Pumphrey Burnett credited with founding Tidehaven

   Pumphrey Burnett (Pumphry or Pumpry Burnet), partner of Albert L. Sojourner as one of Stephen F. Austin’s Old Three Hundred families, was born around 1796 to Plenander and Elizabeth Burnett.

Englishman 1st to settle on lower Caney

   Sargent, on FM 457, five miles northwest of the Gulf of Mexico and 24 miles southeast of Bay City in the eastern corner of Matagorda County, was named for George Sargent, an Englishman who immigrated to Texas from Cornwall, England, in 1834.

Kenner Prairie once farming community

   Kenner, also known as Kenner Prairie, was between Live Oak and Caney creeks 25 miles northeast of Matagorda and four miles southwest of Sargent in southeastern Matagorda County.

Israel and Abe Ditch Family

Almost since the founding of Bay City in 1894, the Ditch name was synonymous with excellence in dry goods and men’s and women’s furnishings.      The Ditch brothers, Israel and Abe, opened one of the first stores in Bay City which was located at the corner of Avenue G and Seventh Street.

Palacios museum features seawall exhibit

Palacios, Texas    The City by the Sea Museum’s new temporary exhibit, “Shifting Shorelines: The Construction and Impact of the Palacios Seawall” is on view beginning July 20th and will run through September 9th.     Seawalls are tools that coastal communities use to combat flooding and erosion.

Markham Methodists active since town’s early days

   Methodism came to Matagorda County as early as 1851. At that time a church was built in the town of Matagorda, on the gulf coast. This building was destroyed by a tornado in 1854.     No doubt that this church planted the seeds of early Methodism in Matagorda County.

Jones-Jackson Cemetery a Historic Texas Cemetery

Jones-Jackson Cemetery    Matagorda County, like most counties of the southern part of the United States was agrarian from its inception.     During the antebellum period, the county was dotted with plantations, especially along Caney Creek which ran through Wharton and Matagorda Counties.

Rice farming led to Markham’s development as a town

   Markham, an unincorporated community, is located about five miles south of the Colorado River off Highway 35 on the junction of FM 1468 and FM 2431.

Japanese Farmers in Matagorda County

   Commercial rice production moved into southeast Texas in the late 1880s.     The first rice cultivation in Texas was similar to the labor-intensive traditional rice production throughout the world.     The rice seed was primarily obtained from Honduras and the Carolinas.