Round Top Community

Before it was Round Top the settlement was known by the mid-1830s as Jones Post Office, for John Rice Jones, Jr., who had settled here in 1831 and whom the provisional government made the first postmaster general in 1835. Learning ran deep. Adam Neuthard, who founded his school in 1858, was a master of Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French and German. Clara Rummel, called the poetess of Texas, made her home here, and the town was proud of its string band. In the Civil War, Round Top was the recruiting station for the northern half of Fayette County.

What the plaque says

Round Top Community Home of the Townsends, Hills and McH. Winburn, veterans of San Jacinto; Joel W. Robison, one of Santa Anna's captors; John Rice Jones, first postmaster general, Republic of Texas; and John C.C. Hill, boy captive of Mier Expedition and adopted by General Santa Anna. A center of German culture and crafts of 19th century. Examples: Nassau Plantation; Art of Mathias and Rudolph Melchior; Rev. Adam Neuthard's School; Stone Masonry of Carl S. Bauer; Lutheran Church with Wantke's handmade organ; and S. K. Lewis Stage Coach Inn. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 15 mi
  Two park units on an 11,000-acre lake between Austin and College Station, joined by a thirteen-mile trailway for hikers, cyclists and riders with primitive camps along the way.
• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 18 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.
• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 27 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.

More markers nearby

• Round Top — steps away
• Bernard Scherrer — steps away
• Nassau Plantation — 2.6 mi
• Town of Shelby — 6.5 mi