William B. DeWees

The letters that made DeWees's name were not quite his. In the early 1850s he quietly worked with the writer Emmaretta Kimball Crawford, who shaped his dictated memories into supposed letters to a Kentucky friend; she wrote the 1852 book. DeWees had first seen Texas on a keelboat trip up the Red River in 1819 and reached the lower Brazos with four Arkansas families on January 1, 1822. He held county offices from 1837, but in 1866 his successor charged him with misappropriating $1,200 in county funds, and the court ruled against him.

What the plaque says

William B. DeWees (1799-1878) Early Texas settler. Came here from Kentucky, 1822, when Texas was part of Mexico. Received a large land grant in 1824 as one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old 300" colonists. Worked as blacksmith and trader. After Columbus was burned in Texas Revolution, 1836, he laid out new (present) town and gave land for courthouse and school. His correspondence, published (1852) as "Letters from an Early Settler of Texas to A Friend," provided valuable eyewitness accounts of the "Runaway Scrape" of the revolution, and life in colonial Texas. (1971)

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Dilue Rose Harris — steps away
• The Colorado County Citizen — steps away
• Site of Railway Hospital — steps away
• Ben Marshall Baker — steps away