DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, before a single settler ever laid eyes on this stretch of Hamilton Creek, the Indians had already been coming to these clear, cool springs for centuries. Centuries.
You think about that next time you're hunting for a decent rest stop on a Texas highway — these springs had been doing that work for a long, long time. Then comes 1847. Henry E.
McCulloch rides in and plants a Ranger camp right here on Hamilton Creek, beside those same springs. And you know how it goes — where Rangers camp, word travels. Word traveled to a man named Samuel E.
Holland. Born in 1826, a Georgian by origin, Holland came out to visit McCulloch's camp and — well, the valley did what the valley apparently does. He looked around at that lush bottomland, felt the cool air off those springs, and made a decision right then and there.
He bought 1,280 acres. Eighteen hundred and forty-eight, and Samuel E. Holland became the first permanent settler in what would later be Burnet County.
Not a bad call for a man just passing through. A year after that, in 1849, McCulloch's Ranger camp gave way to Fort Croghan. The camp that had drawn Holland here in the first place was already becoming something else, something bigger.
And the site Holland had chosen? Through his own efforts, it developed into a busy pioneer community. The springs that had welcomed Indians for centuries were now at the center of something growing.
Samuel E. Holland lived until 1917. He had time to see quite a bit of what that lush valley became.
Not bad for a Georgian who just stopped by for a visit.
What the marker says
Indians had probably visited these clear, cool springs for centuries when, in 1847, Henry E. McCulloch established a Ranger camp here, on Hamilton Creek. A year later, Samuel E. Holland (1826-1917), a Georgian, decided while visiting the camp that this lush valley was an ideal setting for a farm and home. He thus bought 1,280 acres here to become the first permanent settler in what was later Burnet County. In 1849 McCulloch's Ranger camp gave way to Fort Croghan. This site eventually developed, through the efforts of Holland, into a busy pioneer community.