Fort Martin Scott – Brief History

In December 1849, the eighth Military Department named the camp, Fort Martin Scott, after Major Scott, who passed on in the War of Mexico that occurred in 1847. The soldiers who were based at the station began to alternate between a dragoon and an infantry group. When settlers began moving further toward the west, the former army installation lost its importance. Because of this turn of events, armed force overseers proposed that the base be shut, and in 1853, the eighth Military Department facilitated the closure of the fortress.

On 9th May 1847, preceding the establishment of the military base, John Meusebach had driven a crusade to arrange the private settlement between a migration organization from Germany and the Comanche. The understanding was limited to the specific area between rivers Llano and San Saba. The agreement only incorporated the relationship between the Penateka Comanche and the immigrants in the area under the German migration company.

In 1850 an open war almost occurred in Fredericksburg as more white people moved into the locale. On 10th December 1850, there was a gathering between Texas Ranger Captain McGown, Captain Hamilton Merrill of the US Army, Agent John Rollins, translators Jesse Chisholm and John Connor, 6 Caddo, 4 Waco, 12 Comanche, 4 Lipan, 5 Quapaw, and 4 Tawakoni heads. The gathering brought about the exchange and marking of a contract whose target was to diminish open threats in the region. Although the understanding was made near the army base, it was approved in the county of San Saba.

On 25th December 1850, the then General George Brooke gave Governor Peter Hansborough of Texas a copy of the understanding, demonstrating that the arrangement was at this point yet to be passed by the US government, and the segment regarding the Indian people was the only legally binding segment of the agreement.

The understanding put the clans under the jurisdiction of the US government. The US government regulated debtors and trading activities and restricted the trade of alcoholic beverages among the communities. The communities were to maintain harmony with the US government and with one another, and various communities the government thought peaceful. The communities were required to give back all illegally-acquired assets and prisoners and stop carrying out assaults on pioneers and voyagers. It became the clans’ duty to approach the government with any report relating to suspected exercises that may jeopardize the understanding, and help the government recoup runaway slaves. As a gesture of goodwill, the US government would give the clans instructors and metal forgers and create trading posts. The agreement also specified that Christian ministers ought to be permitted to minister to the clans and be permitted to travel unreservedly across the region.

After the Infantry years, the former army installation was home to Texas Rangers, then to the Confederate soldiers. General Philip Sheridan was the man who had previously requested troops from the fourth Cavalry to go to Fort Mountain Scott in September 1886 to protect the region against Indian invasions. At the end of 1886, all the troops had deserted the stronghold. Most of the station’s commandants served in the Civil War, for example, Theodore Fink, Edward Blake, William Steele, William Montgomery, and James Longstreet. Toward the start of the 1880s, the station facilitated the Gillespie County celebration.…