Sarah Bradley Dodson

The roadside plaque follows the flag, but the record of it ends early. The Handbook of Texas says the company carried it home to Harrisburg, that it is only "said to have flown" over the 1836 Convention, and that its later history is unknown. In Grimes County the Dodsons helped organize a Presbyterian congregation and gave land for Bethel Church. Archelaus married the widow Katherine McWhorter in 1850, moved to Live Oak County in 1860 to ranch with Martin Culver, and died near Alice in 1898. Descendants set a granite stone at her grave in 1935, the flag's centennial.

What the plaque says

Sarah Bradley Dodson Born in Kentucky in 1812, eleven-year-old Sarah Bradley and her parents arrived in Texas in 1823 with Stephen F. Austin's old three hundred colonists, settling near Brazoria. Sarah married Archelaus Bynum Dodson of nearby Harrisburg on May 17, 1835. As tensions mounted between Mexico and the Texian colonists, a call for military volunteers was circulated in September 1835, and Archelaus Dodson became First Lt. in Captain Andrew Robinson's Harrisburg Volunteers. Sarah offered to design and make a flag for her husband's company. Using blue, white, and red calico, she fashioned a flag of three equal squares, with a five pointed white star in the center of the blue square. Reportedly the first Lone Star flag, the banner was displayed in the town of Gonzales in October 1835, and in December flew during the Siege of Bexar. When the Declaration of Independence was signed, two flags were seen flying over Convention Hall. One was described as a Lone Star flag and is believed to have been the one made by Sarah Dodson. Following the Texan victory at San Jacinto, the Dodsons lived in Fort Bend County, then moved in 1844 to Grimes County. They donated the land for Bethel Cemetery (5 mi. N) where Sarah was buried in 1848. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986 Sarah Bradley Dodson (January 8, 1812-October 9, 1848) Kentucky native Sarah Bradley came to Texas with Stephen F. Austin's Old 300 Colony in 1823. She married Archelaus B. Dodson in 1835, and made a blue, white, and red flag with a single white star for her husband's army company during the Texas Revolution. Her flag is believed to be one of two which flew as the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed and is considered Texas' first tri-color Lone Star flag. The Dodsons donated land for this cemetery. (1993)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site — 24 mi
  A cedar-log dogtrot cabin of 1834 on the road through Anderson that grew into a seventeen-room inn and post office for travelers of the Republic, kept by one family until 1976.
• Fort Boggy State Park — 25 mi
  A 1,847-acre park in Leon County named for a settlers' palisade of 1840, with a 15-acre lake, short trails and the story of Tennessee farmers, the Keechi and a Ranger captain.
• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum — 29 mi
  The library of the forty-first president on the Texas A&M campus, opened in 1997, where George and Barbara Bush and their daughter Robin are buried in a family plot on the grounds.

More markers nearby

• Town of Bedias — 3.8 mi
• Bedias First Baptist Church — 4.0 mi
• CCC Camp Site — 7.8 mi
• Marian Anderson High School — 8.0 mi