Gabriel Mills: When Good History Markers Go Bad

Recently I was describing to a friend the logging of Texas historical markers as a participant of the Historical Marker Database Organization (HMDB.ORG). I likened it to Pokémon GO for history markers. As far fetched as it may seem, the State of Texas often "loses" the location of their own markers; sometimes they record a location that is pretty close (a quarter to half mile), and you have to go looking for it, and other times they are just way, way, way off. I've seen markers whose lat/long showed them to be in the Gulf of Mexico! To be fair, do keep in mind some of these markers are old; the 1936 centennial series of markers were put up when Texas was just a mere 100 years old. This was back in the day before GPS mind you.

The Texas Historical Commission provides a way to give them feedback when you find a marker whose location is incorrectly recorded. One such marker whose location the state was way off on was that for a place called Gabriel Mills.

 

Gabriel Mills: A Brief History

Here's a link to the Gabriel Mills historic marker on HMDB.ORG which reads:

Samuel Mather settled here in 1849, building a grist mill on the North San Gabriel in 1852. John G. Stewart opened a store near the mill. A small log cabin was in use by 1854 for church, school and lodge meetings. A post office was established in 1858, Mather being postmaster. W. L. Brizendine owned the mill by 1865, adding a cotton gin. Known as Mather's Mill, Brizendine Mill, or Gabriel Mills, the village thrived until Austin & Northwestern Railroad bypassed it (1881); then a decline began. The post office closed in 1905, and by the 1920s the town itself had disappeared.

Gabriel Mills is quite a historic spot. As (Zelade, 1983) notes "Gabriel Mills' famous native son was the noted Indian fighter Andy Mather .. son of Samuel Mather". His grave is in the Mather Family Cemetery. There's also a hanging-tree, just a few hundred feet from the Gabriel Mills Cemetery.

Excerpt from J. Frank Dobie's Coronado's Children

My particular interest in Gabriel Mills is its association with the Penateka Comanche. In the sidebar is an excerpt from J. Frank Dobie's classic, Coronado's Children. It relates a story of Chief Yellow Wolf as told by Andy Mather: "In 1851 .. Yellow Wolf brought some silver ore to my  father [blacksmith in Gabriel Mills] to be hammered into ornaments .. Yellow Wolf told him that he got it from a place 'three suns to the west'." As Dobie notes, it was a story that spawned speculation and searches for a lost silver mine known only to the Comanche. Definitely one of my favorite lost mine stories from Dobie. Gabriel Mills is also close to Mount Gabriel (also known as Pilot Knob back in the day on old maps), the highest point in Williamson County, atop which Comanche scouts watched the progress of the ill-fated Webster wagon train.

See more on Webster Massacre here. Samuel Mather's cabin was relocated from Gabriel Mills to Old Settlers Park in Round Rock, Texas. Was this the cabin where Yellow Wolf talked with Samuel Mather about a place "three suns to the west" where a deposit of silver was located? Stirs the imagination.

 

Tale of a Misplaced Marker

I had been aware that the lat/long location recorded by the Texas Historical Commission for the Gabriel Mills marker was not correct. They had it located somewhere near the intersection of US 183 and FM 620; as the crow flies about 20+ miles distance from the true location of the marker. After logging the marker for HMDB.ORG in 2015 (which included photos of the marker & correct lat/long), I reported the error in the State's location via the Texas Historic Sites Atlas error reporting mechanism. They eventually corrected the site atlas.

Then recently, while researching something completely unrelated, I came across an archaeology report. In preparation for road improvements on U.S. 183 south of FM 620, a consulting group had conducted background studies for TxDOT and the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority on various historic and prehistoric Areas of Potential Effects (APEs).

In addition to identifying recorded archaeological sites, the report also included other cultural resources, e.g. those identified by the location of nearby "Official Texas Historical Markers". Among the historic markers identified within a 1-km radius of the project area were (correctly) Hopewell Cemetery, Jollyville Cemetery, Pond Springs Cemetery, and ... Gabriel Mills????? And there in the report was the historic marker text for Gabriel Mills, a ghost town some 20+ miles away virtually in the middle of nowhere. The archaeologists had used the marker location information from the Texas Historic Commission assuming it to be correct. And that put good old Gabriel Mills smack dab in the project area.

I'm not sure what the moral of the story is, maybe trust but verify? But it does make me feel good that what us historical marker geeks do -- find and locate historic markers; send corrections to the State -- may actually do some good!

Photos

Gabriel Mills historical marker

Old "hanging tree" across from the Gabriel Mills Cemetery

 

Gabriel Mills Cemetery, AKA Bittick Cemetery caption

Remains of the old mill?

Tombstone of Andy Mather (son of Samuel) and wife Mary in nearby Mather Cemetery

Nearby Mt. Gabriel atop which Comanche scouts watched the progress of the ill-fated Webster wagon train

Sacred Places, Transforming Experiences

My history article for the October 2016 NWACA Newsletter

There’s a quote I love from the book Believing in Place, attributed to Comanche elder and storyteller Carney Saupitty: “Sacred places become sacred only after some transforming experience has occurred there”. I am happy to tell you that next month I will start contributing short history articles to the NWACA newsletter; my contribution to identifying the transforming experiences that have made Northwest Hills a special place over the centuries.

I’ve lived here in Austin for 44 years, here in Northwest Hills going on 26. My kids all went through the ranks of day care to Anderson right here in the hood. I’m a retired software professional, but I’ve been a history, anthropology and archeology nut as long as I can remember. I was raised a military brat. I think the transient nature of my military upbringing meant that when I did settle here in Austin in 1972, I was keen to know more about the history of the area knowing my roots were here; my mother’s family goes back several generations to pre-Civil War Texas in little communities northwest of Austin.

One of the most historic spots in Northwest Hills is Spicewood Springs. At the Austin Charrette in January I did a short presentation of the history of the springs and the community that grew up around them. More recently I’ve had the opportunity to continue involvement in the charrette process as an advocate of preserving and promoting the history of Spicewood Springs. The springs will be the focus of several of the history articles I’ll write in the near future; a history of Indians, early settlers, land grants, old trails, old roads and maps.

But there are other stories worth telling about these hills we call home. In 2014 I hosted several members of the Texas Historic Tree Coalition, including the Comanche Nation Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, on a visit to Austin to look at potential Indian marker trees in and around Northwest Hills (What is an “Indian marker tree” you ask? Sounds like a good topic for an article!). It was the research in preparation for that visit in particular that led me to realize that Northwest Hills and the surrounding areas had a history worth telling.

A funny thing I’ve learned from writing about Austin history; the more I write, the more I learn. The initial writing is just the start of a collaborative exploration as folks read, then add to (or correct!) the story. So I look forward to hearing from you, my neighbors, as I write about “transforming experiences” that made Northwest Hills a special place to the generations that preceded us.