Room 3 of 9 · 1843 - 1876

First Settlers

Shiloh on Brushy Creek

Before there was Hutto, there was Shiloh, a string of farms and ranches along Brushy Creek.

Listen 0:44

Narration is an AI-generated voice.

First Settlers on Brushy Creek, Shiloh

Our first Hutto settlers established a community along north and south sides of the Brushy Creek, from McNutt Creek on the west to Norman’s Crossing on the east. The settlement was a string of farms and ranches named Shiloh, meaning “tranquility” or “peacefulness.” The people were linked primarily by friendship and common interests rather than commercial pursuits.

The story of Shiloh begins with Texas real estate investor Morgan Calvin Hamilton (1809 to 1893). In 1837, he arrived in Texas from Alabama and began purchasing land grant certificates from Texas revolutionary war veterans. Starting in 1848, he used 17 of his certificates to claim most of the land along both sides of Brushy Creek from Round Rock to Coupland. Most families who settled in Shiloh bought their land from Hamilton.

Shiloh’s First Settlers

The first families to settle on Brushy Creek were: farmers Josiah Appleby and Melissa Kuykendall (1843); farmer and inventor Daniel and Mary Polly Kimbro (1846); surveyor Matthias and Margaret Wilbarger; and a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto, Major Robert and Polly McNutt (1847).

Shiloh became a bustling settlement with the arrival of two separate groups of wagon trains of settlers from Vermillion County, Illinois in 1846 and 1848. Two families arrived first: medical doctor William I and Nancy Anderson and farmer Samuel and Martha Makemson. A larger group of four families arrived later: farmer Enoch and Elizabeth Oxley; farmer Zara and Molly Stearns with their stone mason son-in-law William and daughter Almeda Blankenship; farmer William James and Dorcas Juvenal; and Baptist minister Freeman, Sr. and Catharine Smalley.

Thirteen more families settled at Shiloh between 1848 and 1876: cotton farmer Sterling and Mary Orgain (1852); cattleman David and Malvina Cooke (1852); farmer William and Mary Evans (1856) and Evans in-laws farmer Lenearse and Elizabeth Boatright (1867); rancher brothers Charles and Louisa Saul and James and Hannah Saul (1857); rancher James and Margaret Hutto (1862); farmer Matthew and Nancy Kennedy (1862); farmer William and Elizabeth McCutcheon (1865); farmer Samuel and Clarissa Lewis (1866); farmer James and Elizabeth Harris (1868); farmer William and Lucy Farley (1870); farmer Nicholas and Mary Ann Izzard (1872); rancher James and Mary Jane Robinson (1873); and schoolteacher Warren and Elizabeth Swindoll (1875).

Wilbarger Crossing of Brushy Creek

The gathering place for settlers of Shiloh was at Wilbarger Crossing on Brushy Creek, located southeast of today’s Farley Middle School. A church, school, a part-time store, and three cemeteries (Black, Mexican, and White) were established there. At its apex in 1870, Shiloh had a population of over 400 and was the largest settlement in Williamson County.

Between 1843 and 1876, Shiloh had sixty-eight marriages, 215 children were born, and 48 persons died. Most residents were buried in one of four family cemeteries (McNutt, Oxley, Saul, and Kimbro) or one of five community cemeteries (Shiloh-McCutcheon (White); Black Shiloh; Shiloh-Santa Maria (Mexican); Historic Hutto; and Hutto Lutheran), all located along the shores of Brushy Creek.

Wilbarger Crossing on Brushy Creek today.