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Welcome to Texas Genealogy Trails!
*Volunteers dedicated to putting free data online.*
This Leon County Website is available for adoption.
If interested in joining our group, view our Volunteer Information Page and contact Kim.
[Basic webpage design knowledge and a desire to transcribe data is
required]
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We regret that we are unable to perform personal research for
anybody.
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| Leon County was officially formed from Robertson County by the First Texas Legislature
in 1846. The first meeting of the county court was held on October 16, 1846, with R. E. B. Baylor as presiding
judge. The naming of the county is the subject of much controversy. Some maintain that it was named for Martín
De León, founder of Victoria. However, many residents insist that the name ("lion" in Spanish)
came from the nickname of a yellow wolf of the region commonly called the león. |
| The first county seat, Leona, on the southern boundary near the Old San Antonio Road,
was picked in 1846. The first chief justice was David M. Brown; William B. Middleton served as sheriff for the
first term in 1846. Centerville became county seat in 1851, as a result of a state requirement that county offices
be as close to the geographical center of a county as possible. The first newspaper was published there in 1851,
the Leona Signal, under the ownership
of Judge W. D. Wood. |
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| In the early years most Leon County residents engaged in subsistence farming, raising
corn, cattle, and hogs. The citizens of Leon County fervently supported secession; 87 percent of county
voters (534 of 616) cast their ballots for it. John D. Stell, a Leon County representative to the Secession Convention,
was chosen to help prepare an address to the people of Texas about the convention's vote to secede. County residents
responded enthusiastically to the call to arms. W. D. Wood, who wrote an account of Leon County during the war,
estimated that more than 800 county men enlisted in the Confederate Army. Several units were recruited from the
county: Company C of Hood's Texas Brigade, Companies D and E of Robert S. Gould's battalion, Captain Black's Company
A of John H. Burnett's Thirteenth Texas Cavalry, and Company D of Xavier B. DeBray's Twenty-sixth Texas Cavalry. |
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Counties and Towns
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Buffalo
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Marquez
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Centerville
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Oakwood
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Jewett
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Normangee
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Leona
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ONLINE DATA
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State Bird
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make sure it gets posted to the right county. We are looking for Census, Births, Deaths, Marriages, Biographies,
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