Dizenia Peters Todd

Dizenia Peters grew up in a slaveholding household. Her father, Major Peters, and her husband, George W. Todd, came to the Mason country together in 1853, and a local memoir recalls eighty enslaved people in the party, though the 1860 census counted eighteen in the whole county. The first deed recorded in Mason County moved an enslaved man, Sam, from Peters to Todd. The twelve-year-old Black girl killed with Dizenia in 1864 is recorded as enslaved; her name was not kept. The marker stands on private land.

What the plaque says

Dizenia Peters Todd (Aug. 5, 1826 - Jan. 1865) Born in Mississippi, Dizenia Peters moved to Texas with her parents about 1835. She married William P. Smith in 1844 and had a son, James. After Smith's death, she married George W. Todd (1827-1901) in 1851; they had 3 daughters. Todd and members of his wife's family settled this area in the 1850s and were among the first Mason County officials. Mrs. Todd and a Black servant girl were fatally wounded in an Indian attack near this site and buried in adjacent unmarked graves. Recorded - 1975

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Mason — 3.7 mi
  A reconstructed officers' quarters on Post Oak Hill above Mason, standing where the army's stone fort was taken apart by the town that grew up below it.
• Eckert James River Bat Cave Preserve — 11 mi
  A limestone cave on the James River where about four million Mexican free-tailed bats raise their young each summer, kept open to visitors by a family's gift.
• Enchanted Rock State Natural Area — 27 mi
  A dome of pink granite north of Fredericksburg that rises some 385 feet above Sandy Creek, creaks as it cools at night, and has drawn people for thousands of years.

More markers nearby

• Todd Mountain — steps away
• Mason County — 3.0 mi
• Fort Mason, Site of — 3.1 mi
• Mason National Bank — 3.7 mi