Pioneer Settlers of Squaw Creek
Robert Saunders West of Tolar, was born in Kentucky in 1818. Mr. West and his young wife, Maura Pugh West, settled in the Squaw Creek area in 1854. His father, Thomas West, born in Buckingham County, Virginia, in 1797, followed his son to that settlement in 1856.
The West land entailed considerable acreage. There was some question as to which county the land was situated on. It could have been Erath, Bosque or Johnson County – most probably Johnson. The border lines changed so fast on many of these counties that it made it confusing.
The land comprising Mt. Pleasant Cemetery was given to the people by Thomas West, great-grandfather of Floyd West.
Robert West and his wife, Maura, resided the remainder of their lives on the land which they settled and patented in the 1850’s. All their children were born there.
Owen West, the oldest son, lived all his life on the same place. He married Emma Hudspeth in 1881. She was the daughter of John Hudspeth, who at one time operated a grist mill on the Paluxy. They had five children. Two are buried at Mt. Pleasant [Cemetery], and three are still alive.
The land upon which Robert originally settled remained in the West family between 90 and 100 years. Thomas, the Virginian, Floyd West’s great-grandfather, his sons, Robert and Benjamin Thomas, Robert’s son Owen, and Owen’s son, Floyd, have owned land in the Squaw Creek vicinity, directly or indirectly, from 1854 to the present time.
© 1978 GRANBURY JUNIOR WOMAN’S CLUB
Reprinted from Hood County in Picture and Story 1978 with the most gracious written permission of the Granbury Woman’s Club