its own kind of history. From a two-room pine house of the Republic, to an enlarged home in the new state, to a family property held across the Civil War, Reconstruction, and deep into the twentieth century, it follows the whole arc of Texas growing from frontier into a settled place.
If you visit
Stand at the marker and think about the house's first form: two rooms of local pine, built when La Grange was a raw frontier town on the Colorado River. Try to pick out where the original core might end and the later additions begin. Houses like this often grew one room at a time, as families prospered and needs changed.
The story is not complete without Monument Hill, the bluff above town where Faison's comrades were reburied in 1848. The tomb is now part of a state historic site, and seeing the two places together connects the man to the memorial he worked to create. The view over the river valley from the hill makes a quiet ending to the visit.
La Grange is an easy stop on a drive through the rolling country between Austin and Houston. It is well suited to an unhurried day of courthouse squares, old homes, and Texas Republic history. Please respect private property and any posted rules around the house itself.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · N. W. Faison
- · S. S. Munger
- · Santa Anna
Related events
- · Dawson expedition
Themes & tags
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