Jane Dotson Lively

The Handbook of Texas says Thomas Lively and his family, with several others, settled Livelyville in 1850, and that Lively gave land for the community cemetery between 1855 and the Civil War. A one-room building served as church and school in the 1870s, and the school was discontinued in 1901. The area joined the Grapeland district in 1938. By the mid-1930s the community had a church, a cemetery and a few houses. The 1982 marker stands in the cemetery, and descendants of the Lively and other families were still burying there in the 1980s.

What the plaque says

Jane Dotson Lively (July 25, 1822 -- October 10, 1922) A native of Alabama, Jane Dotson Lively came to Houston County in 1850 with her husband Thomas Lively, for whom the surrounding community was named. An active leader of the settlement, she assisted in setting up a church and school on the family land. She was also known for her courage as a pioneer settler, her religious dedication and her influence in the development of Livelyville. Twice married, she was the mother of thirteen children. (1982)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 16 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.
• Caddo Mounds State Historic Site — 18 mi
  Three earthen mounds of an ancestral Caddo village and ceremonial center on the old El Camino Real, settled about A.D. 800 and still sacred to Caddo people, with a grass house and visitor center.

More markers nearby

• Joseph T. Bowman — 3.0 mi
• Guiceland Cemetery — 3.0 mi
• City of Grapeland — 4.2 mi
• Waneta Community and School — 5.5 mi