Webberville
Webberville, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This community was named for John F. Webber (1793-1882) who received a land grant in 1827 and settled in this area with his African American wife and children. A post office was established in 1846 for Webber's Prairie, and by 1853 the name was changed to Webberville. Based on a cotton farming economy, the town later included grist mills, cotton mills, general stores, schools, churches, and a cemetery. The post office was discontinued in 1903. A ferry crossing on the Colorado River ceased operation in the 1920s. (1997)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This Colorado River community grew from a land grant received in 1827 by John F. Webber, who settled here with his African American wife and children at a time when such a family faced deep hostility in the region. A post office opened for 'Webber's Prairie' in 1846, and by 1853 the town had taken the name Webberville. Built on cotton farming, it grew to include grist and cotton mills, stores, schools, churches, and a ferry crossing that operated into the 1920s.
Why it matters
Webberville preserves the story of an interracial family on the Texas frontier and of a river-town economy that flourished and faded with cotton and the ferry.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the years around Texas's early days as a republic, the land along the Colorado River was raw frontier. Anglo-American settlers were arriving under land grants, staking out farms in a country that was still being wrested into fields and roads. It was a place of opportunity and hardship in equal measure, far from the settled order of older states.
The frontier economy that took hold here was built on cotton, the crop that shaped so much of nineteenth-century Texas. Cotton demanded land, labor, and a way to move the harvest, and river crossings and ferries became lifelines linking isolated farms to wider markets.
This was also a society with harsh and rigid racial lines. On the Texas frontier of this era, an interracial family faced deep hostility and real danger — which makes the founding of this particular community all the more striking a piece of history.
People & events
The community is named for John F. Webber (1793–1882), who received a land grant in 1827 and settled in the area with his African American wife and their children. In a time and place where such a family met fierce prejudice, Webber and his family built a home and a life along the Colorado River, and the settlement that grew nearby came to carry his name.
The place first took root as "Webber's Prairie," and by 1846 it had grown enough to warrant its own post office. By 1853 the name had shifted to Webberville, the mark of a community that had settled into a real identity of its own.
Built on cotton farming, the town filled out over the years with the institutions of frontier life: grist mills and cotton mills to process the harvest, general stores, schools, churches, and a cemetery. A ferry crossing on the Colorado River tied the town to the country around it. As the decades passed, the currents of change moved on — the post office was discontinued in 1903, and the river ferry stopped running in the 1920s, quiet signs of a community whose busiest days had passed.
Its place in the American story
Webberville holds two American stories at once. One is the familiar arc of the frontier farm town — founded on a land grant, grown up around cotton and a river crossing, sustained by mills and stores and churches, and then slowly changed as the wider world reorganized itself and old lifelines like the ferry fell silent.
The other is far rarer and more poignant: the story of an interracial family making a home on the frontier at a time when the law and the society around them were profoundly hostile to such a union. That a founding family of this kind put down roots, raised children, and left their name on a Texas community is a powerful reminder that the real history of the frontier was more varied — and more courageous — than the simplest tellings allow.
Together these threads make Webberville a place where the broad currents of American history — westward settlement, the cotton economy, and the hard realities of race — meet in the story of one family and one small town.
If you visit
Come to Webberville for the layered sense of the past that lingers in a long-lived river community. Read the marker slowly and let the dates carry you back — a land grant in 1827, a post office by 1846, a new name by 1853 — and picture the mills, stores, and churches that once made this a busy frontier town.
The Colorado River is central to the story, so take a moment to think about the vanished ferry crossing that once carried people and goods to and from the town before it ceased in the 1920s. The river that shaped the community's fortunes still flows nearby, a quiet through-line connecting the town's beginnings to today.
Most of all, let the human story settle in. This is a place named for a family who chose to build a life here against real hostility, and that courage is part of what you're honoring by stopping. It makes a thoughtful stop on a drive through the countryside east of the capital — a small town with a name, and a history, worth remembering.
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
- · John F. Webber
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Webberville Ebenezer Baptist Church
Austin, TX
This church grew out of the story of John F. Webber, an Anglo settler who, with his African American wife and children, moved to this prairie in 1839 to escape the racism they faced in town—though prejudice eventually drove the family to Mexico by 1851. After emancipation, Matthew Duty donated an acre here in 1868, and the Webberville Ebenezer Baptist Church was organized that year for the area's freedpeople, with the Rev. Wesley Barrow as its first pastor. Still gathering its scattered families for holidays and special occasions, the congregation carries a nearly century-and-a-half legacy.
Joseph J. Manor Cemetery
Webberville, TX
Joseph J. Manor came to Texas from Tennessee at twenty and settled at Webberville, where he built a store and cotton gin and gathered land along the Colorado River. He and his wife Caroline lie here among other early pioneers, in a burial ground that honors veterans of nearly every American conflict from the War of 1812 through Vietnam. A descendants' association formed in 1982 now cares for the site.
David Crawford Edmiston
Webberville, TX
David Crawford Edmiston came to Texas as a boy in 1835 and spent his life on its contested frontier—riding with the Texas Rangers in frontier defense, again during the Mexican War, and serving in the Confederate army during the Civil War. He and his wife Rhoda raised eleven children on their Webberville farm, whose surviving buildings still mark the land the family worked.
James Euwin Edmiston
Webberville, TX
An Arkansas native, James Euwin Edmiston came to Texas with his family in 1835 and settled near present-day Webberville just as the fight for independence began. He served as a Texas Ranger during the revolution, took part in frontier battles, and was caught up in the Woll Expedition and the Archive War of 1842. He later rode with Travis County ranger companies before joining the rush to California in 1849, and earned a Republic of Texas pension for his service.