“Old Three Hundred” William Rabb

Part I of II

Footprints Of Fayette

Fayette County is one of the most historic counties in Texas. In this weekly feature from the County Historical Commission, a rotating group of writers looks back at local history.

William Rabb was born in 1770 in Fayette County, German Township, Pennsylvania. His father owned and operated a grist and saw mill, a whiskey distillery and a mercantile business. In time, the Rabb’s became one of the wealthiest and most influential families in the area. William and Mary Smalley married around 1789 and the couple had five children, Rachel, Andrew, John, Thomas and Ulysses.

William Rabb also operated a saw mill in Pennsylvania until about 1803 when the family moved west to the east bank of the Mississippi River in Indiana Territory. Rachel Rabb married Joseph Newman in 1806 in Ohio. William erected a dam and a fourstory grist mill on Cahokia Creek. He served as a County Judge and was elected to the Illinois Territory Legislature. He became quite prosperous, and the family resided there for 15 years.

In 1818, William moved the entire family further west to the northern side of the Upper Red River. From there, he and his son Thomas made an exploratory journey into south-central Texas in 1819. The next year the family moved to the southern side of the Red River into the Spanish province of Texas.

In 1821, William Rabb wrote to the Spanish Governor of Texas stating: “I have planned to locate on the Colorado River under the direction of Mr. Austin and expect to move my family and goods during the present autumn.” He intended to build a grist and saw mill on the river in exchange for a sizeable land grant from Austin. William, Mary and two of their sons, Thomas and Ulysses, made the 300 mile journey to the Colorado arriving in December 1821. The rest of the family stayed behind. John Rabb married Mary Crownover in 1821, and Andrew Rabb married Margaret Ragsdale in 1822.

William built a log house on the west side of the river at a place called Indian Hill. His nearest neighbor was Sylvanus Castleman.

In 1823, William and Thomas Rabb went to get the rest of the family and bring them to their Texas home. The journey began on October 1, 1823, and the group included William, Thomas, Andrew and Margaret, John and Mary Rabb and their child, and Rachel and Joseph Newman and their seven children. They arrived at their destination on December 15, 1823. Mary Crownover Rabb later wrote: “We came to the place where La Grange now stands, but there was no house there, or anything but a wilderness, not even a tree cut down to mark the place. We went up about six or seven miles to the place called Indian Hill. We were at our journey’s end –safe.” It is believed Ulysses Rabb died shortly after the rest of his family arrived.

For a short time, all the members of the Rabb and Newman families remained at Indian Hill, but the natives became increasingly troublesome. After nearly all of their horses had been stolen, John Rabb left to look for a safer place to live. He was gone for ten days and his wife Mary related: “I was left alone with my little babe…I could hear the Indians walking around the house… so I kept my spinning wheel busy all day and a good part of the night…”. When Mary finally tired of spinning she would shell out some corn on her earthen floor and let their little pigs into the house. By the time she got in her bed, the pigs would be cracking the corn and she could finally fall asleep. In 1824, the families were forced to abandon their homes and move further south for safety.

On July 16, 1824, Stephen F. Austin was given the authority to begin issuing titles to the settlers in his colony. Three days later, William Rabb received title to three adjacent leagues (13,284 acres) located on his chosen site on the east side of the Colorado River, directly across from Indian Hill. This area became known as Rabb’s Prairie. Each of his of sons and son-in-law also received land grants, and all five families are members of Austin’s “Old Three Hundred.”

William moved back to Rabb’s Prairie to begin work on his saw and grist mill, but was forced to abandon his efforts twice due to Indian threats. With the help of his sons, the mill was completed and went into operation in 1831 shortly before William died at the age of 61. Mary followed him a few months later. They may be buried in unmarked graves on a hillside overlooking Rabb’s Prairie.

RABB MILLSTONES

William Rabb completed his grist and saw mill on the Colorado River in 1831. Some of the material used in the construction came from New Orleans, but it was the transportation and installation of the two grinding stones, or burrs, that proved to be an accomplishment reflecting considerable ingenuity and determination. The mill stones were imported from Scotland and off-loaded at Matagorda Bay at the mouth of the Colorado River. Each stone was about four feet in diameter and weighed close to a ton. The problem facing William was how to move them to his mill site at Rabb’s Prairie. Driftwood rafts and shallow water made it impractical to float them up the river so William’s solution was to cut down trees to make an axle and tongue. He attached a round mill stone to each end of the axle to serve as wheels, hitched oxen to the tongue, and pulled the resulting cart-like vehicle nearly one hundred miles over rough country with no roads or bridges.

Grain or grist mills have a very long history. The first record of them dates back to 71 B.C. By 1700, there were over 17,000 mills in England. The functioning of the mill was such that a system of gears allowed the water wheel to turn at 10 rpm, while the mill stone turned 120 rpm. The bottom stone, called the bed, was stationary and fixed to the foundation of the mill house. The upper stone or runner was rotated by the main shaft. The distance between the stones was adjustable to yield the grade of flour desired. Millstones are made from a type of limestone called buhrstone. Silica and fossils are usually found in this finegrained, porous and tough sedimentary rock.

The millstones displayed here are on loan to Fayette County from descendants of the William Rabb family. The stones were retrieved from the Colorado River Bank by Joe Cole.