Thomas C. Neel

The 1861 convention Neel attended was not a cross-section. The Handbook of Texas says about 70 percent of its delegates owned slaves and 40 percent were lawyers, and almost all had been born in slaveholding states. On February 1, 1861 it voted 166 to 8 for secession, then sent the question to voters, who ratified it 44,317 to 13,020 on February 23. Ellis County's other delegate was Amzi Bradshaw, and the county's voters supported secession overwhelmingly. The Handbook does not say how Neel voted, only that he was a delegate.

What the plaque says

Thomas C. Neel (1825-1863) Georgia native Thomas C. Neel married Willia E. Latimer in 1848. The couple moved their family to Texas in 1854 and to Ellis County in 1855. They established a cotton and wheat plantation near what would become Ennis. Neel called his wife "Will" and the plantation became known as Will's Town, which later was shortened to "Wilton." A post office opened on the plantation in 1857; it served under both the United States and Confederate governments. In 1861 Neel was appointed a delegate to the Secession Convention. Later that year, he was elected to represent the 42nd District in the House of Representatives in the 9th Legislature. Shortly after that term ended, he was elected state senator from the 19th District, but he became ill and died before he was able to serve in the 10th Legislature. (2000)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ellis County Courthouse — 8.6 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• Petroleum Industry Park — 22 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.
• Cedar Ridge Preserve — 26 mi
  A 633-acre Audubon Dallas preserve at the western edge of Dallas County, with about nine miles of trails through prairie, woodland and escarpment hills.
• Hill County Courthouse — 33 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.

More markers nearby

• Boren Cemetery — 1.8 mi
• Frederick Harrison Rankin — 4.4 mi
• Old Lake Dam — 4.5 mi
• Old Bardwell — 4.6 mi