County Seat War

Two sets of numbers survive. The Handbook of Texas gives the May 16, 1877 vote as 705 to 523 for Wills Point, short of the required two-thirds. The report in Ex parte Towles says the county judge threw out the Canton precinct and one other, then certified Wills Point at 652 to 310. T. J. Towles and other voters contested; the district judge refused a writ, and the court at Wills Point dismissed their suits. The Handbook says 500 men marched under Towles. A Denison newspaper reported on February 21, 1878 that the Supreme Court had decided for Canton.

What the plaque says

County Seat War Due to a surveyor's error, the county seat of Van Zandt County was located on private property in 1850. An election was called 27 years later because of discontent with the site. On May 28, 1877, County Judge Cadwell Walton Raines ordered court records moved to Wills Point from Canton. Many citizens objected, and about 200 armed men from around Canton marched on Wills Point. Governor R. B. Hubbard assigned militia troops to maintain order and fighting was averted. The records were returned in October 1878 and the county seat ultimately remained in Canton. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum — 16 mi
  A free museum at Terrell's airport where about 2,200 RAF cadets learned to fly between 1941 and 1945, with logbooks, uniforms, letters and original training aircraft.
• Purtis Creek State Park — 24 mi
  A 1,582-acre park straddling the Henderson and Van Zandt county line, built around a 355-acre lake with no-wake fishing, borrowed tackle, a 4.1-mile hike-and-bike trail and a nature path.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 31 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.

More markers nearby

• Dallas-Shreveport Road — steps away
• White Rose Cemetery — 0.3 mi
• First Christian Church of Wills Point — 1.1 mi
• Elbert Gray — 1.3 mi