The government of the Republic of Texas began organizing Texas into counties shortly after 1836. Liberty County was one of its original counties. William Barrett Travis and Sam Houston both practiced law in the city of Liberty, which has been the county seat from the beginning. Houston had two homes in Liberty County, a log cabin on a tract of land at Cedar Point, where the Cedar Bayou empties into Trinity Bay; and a home 23 miles north of the city of Liberty on the east side of what is now State Highway 146. There was a river settlement called Great Cane there then, but no trace of the settlement is left today. Mrs. Houston and her mother were founding members of the Concord Baptist Church, where services are still conducted, although the building is not the original one. A monument on State Highway 146, approximately halfway between Liberty and Councord honors the Coushatta Indian Chief Kalita, who is credited with supplying food and aid to many of the settlers fleeing toward the Louisiana border during the "runaway scrape", when Santa Anna's army threatened to wipe out the revolutionary forces. The Wells General Store, built in 1875, still stands in Tarkington Prairie, a community founded by Barton Tarkington in 1827, and which was the first settlement in Liberty County.
More information