Peter Whetstone

Who is Peter Whetstone?

Peter Whetstone was an early pioneer leader in the Republic of Texas most remembered for founding the city of Marshall, Texas with Isaac Van Zandt.

Whetstone married Dicey, or Dicy, Webster in 1816 in Arkansas. He may have left Arkansas for Texas in 1829, when he transferred land to a Charlton Thompson in Lovely County, Arkansas, in what is now Oklahoma. When he settled in Harrison County, Texas in 1838 he received first-class certificate grant, which were only issued to married-men who were in Texas when the Texas Declaration of Independence was ratified, indicating he was in Texas before March 2, 1836.

In 1841 a new seat was sought for Harrison County, and Whetstone offered some of his land in central Harrison County to build a church and a school on and subsequently divide the remainder into 190 lots. Commissioners were initially concerned that the water in the area would not be good, the reason from moving the county seat from site on the Sabine River like Pulaski was that they had poor water and were prone to disease and flooding.