Former Site of Liberty Hill Settlement

Dawson, the railroad town that drew Liberty Hill's people away, took its name from Britton Dawson, a cattle rancher and San Jacinto veteran who arrived from Alabama in 1847 looking for grass and water, the Handbook of Texas says. The town grew after 1881, when the St. Louis Southwestern built a narrow-gauge line from Corsicana to Waco. The post office opened in 1882, the Dawson Masonic Institute held classes downstairs and lodge meetings above in 1887, and by 1926 Dawson had four cotton gins, two banks and a cottonseed oil mill.

What the plaque says

Former Site of Liberty Hill Settlement A mile west of the 1838 Battle Creek Massacre site, this cemetery marks the location of Liberty Hill, an Anglo-American community begun during the following decade. Samuel and Prudence (Matthews) Wright, from Maury County, Tenn., settled here in 1849. They were relatives of Dr. George W. Hill, Indian agent and trading post operator at Spring Hill, half a day's wagon ride from here. The Wrights acquired land and attracted pioneer neighbors. In 1860, Liberty Hill Cumberland Presbyterian Church was organized by members of the Fullerton, Garner, McCandless, Moore, Richey, Slaughter, Wright, and Younger families. Wright donated a church site. After the Civil War (1861-65), in which men of this community served, a new influx of settlers included the M. A. Wilkes family, relatives of the Wrights. Prosperity prevailed in the settlement. Continuing his interest in the public good, Wright gave land (1876) for this cemetery and (1884) for public school uses. The rise of Dawson and Hubbard, Cotton Belt Railroad shipping points, drew population from the Liberty Hill area. The school was removed in 1917; the church dissolved in 1929. Land which once was intensively farmed has now reverted to grazing. Incise in base: Marker Sponsors: Mrs. Myrl W. Lawrence and other descendants of Liberty Hill pioneers (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 18 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site — 21 mi
  Where Limestone County Confederate veterans gathered each summer from 1888, later a water supplier in the Mexia oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site on the Navasota River.
• Petroleum Industry Park — 22 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Hill County Courthouse — 24 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.

More markers nearby

• Battle Creek Burial Ground — 1.0 mi
• Town of Dawson — 2.5 mi
• Braniff International Flight 352 — 3.5 mi
• Hot Mineral Water Well — 3.7 mi