The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 65, July 1961 - April, 1962 Page: 319
663 p. : ill., maps (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Signing of Texas' Declaration of Independence
on the northwest corner of the plot on which the house stood in
which the declaration of independence was adopted."
Zuber placed the building as facing north; in Lockhart's de-
scription it faced west. Brown said only that it faced Main Street.
The fact that most of the original streets of the town of Washing-
ton have been closed and erased by time and that the names of the
remaining streets are unknown to the residents makes it impos-
sible to check the location on the ground today. The lack of an
authentic plat of the town as it was in 1836, or at any other time,
for that matter, further complicates the problem.
The only known plat of the town, "Washington-on-the-Brazos,
Texas, in the times of Jim Johnson now fmn. [freedman], then a
slave, who lived there before the War,"35 shows a well laid out
town, with numerous intersecting streets and avenues, none of
which, unfortunately, are labelled "Main," "Brazos," or "Ferry."
This plat does offer a few possible clues, however. It shows the
roads from the two ferries coming together at the top of the bluff,
to feed into what is now the main north-south street of the town,
running directly in front of the present Washington State Park.
The second east-west street intersecting this thoroughfare south
of its beginning at the juncture of the ferry roads, is much wider
than most other streets of the town, and in the center of this street,
near the heart of the town, is a blocked-off area marked "City
Market." It is quite logical to assume that the street beginning
at the juncture of the ferry roads would be called "Ferry Street"
and also logical to assume that the wide intersecting street, with
the City Market in its center, would be "Main Street."
One other clue is offered by this plat. On the east side of the
street which may have been Ferry Street, about half a block south
of its intersection with what may have been Main Street, is a
property marked with the name of "Lott." The location of the
site of the three-story brick "Austin House," built in Washington
in 1854 by Jessie and Robert Lott, is known. It adjoins the Wash-
ington State Park on the south and lies approximately the correct
distance from the 1899 monument to allow for a site of the size
required for Independence Hall to have occupied the northwest
8sOwned by A. W. Hartstock, Washington County, Texas, to whom it was given
by the late Jim Johnson in about 1925.319
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 65, July 1961 - April, 1962, periodical, 1962; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101195/m1/359/: accessed April 26, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.