By Jerry Flook, Garland Historian
Published in the Garland-Rowlett Messenger, October 2013
Not surprisingly, little appears in print about the history of the Garland and Rowlett areas prior to the beginning of their settlement in the late 1840s, but events during that early period set the stage for the eventual development of this area.
The Republic of Texas soon after its independence from Mexico in 1836 found itself on the verge of insolvency. Funds were sorely needed to operate the government. to improve roads and rivers, and to control Indian depredations, but the population was small and even so, there was no property taxation system.
But Texas owned lots of public land – some 216,314,560 acres, in fact. It was proposed that these lands be sold to newcomers for 50 cents per acre. But Texas had already adopted a policy of making large grants of free land to individuals who had supported the cause of the Texas Revolution, and many of the grantees were selling those lands to settlers in competition with the government. And on top of that, there was a constant influx of “squatters” from the United States simply taking up desirable land illegally. Even so, the availability of desirable land for settlement was limited because of the Indian threat in northern parts of Texas. What was the Republic to do?
In 1841 the Texas legislature concluded to resort to the empresarial colonization system previously employed by Spain and Mexico for importing settlers, such as Austin’s Colony granted in 1821 by Spain. Under such an arrangement the empresarial company agreed to import a certain number of settlers and in return would receive ten premium sections of land for each hundred families settled.
The government, on the other hand, reserved alternate sections of 640 acres within the grant. Each married colonist received, free except for some small fees, 640 acres; each single man received 320 acres. The settler was required only to obtain a certificate from the nearest official land office, have the land surveyed, cultivate and fence 15 acres for three years, build a good cabin there and return the certified survey to the state land office for a patent (deed) to his headright…
Several empresarial colonies were approved by the legislature, two of which were located in the present-day Garland/Rowlett area-Peters Colony and the Mercer Colony. The Peters Colony contracted in 1841 to import 600 families (including single men) within three years into a region of Texas known as the Three Forks of the Trinity. The Peters Colony included the area now occupied by Garland. From the very outset the Peters company encountered problems. Indians continued to harass the settlers. Much of the land of the colony had already been taken up by squatters or by preexisting land grants.
They eventually had to return several times to the Texas legislature seeking more land and extensions of the time to settle the promised number of immigrants. Then in 1844, before any settlers had received their patents, the legislature voted to repeal the empresarial contracts, leaving the whole system in limbo. It was not until 1850 that most colonists finally received the patents to their headrights.
The Peters Colony in its final form encompassed most of Dallas County, including what is now Garland, and all or parts of some 25 other counties of north-central Texas. It is believed that a total some 1,787 land certificates were issued by the Peters Colony.
Mercer’s Colony was even less successful than the Peters venture. In 1844, on the day before the Texas Legislature voted to repeal all empresarial contracts, President Sam Houston signed a contract with Charles Fenton Mercer, a former partner in the Peters company, to establish a new empresarial colony immediately to the east of the Peters tract. The legislation gave all existing colonies, including Peters and Mercer, until 1838 to shut down. Mercer’s contract had given him five years to settle 100 families, a more reasonable requirement than that of the Peters agreement.
But Mercer’s Colony lacked appeal to potential settlers. At first Mercer was offering settlers only half the amount offered by Peters. Squatters’ claims and pre-existing land grants were even a greater problem for settlers in Mercer’s Colony. In fact, litigation of conflicting claims continued as late as 1936. As was the case with Peters Colony claims, Mercer colonists did not receive their headright patents until 1850. By then the General Land Office had issued some 1,200 Mercer Colony land certificates.
The Mercer Colony included the land in Collin, Kaufman, Rockwall, Henderson, Hopkins, Hunt, Navarro, Van Zandt, Ellis and Dallas counties. What is now Rowlett was in the Mercer Colony, the boundary line between the Peters and Mercer colonies in this area following the alignment of present-day Rowlett Road, in fact. The city of Rowlett is named after Rowlett (Rowlett’s) Creek, which was in turn named after Daniel Rowlett (1786-1947), of Red River County, a land agent and surveyor for the Mercer Colony.