“Titus County comprises 412 square miles of the East Texas timberlands, an area that is heavily forested with a great variety of softwoods and hardwoods, especially pine, cypress, and oak. The terrain ranges from nearly level
“Titus County comprises 412 square miles of the East Texas timberlands, an area that is heavily forested with a great variety of softwoods and hardwoods, especially pine, cypress, and oak. The terrain ranges from nearly level to rolling; most of the county is gently undulating to rolling. Elevation ranges from 250 to 450 feet above mean sea level.”
“During historic times, the earliest occupants of the county were the Caddo Indians, an agricultural people with a highly developed culture. During the 1820s and 1830s white settlements elsewhere in Texas prompted other Indians, such as Creeks, Choctaws, and Cherokees, to settle in the area. In the 1840s white settlers gradually displaced the Indians.”
“The earliest Anglo settler in what is now Titus County is said to have been Kendall Lewis, who moved into the county in 1835 with his wife, probably a Creek Indian. Lewis’s land grant, patented in February 1842, is said to have been the first land surveyed in the county. The family settled on Swauano Creek and remained in the county until problems with Indians caused the Lewises to leave the state in 1846.”
“During the early 1840s settlement of the area proceeded rapidly, and in 1846 the First Legislature of the state of Texas established Titus County, which included all of the territory of present-day Morris and Franklin counties. The county was named for Andrew Jackson Titus, an early Red River County settler. Mount Pleasant was established as the county seat.”
“In the election of 1860 an overwhelming majority of Titus County voters supported the states’ rights candidate, John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky. When the election was held for delegates to the Secession Convention, however, one of the men elected from Titus County was Joshua F. Johnson, one of only eight delegates who opposed secession. Vigorous in his opposition, Johnson signed the “Address to the People of Texas” which urged Texans to reject the secession amendment and may have campaigned against the ordinance in the Titus County area. Despite the efforts of Johnson and a few other unionists, Titus County voters approved secession by a vote of 411 to 285.”
“Reconstruction was difficult. Many of the county’s white citizens were discouraged and bitter. In 1867 a chaotic economic situation was made worse by the almost total failure of the cotton crop and a partial failure of the corn crop. Moreover, two companies of the Sixth United States Cavalry, under the command of Maj. Samuel Henry Starr, were stationed in