Over the last decade, new historical research has
uncovered many significant and previously forgotten facts regarding the town and the county’s earliest history. Most notable among these was the rediscovery
of the Lake Creek Settlement. The Lake Creek Settlement was a settlement of
Anglo-American settlers in Austin’s Colony located between the west fork of the
San Jacinto River (now dammed to form Lake Conroe) and the stream known as Lake
Creek. These settlers from the United States received land from Empresario
Stephen F. Austin in 1831 as an incentive to leave the United States and settle
in his colony which was then located in the Mexican State of Coahuila y
Tejas. Heads of households in Austin’s
Colony at this time each received a League of land (4,428.4 acres). By 1833,
the area these colonists had settled had become known as the Lake Creek
Settlement.
In 1835, W. W. Shepperd established a store in
center of the Lake Creek settlement near the intersection of three important
roads or traces. During the Texas
Revolution, a number of the men from the Lake Creek Settlement volunteered to
fight for Texas’ independence from Mexico (1835-1836). One of these men, John
Marshall Wade, manned the famous Twin Sisters canons during the Battle of San
Jacinto when Texas won her independence on April 21, 1836. Wade would later
publish the first newspaper in Montgomery appropriately named the Montgomery
Patriot.
In the year following Texas independence, W. W.
Shepperd founded the town of Montgomery at the site of his store in the center
of the Lake Creek Settlement. Five
months later, Republic of Texas President Sam Houston signed the act creating
Montgomery County on December 14, 1837. On March 1, 1838, the county government
was organized in the town of Montgomery and the town of Montgomery was selected
to be the first county seat of Montgomery County.
It is important to note that the Lake Creek
Settlement comprised almost exactly the same geographic area as the Montgomery Independent
School District does today.
Historians and many others believe naming the new
high school after the Lake Creek Settlement would be a wonderful way to
remember the area’s history and honor the memory of the those brave colonists
and settlers who left the comfort and security of their homes in the United
States to seek an uncertain but potentially better future in Austin’s Colony in
Mexico and later the Republic of Texas.
Their efforts, struggles, and battles laid the very foundation upon
which Texas is built today. Billy Ray
Duncan, President of the Montgomery Historical Society supports the idea to
name the new high school after the Lake Creek Settlement, “Before there was a
school district, before there was a county, before there was a town; there was
the Lake Creek Settlement - a truly unique naming opportunity for MISD.” The
school’s mascot would be easy enough – “Patriots.”
On January 29, 2016, the Texas Historical
Commission approved a Texas Historical marker for the Lake Creek Settlement
which will be dedicated in late 2016 or early 2017.
For more information about the
Lake Creek Settlement, see lakecreeksettlement.info
or visit the Lake Creek Settlement page on Wikipedia. Also see The Early History of Montgomery, Texas. Or click here to read the Historical Narrative in support of the Texas Historical Commission marker for the Lake Creek Settlement which was approved on January 29, 2016.
