Judge James Hooker

The ground Hooker chose had been settled long before he came. The Handbook places Hooker's Mill on the Sabine River at the site of the Tawakoni and Yscani village that Fray Calahorra visited in 1760, though nothing shows anyone still lived there eighty years later. Archaeologists dug a village site on the river's north bank in 1957 and concluded it was Calahorra's village. Hooker's house, first counted in Hunt County and later in Rains, now lies under Lake Tawakoni. The community around this cemetery, Hooker Ridge, carries his name.

What the plaque says

Judge James Hooker Prominent Hunt County pioneer (1807-1865) Came to Texas 1840. Granted a 640-acre headright by Republic of Texas. Served as commissioner to organize county and locate county seat. First postmaster of Hooker's Mill settlement where he owned area's first steam mill. Town important stop on Clarksville to Austin Road. Represented county in Fourth and Sixth Legislatures. Member of Secession Convention. Buried here on his headright. Recorded - 1966

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Audie Murphy / American Cotton Museum — 16 mi
  A Greenville museum of Hunt County's military heroes, including Audie Murphy, and of cotton, which keeps the engine of what it says was the world's largest inland cotton compress.
• No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum — 22 mi
  A free museum at Terrell's airport where about 2,200 RAF cadets learned to fly between 1941 and 1945, with logbooks, uniforms, letters and original training aircraft.

More markers nearby

• Lake Tawakoni — 2.6 mi
• Lone Oak Baptist Church — 5.5 mi
• Isaac Newton Gresham — 5.6 mi
• Caddo Indians in Hunt County — 8.0 mi