Vicinity of Fort Inglish

Fort Inglish was one blockhouse, not a walled compound: sixteen feet square, with an overhanging upper story twenty-four feet square, probably inside a log stockade, the Handbook of Texas says. Though private, it became a rendezvous for militia. Gen. John H. Dyer's brigade gathered here in November 1838, and in October 1840 Col. William G. Cooke's troops straggled in after the Military Road expedition. The Handbook entry on Bailey Inglish adds that only one raid on the fort is documented, and that he had earlier been sheriff of Miller County, Arkansas, before settlers were removed under the Choctaw treaty.

What the plaque says

Vicinity of Fort Inglish (exact original location unknown) Spot where settlement of town of Bonham began. On 1,250-acre land grant of Texas Republic to Bailey Inglish (1797-1867), former Miller County, Ark., sheriff who led train of settlers traveling by oxcart to this site in 1837. Here they built a log stockade and blockhouse with gun ports for use in community defense. In a typical fight (1841), the Indians were repulsed, but captured two young boys hunting cows near the fort. (The boys returned later.) Called Bois d'Arc in 1840, town was renamed (1843) to honor Texas War for Independence hero, Col. James Butler Bonham (1807-1836). (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 2.8 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 24 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Eisenhower State Park — 29 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.

More markers nearby

• Inglish Cemetery — steps away
• Dr. Daniel Rowlett — steps away
• Site of Booker T. Washington School — 0.3 mi
• Carlton College — 0.5 mi