James O. Rice

Rice's later life rested on land and trade. The Handbook says he settled on Brushy Creek in 1846, became postmaster at Blue Hill in 1849, ran a tavern and a tannery, and was for a time the second wealthiest man in the county. Earlier he served as a lieutenant under Edward Burleson and was posted at Camp Cazneau beside Kenney's Fort. He joined the Snively expedition in 1843. Rice died in 1875 and lies in the Sebron Graham Sneed Cemetery at Sneed Cove in Travis County. The Handbook says he reached San Jacinto after the battle.

What the plaque says

James O. Rice (1815 - about 1875) South Carolina-born James O. Rice migrated to Texas by 1835 and served in the Texas Army during the War for Independence. In early days of the Republic of Texas, he protected frontier settlements as part of a Texas Ranger company. On May 17, 1839, in command of a volunteer force clashing with Mexican troops led by Manuel Flores on the North San Gabriel River, Rice captured vitally important documents related to the Cordova Rebellion against the Republic of Texas. He joined the Somervell and Mier Expeditions of 1842 and the Snively Expedition of 1843. He also served in the Mexican War (1846-48). For military services, he received several bounties of land. When Williamson County was created in 1848, Rice was one of the commissioners named to select a site for the county seat. One of the county's largest landowners, Rice built his home on Brushy Creek about one mile west of here at a site then known as Blue Hill and later called Rice's Crossing. He ran a store and was postmaster of Blue Hill post office, 1849-57. For a short time, he had a tanyard in Georgetown. Rice married Nancy D. Gilliland (d. 1860), of an early Texas family. The couple had four daughters. Rice is buried in the Sneed Family Cemetery near Austin. (1977)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Round Rock — 14 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.
• Inner Space Cavern — 16 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.
• Williamson County Courthouse — 17 mi
  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.
• LBJ Presidential Library — 21 mi
  A ten-story travertine archive on the University of Texas campus holding 45 million pages from a presidency of civil rights laws, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.

More markers nearby

• Carlson — 3.6 mi
• United States Senator Morgan C. Hamilton — 4.3 mi
• Battle of Brushy Creek — 4.4 mi
• Immanuel Lutheran Church — 5.0 mi