The following is taken from this website
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/FF/hcf3.html
Prior to European settlement Lipan Apaches and Tonkawa Indians inhabited
parts of what is now Fayette County. Many Indian artifacts have been found,
especially along the Colorado River and near Round Top. A few miles north of
the Colorado River, above Little Pin Oak Creek, a stratified multicomponent
campsite was found, with Clovis, Plainview, and other later artifacts. In the
early eighteenth century Spanish explorers passed through the area. La Bahía
Road,qv which ran southwest to
northeast and crossed the river at the site of present La Grange, was the major
route for travel during the Mexican period. The area was part of Stephen F.
Austin'sqv first colony, but
the earliest known white settlers, Aylett C. Buckner and Peter Powell,qqv arrived earlier and lived on La Bahía
Road west of La Grange, where they ran a trading post. Formal settlement began
in 1822 with the arrival of the Austin colonists. From 1824 to 1828 ten members
of the Old Three Hundredqv
received title to their land grants in the fertile Colorado River valley;
William Rabbqv received four
leagues in order to build a mill. A total of ninety-two Mexican land grants
were granted in the area that is now Fayette County. The earliest settlers
gathered at Wood's Fort, Moore's Fort (La Grange), the James Ross home, and
Jesse Burnam'sqv blockhouse,
twelve miles below La Grange. Burnam's Ferryqv
on the Colorado River provided a cutoff route from La Bahía Road to San Felipe.
Prior to Texas independence, the area above La Bahía Road was in the Mina
Municipalityqv and the area
below in the Municipality of Colorado. Gotier's Trace,qv the Wilbarger Trace, and the La
Grange-San Felipe road intersected La Bahía Road. Ferries were used to cross
the Colorado River until the first bridge was built at La Grange by private
subscription in 1883. On December 14, 1837, upon petition of the citizens, the
Congress of the Republic of Texasqv
established the county of Fayette, named in honor of the Marquis de Lafayette.
La Grange, the name of the chateau to which Lafayette retired, was designated
the county seat. The citizens organized the county government on January 18,
1838, and the southwestern boundary of the county was extended westward on May
3, 1838. The county lost territory in the south to Lavaca County in 1854 and in
the north to Lee County in 1874.
The early settlers' life revolved around their plantations, but problems
with Indians occupied much of their time. Sometimes the settlers felt so
threatened that they moved down to the lower Colorado River area. At other
times they grouped together, sometimes aided by Lipan Apache and Tonkawa
Indians who were friendly to the settlers, to resist marauding bands of
Comanches, Wacos, and Kichais. Fayette County men were prominent in the Texas
Revolution;qv more than fifty
men participated in the battle of San Jacinto,qv
including Joel Walter Robinson,qv
one of the captors of Antonio López de Santa Anna.qv The Somervell, Mier,qqv
and Dawson expeditions were composed mostly of Fayette County men. In 1848 the
remains of the men killed in the Dawson Massacreqv and in Perote Prisonqv
were returned to Fayette County and interred on Monument Hill; in 1933 a
granite tomb was dedicated there (see MONUMENT HILL-KREISCHE BREWERY
STATE HISTORIC SITE). The historic Muster Oak, still standing on the square,
has been a rallying site since the early settlement. William Menefee,qv a signer of the Texas Declaration of
Independence,qv was from
Fayette County. A proposal to permanently locate the state capital in Fayette
County was approved on April 11, 1838, by an overwhelming majority of the
Second Congress. Local citizens arranged for the purchase of the Eblin league
on the east side of the Colorado River near La Grange, reserving all vacant
lands within a nine-mile radius. The measure was vetoed by Sam Houston,qv however, and the capital was located
upriver in what later became Austin.
The first private schools opened in the county as early as 1834. Academies
and institutes were operated in La Grange, Fayetteville, and Round Top in the
1840s. The Methodists founded Rutersville College,qv one of the first colleges in Texas, in 1840; it
consolidated with the Texas Military Institute, Galveston,qv in 1856. The earliest churches
organized in the county were Methodist (1838), Baptist (1839), Presbyterian
(1841), and Episcopal (1852). Most of the early settlers were from the Old
South, but the Austin Colony also included a few German immigrants. In 1832
Joseph Biegel received title to a league in the area and developed the first
German community in the county, Biegel Settlement. In the 1840s many more
German immigrants settled in Fayette County. The Adelsvereinqv purchased a league in 1843 and
established a plantation called Nassau Farm.qv
During the mid-1850s sizable numbers of Bohemian Czechs also began moving into
the county. In the 1856 the first Bohemian settlement in Texas, Dubina, was
founded in Fayette County. The county's population grew rapidly, especially
after Texas joined the Union; already by 1850 it had 3,756 residents. During
the early years the economy was based largely on subsistence farming, but
during the late 1840s and 1850s a thriving plantation economy emerged. In the
early 1850s plantations were producing impressive quantities of corn and
shipping tobacco, wool, and cotton to outside markets. To clear land, harvest
crops, and perform other forms of labor, planters brought in increasing numbers
of African-American slaves. Between 1840 and 1850 the slave population grew
from 206 to 820, and by 1855 the number had reached 2,072. On the eve of the
Civil Warqv Fayette County was
among the most well-developed areas in the state, with nearly 1,000 farms
containing 75,463 improved acres. In 1859 farmers produced 12,683 bales of
cotton and 320,580 bushels of corn, placing Fayette County among the state's
leaders in both categories. The population of 11,604 was more than three times
what it had been only a decade before; the number of slaves alone (3,786) in
1860 exceeded the entire population for 1850. Despite the county's large slave
population, however, voters narrowly rejected secessionqv by a margin of forty-six votes (626
against, 528 for), primarily due to the area's numerous German and Bohemian
residents, who generally opposed slavery.qv
Despite the result, after the war broke out three volunteer companies were
immediately organized, and before the war's end a total of about 800 men had
served in the Confederate army.
The Civil War and its aftermath brought profound changes to the county.
Although it made only a small material contribution to the war effort, the lack
of markets and wild fluctuations in Confederate currency caused hardships for
many. The end of the war brought wrenching changes in the economy. For many
whites the abolitionqv of
slavery meant devastating economic loss. Before the war slaves had constituted
more than a third of all taxable property in the county, and their loss coupled
with a sharp decline in property values caused a profound disruption for most
planters. The county's African Americansqv
fared no better. Although most of the county's black residents remained, many
left the farms owned by their former masters to seek better working conditions.
For the vast majority, the change brought only marginal improvement in their
living and working conditions; most ended up working on the land on shares,
receiving one-third or one-half of the crop for their labors.
During Reconstructionqv
Fayette County received little attention from federal political or military
authorities. Federal troops were stationed there only briefly, and there was
little of the violence that many other areas experienced. The economy began to
recover in the late 1860s, and by 1870 production levels neared or exceeded the
1860 figures. During the next three decades the county experienced a long
period of growth, fueled in large measure by a surge of new German and Slavic
residents. Many of the early plantation owners, hard-pressed to make ends meet
without their bondsmen, sold their lands to German, Bohemian, or Wendish settlers,
who in turn sold portions of it to others. As a result the large plantations
that had dominated antebellum Texasqv
were gradually replaced by smaller, more numerous farms. This trend is
reflected in the agricultural census of the late nineteenth century, which
shows the number of farms increasing from 1,483 in 1870 to 5,189 in 1900. The
number of acres under cultivation also grew dramatically during this period,
rising from 76,401 to 287,853. Although the new farms were smaller, they tended
to be much more productive because of intensive cultivation by the Germans and
Bohemians. Most of these small farmers grew cabbages, tomatoes, potatoes,
beans, peas, turnips, and peaches, but the leading cash crops remained cotton
and corn. In 1880 farmers produced 24,766 bales of cotton and 694,833 bushels
of corn; by 1890 cotton output had grown to 37,559 bales, and corn production
topped 912,000 bushels.
The influx of German, Czechs, and Wendsqqv
after the Civil War also gradually altered the cultural face of the county.
Although some of the new settlers moved in from other counties, including most
of the Wends, many of the settler were new immigrants who brought their own
distinct culture with them. The tide of immigration was particularly strong in
the 1880s, as numerous additional German and Bohemian settlers arrived. By 1890
nearly one-fourth of the county's residents (7,856 of 31,481) were
foreign-born, with the largest contingents from Germany (3,667) and
Austria-Hungary (3,224). As a result, by the late nineteenth century many of
the leading businesses and civic organizations were dominated by Germans and
Czechs. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries La Grange had
two foreign-language newspapers, the Svobodaqv (Czech) and the La Grange Zeitung (German). The
Germans and Czechs formed shooting clubs, poetry groups, and fraternal and
religious organizations. The KJT (Czech Catholic Union), the SPJST (a Czech
benevolent society), and the Round Top Rifle Association, founded in the
nineteenth century, still existed in the early 1990s. Public education in the
late nineteenth and early twentieth century was supplemented by private and
parochial schools, which were often taught in German and Czech. Despite the
increasing number of white residents, African Americans continued to form a
large segment of the population. In 1870 the black population was 5,901, and as
late as 1900 blacks still represented about one-third of the population; in
spite of these numbers, however, African Americans had little political power.
While Fayette County citizens rejected the white primaryqv-largely due to German and populist
sentiment against it-African-American voters were often excluded from voting
and had little say in the local political structure.