Robert A. Terrell

Duane's take

Here's what the official marker has to say about Robert A. Terrell, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, some men just seem to follow land the way a river follows a valley; always movin, always measurin, always layin claim to the next stretch of country.

Robert Adams Terrell was that kind of man. Born on February 22, 1820, in Tennessee, Terrell didn't stay put for long. Kentucky, then Missouri, then Louisiana: he worked his way across the South like a man with a compass in his hand and a map in his head.

And then, around 1840, he came to the Republic of Texas. Not the state of Texas, mind you. The Republic.

The whole experiment was barely five years old, and Robert Terrell walked right into it. He was a farmer and a surveyor by trade, which in the Texas of that era was about as powerful a combination as you could carry. Because land in North Texas wasn't just land; it was wealth, it was future, it was everything.

And somebody had to go out there and draw the lines. Terrell was commissioned to locate headright land grants across several North Texas counties, and the payment for that work? Vast amounts of land.

He was getting paid in the very thing he was measuring. There's a kind of poetry in that. He also served the Republic of Texas as a soldier in several expeditions.

This was a man who didn't just map the frontier, he defended it. And then in 1861, when the nation split, he enlisted in the Confederate Army. But here's the detail that really sticks with you.

The town of Terrell, platted on land he had surveyed, was named for him. His work, quite literally, became the ground beneath a community's feet. And if you happen to find yourself in Terrell today, there's still something standing that Robert Adams Terrell built with his own hands.

An octagon-shaped house, built in 1864, still there, still recognized as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark. Eight sides. Think about that choice for a moment: not four walls, not six, but eight.

A surveyor's house, and he couldn't even build it square. Robert Adams Terrell died on March 8, 1881. He'd measured out more of Texas than most men ever saw.

And the land remembered him.

What the marker says

(February 22, 1820 - March 8, 1881) A native of Tennessee, Robert Adams Terrell lived in Kentucky, Missouri, and Louisiana before coming to the Republic of Texas about 1840. A farmer and surveyor by trade, he was commissioned to locate headright land grants in several North Texas counties, receiving vast amounts of land as payment. He served the Republic of Texas as a soldier in several expeditions, and in 1861 enlisted in the Confederate Army. The town of Terrell, platted on land he surveyed, was named for him. His 1864 octagon-shaped house in Terrell is a Recorded Texas historic Landmark. (1994)