Pioneer Publisher and Printer David Ervin Lawhon

The press Lawhon worked had been in Nacogdoches since 1829. Milton Slocum brought it there, and William G. Logan, a merchant who had bought it, talked Lawhon into starting a newspaper soon after he and his brother, Dr. John C. Lawhon, arrived from Natchitoches about November 1, 1835. Lawhon was twenty-four. The first issue came out in late November, and he kept the paper going until January or February 1836, then joined the army and was severely wounded.

What the plaque says

Pioneer Publisher and Printer David Ervin Lawhon (Buried 1/2 mile NW of here) Born in Tennessee on June 15, 1811. While very young learned the printing trade and worked at it in some of the principal cities of the United States. Came to Nacogdoches, Texas, in November 1835, in answer to pleas for volunteers for Texas army. Was pressed into service publishing the "Texean and Emigrant's Guide," with essential war proclamations. Also printed handbills, patriotic songs and legal documents. His newspaper was one of several printed in Texas during war for independence, 1836. In 1839, moved to what is now Jefferson County and engaged in cattle ranching. Served as captain of a ranger company. Was county's chief justice during the days of the Republic of Texas. Moved to Bastrop County in 1861, where he tried farming; then moved to Williamson County where he died February 14, 1884. As a newspaper publisher and printer for the Army of the Revolution (1835-1836), an Indian fighter, frontiersman and judge, he contributed much to the early development of Texas. In 1840, David Lawhon married Nancy Carr, a daughter of one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred" settlers. Their eleven children carried on their pioneering spirit and tradition. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bastrop State Park — 22 mi
  The westernmost loblolly pines in the United States, cut off from the East Texas forest by a hundred miles of post oak, burned almost entirely in 2011 and growing back.
• The Round Rock — 26 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.
• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 27 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.
• Inner Space Cavern — 28 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.

More markers nearby

• Post Oak Island Lodge #181, A.F. & A.M. — 1.6 mi
• Type Cemetery — 4.3 mi
• Pleasant Grove Cemetery — 4.4 mi
• Mager Cemetery — 5.7 mi