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The
Old Stone Fort
by Archie P. McDonald, PhD |
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| In
the spring of 1779 a later-day Moses named
Antonio Gil Y'Barbo led some displaced persons back to East
Texas to found the community of Nacogdoches.
They had formerly lived in western Louisiana and eastern Texas near Spanish missions,
but a change in government policy had forced them to move to San
Antonio in 1774. |
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As soon
as they arrived in San Antonio,
these East Texas Spaniards petitioned for permission to return eastward. Their
request granted, Y'Barbo led them to the banks of the Trinity River where they
established the community of Bucareli. Four years of floods and trouble with the
Comanche convinced them to move eastward, where they founded Nacogdoches.
Soon after leading his wanderers to the valley of LaNana and Banita Bayous,
Y'Barbo erected a Stone House on the northeast corner of town square. It was private
property, but because of Y'Barbo's civil
and militia authority the Stone House took on a public nature it never lost. There
he conducted private and government business, so it became the civic center of
the community.
When Simon Herrera came to East
Texas in 1806 to negotiate the Neutral Ground agreement with General James
Wilkinson, he headquartered in Y'Barbo's
Stone House. In 1813, the Army of the North led by Augustus Magee and Bernardo
Gutierrez de Lara proclaimed Texas independent from Spain while occupying the
house, and within its walls A. Mower set type for the Gaceta
de Tejas, the first -- if short lived -- newspaper in Texas,
before moving on to defeat in the southwest.
James Long led Americans
across the Sabine
River in 1819 in violation of the Adams-Onis
Treaty, and again used the Stone House as the venue to declare Texas independent,
once more unsuccessfully. The story was repeated by Haden Edwards and the Fredonians
in the 1820s, again unsuccessfully. |
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"
The Old Stone Fort, Erected 1619, Rebuilt 1907, Nacogdoches, Texas"
Postcard
courtesy www.rootsweb.com/%7Etxpstcrd/ |
| Y'Barbo's
Stone House hosted meetings of the Nacogdoches Committee of Public Safety
and the selection of representatives to the conventions and the Consultation during
the Texas Revolution and it witnessed the Battle
of Nacogdoches in 1832. There mustered soldiers for service in the Civil War.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the Stone House, by now known
as the Stone Fort though it never served as such, fell on bad times. By
then it sheltered a saloon and was consider quite unsavory. Still it was a shock
to the community when the Perkins brothers razed the old rock house and erected
a modern business building. |
The
Old Stone Fort today
Photo courtesy Dana
Goolsby, November 2010 |
The
Old Stone Fort Stonework
Photo courtesy Dana
Goolsby, November 2010 |
The Cum Concilio
Club, a local women's group, salvaged the remains of the Stone House and stored
them on Washington Square. Later some were used in a building on the public school
campus. In 1936, a replica of the Old Stone Fort was located on the campus of
Stephen F. Austin State University, and visitors can drop by and get a good idea
of what the first building in Nacogdoches
looked like.
All Things Historical MAY 13-19,
2001 Columns
(Archie P. McDonald is Director of the East Texas Historical
Association and author or editor of over 20 books on Texas)
See
Nacogdoches, Texas
| East Texas | Texas |
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