THE NATIONAL ROAD OF THE
REPUBLIC OF TEXAS
A long forgotten document, hidden away among the files of
the Land Office for nearly a century, now makes it possible to
bring into sharper focus certain phases of the history of North
Texas. At a time when transportation difficulties were almost
the number-one problem, an important old road was laid out
by direction of the Texas lawmakers. Its functions among the
trails that served pioneer needs, its route, and perhaps even
its purpose have been much misunderstood.
This old document, that promises some new data on a certain
period of the story of Texas, consists of only a dozen pages of
surveyors' notes. It furnishes, nevertheless, a fairly accurate
waybill for the route of the "Central National Road of the
Republic of Texas,"
1 and through its contribution of an accurate
geographical background promotes a better understanding of
certain episodes of the development of North and Central Texas.
So much confusion has prevailed concerning the course of this
road that its route and the way in which it fits into the larger
geography of the Southwest will be first considered.
An act of the Texas Congress, finally approved on February
5, 1844, created a commission of five men empowered to select
a right-of-way for this road, and to have that right-of-way
cleared of obstructing timber, and also to see that the necessary
bridges were erected.
2 The commissioners were directed to
begin the road on the bank of the Trinity River, not more than
fifteen miles below the mouth of the Elm Fork, and to extend it
to the south bank of Red River, opposite the Kiamichi--or, in
our terms, from central Dallas County to a point approximately
one hundred and thirty miles distant in northwest Red River
County. Three of the five commissioners lived less than thirty
miles from the new town of Paris,
3 and Paris was also the post
office of Major George W. Stell, named by the act to survey the
road. The time-worn field notes in the Land Office are in Major
Stell's own hand.
Slightly less than two months after the bill was approved,
the surveying crew, headed by Major Stell, began its work at
a certain cedar tree
4 on the bank of the Trinity River, some-
where in what is now central Dallas County, and thirty days
later the enterprise was concluded in the Red River bottom
in the northwest corner of Red River County.
5
In spite of the excellence of the field notes, difficulties are
found in following their exact path. In the first place, the cedar
tree in Dallas County is gone, and, secondly, there are certain
mathematical considerations that make for slight ambiguities
in applying the notes.
6 Also, Major Stell admitted the possibility
that he had made some minor errors in transcribing his data.
Fortunately, some information within the notes, and some
additional facts that have been discovered, limit the possible
errors to a relatively small range. A county-line survey, made
in 1850, fixes the National Road at a point ten miles and twenty-
four chains (or ten and three-tenths miles) south of the north-
east corner of Dallas County. A similar survey made of the
west Hunt County line in the same year shows that the Na-
tional Road was nine miles and 74.57 chains (or 9.93 miles)
north of the southeast corner of Collin County.
7 Major Stell's
plat shows that this road passed through the town of Paris,
and subsequent information identifies it with Bonham street,
8
the important present-day thoroughfare that passes along the
north side of the square in modern Paris. The old road came
to an end in the northwest part of Red River County, directly
opposite the mouth of the Kiamichi River.
9 Obviously these
four definite points outline the general course of the National
Road; the field notes can be used to fill in details.
A trek across the country, with surveying instruments, in
search of this old road might prove to be a first-ranking ad-
venture. The fragments of antique bridges, some of Major
Stell's old bois d'arc mileposts--and perhaps a pair of chafing
boots, and a little sunburn lotion--might add up to furnish
the thrills and attendant miseries of a single day afield. But
such an adventure must now wait until less strenuous times.
Instead, this study will proceed by thumb-tacking the neces-
sary county maps
10 to a drawing board and surveying each
changing angle of the old road with ruler, protractor, and T-
square. For convenience a start is made at the east line of
Dallas County, a proven point three and three-quarter miles
north of Highway 80. This point on the National Road is
slightly more than seventeen miles from the Trinity River and
is the place at which that old wagon trail entered the area that
is now Rockwall County. At this place the present road runs
on almost the same path as the old. Four-tenths of a mile due
east, the National Road crossed the East Fork of the Trinity
River; the old Mackenzie Ferry
11 was once located there, and
in later years the Barnes Bridge
12 was built a half-mile up the
stream. Not far across the East Fork, Major Stell blazed the
surface of an ash tree
13 and marked it for his eighteenth mile
post. His road next curved southeast, then east, and then
northeast around a high hill, and along the north bank of a
small creek, which the United States Geological Survey topo-
graphical map
14 called Yankee Creek. After a short distance,
the road turned more toward the north and finally due north,
pointing directly at the future county seat town of Rockwall,
and following approximately the route of the present road from
Barnes Bridge to Rockwall for several miles. But short of the
townsite the old road turned thirty degrees east and crossed
the course of a present paved highway about one and one-half
miles east of the site of present Rockwall. A little north of
the present pavement a cedar post was planted in the ground
marking the twenty-seventh mile; the course of the road
changed just three degrees more toward the east, and continued
in a straight line for eleven miles. In this span of distance,
Major Stell passed over the future county line and progressed
some seven and a half miles into modern Collin County; a
mulberry post was set here to mark the thirty-eighth mile.
Cedar posts had marked almost every mile for the past twenty
because the route was following a prairie ridge on which there
were very few trees.
Observing the map of Collin County for a moment, one finds
that this thirty-eighth mile post was about a mile and a half
west of a small village called Josephine. Four miles further
north the old road survey bent eastward and crossed the line
into Hunt County (on land that was part of Fannin County in
1844) at a point two miles south of State Highway 24, between
Greenville and McKinney. A few miles to the northeast, Major
Stell and his men crossed the route of this present-day State
Highway eight and one-half miles west of Greenville, near the
village of Floyd.
The land of this area must have appealed to the surveying
crew as well as to the Commissioners of the National Koad.
Each of these early road makers was to receive pay for his
work in land, and more than a dozen tracts of this Hunt County
real estate were selected by them not far from the village of
Floyd. Possibly because of a conflict with the Mercer Colony,
most of these parcels of land seem to have been abandoned, but
there was at least one exception. John Yeary, one of the com-
missioners, laid claim to six hundred and forty acres some two
or three miles northeast of Floyd.
15 A locust post was set at
Yeary's southeast corner;
16 this same piece of timber was also
marked as the forty-eighth mile post on the National Road. On
current maps of Hunt County there is now a John Yeary survey
some seven miles northwest of Greenville,
17 and the method of
map surveying employed here places the forty-eighth mile post
of the old road near its southeast corner. Apparently this tract
of land is identical with the original John Yeary survey, a fact
which makes it possible to locate another specific point on the
route of the National Road.
Four miles northeast of Yeary's land, the National Road
crossed the principal fork of the Sabine River.
18 The bridge
on Highway 69, six and one-half miles northwest of Greenville,
is almost, if not exactly, identical with the place where the older
road crossed.
19 Nearly two miles northeast of this bridge, Major
Stall's survey turned due north for three miles, thus avoiding
the west part of the dense Black Cat Thicket.
At the fifty-seventh mile post the northeasterly direction was
again resumed, and a little short of the sixty-first marker the
road surveyors crossed South Sulphur near the highway bridge
that is now south of Wolfe City; seven additional miles put the
surveying crew a full mile inside the present limits of Fannin
County. On this span of road they had missed modern Wolfe
City by only a mile, and now they were ready to turn twenty-
five degrees more toward the east and pass through the south
part of the townsite of Ladonia as that town is mapped today.
In 1844, John Loring lived about a mile east of the place that
is now Ladonia.
20 The National Road ran a little north of his
land and continued eastward some three miles further before
making the abrupt turn northward down into the timbered
bottom of the principal branch of Sulphur River. Now a country
road runs north to a bridge on Sulphur that is known as the
"old Lyday Crossing." Isaac Lyday, who moved to the area
in 1838,
21 owned the land just east of the present bridge.
22 He
built a frontier fort
23--perhaps a stockade--that furnished pro-
tection to the first settlers. Map surveying traces the National
Road across Lyday's old survey about a half mile east of the
bridge that now bears his name. There is a creek junction
shown in Major Stell's plat that helps to identify this eastward
point as the original river crossing.
24
After passing Sulphur River almost midway of the seventy-
eighth mile, the old road continued northward, curving more
and more toward the east as it reached higher ground. It may
have followed a still older road that is known to have connected
Fort Lyday with the settlements of Red River County.
25 The
survey of the National "Road crossed the Fannm-Lamar County
line some two miles north of Sulphur River, and passed approxi-
mately through the village of Noble, four miles south of present
Highway 82 in the west part of Lamar County. It passed mid-
way between the places where the towns of Brookston and
Roxton are now located and varied not more than a half-mile
to the south of a straight line from there to the railroad depot
in the west section of Paris.
The street in Paris running east from the depot, along the
north side of the public square and some three or four blocks
to the east of that area, is almost identical with the route of
the National Road.
26 About half a mile west of the square on
that part of the present thoroughfare known as Bonham Street,
Major Stell blazed a red oak tree that marked his one-hundredth
mile.
27
The extension of this same street to the east of the square
is known as Lamar Avenue. It was from a point probably some
three or four blocks down this Lamar Avenue end of the street
that the surveyors of the National Road turned forty degrees
north of east and continued 1086 feet to their one-hundred-and-
first mile post. The angle of direction changed very little during
the next twenty miles; from Lamar Avenue to the Red River
County line the old road was nearly straight, and followed a
general course almost exactly northeast. By several slight
changes, it bent to the right of that course at the middle, some-
what like a bow, and even there it was hardly more than half
a mile off the direct northeast course.
28
The present road that extends northeastward from Paris
compromises a little with property lines, but follows within a
few hundred yards of the old road almost all of the way.
29 At
the village of Faught ten miles from Paris, the road that is
traveled today bends sharply to the right and leaves the course
of the old road by something like a half mile but shortly swings
back across it. The present road is called the Golf Course Road,
but it is also known by its older name, the "Pine Bluff Road."
The near identity of the present beaten track with Major Stell's
survey of 1844 causes one to suspect strongly that both the old
and the new are but variations of a single trail. Probably the
Pine Bluff Road was included as part of the National Road by
the men who laid out the latter thoroughfare.
30
Beyond Lamar County the surveyors extended their route
along Red River for a distance of nine miles. To avoid the bends
of that stream their path curved somewhat, resembling a quar-
ter circle until it came to a sudden stop in northwest Red River
County, opposite the mouth of the Kiamichi River.
31
A present following of country roads down to this point in the
Red River bottom places one at the small village of Kiomatia,
one hundred twenty-nine and one-half miles, by the old road
survey, northeast of central Dallas County. Most of the in-
habitants of the village are the descendants of slaves who chant
weird negro spirituals and perhaps still believe in ghosts. There
are no shipping facilities at hand, either by land or water, to
warrant the construction of a major highway. At first glance
one would be tempted to say that no group other than a whimsi-
cal Congress would expend good money to bring a principal
thoroughfare to a dead-end in such an out-of-the-way spot.
The facts, however, lead to quite a different conclusion. One
hundred years ago steamboats plied the waters of Red River
as far up as Wright's Landing,
32 which was in none other than
the same bend of the river with the present lonely village of
Kiomatia and the place where Major Stell completed his road
survey. Because of the increased difficulties in river travel
above this place, Wright's Landing was generally regarded as
the head of navigation on River River.
33 In addition, one hun-
dred years ago, this same present-day lonely spot in northwest
Red River County was just across the river from the end of a
United States military highway that was already nearly twenty
years old. Fort Towson had been established near the mouth
of the Kiamichi on the north side of Red River in 1824,
34 and
a military highway from there to Fort Smith and Fort Gibson
had become a necessity. Obviously, this out-of-the-way place
at the end of the National Road was once well furnished with
facilities for both land and water transportation.
As another answer to the reason for a road to the place where
now the village of Kiomatia overlooks Red River, a survey of
North Texas population of one hundred years ago is also re-
vealing. Old Jonesboro--perhaps the first purely Anglo-Amer-
ican town on Texas soil--was only six miles down the river;
Clarksville, that had already begun to supersede it, was some
twenty-five miles to the southeast. The country-side was on the
whole well settled, and schools and other requirements of or-
ganized society were beginning to appear. Population thinned
out to an edge a little more than one hundred miles to the west,
but Red River County had become the established center of
North Texas.
35
But full justification for the route of the National Road
can hardly be established until one understands more clearly
the early transportation routes accessible to North Texans,
and the way in which those routes fitted into the geog-
raphy of the Southwest. Besides the military road facili-
ties available to Fort Towson, other roads connected the Clarks-
ville-Jonesboro area with the settlements of Arkansas. One of
these was not very different from the path of the Clarksville-
Texarkana road in use today.
36 But all of these facilities for
travel and transportation ran northward or eastward, making
the citizens of North Texas in reality a part of the economy of
the United States.
To the south, however, in their means of communication and
exchange with their fellow Texans the North Texans were far
less fortunate. The first settlers of Jonesboro had no southward
travel facilities except by a few Indian trails and a dim path
known to them as the Spanish Trace.
37 An old trail from Jones-
boro to Nacogdoches, the origin of which is attributed to a
certain Mr. Trammel, was blazed about 1820.
38 An older road
called Trammel's Trace from Arkansas to Nacogdoches and
this trail from Jonesboro must have been partly identical, for
the Jonesboro trail itself was called Trammel's Trace.
39 At first
this route was only a horse path. As late as 1836 some evidence
indicates the possibility that there were still no wagon roads
connecting North Texas with South Texas.
40 In 1837, Holland
Coffee and his bride left Washington-on-the-Brazos for the
Coffee Trading Post on Red River, north of present-day Denison.
They were forced to make the long, round-about journey east-
ward by road to Nacogdoches, northward probably by Trammel's
Trace to Red River and then westward, perhaps one hundred
miles, by road to their new home.
41 In a few years a mail route
connected the Red River area with San Augustine,
42 but again
the road ran far to the east of a straight line between North
and South Texas. Information on just how early the first actual
wagon traffic began between Jonesboro and Nacogdoches is not
available, but the more direct link that was needed to join the
two parts of Texas came in 1840; in that year Colonel Cooke,
with a detachment of Texas soldiers, opened a road from Austin
to Coffee's Trading Post on Red River.
43 The name of Preston,
from one of Cooke's men, was given to the village that grew up
at Coffee's Trading Post, and Cooke's road has since been known
as the Preston Road. This road passed through the Waco village
on the Brazos and by Cedar Springs in central Dallas County.
Citizens of Jonesboro or Clarksville could now follow one of the
two roads that led westward into present Grayson County until
they reached this road, and could then follow it southward into
Austin, and to other points of South Texas.
But even this road was not the complete answer to the needs
of North Texas. The greater portion of the population, which
was still centered in and near Red River County, must travel
miles out of the way to reach South or Central Texas. Plainly,
the bill that created the National Road corrected this difficulty.
That act of Congress made a new, short-cut route available for
the inhabitants of the Jonesboro-Clarksville country. These
pioneers on far-away Red River could now follow the new road
southwest to the banks of the Trinity, and from there drive
southward down the Preston-Austin Road into the system of
roads and trails then in use in South Texas.
The National Road, instead of beginning at a dead-end on the
Trinity and ending at another dead-end on Red River, connected
the roads of Texas with the military roads from Fort Towson
into the United States. It connected Saint Louis with San
Antonio, and was, in fact, an international highway.
The Texas Congress named this new highway the "Central"
National Road, even though it led directly into the unsettled
frontier. Undoubtedly the Congress was thinking in terms of
future development; the great stream of immigrants that soon
began to flow justified the undertaking.
Nevertheless, the National Road did not play the glorified
role that the Congress may have visualized.
44 The fact that
Greenville shortly became a county seat town changed the course
of much of the traffic in the middle part of the road, and the
swift westward movement of the frontier caused the Preston and
other roads to share heavily in wagon travel that was soon to
double, triple, and quadruple the population of Texas.
geography of central Dallas County is part of that story, and
the route of Major Stell's survey in that area is also an essential
factor.
Two old river crossings on the Trinity were destined to wit-
ness one of the main currents of immigration into Texas and
even to have their moment of opportunity to profit from it.
One of these was John Neely Bryan's crossing-, just below the
site of the Union Station in present Dallas, and the other was
the Cedar Springs crossing,
45 some two or three miles upstream.
Just how early the rivalry between these places began is prob-
ably unknown, but their relations approached the stage of open
warfare by 1848. In that year, a man by the name of Collins
operated a ferry at the Cedar Springs crossing and Bryan like-
wise maintained one at the lower crossing. Bryan proposed to
the Dallas County Commissioners that, should the people of the
county select Dallas as the permanent county seat, he would
reward them with five years' free service of his ferry, but there
was the further provision (either proposed by Bryan or added
by the Commissioners) that Collins' license to operate a ferry
should be revoked.
46
Apparently nothing but intensified rivalry came from Bryan s
proposal, but four years earlier, when Major Stell began his
survey, it is probable that a more decisive factor in the battle
of the river crossings had already begun to operate.
It will be remembered that Stell's survey began on the bank
of the Trinity River at a certain cedar tree that has long since
disappeared. The only method left us now to discover the site
of that old tree is to go northeastward up the path of the early
road until a known point is found, then to survey backward to
the Trinity River. This plan of approach to the problem takes
us back to the east Dallas County line, three and three-quarter
miles north of Highway 80. Following Major Stell's field notes
in reverse does not prove exceedingly difficult except that pos-
sible error increases with the distance from any positively fixed
points on the old survey.
The old road extended almost three miles due west from the
county line, then southwest across Duck Creek, then swung
more toward the west, passing not far to the north of the pres-
ent village of New Hope and a few hundred yards north of
Buckner's Orphans Home, then turned westward to White Rock
Creek between the Texas & Pacific Railway and Highway 80.
Here map measurements lead almost to the present city limits
of Dallas.
The study should next follow the old road from White Rock
Creek directly into the city of Dallas itself. The old field notes
reveal that py the National Road it was three and one-tenth
miles between White Rock and Mill Creek,
47 that the area im-
mediately east of the crossing on Mill Creek was prairie, and
that at the road crossing the latter stream flowed southeast.
Correlating the Peters Colony Map of 1852 with present maps
of Dallas, one discovers that there was a strip of timber east
of Mill Creek in the area south of the Texas & Pacific tracks.
These facts recorded in Stell's field notes and the topography
of Dallas limit the band in which the National Road could have
crossed Dallas to a strip two or three hundred yards wide. The
route of that old trail stayed north of the Texas & Pacific rail-
road all of the way west to the Trinity River. The route was as
much as a half-mile north of the Texas State Fair Grounds, yet
south of the Ursuline Academy; it crossed Mill Creek just below
Exall Park at the place that Mill Creek flows southeast, and it
passed about half a mile north of the main business district of
Dallas.
48 The last span of the old road turned southwest for
about a quarter of a mile, and came to an end, or rather to a
beginning, at the railroad tracks a few hundred feet northwest
of the intersection of present Lamar Street with McKinney
Avenue. Apparently Major Stell's cedar tree at which he began
his survey was almost 2500 feet north of the Dallas County
Courthouse.
49
Seemingly this was a rather odd place for the location of
either end of a national highway, but an examination of the
Peters Colony map of 1852 shows that the Preston Road came
southward through Cedar Springs and approached Dallas
through the area that is now north of the court house. The cedar
tree at the beginning of the National Road was evidently at
the side of the Preston Road. From this junction point, the two
roads must have followed a common roadbed for the half-mile,
or a little more, that led down to the river crossing.
Obviously, then, the Central National Road of the Republic
of Texas connected with John Neely Bryan's crossing on the
Trinity River; equally obviously, the Preston Road from the
north and this new road from the northeast converged on this
point along the Trinity, ready to serve the great throng of
immigrants that was shortly coming, and it is especially im-
portant to note that "a little frontier village called Dallas stood
at the fork of the roads."
FOOTNOTES:
the Texas General Land Office. Hereafter this document is referred to as
Field Notes.
ard (Clarksville, Texas), March 2, 1844.
M. Williams of Lamar County, John Yeary of Fannin County (who lived
four miles south of the site of Honey Grove), Rowland W. Box of Hous-
ton County, and James Bradshaw of Nacogdoches County.
26, 1844, and completed their survey on May 26, 1844.
surveys begun at the same point and following the same field notes would
not likely follow the same exact path for any great distance unless there
were recognizable landmarks--stakes, rocks, witness trees, etc.--against
which to check the course. The fact that surveying is done on the earth,
which is spherical, and platted on maps, which are flat, further compli-
cates one's difficulties in following, on maps, a route surveyed on the earth.
the Texas General Land Office. The point at which the National Road
crossed the east Dallas County line is further confirmed by the field notes
of the near-by Henry D. Banks survey (Dallas County Surveying Records,
Vol. A, 263).
wall, Collin, Hunt, Fannin, Lamar, and Red River Counties (all dated
1936 but some of them partially revised to 1942) were used in this re-
search; maps of the same counties by the Texas General Land Office were
also used. Other maps will be cited specifically at their proper places.
Survey, Oct., 1912.
creating the National Road, was marked on either a tree or a substantial
post. Major Stell's plat and field notes gave the kind of timber or post
used at each mile of the road.
and Red River are cited in Major Stell's field notes by the names by
which they are still called. These are the Bois d'Arc Fork of the Trinity
in Rockwall County (more often called the East Fork), the three Caddo
Forks of the Sabine in Hunt County, the Cowleach Fork of the Sabine in
Hunt County, the South Fork of Sulphur River, also in Hunt County, and
Sulphur River itself in Fannin County. The writer has measured the
route of the National Road across present-day county maps, as previously
mentioned, and in no instance has he found one of the streams out of the
place assigned to it in Major Stell's field notes by more than a small frac-
tion of an inch. Even some of the very small streams that did not bear
names in the field notes may be identified on present maps. This close
correlation between the old field notes and topography is evidence that the
route of the National Road as shown in this paper is not greatly in error.
leach) fork of the Sabine with Hickory Creek. The National Road crossed
above the fork of these two streams (although Hickory Creek was not
called by name in the field notes). The crossing on Hickory Creek was
714 varas exactly northeast of the crossing on the Sabine. Obviously, with
this specific information at hand, neither map measurements nor actual
surveying on the ground can be guilty of more than a very small error
m locating the course followed by the National Road at this point.
Company c. 1875 shows the J. Loring surveys in the extreme southern part
of the county and just east of the site of Ladonia as that town appears
on present-day maps. An advertisement in the Northern Standard of
May 29, 1844, called the attention of prospective bidders to the fact that
the contract for opening the part of the National Road between the Trinity
and Sulphur rivers would be let at John Loring's house on July 1, 1844.
The contract for the remainder of the road was to be opened for bids in
Paris on July 10.
of this map and the present map of the same county by the Texas Highway
Department establishes the relative position of the present bridge and the
Lyday survey.
biography of Andrew Davis," The Southwestern Historical Quarterly,
XLIII, 332, 333. Apparently Fort Lyday was built by the cooperative
effort of the pioneers of the area. The fact that the fort was down Sulphur
River some eight or ten miles from the home of Daniel Davis indicates
that it was on or near Lyday's land, and the further fact that the buffalo
sometimes came down to the fort and mixed with the cattle would cause
one to surmise that it was on the prairie north of the Sulphur River
bottom.
joins Sulphur River on the north side. A short distance below the mouth
of that creek (or one at least similarly located) Major Stell's plat shows
the crossing of the National Road on Sulphur River. Trigonometric cal-
culations from the field notes do not show the distance from this crossing
to the point where the old road crossed Tollett Creek (Early's Creek in
the field notes) so exactly as do the measurements on modern maps, but
the discrepancy is small.
Historical Quarterly, XLIII, 335.
lots on Bonham Street and part of its eastward extension called attention
to the fact that they fronted on the National Road.
County indicate that parts of the present road are identical with the
National Road.
1256, 1257, 1321. Hereafter this testimony will be referred to as Greer
County Record. The testimony of R. H. Burnett and Thomas F. Ragsdale
in the Greer County case indicates that the Chihuahua Traders came from
Fort Towson by the mouth of the Kiamichi River and by Pinhook (which
was just east of the site of Paris). That this party of merchants who
came in 1840 found or opened a road through the points mentioned makes
it certain that Stell's survey in this area was either along or near a
traveled road.
National Road by trigonometric calculations. Beginning at the point just
east of Dallas County where this road crossed the East Fork of the
Trinity River, and progressing northeastwardly, the results of these cal-
culations are as follows: From this beginning place to the crossing on
the west branch of the Caddo Forks of the Sabine is 20.30 miles north
and 13.74 miles east; from this stream to the southeast corner of the John
Yeary survey is 2.66 miles north and 3.56 miles east; from here to the
Cowleach Fork of the Sabine is 3.02 miles north and 2.80 miles east; from
here to the south fork of Sulphur River is 6.85 miles north and 3.72 miles
east; from here to Sulphur River is 9.64 miles north and 12.52 miles east;
from here to the 100th mile post of the road on Bonham street in Paris
is 13.42 miles north, and 17.20 miles east; from here to the 121st mile
post of the road (where it made the first contact with Red River) is
13.96 miles north and 15.21 miles east, and from here to the point on Red
River opposite the mouth of the Kiamichi is 5.89 miles north and 3.56
miles east. These calculations have reduced Major Stell's field notes from
varas to miles (rounded off to the nearest hundredth) and have changed
and combined the distances and angle data from point to point given in
the surveyors' notes into simple statements of the distances north and
east from each point to the next. Thus the writer has been able to check
total distances across the map against the route of the National Road as
he has platted it directly from field notes. No important errors have been
discovered, and the line representing the route of the old road made on
the maps with drawing instruments has been rather closely confirmed.
eral Land Office map of Red River County of 1905). This old survey be-
came the property of Travis Wright in 1839 (acquired from his brother
George) and has remained in his family ever since; George Travis Wright,
a grandson who lives on Bonham Street in Paris, is the present owner.
Wright's Landing was on the Red River front of this tract of land, op-
posite the mouth of the Kiamichi River (A. W. Neville, The History of
Lamar County, 81, 244, 245).
J. Claiborne, agent for the steamboat Texas, denied rumors that this boat
would not carry cargo above Wright's Landing whenever the depth of
the water in Red River made it possible. Great cargoes of cotton and other
commodities were transported on Red River as high as Preston, north
of present-day Denison, but this traffic was only possible when the condi-
tions of the river were favorable. It should be borne in mind that river
travel below Wright's Landing, while less uncertain than travel above that
point, was itself of an intermittent character.
21. This work was compiled by workers of the Writers' Programs of the
Works Projects Administration in the State of Oklahoma.
organized in 1846 (Texas Almanac 1939-40, 400, 404, 416 and 425). There
were no county seat towns in Texas west of the present limits of Fannin
County in 1844. Grayson County had a population of about 500 when or-
ganized in 1846. (Mattie Davis Lucas and Mita Holsapple Hall, A History
of Grayson County, Texas.)
evidently a military trail by which the Spaniards reached Red River, was
within present Red River County, about three or four miles from its west
boundary. Vial, in 1788, found a dim trail that entered the "Nacitoches
Forest." Possibly it was identical with the Spanish Trace (Greer County
Record, 908-13).
Historical Quarterly, XLIII, 323.
In the Land Office of Texas, And Other Official Surveys (London, 1841).
The full route of Trammel's Trace from Jonesboro to Nacogdoches is shown
on this map. Some of the route has been repeated from older records on
the later Texas Land Office maps. It is shown on the maps of Rusk
County of 1895, of Panola County, 1897, of Harrison County, 1920, and
of Marion County, 1920.
Historical Quarterly, XLIII, 327.
Austin, Wm. H. Hunt, Engineer, 1840. Drawn by H. L. Upshur, 1841.
This old map is in the library of the University of Texas.
Waxahachie was made 30 feet wide and declared a first class road. All
other roads in Dallas County were made 20 feet wide and declared to be
second class (Dallas County Commissioners' Court Minutes, A, 106).
Thus it appears that for a few years the National Road (from McKenzie's
Ferry to Dallas) was part of the most important thoroughfare in Dallas
County. In 1852 the Commissioners of Lamar County granted William
Russell and Josiah Ashby a franchise to build causeways closely parallel-
ing the National Road across the three principal creeks between Paris
and Pine Bluff; tolls were charged on these causeways. The entire route
of the National Road across Lamar County was declared a first class
highway (A. W. Neville, The History of Lamar County, 95). However,
despite these evidences of its early importance, the National Road did
not hold the spotlight very long--it does not appear on any of the
numerous old maps of Texas that the writer has examined.
shows these crossings, although it does not name them. This map was
made from surveying notes and should be far more accurate as to detail
than maps not so constructed.
probably prompted to make his proposition because the State Legislature
had just passed a law prescribing the method by which the voters of a
county might select their county seat.
Creek is not. But there is no other stream that can at all qualify.
route of the National Road through Dallas. Exhaustive measurements
on the Texas Highway Department's map of Dallas were made until the
place was found at which Major Stell's field notes almost exactly fitted
the space between White Rock and Mill Creek. The writer then went to
Dallas, followed the course of Mill Creek on foot as far as obstructions
would permit, and had an interview with Henry L. Stokey, who has lived
in the immediate area for the past sixty-three years. Stokey reports that
the prairie came to the banks of Mill Creek on its east side only between
Exall Park and Gastón Avenue and that the present southeasterly course
of the stream between these points follows the original stream bed. It
should be noted that Stokey's information roughly confirms the Peters
Colony map of 1852 as to the distribution of timber and prairie and that
the combined evidence leaves no other place for one to locate the crossing
of the National Road on Mill Creek except between Gastón Avenue and
Exall Park, for Major Stell, according to his notes, entered prairie im-
mediately east of Mill Creek at the place where that stream flowed south-
east. To make doubly sure as to the accuracy of this conclusion, measure-
ments were made on the immense map of Dallas that hangs in the Records
Building at Dallas (property of the Fidelity Union Abstract & Title Co.).
Olen Coats, a draftsman in the Records Building, volunteered to plat the
field notes of the old road (to the correct scale) on tracing paper and to
find the place where the drawing fitted this large map. Coats' drawing,
representing the course of the road from White Rock to Mill Creek, fitted
the map without apparent error in the following course:
Beginning on White Rock Creek about 1250 feet south of U. S. Highway
80 (East Pike), then 8780 feet in a direction 6 degrees north of west to a
point in Ash Lane about 250 feet northeast of Fitzhugh Street, then due
west 5280 feet to a point about 300 feet southwest from the intersection
of Junius and Haskell Avenue and then 2300 feet in a direction 10 de-
grees south of west to Mill Creek at a point about 200 feet north of Swiss
Avenue, which is about midway between Exall Park and Gaston Avenue.
Mr. W. S. Beesley, head of the Map and Plat Book Department in the
Records Building, regards this large map used by Coats as the most ac-
curate map of Dallas to be found, which emphasizes the accuracy of
Coats' drawing.
The route of the National Road as platted by Coats is about a quarter
of a mile north of the path which that road would assume if Major StelPs
field notes were platted without reference to topography. But the old field
notes evidently contain a small error, since the plat and field notes do not
themselves agree on an eight mile course of the road in east Dallas County.
The route as platted by Coats is the only route found by the writer that
satisfies all conditions of topography and direction, and it corresponds
closely with the exhaustive measurements previously made on the Texas
Highway Map of Dallas.
Fidelity Union Map of Dallas) and is in the part of Dallas in which cedar
trees originally were numerous.
In the accompanying map of Dallas the route of the National Road was
drawn according to the Coats plat. The location of old Cedar Springs,
the original townsite of Dallas, and the route of the old Preston Road are
made (roughly calculated to scale) from the Peters Colony map of 1852.
How to cite:
J. W. Williams, "National Road of the Republic of Texas", Volume 47, Number 3, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v047/n3/contrib_DIVL3961.html
[Accessed Thu Dec 4 12:29:17 CST 2008]
