Robinson’s land near the river
In 1821, Andrew Robinson’s family and other members of the Old Three Hundred settled near what would be called the town of Washington. The next year Robinson was operating a ferry at the La Bahia crossing and a settlement named La Bahia developed at the busy ferry crossing. The Handbook of Texas says, “In 1831 Robinson gave one-quarter league to his daughter Patsy and son-in-law John W. Hall. Recognizing the site’s commercial potential, Hall surveyed and laid out a town in December 1833, when Methodist leader John W. Kenney built its first residence. After Captain Hall bought the remainder of Robinson’s grant, he established the Washington Town Company in 1835 with Dr. Asa Hoxey, Thomas Gay, and the Miller and Somervell Company to promote sales of town lots. Hoxey, a former resident of Washington, Wilkes County, Georgia, named the new town after his hometown.”
The photo is the 1835 Bradford Map of Texas that shows the town of Washington on it. Courtesy of the University of Texas at Arlington. A bigger version of the map can be found at http://libguides.uta.edu/ccon.
