Just wanted to let you know that the dedication ceremony for the
Texas Historical Commission marker for the Lake Creek
Settlement will be held on Saturday,
February 25, 2017, at 11:00
a.m. in
Montgomery, Texas in front of the Nat Hart Davis Museum located on
Liberty Street near the intersection of Texas 105 and Liberty Street
(FM 149).
I was the marker historian for this marker and did more than a
decades worth of research on the Lake Creek Settlement before
applying for the marker with the Montgomery County Historical
Commission and the Texas Historical Commission.
The marker process alone took almost two years.
By the 1920s, the Lake Creek Settlement had been completely
forgotten to Texas historians as well as local historians.
Empresario Stephen F. Austin had
gotten permission to settle 500 more families in
Texas in his second contract with the State of Coahuila y Tejas in
1825 (Austin's Second Colony).
Under this contract, he settled colonists between the west fork of
the San Jacinto River and the stream called Lake Creek.
By 1833, this settlement had become known as the Lake Creek
Settlement.
In 1835, W. W. Shepperd,
a colonist originally from North Carolina, established a trading
post/store near the intersection of the Coushatta Trace, the Grimes
Road and the Contraband Trace
in the center of the Lake Creek Settlement.
Shepperd's store quickly became the community center of the Lake
Creek Settlement.
During the Texas Revolution, a number of men from the Lake Creek
Settlement fought in the Texas Revolution in the Battle of
Concepcion, the Grass Fight, the Siege of Bexar and the Battle of
San Jacinto.
In the Battle of San Jacinto, men from the Lake Creek Settlement
fought in the infantry, the cavalry, and one, John Marshall Wade,
manned one of the famous Twin Sisters cannons during the battle.
In 1837, Shepperd founded the town of Montgomery at the site of his
store, and about 5
months later, the Montgomery County was created by an
Act of the Congress of the Republic of Texas which was signed into
law by President Sam Houston.
The town of Montgomery became the first county seat
of Montgomery County and served as such for several decades.
