William Charles Brookfield of Fayette County

Footprints

William Charles and Emma Lalliet Brookfield married in Cayuga County, New York in August of 1813. In eleven years they became parents to two daughters and four sons. He was a civil engineer and surveyor and the family lived near Detroit, Michigan before immigrating to Texas. On May 20, 1831 William Brookfield received title to a league of land in Stephen F. Austin’s Second Colony. It was situated on the Navidad River, near present day Dubina. When he sold this land ten years later he reserved a small section of it as a cemetery because his wife Emma and one child, most likely their youngest son, were buried there. In 1832, Brookfield and Musgrove Evans (also from Michigan) purchased the David Berry league of land that stretched from the high bluff across from La Grange all the way to the area of present day Hostyn. The La Bahia Road crossed the property and Brookfield built a large two story native fieldstone home on a hilltop overlooking the road. Part of the home still stands today.

During the Texas Revolution, William Brookfield supported the Texas Army and Navy with funds and supplies. On January 29, 1836, Brookfield advanced $200 to William Barrett Travis as he and his company passed through the area on their way to the Alamo. Six weeks later Brookfield provided “one elegant bay horse … to carry the express from Bexar to Washington (on-the Brazos) reporting the fall of the Alamo.” The only casualty of the Alamo from this area was Samuel B. Evans, son of Musgrove Evans. Two of Brookfield’s sons, William and Francis, joined the Texas Army and fought at the battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836.

In December 1837, the Second Congress of the Republic of Texas appointed a committee to select a permanent site for a state capital. They met at John Henry Moore’s plantation and signed tentative contracts to purchase the John Eblin league, adjacent to the town of La Grange, and the Brookfield and Evans league on the opposite side of the Colorado River. Other landowners offered to donate some of their property until “all the vacant land lying within a radius of nine miles” was reserved for the government. After a majority vote of both houses of Congress in April 1838, the lands in Fayette County were chosen for the new capital but President Sam Houston vetoed the bill, some believing he wanted the capital to stay in the town that bore his name. A few months later a new congress and a new president chose Austin as the state capital. The citizens of Fayette County did not take these decisions lightly and on October 25, 1839, the Fayette County Grand Jury, led by foreman William Brookfield, returned the one and only public indictment against the Republic of Texas for “Inconsistent Legislative Acts.”

Trouble with Mexico continued and in September 1842, the Mexican army captured San Antonio. Texas forces were quick to respond and camped east of the city on Salado Creek. In Fayette County, Francis E. Brookfield and David Berry joined a group of men intent upon joining the Texans. Captain Nicholas Dawson was in command on the afternoon of September 18th, 1842 when his company rode into the middle of a battle and was quickly massacred by the Mexican forces. Dawson, Brookfield and Berry lay dead on the prairie alongside 33 other brave Texans. Their bodies were buried on the battlefield.

In 1848 the remains of the gallant men of the Mier Expedition and the Dawson Massacre were exhumed and brought to La Grange. A suitable burial spot on the original David Berry league was donated by William Brookfield and on September 18, 1848 the remains of the Texas heroes were placed in a single stone vault on the high bluff overlooking the Colorado River and the city.

Brookfield’s oldest child, Emma married Vincent Luray Evans, son of Musgrove Evans, and they had several children before he died “out west”. In 1848 she married German immigrant Julius Cremer and lived in the Brookfield home until her death in 1877. She is buried in the Hostyn Catholic Cemetery.

William Brookfield died in New York City in 1849 and is buried there. At the time of his death, he owned 3,128 acres on the Navidad River and 743 acres on Buckner’s Creek.