DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, Robertson County has had more than one county seat in its time — and this particular stretch of ground held that honor as the third one. From 1855 to 1869, this was Owensville, and the land it sat on was given by a man named D.
H. Love, born 1816, gone by 1866. The town itself was named for Harrison Owen — born 1803, and still walking the earth all the way to 1896, which tells you something about the man's constitution.
Owen had served as the very first county clerk of Robertson County, holding that post from 1838 to 1847. So when they named a town for you, you had earned it. And Owensville was no sleepy little crossroads.
Public officials moved in. Doctors and lawyers set up shop. Businesses took root.
The town thrived — and that word is right there on the marker, thrived, and it means what it says. The place sat on the Houston-to-Waco mail road, the stage road, the freighting road. Traffic and commerce moved through here the way blood moves through a working heart.
Then came the Civil War, 1861 to 1865, and as the county seat, Owensville carried the full weight of that. This town armed soldiers and dispatched them. It cared for the civilians left behind.
That is no small thing to ask of a place, and this place answered. But here is where the road bends, and not in Owensville's favor. In 1868, the Houston and Texas Central Railway came through Robertson County — and it did not come through Owensville.
The railroad bypassed the town entirely. And once that happened, the county records were moved to Calvert. Just like that, the seat of power shifted, and Owensville began to fade.
By 1869, it was over as a county seat. The people moved on, the businesses followed, and the town that had armed soldiers and weathered a war couldn't outlast a railway line drawn somewhere else. What remains today is the Owensville Cemetery — the oldest in the county, they say — and it marks the townsite now the way a headstone marks a life.
The ground remembers, even when everything else has gone.
What the marker says
Robertson County's third county seat was located here, 1855-69, on land given by D. H. Love (1816-66). The town was Owensville, named for Harrison Owen (1803-96), who was the first county clerk, 1838-47. Public officials, doctors, lawyers, businesses moved here and town thrived. It was on Houston-Waco mail, stage, and freighting road. As Civil War (1861-65) county seat, this place armed and dispatched soldiers, and cared for civilians. After Houston & Texas Central Railway bypassed Owensville in 1868, county records were moved to Calvert. Owensville Cemetery, oldest in county, marks townsite.