C.A.D. Clamp

Clamp worked in a busy trade town. The Handbook of Texas says that before 1900 Georgetown had limestone quarries; grist, flour, planing and woodworking mills; brick, flue, chair and mattress factories; tin, saddlery and shoe shops; and a Texas Chautauqua Assembly. A railroad came in 1878. Master builder Charles Sanford Belford, who began his lumberyard in 1891, built many houses still in use. A Georgetown history site lists the Clamp Building at 703-705 Main Street, dated circa 1889, beside the Masonic Lodge building on the Square.

What the plaque says

C.A.D. Clamp (1827-1915) Christian Augustus Daniel Clamp was born in Thorn, Prussia (now Torun, Poland). He came to Texas in 1846 and moved to Georgetown in 1851, a year after his marriage to Asenath C. Davis (d. 1917). A skilled carpenter and cabinetmaker, Clamp became one of the city's earliest builders and developers. His work included residences as well as commercial, religious, and governmental buildings. He also owned a furniture business in this block for many years. An active Presbyterian and civic leader, Clamp served as mayor of the city from 1878 to 1880. He is buried in the I.O.O.F. Cemetery. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Williamson County Courthouse — steps away
  The fifth Williamson County courthouse, a Beaux Arts building by C. H. Page, rises over a Georgetown square of more than 50 Victorian-era buildings.
• Inner Space Cavern — 2.1 mi
  A Georgetown cave found in 1963 when highway engineers drilled test holes, holding Pleistocene fossils and 72-degree rooms that visitors reach by an artificial tunnel.
• The Round Rock — 8.6 mi
  A table-shaped stone in Brushy Creek gave Round Rock its name in 1854; the Chisholm Trail crossed the creek near it, and Old Town stayed behind when the railroad pulled the town east.
• Mount Bonnell — 23 mi
  Austin's old lookout over the Colorado, named by an 1838 traveler, picnicked on by George and Libbie Custer, and reached by a 1939 flight of about 100 limestone steps.

More markers nearby

• Williamson County Sun — steps away
• Ku Klux Klan Trials — steps away
• In Memory of George Washington Glasscock, Sr. — steps away
• Williamson County — steps away