Montgomery

Montgomery is located at the junction of State Highway 105 and Farm Road 149, near the southwestern edge of the Sam Houston National Forest, fifteen miles west of Conroe and fifty miles northwest of Houston in western Montgomery County. It traces its origins to June 4, 1825, when Stephen F. Austin signed a second empresario contract with the Mexican state of Coahuila and Texas to settle 500 additional families in what would become known as Austin’s second colony. Under this contract, Austin granted land to sixteen colonists between the West Fork of the San Jacinto River and the stream known as Lake Creek in 1831. One of these colonists was John Corner who received a league of land (4,428.4 acres) on May 10, 1831. Within two years of the arrival of the colonists, the settlement had become known as the Lake Creek Settlement, the earliest Anglo-American settlement in present-day Montgomery County.

In 1835 William W. Shepperd, a colonist originally from Surry County, North Carolina, bought a 200-acre tract located in the northwesternmost corner of the John Corner League for $100. Shepperd, a first cousin of Jared Ellison Groce and a brother of U. S. Congressman Augustine H. Shepperd of North Carolina, built homes and lived on this 200-acre tract with his wife, Mary Steptoe Shepperd, their children, and their slaves. He soon built a store, the first business in the Lake Creek Settlement, at this location, and operations later expanded to include a mill and a cotton gin. Three men residing with the Shepperds fought in the Texas Revolution: Jacob H. Shepperd, whose service included fighting in the battle of Concepción and the siege of Bexar; John Bricker, who served under Capt. Moseley Baker and was killed while defending the Brazos River crossing at San Felipe de Austin; and John Marshall Wade, who fought in the battle of San Jacinto.