Taming the Texas Frontier Fort Martin Scott played vital role in early Fredericksburg.
Jim Silvers fires a 12-pound Mountain Howitzer during a living history demonstration last summer at Fort Martin Scott.
U.S. Army units arrived in 1848, settling on the Barons Creek site, naming it Camp Houston. This became the first in a string of frontier forts established to help protect Anglos moving west. The camp was renamed Fort Martin Scott in December 1849 after Lt. Col. Martin Scott, who died in the Mexican-American War. Infantry units were followed by horsemounted dragoons, who led scouting patrols and escorts for the settlers.
In 1850, Indian Agent John Rollins, Army, and Rangers representatives and interpreters met with a group of chiefs on the banks of the San Saba River and forged the Fort Martin Scott Treaty When Texas became a state in On the eastern edge of of 1850. Today, the Treaty Stone Fredericksburg and adjacent to the 1845, the Comanche remained north of a site that the Rangers are recognizing the pact is displayed Texas Rangers Heritage Center on the banks of Barons Creek, the first thought to have used as a camp, on in the fort visitor center. the banks of Barons Creek and the U.S. Army post on the Texas By 1853, the frontier had moved Pinta Trail. frontier is re-emerging. west and so had the Army. Fort Martin Scott became a supply John O. Meusebach and German Fort Martin Scott, on the old depot and was permanently settlers established the town of Pinta Trail, has a rich history of abandoned by the Army in 1866. Fredericksburg just west of this diverse groups of people that site in 1846. Latter-day Saints shaped Fredericksburg, Gillespie But the story of the fort doesn’t County and the Texas Hill Country. (Mormons) started a town called end there. In 1870, John Zodiac east of Fredericksburg in Apache and Comanche tribes, Braeutigam bought acreage that Spaniards, early frontiersmen who 1847. included the fort and moved his became known as the Texas The Germans, Latter-day Saints, family into the fort guardhouse, Rangers, Anglo settlers, Latter-day Native Americans and Rangers their home for 90 years. He created Saints and the U.S. Army have left established a cooperative society, Braeutigam Gardens, which their footprints. supporting each other. The Latter- included a saloon, store, race track day Saints started the first lumber and the area’s first dance hall. The With outbreaks of attacks first four Gillespie County fairs and grist mill and were between early settlers and Native were held in the gardens. But the instrumental in helping build the Americans, in 1823 a group of fairs and gardens ended with the frontiersmen was formed to act as fort and town. The Germans robbery and murder of Braeutigam signed a peace treaty with the “rangers” to protect the citizens, in his saloon in 1884. Comanche in 1847 allowing trade starting what became known as the Texas Rangers.
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with them for food and supplies.
Fall&Winter2021
