Robert B. Longbotham

The Handbook of Texas adds a chapter the plaque leaves out. Longbotham sailed to America around 1810 and was apprenticed to a carpenter in South Carolina. In the War of 1812 the British captured him and forced him into the Royal Navy until the war ended. He reached Texas in 1833 and in 1835 received a grant that later fell in Freestone, Navarro and Limestone counties. In 1848 he built two log cabins here, and the town that grew was called Longbotham until the post office became Long Bottom in 1871 and Wortham in 1874.

What the plaque says

Robert B. Longbotham (Dec. 29, 1797 - Aug. 6, 1883) Born in Sunderland, England. Came to America as carpenter's apprentice on a ship. Married Lucy Haggard, 1820, in Alabama. Came to Texas, 1832. Obtained land grant from Mexico, 1835. In 1836 fought in Texas Revolution and in 1839 in Indian wars. In 1848 located here. Township was named for him until post office was renamed Wortham in 1874. Descendants prominent in texas. Longbotham Lodge No. 428, A.F. & A.M. named in his honor. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 1.4 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site — 11 mi
  Where Limestone County Confederate veterans gathered each summer from 1888, later a water supplier in the Mexia oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site on the Navasota River.
• Old Fort Parker — 16 mi
  A rebuilt 1830s family stockade near the Navasota River, where a May 1836 attack killed men of the Parker settlement and took five captives, among them nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker.
• Petroleum Industry Park — 21 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.

More markers nearby

• Mrs. Lucy Haggard Longbotham — steps away
• Wortham Schools — 0.7 mi
• The Wortham Oil Boom — 0.7 mi
• City of Wortham — 0.7 mi