This tombstone next to Zadock Wood's family members lists his cause of death as killed at the Battle of Salado Creek, the prelude to the Dawson Massacre.
The tombstone reads as follows:
"In memory of
ZADOCK WOODS
18 Sep 1773, Brookfield MA
18 Sep 1842, killed in the Battle of
Salado Creek, near San Antonio TX.
Buried at Monument Hill, La Grange TX.
Old 300, Citizen of the Republic of Texas
Private, Ranging Corps of Mounted Riflemen of Texas
28 Sep 1835-3 Dec 1835"
A state historic marker nearby reads as follows:
"WOODS PRAIRIE CEMETERY
Zadock Woods (d. 1842), veteran of the War of 1812 and one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists, brought his family to settle in this area in 1828. He built a fortified home on land deeded to his son, Montraville, and established a cemetery here for his family and neighbors.
The first burial is said to be that of a ranch hand. Another alleged early grave belongs to Stephen Cottle, brother of Woods' wife Minerva. He died c. 1828, and tradition holds he is buried north of his sister's plot; hers is the first marked grave, dating to 1839.
Zadock Woods himself is not buried at the cemetery. Killed at the Dawson Massacre of 1842, he is buried at Monument Hill State Historic Site in La Grange, in a vault with others who fell with him. A veteran of the massacre who survived capture and then imprisonment in Mexico is buried here, though. That survivor, Joseph C. Robinson, lived until 1861 and was honored here with a Texas Centennial marker in 1936.
To protect and preserve the cemetery property, which is the resting place of many early Texas pioneers, J.A. Darby, M.E. Darby, T.C. Moore and A.W. Young purchased the site in 1875 and deeded it to their heirs. The pioneer graveyard serves as a reminder of the area's early history.
Historic Texas Cemetery - 2002"
From the Handbook of Texas Online: (
visit link)
"WOODS, ZADOCK (1773–1842). Zadock Woods, one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred, was born Zaduck Wood on September 18, 1773, in Brookfield Township, Massachusetts, the son of Jonathan and Keziah (Keith) Wood. By 1796 he had moved to South Woodstock, Vermont, where he married Minerva Cottle in 1797. They had six children. Woods and his family moved to the St. Charles District of Missouri Territory around 1801 and were the first white settlers granted land in that area. The town of Woodville (or Woods' Fort) was established at Troy, Missouri, and Woods's inn and tavern was its first stagecoach stopover. Woods' Fort, commanded by Lt. Zachary Taylor, was a principal defense post during the War of 1812. Woods fought with Andrew Jackson in Alabama and New Orleans. After a lead-mining venture with Moses Austin ruined him financially, Woods and his family joined Stephen F. Austin's Texas colony in 1824. His original land grant was in Matagorda County, but the family settled farther up the Colorado River in Fayette County. His fortified home in the vicinity of present West Point was called Woods' Fort (or Woods' Prairie) and was used by the colonists as a place of refuge from Indian attacks from 1828 to 1842.
Woods's son Leander was killed in the battle of Velasco in 1832. Zadock mustered under Capt. Michael Goheen and Col. John H. Moore to fight in the battle of Gonzales, the battle of Concepción, and the Grass Fight near San Antonio, all in 1835. He returned home on December 3 of that year but was again involved in the Texas Revolution the next spring, when he housed a ten-member company of Tennessee volunteers under Daniel William Cloud on February 10, 1836, on their way to the Alamo. The family took part in the Runaway Scrape, fleeing before the advancing Mexican army. Minerva Woods died on March 28, 1839, and was buried in the Woods' Prairie Cemetery. In 1842 Woods and his sons Norman and Henry G. were recruited by Capt. Nicholas M. Dawson to fight with Mathew Caldwell's forces against Mexican general Adrián Woll at Salado Creek. On September 18, 1842, Woods was killed in the Dawson Massacre. His son Henry escaped, but Norman was captured and taken to Perote Prison. Zadock Woods was buried in a mass grave by Salado Creek but was reinterred six years later at Monument Hill-Kreische Brewery State Historic Site in La Grange. Historical markers in Troy, Missouri, and West Point, Texas, note Woods as a significant early pioneer.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Noah Smithwick, The Evolution of a State, or Recollections of Old Texas Days (Austin: Gammel, 1900; rpt., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983). Vertical Files, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, University of Texas at Austin. Houston Wade, comp., The Dawson Men of Fayette County (Houston, 1932).
BY Paul N. Spellman