Texas, Ward County, Barstow
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Site of First Ward County Courthouse
A three-story red sandstone courthouse with a domed cupola was constructed here in 1893, one year after Barstow was elected first Ward County seat. The first elected officials to serve in the courthouse were R.D. Gage, Co. Judge; S.D. McWhorter, Co. & Dist. Clerk; W.M. Ware, Sheriff & Tax Collector; John W. Phillips, Co. Attorney; S.H. Parker, Tax Assessor; J.B. Carson, Surveyor; J.J. Walker, Treas.; Pat Wheat, Comm. No. 1; W.C. Carson, Comm. No. 2; Pat Duracke, Comm. No. 3; and A.D. Irvin, Comm. No. 4. The landmark was razed soon after the county seat moved to Monahans in 1938. All that remains is a cornerstone.
(Politics • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
Site of First Ward County Courthouse
A three-story red sandstone courthouse with a domed cupola was constructed here in 1893, one year after Barstow was elected first Ward County seat. The first elected officials to serve in the courthouse were R.D. Gage, Co. Judge; S.D. McWhorter, Co. & Dist. Clerk; W.M. Ware, Sheriff & Tax Collector; John W. Phillips, Co. Attorney; S.H. Parker, Tax Assessor; J.B. Carson, Surveyor; J.J. Walker, Treas.; Pat Wheat, Comm. No. 1; W.C. Carson, Comm. No. 2; Pat Duracke, Comm. No. 3; and A.D. Irvin, Comm. No. 4. The landmark was razed soon after the county seat moved to Monahans in 1938. All that remains is a cornerstone.
(Politics • Settlements & Settlers) Includes location, directions, 3 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
This congregation grew out of a community Sunday school begun by Mrs. Peyton Parker in the Parker Hotel in 1881. One participant, pharmacist B.P. Van Horn (1852-1932), arranged a revival in 1891 that resulted in formation of the First Christian Church, the first church to be organized in Pecos. Van Horn acted as lay leader since there was no minister. When he left in 1895, the church disbanded until Mrs. Ed Vickers (1870-1950) and Mrs. R.D. Gage started a Ladies Aid Society in 1898. The society planned another revival which reactivated the fellowship.
Dedicated to all veterans
Grand Army of the Republic Memorial
Organized in 1852 by the Rev. Hezekiah Mitcham (1800-1865), this fellowship began with six charter members who first held services in various locations throughout the county. In 1854 the small congregation erected one of the first Methodist church buildings in the county. A log cabin chinked with mud, it was located on land donated by Mitcham's son James in the small settlement of Caney Creek. The church was known as Mitcham Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and the community also came to be called Mitcham Chapel. The town later was named Malakoff for a village in Russia that had gained recognition during the Crimean War (1853-55). The congregation grew steadily in its early years and provided service and leadership to the community. In 1883 the membership agreed to move to the relocated town of Malakoff, which had moved 1.5 miles southwest of the original townsite when the railroad came through three years earlier. Several sanctuaries, including one destroyed in a 1933 tornado, have served the church since the move. From its small beginnings, the First United Methodist Church of Malakoff has grown, while maintaining its important ties to early Methodist history in Texas.
Hospitals, Left Wing, Union Army.
Created in 1819 by Alabama Territorial Legislature. Named for Patrick Henry of Virginia, colonial statesman and orator: “Give me liberty or give me death.” This area ceded by Creek Indian Nation in 1814 under Treaty of Ft. Jackson. Had been part of Lower Creek Confederacy. Abbeville made county seat in 1833. Abbe an Indian name of nearby creek.
Upon formation, Henry County was the largest county within Alabama composing all or portions of the present counties of Barbour, Coffee, Covington, Crenshaw, Dale, Geneva, Houston and Pike. When the youngest county of Houston was formed in 1903, Henry became the smallest. Franklin, the Dead River port of Abbeville on the Chattahoochee River, was the colonial settlers first beachhead into the wild west of Creek Indian Territory after 1814. Old Henry was the original Alabama wiregrass area.
For the first 75 years of its history, Abbeville’s commerce was tied directly to the Chattahoochee River by Indian trails and wagon roads. The arrival of the first train on the Abbeville Southern Railroad, November 27, 1893, signaled the dawn of a new era in Abbeville’s commercial life. In the December 1, 1893 issue of the Abbeville Times, the editor described the arrival which was received by “hundreds of people with happy and throbbing hearts.” Railroad workers were treated to a holiday and parade the next day “with over one hundred and thirty mules and many more laborers leading the band.”
Organized in 1852 by the Alabama Presbytery, Bethany Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church had a charter membership of twenty-five including four slaves. The church was used as a hospital in 1864 following the Battle of Brice's Cross Roads. The present structure, built in 1956, is located across the road from the original church.
Home of Mary Jarrett White, Organizing Regent
Traveler’s Rest has been designated a 
The oldest remaining colonial settlement in East Alabama from Florida to the Tennessee line and older than the county of Henry and the state of Alabama. An active trading post was located here in the Alabama Territory on “The Hill” early in 1819. The first settler gateway to the wiregrass was at Franklin located 14 miles east.
Pioneer of the Public School System
Born May 4, 1796
This house from the days when Bladensburg was a busy port town where George Washington stopped as he traveled the Old Post Road. On August 24, 1814, the British established an artillery position nearby and fired cannon and rockets at American defenders. Local tradition claims that walls of the house were scarred by cannonballs, but no evidence exists.
The French and Indian War (1754-1760) marked the entrance of Pennsylvania into world history and into the road system. General John Forbes selected the best Indian paths that would serve his military objectives of reclaiming western Pennsylvania from the French. The path was not difficult to follow and did not cross any major rivers which enabled troop to forge faster to their destinations. Forbes also supported this military road with several forts. Later this road and the forts (Fort Loudon, Fort Littleton, Fort Bedford, and Fort Ligonier) would lead to the settlement of central and western Pennsylvania, and eventually the mid-western and western United States.
This monument marks the site of Fort Ligonier. It was built in 1758 during the French and Indian War by Colonel Henry Bouquet and named by his Commander General John Forbes, in honor of Sir John Ligonier, Commander in-chief of the British Armies. The first fort built west of the Alleghenies by the Anglo-Saxon race. It has the distinction of never having been surrendered to an enemy.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, seen by 30,000 in Ligonier on September 26, 1958, climaxed his visit with a public address on this site. He sealed into the Century Chain the open Bicentennial Link, using as ax from the fort’s artifacts. The President then signed a scroll commemorating the occasion.
