Site of Wood's Fort

This was not Zadock Woods's first fort. In Missouri, at the town of Woodville at present Troy, his inn and tavern had been the first stagecoach stop, and Woods' Fort there, commanded by Lt. Zachary Taylor, was a principal defense post in the War of 1812. A lead-mining venture with Moses Austin ruined him, and he joined Stephen F. Austin's colony in 1824. In February 1836 he housed a ten-man company of Tennessee volunteers under Daniel William Cloud on their way to the Alamo.

What the plaque says

Site of Wood's Fort Used by colonists of this vicinity as a protection against Indian attacks . 1828-1842 fortified residence of Zadock Woods, veteran of the War of 1812. One of the old "Three Hundred" of Austin's colonists. Oldest man killed in the "Dawson Massacre" September 18, 1842.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 13 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.
• Bastrop State Park — 18 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.
• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 31 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.

More markers nearby

• Winchester Cemetery — 5.6 mi
• Smithville — 7.5 mi
• Muldoon Community — 8.7 mi
• Czech Catholic Union of Texas — 11 mi