Phillip James Shaver

The town Shaver laid out soon had a school. The Fayetteville Academy opened in 1849 in a building the people of Ross's Prairie had put up the year before for church and school. Its public examination of 1852 lasted two days, presented sixty pupils and ended with a barbecue and German musicians. Its successor, the Fayetteville Male and Female Academy, opened in 1860 on the lower floor of the Masonic lodge; in 1861 its boys drilled as a company.

What the plaque says

Phillip James Shaver North Carolina native Phillip J. Shaver (1814-1875) settled in the Fayette County community of Rutersville c. 1840. Two years later, he joined the Texas Army to defend area settlers from Indians and Mexican soldiers and also received from the Republic 320 acres. After marrying Mary Ann (Bass) Holloway in 1847, Shaver purchased 525 acres at this site and he surveyed and platted a town that he named after a former home. He named the streets and donated lots for a school and community church, a masonic lodge and a city cemetery. Shaver continued to support Fayetteville until his death, and many of his descendants remain in the area today. (2010)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 24 mi
  A museum at Serbin of the Wends, a Slavic people from Lusatia whose congregation of nearly 600 crossed on the Ben Nevis in 1854, losing seventy-three to cholera on the way.

More markers nearby

• Fayetteville — steps away
• The Reverend Joseph Chromcik — 0.2 mi
• The Rev. Jindrich Juren — 1.5 mi
• James J. Ross — 4.7 mi