Briggs, formerly Springs and Gum Springs ~ EST 1850s

Mahomet - Sycamore Springs Community Historical Marker inscription:   

link ot marker: https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=27597 

     Settlement in this part of Burnet County began in the 1850s. Two early communities were Mahomet and Sycamore Springs, originally located 8 miles from each other. Pioneers of Mahomet were George Ater, William G. Hall, and Mr. Sanford, while Sycamore Springs was settled by the Smart, Stewart, and Williams families. Although Sycamore Springs once had 3 gins, a general store, a school, and 2 churches, little evidence of the community now remains.

     Much speculation has taken place over the years concerning the origin of the unusual name of the Mahomet settlement. Research now indicates that the town was probably named by first postmaster George Ater, who came to Texas from Mahomet, Illinois. both the original Mahomet Post Office and an Austin-Lampasas Stage stop were located at his home.

      The Mahomet Christian Church, moved from Sycamore Springs in 1899, continues to worship near this site. Mahomet is also the home of the Mt. Horeb Masonic Lodge, which was relocated from nearby Williamson County in 1915. The community burial ground (.5 mi. SW dates from the early 1850s.

Mahomet Cemetery Historical Marker Inscription: 

     This cemetery, with interments dating back to the 1850s, became a community graveyard for the Sycamore Springs and Mahomet rural communities. In 1909 J. W. Williams and J. W. and Nellie Greer deeded the cemetery property to the community of Mahomet. Among the hundreds of people buried here are many of the area's pioneer settlers and their descendants and veterans of wars ranging from the Mexican War (1846-1848) to the Vietnam War. Mahomet Cemetery remains active and is maintained by an association of descendants of people buried here.

The Mahomet Christian Church was established in about 1851 at Sycamore Springs. After the building burned in 1899 the church moved to the nearby Mahomet community,  CLICK to READ MORE 

Fire destroyed Mohamet Christian Church on December 9, 2020.   New constuction is expected to be completed by Christmastime 2023.    Click Here to read full article

A bit of history   Mahomet (Sycamore) Choirs http://www.main.org/mahomet/MahometChoirs.html

1900 Sycamore Choir &  1904 Mahome Mens Choir

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State Historical Marker https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=27730

Inscription:    Once a busy rural community. Named for Mrs. Martha (Webster) Strickling, who settled here in 1853 with husband Marmaduke. As child, she survived killing of some 30 settlers in infamous Webster Massacre near Leander, and months of Indian captivity.

    Post office opened here, 1857, and Strickling became a mail terminal and stage stop. Tons of lumber and buffalo hides were hauled through here. The town had a school, churches, a doctor’s office, and stores.

    Strickling gradually declined when bypassed by the railroad, 1882. Only the cemetery remains.

What is not mentioned on the historical marker is that this general locale was the destination of the Webster party, i.e. the land grant John Webster (of Webster Massacre on marker) received and was headed for. The land grant was inherited by Martha (Webster) Strickling as John Webster's sole heir. See Handbook of Texas Online. The Webster party had started at Hornsby Bend, east of Austin, TX, had reached this general area, then began a retreat after signs of Indians in the area were spotted. They made it as far as what is now Leander, Texas, where they were attacked.

    — Submitted November 18, 2011, by Richard Denney of Austin, Texas. 

Memorial - Mass Grave of the Victims of the Webster Massacre 

Links to aricles and videos about The Webster Massacre

• TSHA: Martha's Story Martha Virginia WEBSTER Strickland Simmons (ca. 1835–1927)
• Youtube:  The Webster Massacre of 1839  (very detailed) 
• Youtube:  Comanches Attack the Webster Family Near Leander Texas, in Williamson County, 1839
• Youtube:  The Webster Massacre
• Texas Historic Homes "The Webster Massacre – Central Texas History"
• Texas State Historical Association "Webster Massacre" 
• Frontier Times:  The Massacre of John Webster and Party
• 2020 Community Impact, Leander "Tucked away in the corner of Davis Cemetery in Leander"  The Webster Massacre: Leander markers remember dozens of settlers killed in Comanche attack
• also, search for book:  A Narrative of the Captivity and Suffering of Dolly Webster Among the Camanche Indians in Texas: With an Account of the Massacre of John Webster and His Party, as Related by Mrs. Webster.  a 34 page account of her experience.

     The Strickling community was located on the Austin to Lampasas Rd. (now FM 1174). The Burnet to Belton Rd. also crossed the “stream” (North Gabriel River) at the same place. 

     About 1856 regular stage runs between Austin and Lampasas resulted in Strickling becoming a mail terminal for one road turning northwest to San Saba another to Belton and another to Burnet.

     Strickling had a broom factory that claimed it was the best broom in the country.

     The 1839 Webster family story in it’s entirety could be made into a modern movie. If you go north of CR 200 on FM 1174 about 1.3 mi. you will get to an open ridge overlooking the North San Gabriel area. There you can see what the Websters saw; their 4,616 acres of land and the 300 Commanches with Chief Guadalupe, Chief Buffalo Hump and Chief Yellow Wolf. That complete story will be saved for another time.

     We have mentioned before that Dr. Field, who helped Burnet County with it’s Typhoid epidemic, was from Strickling. Recently I spoke with someone who lives on the doctors old property and is a relative of John R. Hamilton. Mr. Hamilton was the teacher in the Pool Branch School photo sent in an earlier “Did You Know?”

A story of life in Strickling:  a letter written by Dayton Moses

“Dear Louis:

   …Permit me to say, if my memory serves me right, about January 8, 1886, was the coldest weather I remember to have experienced up to that time: about January 15, 1888, in the afternoon soon after the delivery of the mail to the post office at Strickling, a sudden cold spell came and the thermometer fell so rapidly that a fog rolled along the ground, being of course steam and before 9 o’clock that night, the thermometer had fallen over 60 degrees. Billy Moses was at home on a visit and with the aid of the writer, Martin and Andy Moses, we had to feed poor cattle all that next day and night. Billy lost a very handsome gold ring, made in the Black Hills, in one of the cow lots, which was not found until more than a year later.”

   “On each of the two occasions referred to, the thermometer reached a few degrees above 0 and it was not until about the 13th of February 1899, that the thermometer went below zero in Burnet County. As UI recall the thermometer was about 5 degrees below zero in Burnet County and from 2 to 3 degrees below in Austin.

Yours truly, Dayton Moses” [From page 286, Burnet County History Vol 1]

     Like many communities they hoped to have the railroad, but Strickling was by-passed and the railroad went to Bertram instead. The stage runs ended in 1880 and the last store in Strickling closed in 1898. 

[General information taken from the book, Burnet County History Vol 1]

More about Strickling  https://www.101highlandlakes.com/news/the-history-of-strickling-texas

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Watson, sometimes called Watson's Store, is at the intersection of U.S. Highway 183 and Farm Road 963 eighteen miles northeast of Burnet in northeastern Burnet County. 

It was named for Ed Watson, a local storeowner. A school was established near Watson in 1879; the Pleasant Hill, or Red Bud School, was built in the area in 1908. It was consolidated with the Briggs district in the 1930s.

A church, a cemetery, and a few scattered houses marked the community on county highway maps in the 1940s and the 1980s. In 2000 the population was ninety-eight.

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Lake Victor is on Farm Road 2340 ten miles north of Burnet in north central Burnet County. 

It began as a railroad camp in 1901 or 1902, when the tracks for the Burnet-Lampasas section of the Houston and Texas Central Railway were laid. The community was named for a nearby intermittent artificial lake that was formed by the removal of dirt for the railroad; the lake was named for Victor Kellogg, who served as foreman of the railroad crew. In 1903 the townsite was surveyed, lots were offered for sale, a school was established, and a post office was opened with Frank A. Ramsey as postmaster. For the next twenty-five years or so Lake Victor was a prosperous community and shipping point for area farmers and ranchers. It had three churches, several businesses, and a population reported at 200 in 1914. The population was 250 in 1925. 

Lake Victor Lodge - Historical Marker inscription 

Sponsored by the nearby Robert E. Lee Lodge, Lake Victor Lodge No. 1011, A. F. & A. M. was formally established in December 1909 during the 73rd Annual Grand Communications of the Grand Lodge of Texas. The first meeting of the Lake Victor Lodge took place in a rented building on January 1, 1910. The lodge built its own meeting place on this site in 1914 and continued to meet on that site throughout the 20th century. The largest membership of the Lake Victor Lodge in the 20th century was reported in 1953-1954. In 1999 the lodge had 36 members, three of whom had more than 50 years service. As is Masonic custom, the Lake Victor Lodge contributes to charitable causes. The lodge continues to uphold the traditions of its founders.

Honeymoon House - we recently heard of an old house.. which used to be referred to as "Honeymoon House."    we are seeking information

Links:

Texas State Historical Assn   https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/lake-victor-tx

TexasEscapes  http://www.texasescapes.com/TexasHillCountryTowns/Lake-Victor-Texas.htm

Daily Trib  

    https://www.dailytrib.com/2019/11/25/whats-in-a-name-lake-victor-a-town-without-a-lake/

Texas Historic Marker Database  https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=27578  

A Blog   https://verlee.tripod.com/Txhills3.htm  

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 more to come

     Up the north San Gabriel River from the historic communities of Joppa and Strickling, history speaks of a community called “Sage”. This is approximately two (2) miles north of FM 963 on CR 202 very near CR 203.

     Below is a photo of the Sage Store in 1898. It was built in 1890 by George Newt Jones.

     You can actually see the old store yourself today, as it still stands very near the county road. Below is a recent photo of the store.

     The first families who settled there before 1860. A cotton gin was built and later a new and better gin was constructed by Herb Murphy. The Sage Cotton Gin operated until 1929.

     Mr. Jones, who ran the store would make trips to Lampasas, once or twice a month by wagon, to get supplies. Some supplies included: pickles, vinegar-by the barrel; candy in large containers; flour, corn meal, sugar, all in large sacks or barrels; green coffee, which had to be parched and ground in the home.      At Christmas time there were also apples and oranges available at the Sage store. The store was in operation until 1918. The last known storekeeper was Mark Bailey.

     Sage was a stage stop between Burnet and Lampasas for a number of years. The stage ran two times a week, but by 1901 there was a stagecoach service both ways each day. The stage left Burnet each morning at 11 AM, arriving in Lampasas at 4 PM each afternoon. The stage left Lampasas each morning at 10:15 AM arriving in Burnet at 3:15 PM. Terms were $3 round trip or $2 one way.

     Most of the above information is from the Burnet County History,  Volume I

 more from TSHA      It may have taken its name from the sage grass in the area. Families from South Carolina, Mississippi, and Kentucky settled there before 1860. A Sage post office was established in 1874 with Jesse G. W. Howard as postmaster. Sage had no school of its own, but it was close enough to Pleasant Hill and Bethel that children from Sage could attend school in one of those communities. In 1884 Sage had three churches, a general store, a steam corn mill and cotton gin, and seventy-five residents; cotton, pecans, wool, and hides were the principal shipments made by area farmers. The post office was discontinued from 1884 to 1898, during which time mail for the community was sent to Sunny Lane. By 1900 Sage had 242 residents. Shortly thereafter, however, the community began to decline, possibly because the Houston and Texas Central Railway bypassed Sage in 1903. The store remained open until about 1918, and the gin operated until 1929; only a few scattered houses marked the community's location on county highway maps by the 1940s, and no evidence of Sage appeared on maps in the 1980s.        

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 more to come

Please send suggestions, links, photos to be added to this page.

send to toni 512-796-1123 or toni.schmid@gmail.com 

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