DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, friends — and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, if you're lookin' for a family that came to Texas and just figured things out from scratch, you'd be hard pressed to find a better example than Jacob and Adeline Wolf. Jacob Wolf was born in 1812, Adeline Faulkner Wolf in 1814, and the two of them came out of Tennessee, bound for Texas, somewhere around 1850.
They didn't arrive with a welcome committee. They arrived with grit. They obtained a land grant in Burnet County and set themselves down at a place called Dobyville — and when I say they were pioneers, I mean that word in its full, unvarnished weight.
They supplied their own provisions. Their own buildings. Their own medicines.
And — here's the part that gets me — their own school. In a time and place where none of those things were guaranteed by anyone, the Wolfs just... built them. All of it.
Out of whatever they had. And it wasn't a peaceful frontier they'd settled into. Indian raids menaced the community, and Jacob Wolf knew it.
He was aware, too, that something else was missing — something essential. Government. So in 1854, Wolf helped organize Burnet County itself.
The county didn't just happen around him; he was part of making it real. Jacob and Adeline had eight children together. Eight.
And now, here's where the story takes a turn that'll make you sit up a little straighter. Of those eight children, two sons became sheriffs. One in Burnet.
One over in Lampasas County. Adeline Wolf passed in 1870. Jacob in 1874.
But they left behind a county they helped build, a community they provisioned and schooled and sheltered — and two sons wearing badges in two different counties. Some families put down roots. The Wolfs put down a whole county.
What the marker says
Jacob Wolf (1812-1874) and wife Adeline Faulkner Wolf (1814-1870) came from Tennessee to Texas about 1850. Obtaining land grant in Burnet County, they settled at Dobyville, and were pioneers, supplying their own provisions, buildings, medicines, and school. Menaced by Indian raids and aware of need for government, Wolf in 1854 help organize Burnet County. Of the 8 children, 2 sons became sheriffs-- one in Burnet, one in Lampasas County. Recorded - 1967