Start your family tree. We'll start searching. It's FREE. - Enter a few simple facts about recent generations of your family. We'll use what you enter to try and find more about your family in the world's largest online collection of historical records and family trees.

Gonzales County History and Information

Gonzales County Facts

Gonzales County was created in 1836 (Organized in 1837) and formed as a Original County. Gonzales County was named for its county seat. The County Seat is Gonzales. The Official County website is located at http://www.co.gonzales.tx.us/. See also Extended History for more historical details.

Areas adjacent to Gonzales County are Fayette County (northeast), Lavaca County (east), Dewitt County (southeast), Karnes County (southwest), Wilson County (southwest), Guadalupe County (west), Caldwell County (northwest)

Built in 1896 in Romanesque Revival style, this magnificent courthouse was the architectural masterpiece of the famed J. Riely Gordon. It was constructed of red brick and pre cut concrete blocks by the contracting firm of Otto Kroeger at a cost of $ 64,450. The structure is in the form of a Greek cross, and although it looks symmetrical, there are very few dimensions that are the same anywhere on the building whether it be the exterior or the interior.

Gonzales County Records Center and Archives, P.O. Box 80, Gonzales, TX 78629
Gonzales County, Texas History Books at Amazon.com
Family History Library - The largest collection of free family history, family tree and genealogy records in the world.
Search Historical Newspapers from Texas (1802 - 1993) - Quickly find names and keywords in over 125 million articles, obituaries, marriage notices, birth announcements and other items published in more than 500,000 issues of over 2,500 historical U.S. newspapers. New content added monthly!
Stories, Memories & Histories - Stories and histories compiled by others researching a person or area can be an amazing source of information about your ancestors. Not only do they generally contain dates and places of vital events like birth, marriage, and death, but they often relate stories and memories that help you really get to know the character of your ancestors.

Gonzales County Court Records

Gonzales County Vital Records

Gonzales County Census Records

Gonzales County Maps & Atlases

Gonzales County Military Records

Gonzales County Tax Records

Gonzales County Genealogical Addresses

Gonzales 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 Gonzales County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information. Email us with websites containing Gonzales County Family Trees, web forums and other family type information by clicking the link below:

Search for Local Texas Researchers or Earn Money by becoming a Local Texas Researcher!
Search 60 Years Of Everton Data: For the first time ever you can get access to more than 150,000 pedigree files and family group sheets from Evertons. Learn More
Search the Family Tree DNA Project- Use DNA testing to break through your genealogical barriers!
Sites on USGenweb: [ Gonzales County ] [ Texas ] [ Main Page ]
[GenForum Message Boards] [Rootsweb Message Boards]
Genealogy Encyclopedia: General Abbreviations, Early Illnesses, Nickname Meanings, Worldwide Epidemics, Early Occupations, Common Terms, Censuses Explained, Free Genealogical Forms
Nichols and Related Families of Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virgina.
The Texas Family Group Sheet Project
Family Trees - Ancestry has thousands of family trees shared by other members. They can help you identify how ancestors are related and give you clues about birth, marriage, and death information. Family trees are an excellent resource for filling in gaps in your research or even to simply know where to begin.
Pictures - One of the more exciting discoveries in doing family history research is finding a photograph of your ancestors or their residence. Finding historic postcard photos and drawings of towns and important events throughout history can also give you a visual look into your ancestors lives.
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.
Gonzales County, Texas Family Books at Amazon.com

Extended History

Empresario Green C. DeWitt's petition for a land grant to establish a colony in Texas was approved by the Mexican government on April 15, 1825. In January 1825, confident that the grant would be awarded, he had appointed James Kerr to survey the colony and its capital. Though Kerr selected a site near the confluence of the Guadalupe and San Marcos rivers to be the capital, he and his assistants built cabins near a creek (ever after called Kerr's Creek) while the townsite of the capital was being surveyed. This group became the first Anglo community west of the Colorado River. After two Indian attacks, the first probably the work of the Waco Indians and the second by the Tonkawas, Kerr's group abandoned their cabins in July 1826. DeWitt's colonists settled for a time at a site called Old Station, about six miles from the mouth of the Lavaca River. The Mexican government, however, refused their request to remain at Old Station, and late in 1827 some settlers returned to the Gonzales townsite that Kerr had surveyed. When Jean Louis Berlandier passed through in April 1828, he found six cabins near the river crossing, encircled by a fort-like barricade; other cabins were located in the surrounding forest. Cotton and corn had been planted, and there were domestic cows, pigs, and some horses. Buffalo were present, and nearby were two permanent Indian villages, one of Tonkawas and the other of Karankawas.

Within three years more than 100 families had arrived to settle in DeWitt's colony. The Mexican government refused to recognize Kerr as the official surveyor, and Byrd Lockhart was appointed in 1831 to resurvey the townsite. A population of 532 in 1831 convinced the Mexican government to send a six-pound cannon to Gonzales for protection against Indian raids. DeWitt's colony sent delegates to the conventions of 1832 and 1833and to the Consultation of 1835. The Mexican government considered the conventions a treasonable act, and in September 1835 Mexican troops were sent to Gonzales to retrieve the cannon. On October 2, at the battle of Gonzales, the colonists resisted the attempts of Mexican troops to confiscate what came to be known as the Gonzales "come and take it" cannon. This was the first armed encounter of the Texas Revolution. Stephen F. Austin arrived in Gonzales and was elected the first commander in chief of the revolutionary army by the volunteers, many of whom took part in the siege of Bexar. Thirty-two men from DeWitt's colony who answered the call for assistance at the Alamo, and eight or nine other men from the colony who had volunteered earlier, perished at the battle of the Alamo. Sam Houston's order to retreat and the burning of Gonzales after the battle of the Alamo began the Runaway Scrape.

Gonzales County, named for the capital of Green DeWitt's colony, was established in 1836 and organized in 1837 as one of the original counties in the Republic of Texas. It occupied the same area as DeWitt's colony-a territory some sixty miles long and twenty-five miles wide, with an area of 1,100 square miles. After the annexation of Texas to the United States in 1845, portions of Gonzales County were detached to form what are now the counties of Caldwell, Comal, DeWitt, Fayette, Guadalupe, Jackson, Lavaca, and Victoria. James W. Robinson, the first official of Gonzales County, was appointed district judge by the Congress of the Republic of Texas in 1836. In 1837 an election was held for the "depopulated counties"; those settlers who had participated in the Runaway Scrape or were temporarily living in other locations voted in this election. On December 14, 1837, the first Gonzales county court was organized, with B. D. McClure as chief justice. The settlers of DeWitt's colony obtained land grants and patents in the fertile blackland valleys of the Guadalupe and San Marcos rivers and along the major creeks, including Plum Creek (now in Caldwell County), Rocky Creek (now in Lavaca County), Peach Creek (named Arroyo de los Theodolites before Anglo settlement), Sandy Fork, and Sandies and Salt creeks. Early Gonzales County settlers had established farms and ranches first in the river valleys, then in the sandy lands, and finally on the black mesquite uplands. Settlers from soil-exhausted southern states quickly converted the rich alluvial soil into productive acreage, finding it possible to grow peaches, grapes, plums, pears, figs, apples, and apricots. Timber was harvested early in the county's history, and walnut was used by skilled local cabinetmakers. Some wheat was raised in the early years, and all kinds of vegetables and some fruits have been raised throughout Gonzales County history, but cotton and corn became the chief crops in the county. Salt was pressed by the pioneers on the salt flats near Pilgrim but was never produced in commercial quantities. By 1840, cotton, corn, potatoes, sugarcane, rye, oats, and barley were produced in abundance, along with significant numbers of hogs and sheep. Early trade passed through Indianola, roughly 100 miles away.

County residents joined in the fight against Indian and Mexican incursions during the 1840s. After the Comanche Indians raided Victoria and Linnville in August 1840, a number of Gonzales County men joined other volunteers in the attack and defeat of the Indians in the battle of Plum Creek in nearby Caldwell County. During the Mexican invasions of 1842, volunteers from the county joined the Texas forces and families living along the rivers, and many from the town joined in what is sometimes called the Second Runaway Scrape. By 1850 the county population had reached 1,492, including 601 slaves. The port of Indianola was used not only for trade, but as a port of debarkation for immigrants. The arrival of immigrant settlers in the 1850s stimulated enough growth to establish in 1853 the first newspaper in the county (the Gonzales Inquirer), as well as post offices in several communities, including Rancho, Mule Creek, Copperas Creek, Moulton, Harmony Grove, Centerville (Belmont), Canoe Creek, China Grove (Big Hill), Ebenezer, Lemmonds School (Five Mile), Hopkinsville, McClure's Hill, Palo Alto, Peach Creek, Pilgrim, Pecan Grove, Round Lake (Clabbertown), Sandies Chapel, Sandy Fork, Sulphur Springs, and Zoar. Gonzales College, founded in 1851 by slave-owning planters, was the first institution in Texas to confer A.B. degrees on women before the Civil War. By 1855 the number of slaves in the county had reached 2,140. Before the Civil War only a single free black was reported in Gonzales County.

In 1860 Gonzales County had a total population of 8,059, more than a fivefold increase since 1850; the 1860 population included 384 slaveholders and 3,168 slaves. On February 23, 1861, residents voted for secession (802 in favor and 80 against). Gonzales County, with a population of about 5,000 free inhabitants, saw some twenty-two volunteer companies, including home-guard units, organized there during the Civil War. Membership rosters for seventeen of these companies are on record. In 1863 the Confederacy commissioned Fort Waul to be built to protect against invasion by northern troops through Indianola. In the 1990s remnants of the fort could still be seen north of the city of Gonzales. Though no Union troops fought in Gonzales County during the war, a small group of fifteen or twenty Union soldiers was encamped on the Gonzales public square for several months during Reconstruction. In February 1868 the mayor of Gonzales complained to the military authorities that the soldiers were intimidating county citizens. Several months later two soldiers were accused of murder. According to accounts in the local newspaper, they began firing into the town, beat the postmaster, wrecked the post office, and pulled a civilian into the street and murdered him. The two soldiers were eventually tried by a military court and found not guilty. Gonzales County was also involved in the outlaw conflicts of the late 1860s and 1870s and witnessed numerous lynchings. In addition, several citizens were involved in the Sutton-Taylor Feud. John Wesley Hardin married Jane Bowen in the county and, after his 1894 pardon from prison, practiced law in Gonzales.

The cattle industry was one of the mainstays of county agriculture both before and after the war. The first cattle brand and hog ear marks were recorded in the county in January 1829. Cattle became increasingly important in the economy, numbering 29,226 head by 1850. The first known cattle drive from the county occurred in 1853, and in 1856 two herds-one of 500 head and one of 600-were driven north. Extensions of the Chisholm Trail were blazed through Gonzales County in 1866. After the Civil War, thousands of unbranded cattle roamed the prairie. By 1870, cattle in the county numbered 75,278 head. During the 1870s more than 40,000 head, plus large herds of horses, were driven north. Other livestock important in the county included hogs and sheep. There were 35,796 hogs by 1879, after which their numbers declined. Raising sheep was profitable for a time, and their numbers reached 27,564 in 1869, but the total number of sheep declined thereafter, with only 1,859 sheep remaining in the county by 1897.

The Gonzales County population increased somewhat during and after the war, reaching 8,951 in 1870; it then increased by some 60 percent during the 1870s, to 14,336 in 1880. In the postwar period, settlers moved to the county from Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, South Carolina, and Arkansas. The population continued to rise for the rest of the century, reaching a new peak of 28,882 in 1900. By 1876 the county had numerous black communities with schools, including Wesley Chapel, Terry's (Terryville), Braco Lake (Brasco), Elm Slough, Hood's Point, Princeville, Hopkinsville, Guadalupe, Winnton, Monthalia, Rock Fort, Coe, Lone Oak, and Canoe Creek. By 1880 African Americans in Gonzales County numbered nearly 5,000-roughly a third of the population. This proportion was roughly maintained through 1900, when there were 8,642 blacks in the county. Gus Smith, a black Populist, ran for county clerk on an independent ticket in 1896. Immigrants, 98 percent of whom were farmers, made up a large part of the population in 1887. That year there were some 1,582 Germans, 225 English, and a number of Scots, Irish, and French;one Chinese was also reported. In 1900 Gonzales County included 318 foreign-born Czechs, who listed Moravia, Bohemia, and Austria as their place of origin.

Railroads played an important part in the growth of the county from the 1870s through 1900. The Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway was built through the eastern and northern part of Gonzales County in 1874. The towns of Waelder and Harwood, formed by the railroad company, began to flourish. The Texas and New Orleans line, built into the county in 1877, was abandoned in 1945. Businessmen from Gonzales, seeing their community declining without a railroad, donated money and land in 1882 to build a branch line from the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio at Harwood to Gonzales. The Texas, Gonzales and Northern Railway was operating the line in 1995 as one of the most profitable spurs in the nation. The San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway, built through in 1885, stimulated the formation and growth of communities such as Dilworth, Maurin, Slayden, and Ottine. It was abandoned in 1931 and 1932. The Southern Pacific line was built through the area in 1905 and bypassed the active community of Rancho. The survey for the town of Nixon was completed on March 2, 1906, and most of the Rancho residents and businesses moved to the new townsite. That railroad line was abandoned in the late 1950s.

Reflecting the increase in population and the new marketing opportunities offered by the railroads, the number of farms in the county increased dramatically, from 576 in 1860 to 2,025 in 1880. Growth slowed during the 1880s, with some 2,180 farms reported in 1890, then increased to reach 3,816 farms in 1900. Cotton and corn dominated agriculture in the county. The land devoted to cotton increased from 22,729 acres in 1880 to 103,253 acres in 1900-over half the cropland harvested that year. About thirty-five cotton gins operated countywide by 1909, and by 1920, the peak year of cotton production in the county, some 146,426 acres were devoted to cotton, more than 55 percent of the total acreage planted in Gonzales County. Corn increased from 30,984 acres in 1880 to 56,744 acres in 1900, and stayed at roughly that acreage through the 1940s. Additional acreage was given to hay, forage, and peanuts. Over time the size of the average farm decreased steadily, falling from 209 acres in 1890 to 139 in 1920 and to a new low of 121 in 1930. Over the same period, fluctuations in prices paid for crops and an overconcentration on cotton as a cash crop led to the steady growth of tenant farming. As early as 1890, 41 percent of the farmers in the county were working someone else's land, and the number of tenant farmers increased to 58 percent of those in the county in 1900 and to 64 percent in 1920. By 1930 two-thirds of the county's 4,696 farms were worked by tenants. Tenant farming decreased dramatically during the 1930s, as the number of farms in the county plummeted by a third, to 3,254 farms by 1940.

By the 1920s beef cattle were resuming much of their former prominence in the county economy, with some 45,000 head reported there in 1930. During the Great Depression new dairying operations, as well as pecans, tomatoes, and other truck crops, were an important source of income. In addition, poultry production has been a leading source of income for Gonzales County for many years. As early as 1899, some 300 turkeys, raised mostly on the range, were shipped from Gonzales County, which rivaled DeWitt County as a center for turkey production. Lloyd Bell of Smiley is credited with the founding of the broiler industry in the county. In 1921 he sent the first shipment of broilers by railway express to New Orleans and in 1922, with A. R. Bell and T. L. Cantley, opened the first feedhouse. They financed trusted farmers who had no security other than their desire to be in the poultry business. By 1945 Gonzales, with a broiler crop estimated at 16 million, ranked with the top producers in the state. Feed mills and commercial hatcheries also became an important industry.

Gonzales County received attention during the Texas Centennial in 1936, when a monument was dedicated at the Alamo, honoring the "immortal thirty-two" from Gonzales who entered there five days before the fall of the Alamo. Besides the "immortal thirty-two," there were eight or nine other men from DeWitt's colony who had entered the Alamo at an earlier date and who also died there. On March 14, 1937, Governor James Allred dedicated a large monument that commemorated the first shot of the Texas Revolution; it was sculpted by Waldine A. Tauch and built by the state of Texas near the town of Cost in central Gonzales County.

The population of Gonzales County remained at between 28,000 and 29,000 inhabitants from 1900 into the 1930s, then began to decline during the Great Depression, falling to 26,075 by 1940. Though rural electrification began in the county in 1940 and the first farm-to-market road was completed in 1945, World War II and its attendant changes took its toll on the population, which had fallen to 21,164 by 1950. The county continued to lose residents through 1970, when its population level bottomed out at 16,375; its population began to grow slowly thereafter, reaching 17,205 by 1990. The larger Gonzales County communities in 1990 included Gonzales (population 6,527), Nixon (1,995 in Gonzales County, partly in Wilson County), Smiley (463), and Waelder (745).

The ethnic mix of the county also changed over time. While blacks formed about a third of the county population in 1890, this proportion fell to 21 percent in 1940, to 18 percent in 1960, and to only 10 percent in 1990. Few Hispanics settled in the county until well after 1900. The total Hispanic population reported in Gonzales County in 1883 was only 143, but on October 4, 1894, the Inquirer reported they had issued a Spanish paper, named La Opinión del Pueblo, for Sr. E. R. Robles. By 1930 the 6,838 Hispanics in Gonzales County represented almost 25 percent of the total population, and in 1980 they represented nearly 30 percent. In 1990 more than a third of the county residents claimed Hispanic ancestry.

In the second half of the twentieth century, farming declined in Gonzales County, but the cattle industry returned to the proportions of earlier days. By 1982, a total of 1,632 farms and ranches were operating in the county. That year, with only 12 percent of the land in farms under cultivation, the county ranked fifth in the state in agricultural receipts, with 96 percent of this derived from livestock and livestock products. That same year, the county was first in the state in the production of hens, pullets, eggs, turkeys, and pecans, and second in the state for beef cows and commercial broilers. In 1995 poultry production, which included broilers, hens, eggs, and turkeys, was expanding rapidly and leading the state.

Though farmers dominated nineteenth-century politics, the Farmers' Alliance, the Grange movement, the Greenback party, and the Populist party groups in the county did not endure. Residents supported Democratic party candidates both locally and nationally through 1992, with only five exceptions: in presidential elections voters supported Richard Nixon in 1972, Ronald Reagan for two terms, and George Bush in two elections.

County citizens have freely participated in all wars from the Texas Revolution to the present. Twenty-three men served, and two died, during the Spanish-American War (1898). Three served with the First United States Volunteer Cavalry (the Rough Riders). In World War I, 1,106 men from the county served, of whom 358 were volunteers and 748 were conscripts. A total of 544 men served overseas, and fifty-eight died in service. During World War II, 3,000 men from Gonzales County served in the armed forces; seventy-nine of them died.

Gonzales County History and Information

Gonzales County Court Records

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

Gonzales County Vital Records

See Also Vital Records in Texas

Gonzales County Census Records

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

Gonzales County Maps & Atlases

See Also Research In State Map Collections

Gonzales County Military Records

See Also Military Records in Texas

Gonzales County Tax Records

See Also Research In Tax Records

Gonzales County Genealogical Addresses

See Also Other Texas Genealogical Addresses

Gonzales County Church & Cemeteries

See Also Church & Cemetery Records in Texas

Family Trees & Genealogy Tidbits

Extended History