Brazos County, Texas
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

Brazos County Facts

Brazos County was created in 1841 (Created as Navasota County) and formed from Washington and Robertson Counties. Brazos County was named for the Brazos River (along with Brazoria County). The County Seat is Bryan. The Official County website is located at http://www.co.brazos.tx.us. The Brazos County courthouse was built in 1956 of brick, concrete and some marble. The structure was designed by the firm of Caudill, Rowlett & Scott and built at a cost of $800,000.

Areas adjacent to Brazos County are Madison County (northeast), Grimes County (east), Washington County (south), Burleson County (southwest), Robertson County (northwest)

See also Extended History for more historical details.

Brazos County, Texas History Books at Amazon.com
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Brazos County Court Records

Brazos County Vital Records

Brazos County Census Records

Brazos County Maps & Atlases

Brazos County Military Records

Brazos County Tax Records

Brazos County Genealogical Addresses

Brazos County Church & Cemeteries

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

The use of published genealogies, electronic files containing genealogical lineage, and other compiled sources can be of tremendous value to a researcher.

When view family trees online or not, be sure to only take the info at face value and always follow up with your own sources or verify the ones they provide. Below is a list of online resources for Brazos County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information. Email us with websites containing Brazos County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information by clicking the link below:

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Reference Materials & Finding Aids - Reference materials, including dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other how-to books, can be tremendously helpful in finding and interpreting historical documents. Many of these books can help you learn where to look for more information and how to use what you've already found to uncover more clues.
Brazos County, Texas Family Books at Amazon.com

Extended History

The territory that is now Brazos County was included in Stephen F. Austin's second colony and became part of Washington Municipality under the Mexican government. Colonists who sought plantation sites on the Brazos between 1821 and 1831 included Elliot McNeil Millican, Richard Carter,q James H. Evetts, Melvan Lanham, Lee C. Smith, and Mordecai Boon. In 1837 most of the area of present-day Brazos County was included in Washington County. The Brazos River, which bisected the latter, proved a serious obstacle to county government, and a new county, Navasota, was formed in January 1841. The first court, with Judge R. E. B. Baylor presiding, was held later that year in the home of Joseph Ferguson, fourteen miles west of the site of present Bryan. The county seat, named Boonville for Mordecai Boon, was located on John Austin's league and was surveyed by Hiram Hanover in 1841. In January of the following year Navasota County was renamed Brazos County. The 1850 census showed 466 whites and 148 black slaves in the county. Of the approximately 176,000 acres in farms at that time, less than 2,000 acres was cleared for crops. Farmers concentrated on growing corn and a bit of cotton. The county remained overwhelmingly rural in the 1850s; only two families lived in the county seat in 1852, and only two post offices, Boonville and Millican, operated in the county in 1856.

In 1860 growth in the county was speeded by the arrival of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad, with Millican as its terminus. By that year the county had some 14,509 acres under cultivation, and cotton production had increased from 142 bales in 1850 to 2,269 bales. On the eve of the Civil War, Brazos County had a mixed economy of small farms and a few larger plantations, with a population of 1,713 whites and 1,063 slaves. Of the 118 slaveholders in the county, seventy-seven owned fewer than five slaves, and only four owned more than fifty. The county voted 215 to 44 for secession in 1861 and mobilized its inhabitants for the war. The railhead at Millican became an important transportation center for the Confederate war effort, and a training camp was established nearby in 1861. Local men formed companies or parts of companies in the Twenty-first and Twenty-fifth Texas Cavalry regiments, the Tenth Texas Infantry regiment, and other army units, and participated in various home and state guard units. During the war the Brazos County Commissioners Court acted to gather supplies for the Confederacy and assist the indigent families of men serving in the armed forces.

Federal troops arrived in Millican in June 1865, when Brazos County began almost eight years of Reconstruction turmoil. County blacks and white landowners struggled to work out their new economic and social relations, and a series of Freedmen's Bureau agents, occasionally backed by small numbers of federal soldiers, attempted to mediate between the groups. While black children attended school for the first time at Millican and at Wilson's Plantation, whites and blacks quarreled constantly over labor contracts, and interracial violence became increasingly common. This strife reached its peak in the Millican race riot of 1868. The Ku Klux Klan made its first appearance in the county in June of that year, when a group of masked men paraded through the black neighborhood in Millican. Armed blacks fired at the Klan members, drove them off, and organized a militia company under the leadership of George Brooks, a black clergyman who had also been active in registering black voters and was much hated by some white county residents. In July false rumors spread among the black community of Millican that a local black leader, Miles Brown, had been lynched by whites. Escalating tensions on both sides eventually led to several armed confrontations between groups of whites and blacks that left at least six blacks dead, including Brooks.

Brazos County politics was also tumultuous in the postwar period. Immediately after the war, during the presidential phase of Reconstruction, former Confederates were allowed to hold local office and the prewar political structure of the county remained unchanged. At the end of 1867 many officeholders were removed from office by federal authorities as part of the new policies of congressional Reconstruction, and by the following year the county was dominated by the Republican party. Powerful local families like the Millicans, who were leaders in the Democratic party, and the Myerses, who were prominent Republicans, engaged in questionable voting practices and occasional violence in the struggle to control county politics. By the time of the gubernatorial election of 1873, Brazos County was once again Democratic by a slim majority. Blacks continued to hold office on the county commissioners' court through the 1880s, and one county black, Elias Mayes, served in the Texas House of Representatives in 1879 and 1889. In 1890 local white Democrats instituted a "White Man's Campaign" similar to the white primary movement in other counties, which acted to disfranchise black voters. The Republican party remained a force in county elections for a time, and Brazos County voted for Republican presidential candidates in 1888 and 1896. From the election of 1900 until the 1950s, however, the county remained solidly Democratic. Subsequently, county voters supported Republican presidential candidates in 1952 and 1956, and from 1968 through 2004.

While county residents worked out the social and political problems left by the Civil War, the county prospered and grew. In 1866 the Houston and Texas Central Railroad resumed construction past Millican, and county citizens voted to make a site on the railroad line, the new community of Bryan, their county seat. Both Millican and the former county seat, Boonville, declined rapidly as their inhabitants moved themselves, their goods, and in some cases, the lumber from their homes and stores to Bryan. By 1870 Brazos County had 9,205 inhabitants, more than a three-fold increase since 1860. Cotton production had also tripled since 1860, and for the first time county ranchers raised cattle and hogs in substantial numbers. Sheep ranching reached an all-time county record in 1870, when 8,565 sheep were counted, in contrast to only 219 in 1860.

Population growth continued at a more modest rate in the next few decades, reaching 13,576 in 1880 and 16,650 in 1890. The black population of the county increased more rapidly than the white, growing from 3,759 in 1870 to 6,250 in 1880. In 1890 the number of African Americans reached 8,845, and for the only time in its history the county had a black majority. Beginning in the 1870s substantial numbers of Germans, Austrians, and Czechsq (Bohemians) migrated to the county, and Italians began arriving in the 1880s. In 1900 the county population reached 18,859. Of the 10,005 white residents that year, 1,403, or 14 percent, were foreign born, including 553 from Italy, 239 from Germany, and 223 from Bohemia. Settlement and economic growth were hastened in the county by transportation developments in the last decades of the nineteenth century. In the 1880s the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway built through the southern part of the county and the Hearne and Brazos Valley Railway built through the northwest. In 1900 the International-Great Northern built through to Bryan, and in 1910 the Bryan and College Station Interurban Railway was started between Bryan and Texas A&M College.

In the last decades of the nineteenth century and the early years of the twentieth century cotton increasingly dominated county agriculture. Acres planted with cotton grew from 28,044 in 1880 to almost 44,000 in 1890 and to an all-time high of 72,275, about a third of all improved acres in the county, in 1910. About half the cotton acreage was usually allotted to corn, the second major crop in the county. The county also followed the general Southern pattern of large numbers of small farms, many of them worked by tenants and sharecroppers. The number of farms increased from 666 in 1870 to 1,630 in 1880 and 2,088 in 1890. In 1900, of the 2,613 farms in the county, 1,576, or 60 percent, were worked by tenants and sharecroppers. Black farmers were much less likely to own land than their white counterparts. In 1900 more than half of the white farmers owned their own farms, while only 20 percent of black farmers were owners. In 1920 the number of farms reached a peak of 3,023, and the number of tenant farmers reached its zenith at 1,939, or 64 percent. As a percentage of the total cropland harvested, cotton land probably reached its peak in 1930, when more than 64,000 of the 88,224 acres harvested was used to grow cotton. Thereafter, county farming began to change in response to changing technologies and opportunities. During the Great Depression much of the rural workforce left the county to seek work in the cities of Texas or left the state entirely. By 1940 the number of farms had fallen to 1,773, comparable to the number of farms back in 1880. Mechanized farming began in the bottomlands of the county along the rivers in the late 1920s and slowly spread to other parts of the county. With the loss of even more of the rural labor supply after World War II, farmers consolidated their holdings and turned to tractors, mechanical cotton harvesters, and other machines to work their fields.

Brazos County, Texas
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

Brazos County Court Records

See Also Texas Land Records, Marriage Records, Court & Probate Records

Brazos County Vital Records

See Also Vital Records in Texas

Brazos County Census Records

See Also Research In Census Records & Statewide Records that exist for Texas

Brazos County Maps & Atlases

See Also Research In State Map Collections

Brazos County Military Records

See Also Military Records in Texas

Brazos County Tax Records

See Also Research In Tax Records

Brazos County Genealogical Addresses

See Also Other Texas Genealogical Addresses

Brazos County Church & Cemeteries

See Also Church & Cemetery Records in Texas

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

Extended History

Brazos County, Texas History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

Brazos County Court Records

See Also Texas Land Records, Marriage Records, Court & Probate Records

Brazos County Vital Records

See Also Vital Records in Texas

Brazos County Census Records

See Also Research In Census Records & Statewide Records that exist for Texas

Brazos County Maps & Atlases

See Also Research In State Map Collections

Brazos County Military Records

See Also Military Records in Texas

Brazos County Tax Records

See Also Research In Tax Records

Brazos County Genealogical Addresses

See Also Other Texas Genealogical Addresses

Brazos County Church & Cemeteries

See Also Church & Cemetery Records in Texas

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

Extended History

Brazos County, Texas
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy