Burnet County, Texas
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

Burnet County Facts

Burnet County was created on February 5, 1852 (Organized in 1854) and formed from Bell, Williamson and Travis Counties. Burnet County was named for David Gouverneur Burnet, the first president of the Republic of Texas. The County Seat is Burnet. The Official County website is located at http://www.burnetcountytexas.org.

Areas adjacent to Burnet County are Lampasas County (north), Bell County (northeast), Williamson County (east), Travis County (southeast), Blanco County (south), Llano County (west), San Saba County (northwest)

See also Extended History for more historical details.

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

Burnet County Vital Records

Burnet County Census Records

Burnet County Maps & Atlases

Burnet County Military Records

Burnet County Tax Records

Burnet County Genealogical Addresses

Burnet 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 Burnet County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information. Email us with websites containing Burnet 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including dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other how-to books, can be tremendously helpful in finding and interpreting historical documents.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.
Burnet County, Texas Family Books at Amazon.com

Extended History

Burnet County, in central Texas, is bordered by Lampasas, Bell, Williamson, Travis, Blanco, Llano, and San Saba counties. Burnet, the county seat, is at the intersection of U.S. Highway 281 and State Highway 29 and on the Austin and Northwestern Railroad, about fifty miles northwest of Austin and 150 miles southwest of Fort Worth.

Central Texas, including Burnet County, has supported human habitation for several thousand years. Although the archeology of Burnet County has not been fully studied, several prehistoric campsites have been found along the rivers and their tributaries. The hunting and gathering peoples who had established themselves in the area by about 4500 b.c. were probably ancestors of the Tonkawa Indians. No evidence of Spanish exploration or settlement has been found in Burnet County, although missions were established in the 1740s and 1750s in neighboring San Saba County. In the early nineteenth century, surveyors found the local Tonkawa and Lipan Apache groups to be friendly, but the Comanches made frequent raids into the area.

The northeastern section of Burnet County was included in the colonization grant obtained by Robert Leftwich from the Mexican government in 1825, and was later part of Robertson's colony. No grants were made in the Burnet County area of the colony until 1835. The remainder of the county was part of the Austin-Williams colony, but no grants were made in the county under that contract. Several surveying and Indian-fighting expeditions from the colonies of Stephen F. Austin and Green DeWittq ventured into Burnet County in the 1820s and 1830s, but no permanent settlement occurred. At the time of Texas independence, most of the area was still public domain; through the mid-1840s settlers preferred the relative security of communities farther to the east.

In the 1840s, after the annexation of Texas to the United States, the federal government became responsible for the protection of frontier settlers from Indian raids. Several companies of Texas Rangers, financed by the federal government, were stationed along the frontier. In December 1847 a company commanded by Henry E. McCulloch took up a position about three miles south of the site of present Burnet. Samuel E. Holland visited McCulloch's station in 1848 and purchased the 1,280-acre John P. Rozier grant, including the land on which the ranger station was located; the residence he built on that land is said to have been the first permanent home in Burnet County. When the Rangers were relieved by a company of United States Dragoons in December, 1848, Holland protested the construction of a fort on his property; as a result, Fort Croghan was established at the site of future Burnet, three miles to the north. The military abandoned Fort Croghan in December 1853, when it was thought that the population of the area was sufficient to hold its own against the remaining Indians.

The presence of troops had encouraged settlers to make their homes in Burnet County. Among these were such county notables as Noah Smithwick, Logan Vandeveer, and Peter Kerr.q A group of Mormons led by Lyman Wight established a colony at the falls of Hamilton Creek in 1851. By December 1851 the population of the region was large enough to warrant petitioning for the foundation of a new county. Burnet County was formed by the Fourth Texas Legislature on February 5, 1852, from parts of Travis, Williamson, and Bell counties. It was named for David G. Burnet, president of the provisional government of the Republic of Texas. The first county officials were elected later that year.

Residents of the new county were divided on the issue of where to locate the county seat. Some thought it should be on Oatmeal Creek, east of the watershed separating the Brazos and Colorado rivers; others wanted it to be on Delaware Creek, just southwest of the site of Burnet. The faction that won included Vandeveer, Holland, and Kerr, who argued that Hamilton should be the county seat. To help convince people, Kerr donated 100 acres to the county for a townsite. The first post office in the county was established at Hamilton in 1853; the name of the town was changed to Burnet in February 1858.

By 1860 Burnet County had 2,487 residents. Aside from Burnet, the earliest settlements in the county were Smithwick, Oatmeal, and the Backbone Valley community. Stock raising and subsistence farming formed the basis of the early economy. In 1860 county farmers reported having more than 30,000 head of cattle and 11,000 hogs; they grew corn and wheat as food crops, producing 23,900 and 10,200 bushels respectively.

The first efforts at education in Burnet County were hampered by the constant threat of Indian attacks. In the 1850s some early schools were conducted under shade trees, the older boys keeping rifles ready for protection. Small community schools, such as those at Hairston Creek, Pool Branch, Hoover's Valley, and Oatmeal, provided basic education in the county until the establishment of a district system in the 1890s. Marble Falls Alliance University was established in 1890, but did not last long as a college. Extensive schooling for most children was a luxury that came second to helping out on the family farm. In 1896 the county superintendent of schools reported a need for a uniform series of textbooks, better enrollment and attendance, better teaching conditions, and more experienced teachers. Improvements in the system came slowly: in 1940 only 10 percent of the county's population over twenty-five years old were high school graduates. Large-scale consolidation of common-school districts into larger, independent school districts took place in the 1930s and 1940s. As the job market expanded during the next forty years, so did the percentage of residents who finished school. By 1960 nearly 18 percent were high school graduates, and by 1980 the number represented more than 60 percent of the population over twenty-five.

Among the earliest churches in the county were a congregation at Mormon Mill in 1851, a Christian church established at Sycamore Springs in 1851, a Baptist church established on Oatmeal Creek in 1854, and a Church of Christ established at Burnet in 1856. Few communities had their own preacher; itinerant ministers held periodic camp meetings to which people came from miles away. One of the first of these was held in the fall of 1855 by Methodists at Sand Springs, south of Burnet. The first land deed specifically for church purposes was executed in 1859 in Backbone Valley. Most often, early church services were held in a building that also served as the schoolhouse. A Catholic church was established at Burnet in 1930; an African Methodist Episcopal church was established there in 1953. In the early 1980s the county's forty-seven churches had an estimated combined membership of 10,329; Southern Baptist, Church of Christ, and United Methodist were the largest denominations.

Although most early residents of Burnet County came from other Texas counties or other Southern states, the slave population was relatively small; the 235 slaves reported in the 1860 census were divided among sixty-nine owners. The greatest concentration of slaves was in the area of Spicewood and Double Horn Creek. Among the factors contributing to the low number of slaves was the fact that Burnet County was relatively new, and residents had not had time to acquire a great deal of property; also, the soil in the county did not lend itself well to large-scale farming. There were several big ranches in the county, but no plantation-like operations.

Thomas Moore represented Burnet County at the Secession Convention in January 1861 and voted for secession; county voters, however, rejected the ordinance of secession later that year by a margin of 248 to 159. The issue continued to be a source of division, as demonstrated by the number of Unionists' bodies found at Dead Man's Hole, but in spite of the initial majority opposition to secession, residents of Burnet County contributed both men and supplies to the Confederate war effort. More tension would likely have existed between Unionists and secessionists, except that most of the men who were part of the Confederate Army were in frontier companies formed to protect the county more from outlaws and Indians than from Yankees. Crime was rampant in Burnet County in the 1860s and 1870s. In addition to occasional Indian raids, residents had to contend with counterfeiters and cattle thieves. There were also incidents of white outlaws masquerading as Indians so as to divert blame from themselves. During Reconstruction, several Burnet County men, who had been active in the pursuit of outlaws and Indian raiders, were arrested by Union forces, taken to Austin, and held for several weeks on charges of impeding Reconstruction. Although the men were later released, the incident caused considerable ill-feeling. In 1869 the county's lopsided election returns for Andrew J. Hamilton over Edmund J. Davisq indicated that the local government had been returned to Democratic rule.

Burnet County suffered a severe economic decline immediately after the Civil War and throughout Reconstruction. Between 1864 and 1866, the county as a whole lost 64 percent of tax revenues. A little more than a quarter of the loss was in slaves; the rest came from declines in total farm acreage, farm value, and livestock value, each of which fell 25 to 50 percent by the time of the 1870 census. Recovery was slow because transportation was poor and the economy was so dependent on agriculture.

After the war some former slaves left the county, but many stayed. A group of them settled on land in the eastern part of Oatmeal. In 1870 the black population of the county had increased to 358, keeping pace with the growth of the total number of residents; the number of blacks had fallen to 248 by 1880, however, and the number of new white residents was such that after 1890, blacks represented less than 3 percent of the total population. Some found work on farms and ranches, but by the turn of the century many had moved into the Marble Falls area to work in town.

Burnet County, Texas
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

Burnet County Court Records

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

Burnet County Vital Records

See Also Vital Records in Texas

Burnet County Census Records

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

Burnet County Maps & Atlases

See Also Research In State Map Collections

Burnet County Military Records

See Also Military Records in Texas

Burnet County Tax Records

See Also Research In Tax Records

Burnet County Genealogical Addresses

See Also Other Texas Genealogical Addresses

Burnet County Church & Cemeteries

See Also Church & Cemetery Records in Texas

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

Extended History

Burnet County, Texas History, Records, Facts and Genealogy

Burnet County Court Records

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

Burnet County Vital Records

See Also Vital Records in Texas

Burnet County Census Records

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

Burnet County Maps & Atlases

See Also Research In State Map Collections

Burnet County Military Records

See Also Military Records in Texas

Burnet County Tax Records

See Also Research In Tax Records

Burnet County Genealogical Addresses

See Also Other Texas Genealogical Addresses

Burnet County Church & Cemeteries

See Also Church & Cemetery Records in Texas

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

Extended History

Burnet County, Texas
History, Records, Facts and Genealogy