Texas, Smith County, near Winona
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Came to Texas, 1833. Became a
soldier in the Texas army, 1836.
Was commissioned Lieutenant of
Rangers by Sam Houston, President
of Texas.
Fought for Texas during the
Vasquez and Woll invasions. Had
horse shot from under him in
Battle of the Hondo.
Resided in Smith County at its
organization, 1846. His wife Mariah
was a charter member of Harris
Creek Baptist Church. Wren died
here in Mount Carmel community
August 28, 1859.
Incise on back: Erected by grandsons of Nicholas Wren
(Churches, Etc. • Patriots & Patriotism • Settlements & Settlers • War, Texas Independence) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
Came to Texas, 1833. Became a
soldier in the Texas army, 1836.
Was commissioned Lieutenant of
Rangers by Sam Houston, President
of Texas.
Fought for Texas during the
Vasquez and Woll invasions. Had
horse shot from under him in
Battle of the Hondo.
Resided in Smith County at its
organization, 1846. His wife Mariah
was a charter member of Harris
Creek Baptist Church. Wren died
here in Mount Carmel community
August 28, 1859.
Incise on back: Erected by grandsons of Nicholas Wren
(Churches, Etc. • Patriots & Patriotism • Settlements & Settlers • War, Texas Independence) Includes location, directions, 4 photos, GPS coordinates, map.
Harris Creek Baptist Church organized in Oct. 1849, with 15 charter members and elder William H. Ray elected as pastor. Ray, who organized the First Baptist Church of Tyler the previous year, preached at Harris Creek for two years before resigning to form other Baptist churches in Smith County. The original location was along the creek at Lott’s Spring, near the Methodist Church camp ground east of this site. After severe flooding, members moved the church here, in the Mount Carmel community, in 1852. Anglo members and their African-American slaves worshiped together in one building while seated separately. The church building also served as a schoolhouse, and a cemetery began on adjacent land. 
English:
This monument commemorates the completion in 1976 of the resurvey by the U.S. Department of Commerce of the north-south boundary between the State of Maryland and the State of Delaware known historically as the Mason and Dixon Line. The original limestone markers, some of which bear the armorial shields of the Calvert (Lord Baltimore) and Penn families, were established by the original survey made by Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon in 1764.
Stretching 900 miles from Franklin, Missouri to Santa Fe, New Mexico, the Santa Fe Trail was one of the most important North American trade routes of the nineteenth century. Begun in 1821, it was in use for 60 years until the arrival of the railroad. It was a hardy traveler who attempted the journey. Wagon trains up to 500 wagons long traversed the trail through blizzards, stampedes, dust storms, fires, disease, and Indian attacks. And often they lacked for water. 
"...There was a dam behind Dishaw's foundry. A prolonged dry spell would lower the Grasse River until it didn't spill over the dam, but the water would still run through a raceway and help create a pool in a basin among the rocks some distance below the dam. We swam in that bason - without a stitch on! Getting across the raceway took some doing. You teetered across a plank that had been converted into a bridge." 
As outstanding example of an extinct volcanic cinder cone. Capulin Mountain was formed as early as 10,000 years ago. In cinder cones, lave pours from cracks in the base rather than over the top. Capulin itself was the escape hatch for gases that blew lava fragments into the air where they solidified and landed red hot on the cone
In the late 1800s Nathaniel and Barzillai Hodskin operated a pocket furnace, foundry and machine shop on Water Street. SLCHA [St. Lawrence County Historical Association] 
As outstanding example of an extinct volcanic cinder cone. Capulin Mountain was formed as early as 10,000 years ago. In cinder cones, lave pours from cracks in the base rather than over the top. Capulin itself was the escape hatch for gases that blew lava fragments into the air where they solidified and landed red hot on the cone
Home of
Largest extinct volcano in northeastern New Mexico, Sierra Grande rises to an elevation of 8,720 feet, one of many volcanos, cinder cones, and flows that cover more than 1,000 square miles of area in northeastern New Mexico and southeastern Colorado eastward to the Oklahoma state line.
In memory of those who served
In 1855, the new town of Lecompton was named the capital of Kansas Territory. President James Buchanan appointed a governor and officials to establish government offices in Lecompton, and construction began on an elegant capitol building. In the fall of 1857 a convention met in Constitution Hall and drafted the famous Lecompton Constitution, which would have admitted Kansas as a slave state. The constitution was rejected after intense national debate and was one of the prime topics of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. The controversy contributed to the growing dispute soon to erupt in civil war. The Lecompton Constitution failed, in part, because the antislavery party won control of the territorial legislature in the election of 1857. The new legislature met in Constitution Hall, now a National Historic Landmark, and immediately began to abolish the proslavery laws. The victorious free-state leaders chose Topeka as capital when Kansas became a state in 1861.
The rolling land in this area was once sheep country, but now cattle roam here. These stone fence posts found are examples of the many still in use in this portion of Kansas. In an area where wood for posts was scarce, settlers used the materials at hand. The Greenhorn “post rock” was split from limestone strata, and with a little working, posts were created. 
A post-Civil War building boom brought grand new houses to this convenient area. By 1881 Blanche Kelso Bruce, the first African American to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate, and Major John Wesley Powell, pioneering director of the U.S. Geological Survey, lived on this block.
