The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 4, July 1900 - April, 1901 Page: 203
366 p. : ill. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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History of Leon County.
203
SKETCH OF THE EARLY SETTLEMENT OF LEON
COUNTY, ITS ORGANIZATION, AND SOME OF
THE EARLY SETTLERS.1
W. D. WOOD.
Leon county is situated between the Trinity and Navasota rivers,
and north of the old San Antonio road. It is bounded on the south
by the San Antonio road and Madison county; on the west by the
Navasota river and Brazos, Robertson, and Limestone counties; on
the north by Limestone, Freestone, and Anderson counties; on the
east by the Trinity river and Anderson and Houston counties. Its
area is about 1049 square miles.
So far as is now known the first permanent settlers of the county
were the Kickapoo and Keechi tribes of Indians. When the Amer-
icans first became acquainted with the territory of Leon, the Kick-
apoos had a permanent village or encampment on the west bank of
the Trinity, at a place now known as the Kickapoo shoals. The
village was located on land now included in an eleven league grant,
made to Ramon de la Garza May 7, 1831. When the country was
first known to the writer, which was in 1851, every vestige of the
Indian town had disappeared, and there was nothing to indicate
that the spot had ever been the seat of a red man's village--that
his council house and wigwam had been there, and that there, on
his return from a successful foray, he exhibited his scalps and cele-
brated with barbaric orgies his prowess as a warrior and his triumph
over his enemies. Corn and cotton fields now occupy the site of
the village, and the peaceful evidences of thrift and civilization are
substituted for the war dance. Could the shade of a departed Kick-
apoo be permitted to visit the scenes of the flesh, he would find
naught to remind him of his former home but the river and the
water brawling over the rocky shoals. All else is blotted out.
The Keechi tribe had a village on what is now the Ramirez
league of land, about two and a half miles north of the present
town of Centreville. This village had an ideal location, and cer-
'The sources of information from which this sketch has been compiled are
a History of Navarro, Leon and other Counties kindly lent the writer by
William Croft, Esq., of Corsicana, and conversations had with many of the
pioneers of Leon county in the early fifties.
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 4, July 1900 - April, 1901, periodical, 1901; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101018/m1/225/?rotate=180: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.