Purported early home of Simon & Margaret Wiess.

"The Old Stone Fort" at Nacogdoches, Texas

 
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 The book "Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas" is a story of Simon and Margaret Wiess (p  473-476; by John Henry Brown).  Regarding the old stone fort, it says: "In 1836 Mr. and Mrs. Wiess moved to Nacogdoches where he engaged in merchandising, a part of the time occupying the historic stone fort situated in that place.  In 1838 he left Nacogdoches with his family...."
(The author can find no other evidence of this.  If you can offer evidence that supports or refutes the story that Simon Wiess owned the old stone fort at Nacogdoches from 1836 until 1838, please Contact Me. In the meantime, consider that the trading post Simon operated at Nacogdoches may have been in a different building than the Old Stone Fort.)

 
 

Simon Wiess first visited Texas in 1833 and by 1836 was Deputy Collector of Customs for the Republic of Texas at Camp Sabine (now the town of Sabine Pass) near the border of Texas and Louisiana. He purchased the Old Stone Fort at Nacogdoches, Texas in 1836 and operated a trading post in it until 1839 (we need proof of this).  It was built in 1779 as a trading center by the founder of present day Nacogdoches, don Antonio Gil Y'Barbo.  The old building has a long history in early Texas, serving many functions.  Texas' first newspaper, the Gaceta de Tejas was first published there in 1812, Davy Crockett stayed there and the first official court in East Texas of the new Republic of Texas met there in 1837. Nacogdoches is the oldest established town in Texas and was named for the Nacogdoches tribe of Caddo Indians who lived there. (The town where Margaret and Simon married was named for chief Nacogdoches' brother -- Natchitoches, in Louisiana.)
The old stone house was also Simon and Margaret Wiess' home, and it is here their first child, Pauline "Polly" Wiess was born in May of 1837. But the trading post wasn't successful so, in December of 1839, Simon moved his family to a bluff overlooking a bend in the Neches river where he built a new home and started a cotton shipping business.  That location became a popular and prosperous Neches river port known as Wiess' Bluff with several generations of the Wiess family living there. Simon and Margaret and some of his children and grandchildren are buried in the Wiess Cemetery there. (Click here to tour the old Wiess Family Cemetery.)
The old fort served as both their place of business and their home and also served as a gathering place for some of the earliest Masonic lodge meetings in Texas.  When Simon moved in 1839, he sold the store to his father-in-law, William Sturrock.
The picture above shows "The Old Stone Fort" as it is today. It is a reconstruction of Y'Barbo's original home that has been relocated to the campus of Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches, Texas where it is a popular tourist attraction. (Read the Texas Handbook Online about the Old Stone Fort.)

 
 
photograph introduction Wiess family home page