De Witt County Monument

The 1936 shaft names the county's pioneer men and says half its people were German by 1860. It does not say that in 1850 the census counted 568 enslaved people among 1,716 residents, or that by 1860 there were 1,643 among 5,108. Cotton grew from 547 bales to 5,280 in those ten years. In 1861 the county joined the majority of Texas counties in voting to secede. By 1870 the census counted 1,757 Black residents among 6,443, and farm values had fallen from $1.5 million to $478,823.

What the plaque says

De Witt County Monument Included in the colonial grant in 1825 to Green De Witt, Texas Empresario, settled until 1840 largely by Anglo Americans. Created a county of the State of Texas March 24, 1846. Its area being taken from Gonzales, Victoria and Goliad counties. Organized July 13, 1846, with Cameron as the county seat, named in honor of its original grantee Green De Witt 1787-1835. By 1860 half its population was of German birth. Clinton served as county seat, 1849-1877. Cuero, incorporated April 23, 1873. Was made county seat in 1876, in memory of Arthur Burns. First settler in De Witt County, 1826, Columbus Burns, first Anglo-American child born in the county, 1829. George Washington Davis, delegate to the Second Convention of Texas, 1833. George W. Davis, participant in the Battle of Gonzales, 1835. George W. Davis, delegate to the Consultation, 1835. Captain John York, Captain David Murphree, James M. Bell, Albrecht Von Roeder, Louis Von Roeder, Squire Burns, John F. Pettus, participants in the capture of San Antonio, 1835. Thomas R. Miller, William Dearduff, martyrs of the Alamo, 1836. J. L. Allen a messenger from the Alamo, 1836. O. H. Perry Davis of Fannin's command who escaped the Refugio Massacre 1836. Captain David Murphree, John F. Pettus, James Bell, Joseph Kent Berry Doolittle, Allen Caruthers, Robert J. Kleberg, John MC Crabb, James J. Tumlinson, Louis Von Roder, heroes of San Jacinto. Creed Taylor, Squire Burns, Josiah Taylor, Chas. A. Ogsbury, George W. Davis, soldiers in the Texas Army 1836; James Norman Smith, first school teacher in De Witt County 1840. Captain Daniel B. Friar, Miles S. Bennet, James J. Tumlinson, Josiah Taylor, Creed Taylor, participants in the Battle of Salado Creek, Bexar County, 1842. George Lord, Alfred A. Allee members of the Mier Expedition 1842 and all other pioneers of the Republic of Texas who resided in De Witt County prior to or after the Revolution.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum — 0.9 mi
  A cattle-country museum in Cuero's 1903 Knights of Pythias Hall, telling the Guadalupe Valley's 1866 drive north and the Sutton-Taylor feud that bloodied DeWitt County.
• Spoetzl Brewery — 25 mi
  The brewery a Czech and German railroad town started in a tin shed in 1909, run through Prohibition by a Bavarian who had brewed in Cairo, and then by his daughter.
• De León Plaza — 26 mi
  The central plaza of Guadalupe Victoria, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas, founded by Martín De León in 1824 and taken from his family after 1836.
• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 26 mi
  Victoria College's museum of thirteen thousand years on the middle Texas coast, from Clovis hunters and Karankawa potters to La Salle's lost Fort St. Louis and the first ranches.

More markers nearby

• Cuero — steps away
• Leonard Roy Harmon — steps away
• Charles Goodwin Breeden — 0.5 mi
• Judge Henry Clay Pleasants — 0.5 mi