Round Top African American Pioneers

A Story of Struggle, Perseverance, and Survival

Part I of II

Round Top, Texas is a unique place in the United States. It is a place where there are many untold stories - untold stories about African Americans. One such story is about the African American Pioneers of Round Top. The center of Town is a quarter of a mile from the west line of the James S. Winn League granted March 31, 1831 by the Mexican government. The area of this study will be the Leagues of land within a five mile radius of Round Top. The Leagues established between 1831 and 1835 in this area were A. E. Baker, Green Dewitt, Mary Phelps, W. S. Townsend, Jno Townsend, Jno Logan, Robert P. Shaw, N. Townsend, W. J. Russell, J. G. Wilkinson, and John Vanderworth.

Hamilton Ledbetter (North Carolina/Tennessee) owned 34 slaves and six slave houses in the southeast corner of the James Winn League, W. F. Wade (Georgia) owned 54 slaves and 8 slave houses (along Hackemack Road just southeast of Rocky Creek), John R. Robison (Georgia) owned 39 slaves and eight slave houses (at the intersection of Jacks Creek and Little Jack Creek) and Samuel K. Lewis (South Carolina) owned 13 slaves and 11 slave houses (adjacent to northeast line of Jack League & just northwest of Little Jack Creek), all within the William H. Jack League.

We begin this story in 1948 in Round Top in the center of town, which is located at the intersection of Highway 237 and FM 1457. The 1947 Land Ownership Map, indicates that there were 37 African American landowners and residents within the five mile radius of Round Top. Many of the prominent African American pioneers were William Moore, Lufkin Davis, Ollie Walker, Cornelius Walker, and Isreal Crump (a relative of Mr. Crump was Beatrice Crump, who married my cousin, Edgar Rivers), Henry and Sarah Wade, Adam and Emmerline Rivers, Thomas and Ellen Rivers, C. L. Rhone, Antonio Garcia, Cyrus McCoy, P.W. Vincent, J. S. Sampson, Oscar Knotts, Sam Chattman and Lucy Rivers, J. C. Knotts, J. S. Simpson, E. Martin,William and Alice Rivers, Lafayette and Rachel Rivers and John Rivers, Sr., Sam Washington, S. A. Sampson, W. C. Knotts, Andrew Knotts and Oscar Knotts, J. S. Knotts (in the bend of Hackemack Road), William Banks (Hackemack at Kneip Road), Perry Dobbins (Kneip Rd. at Jack Creek) and E. C. Kraft (Craft) (end of Kneip Road and Rocky Creek).

Many descendants of the above listed pioneers still own their land today, even though many of them, migrated, to other cities, counties and states.

The Influx of Anglo Settlers from the South to the Round Top Area

The Leagues of land in and around Round Top granted by the Mexican government between 1831 and 1835, is the beginning of the development of Round Top.

Christopher H. Taylor, my grandfather’s namesake owned a plantation along Jaster Road, plus 10 acres of land north of the town hall in which the Round Top State Bank is on as well as the Round Top Real Estate office. This man was known as Kit or Kid Taylor my Grandfather remembers, his father telling him, as well as Georgia Tubbs’ ancestors, and the Etzel family remembers. Cordell Levein of Round Top lives on part of the Taylor Plantation land on Jaster Road.

In 1850 Christopher H. Taylor was 39 years old, (born about 1811 in Tennessee) and was living in Fayette County, Texas. Members living in his household included Elizabeth Taylor, his mother age 60 (she was on one of her long visits from Eutah, Alabama).

By 1870 Christopher H. Taylor age 54 was living in Beat 3, Fayette County and living alone. His neighbors were F.W. Krause, J. A. Wade, Hamilton Ledbetter, T. A. Ledbetter and A. G. Ledbetter. From 1850 to 1860 he increased his slave holding from 33 to 42 in Round Top.

Christopher H. Taylor amassed several thousand acres of land in the Round Top area between the 1840’s and 1850’s.

In the mid 1870’s after the Civil War, C. H. Taylor began to sell all of his holding in Round Top, Texas. His holdings were sold to John R. Alexander, Mary Alexander, Myers F. Jones/Patsy Jones, Sarah & McHenry Winburn, Amandus Pfaender and William Graf. By 1880 C. H. Taylor had sold all his land holding in Round Top, Texas and abandoned all of his slaves, livestock, barns and equipment and moved back to Eutaw (Greene County), Alabama where he apparently had family roots.

The Round Top Area, After the Civil War

Beginning in the 1840’s and 1850’s immigration from Germany, Austria, The Czech Republic and Bohemia began to pick up. Many of the Anglos from the South began to sell their land and move west.

After the Civil War German, Czech, and Bohemian landowners continued to increase and add to their land holdings, as most of the original Anglo landowners were gone. During this great transition many of the former slaves, Free Blacks, had to survive on their own and build a life for themselves. Many of them who did not own land hired themselves out as tennant farmers or became sharecroppers, because many of the German and Czech Settlers worked their own farms.

In 1870 there were 420 African Americans living in the Round Top Area. They began to buy land and build a life for themselves.

The census specifically taken of Round Top, Precincts #2 & 3 on June 11, 1880 (Enumeration District No. 56, Fayette County, Texas) indicate that there were 193 dwellings and a total of 1204 people in this specific area. There were 873 people of German and Anglo descent, and 331 Blacks and Mulattos. The majority of the Blacks and Mulattos heads of households and their mother and father were from Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, Maryland, Mississippi and Kentucky. The predominant state of birth was Georgia and Tennessee.

There were four Mulatto families that stood out among the Black and Mulatto families based on their last name. These families were: The Ledbetter Family of Joseph Ledbetter (41-born in 1839), and with four children. Also living in the household was Martha (54), mother-in-law from Tennessee, The Townsend Family of Riley Townsend (29), wife with four children. Riley Townsend and family members are buried in The Connersville Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery on FM 1457, The Maxwell Family of Erdmann Maxwell (45), wife Fanny (45), four children, (my great aunt was Chanie Maxwell, who married Thomas Rivers, my great uncle), and The Knotts Family of Benjamin Knotts (49-born in 1831), wife Roselle (49), and 10 children.

My great-great uncle Matt Rivers, Sr. was born in Texas (his father and mother were born in Georgia) was living in the Round Top Area in 1880 raising a family of four-Matt Rivers, Jr. (14), Katie Rivers (16), and Tom Rivers (17). Katie Rivers, my great grandmother, married my great grandfather John Wesley Taylor and raised their family near Ledbetter.

Tom Rivers my Great Uncle later married Chanie Maxwell and lived as a tenant farmer on the Frank Wagner Farm, just south of Round Top Road on the west side of Weyand Road. Their eleven children were born on the Wagner Farm, with the last child being born in 1908, prior to their moving to Lee County. The doctor that delivered their last child was Dr. Robert E. Seymour of Warrenton, Texas.

Sources:

Fayette County, Texas Deed Records

Lee County, Texas Deed Records

U.S. Census Records for 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910 and 1920

Harley Weyand, great-great grandson of Robert Zapp