Five Harris County Historical Markers That Comprise the Memorial Villages Heritage Trail By Dan M. Worrall Harris County Historical Commission I. INTRODUCTION The Memorial Villages Heritage Trail is an auto tour route that recognizes the early settlers of two pioneer communities, Piney Point and Spring Branch, with five Harris County Historical Markers and eight interpretive panels, placed at locations within the Memorial Villages of the City of Piney Point Village, Hedwig Village, and Hunters Creek Village, as well as the cemetery of St. Peter Church in the City of Houston (Figure 1). The texts for the five historical markers are included in Figure 2.a In the time of the earliest Anglo-American visitors to this area, “Piney Point” referred to a grove of pine trees at a southward bulge of Buffalo Bayou. It was a landmark for early Texas travelers along the San Felipe to Harrisburg Trail in the 1820s, and later along a wagon road of the same name that was constructed along that trail by Stephen F. Austin’s colony in 1830 (Figure 3).b The settlement of the immediate Piney Point area began with the purchase of a league of land there by John D. Taylor in 1824. John Taylor’s Piney Point league was the westernmost of several “Old 300” tracts along Buffalo Bayou. Piney Point was also a stop along the Texas Western Narrow Gauge Railroad, built in 1875, which lay along modern Westheimer Road (FM 1093). The nineteenth century community of Piney Point grew up along the wagon road and railroad; the community lay primarily south of Buffalo Bayou and north of Westheimer, between South Gessner Road and Voss Road. The modern day City of Piney Point Village (founded in 1954) shares the Piney Point name, and fits mostly within the boundaries of the John Taylor Piney Point League. It includes the sites of the pioneer John Taylor and Buckman Canfield-Harriet George homes – the historic core of the nineteenth century Piney Point settlement – just south of Buffalo Bayou (Figure 3). The area of Piney Point Village that lies north of the bayou was settled by German immigrants during and after the 1840s. That area is culturally distinct in its history from the Anglo settlements south of the bayou, and is more closely aligned with the history of nearby Spring Branch. a Most of the text and illustrations of this narrative have been paraphrased and at times modified from the author’s book, Pleasant Bend: Upper Buffalo Bayou and the San Felipe Trail in the Nineteenth Century (Concertina Press, Fulshear, Texas, 2016; 432pp. Available at www.amazon.com. b In this report, this route from San Felipe to Harrisburg (after 1836 including the intervening city of Houston) will be called either the San Felipe Trail or, at times where appropriate, the San Felipe wagon road, to distinguish it from modern San Felipe Road, which only locally overlies parts of the earlier Trail. Figure 1. Map, Memorial Villages Heritage Trail Marker and panel locations (see map, next page) 1. Arrowwood Circle, City of Piney Point Village: • Harris County Historical Marker, Early settlers of Piney Point 2. Carol Tree Park, Memorial Drive at Voss Road, City of Piney Point Village. Three panels: • John Taylor’s Piney Point League of 1824 • Early Settlement South of Buffalo Bayou • German Settlements North of Buffalo Bayou 3. 435 Piney Point Road, City of Piney Point Village (on grounds of Memorial Villages Water Authority) • Harris County Historical Marker, Fritz Schroeder Home 4. Hunters Creek Village City Hall, 1 Hunters Creek Place • Harris County Historical Marker: Site of Rummel-Hildebrandt-Bauer Sawmill • Panel: The Rummel-Hildebrandt-Bauer Sawmill 5. Gaylord Street between Echo Lane and Piney Point Road, City of Hedwig Village • Harris County Historical Marker: Jacob Schroeder and the Early Spring Branch Community • Panel: The Schroeder Family and Hedwig Village • Panel: The Pioneer Spring Branch Community 6. St. Peter Church Cemetery, 9022 Long Point Drive • Texas Historical Marker, St. Peter Church (in front of old church, facing Long Point) • Harris County Historical Marker, St. Peter Cemetery (behind and north of newer church) • Panel: A First Thanksgiving at Spring Branch • Panel: Hard Times on the Frontier Memorial Villages Heritage Trail Hillendahl 6 Historic Cemetery Campbell Rd Corbindale Rd 5 Beinhorn Rd 4 Smithdale Rd Hedwig Rd Piney Point Rd Point Piney Buffalo 3 Bayou Area of Buffalo Memorial Bayou Villages Memorial Dr 2 1 S Piney Point Rd S Point Piney Arrowwood Circle Figure 2. Text for five Harris County Historical Markers on the Memorial Villages Heritage Trail Harris County Historical Marker, Piney Point Village: Early Settlers of Piney Point (Site 1, Figure 1) “Piney Point,” named for a grove of tall pines at a southward bulge of Buffalo Bayou, was a landmark for early Texan colonists. The San Felipe Trail was initially a primitive path that followed the south bank of Buffalo Bayou. John D. Taylor arrived in Texas in 1822 and was granted a league of land here by empresario Stephen F. Austin in 1824. Taylor and his wife Maria built a log cabin near a spring, about 1000 feet east of this site. They lived here with a daughter and two servants, and were among the first settlers in the vast frontier area that lay between San Felipe and Galveston Bay. The Taylors were here for less than two years before they sold their land and moved to the new village of Harrisburg, where both John and Maria died of yellow fever in 1829. Taylor's Piney Point league of land passed through several hands before a part of it containing Taylor’s homesite was purchased by Buckman Canfield, a veteran of the Texas War of Independence, in 1838. Canfield and his wife, Harriet Putnam, moved to Texas from Oswego, New York. They operated a frontier inn for travelers on the San Felipe Trail, as well as a farm and cattle ranch. After Buckman's death in 1844, Harriett married Benjamin George and built a millpond and a water- powered sawmill below the spring. The millpond still exists, 1000 feet northeast of the intersection of Fondren Drive and Woodway. The San Felipe Trail was improved as a wagon road by Austin's colony in 1830. It became an important export route for the colony's cotton, and went from San Felipe to the port at Harrisburg and, after 1836, to the new town of Houston. The trail was located a quarter of a mile to the south of this site, near modern Westheimer Road. Harris County Historical Marker, Piney Point Village: The Fritz Schroeder Home (Site 3, Figure 1) The first settlers in the Spring Branch area were Jacob and Dorothea Schroeder, who built a log cabin in about 1839 in what is now Hedwig Village. Their son, Friedrich “Fritz” Schroeder (1833-ca. 1903) was born in Germany and immigrated to Texas with his parents. In 1859, Fritz purchased farmland in what is now Smithdale Estates in the City of Piney Point Village. He married Dorathe Bleker in about 1860, prior to serving in the Confederate army. The couple built this home on their farm in about 1865, using timber from the nearby Rummel-Hildebrandt-Bauer sawmill. The house went through several owners over the years, and was renovated in the mid-twentieth century as a country home. In the early 1990s, the property was purchased and developed into Smithdale Estates. At that time, the Schroeder house was donated by the developers, Memorial Builders, to the City of Piney Point Village. It was moved to its present location at 435 Piney Point in 1993, where it is now owned and maintained as a private residence by the Memorial Villages Water Authority. A front porch and spindle railings were added at that time. The Schroeder home appears to be the oldest remaining residential structure in west Houston. It and the 1864 St. Peter Church, on Long Point Road, represent the only remaining buildings of the German pioneers who settled the Spring Branch area. Harris County Historical Marker, Hunters Creek Village: The Rummel-Hildebrandt-Bauer Sawmill (Site 4, Figure 1) The area of Hunters Creek Village and most of the rest of the Memorial Villages were covered with virgin pine forest when German settlers began arriving to the area north of Buffalo Bayou in the late 1840s. By around 1860, a sawmill was operated by an early settler named McGuffey in the rural German community of Spring Branch. Pioneer settlers Carl Wilhelm Rummel and his son William worked at that mill. There, timber was sawn for St. Peter Church, built 1864. By the 1870 census, William Rummel owned a sawmill, probably by purchasing it from McGuffey. The mill was located east of this site, near the intersection of modern Voss and Beinhorn Roads. It had an eighteen- horsepower steam engine, with which they cut 1000 pine logs per year and turned out 100,000 board feet of lumber per year for the nearby Houston building trade. Pine logs were pulled from the forest by oxen, then sawn on a cradle that moved past the saw on a track of iron rails. After drying, lumber was taken to market in mule-drawn wagons. When Herman Hildebrandt became the mill’s operator in 1871, the mill employed five other men. One of his employees, Herman August Bauer (the son of pioneer German immigrant August Bauer) eventually purchased the mill. His cousin, John H. Bauer, took it over in the 1890s, and moved it several times through the years, in search of uncut timber. His son John Edwin Bauer took over the mill in 1918.