A remembrance of DeWitt Colony’s settlement 200 years ago will be celebrated in a free performance by Tejas Pioneers musicians at Cuero Intermediate Cafeteria at 502 Park Heights Drive in Cuero Sunday, Nov. 16, from 3 to 5pm.
This year the program will remember the lives of Green De-Witt, Jose Antonio Gonzales, Sarah De-Witt, Columbus Burns, John McCoy, Hepzibeth Taylor, Valentine Bennett and others.
In 2015 DeWitt County’s Historical Commission started the Lives Remembered Program, patterned off graveyard tours, to remember historical figures from DeWitt County. The graveyard tours focused on 10 historical graves, and someone from the community would dress like that person, telling that person’s story.
The year Hurricane Patricia hit changed the way things were done. Unable to make it to the graveyard, Lives Remembered moved inside and has never slowed down.
DeWitt County’s story begins with the enterprise of Green DeWitt, who in 1825 secured a Mexican contract to settle 400 families in what became known as De-Witt’s Colony — the region south of the San Antonio Road, between the Lavaca and Guadalupe divides. The land that now is DeWitt County lies in that colony area and incorporates parts of later counties.
The county itself was formally organized on March 24, 1846, when the State of Texas legislature established DeWitt County, and the first legal county meeting was held at Daniel Boone Friar’s store. Over the years the county seat shifted: initial settlement at “Cameron” didn’t last, later a site at Clinton, and eventually in 1876 the county seat was permanently placed at the city of Cuero. The present-day courthouse in Cuero, built in 1896 of sandstone and granite, remains a landmark.
In subsequent decades, DeWitt County evolved from frontier settlement through ranching, agriculture, community building and historic preservation. As the 175th anniversary celebration noted, the county is “smack-dab in the middle of the ‘Cradle of Texas Independence’” and retains that pioneering spirit.
In a county with deep roots — spanning colonization, revolution, ranching, agriculture and community life — the Lives Remembered program offers a personal bridge between the macro-history and individual lives. As the county moves toward its 200th year, this initiative anchors celebration not just in dates and milestones, but in the people who made it: those whose everyday actions-built towns, farms, schools, churches, businesses and families.
