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The Anglo settlement began during the Texas Revolution and the early days of the Republic of Texas, when the area
was part of Milam County. In 1835, in an attempt to strengthen the frontier against Indian attack, a military post
was built near the headwaters of Brushy Creek in what would become southwestern Williamson County and was named
for Capt. John J. Tumlinson, Jr., the commander of the company of Texas Rangers who garrisoned the post. The post
was abandoned in February of 1836, when its garrison was withdrawn to deal with the Mexican invasion. In 1838 the
first civilian settlement was established by a Dr. Thomas Kenney and a party of settlers who built a fort, named
Kenney's Fort, on Brushy Creek near the site of the present-day crossing of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad.
Several other sites on Brushy Creek were settled soon after, but Indian raids kept white settlement in check, and
a number of the early pioneers, including Kenney, were killed by Indians over the next few years. In 1842 many
of the early farms were abandoned when Governor Sam Houston
advised settlers to pull back from the frontier. The Indian threat eased
after 1846, and part of the influx of settlers who came to Texas after its annexation traveled to the frontier
along Brushy Creek and the San Gabriel River. By 1848 there were at least 250 settlers in what was then western
Milam County, and in the early months of that year 107 of them signed a petition to organize a new county. Recognizing
that the petitioners needed a seat of local government that was considerably closer to them than Milam County's,
the Texas legislature established Williamson County on March 13, 1848, naming it for prominent judge and soldier
Robert M. Williamson. Georgetown, the county seat, was laid out during the summer of that year, and the district
court was in session by October.
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