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Submitted: 4/24/20 • Approved: 4/24/20 • Last Updated: 4/27/20 • R304498-G0-S3
1801 - March 17, 1853
William Ware, was born on January 15, 1801, the son of Joseph W. and Elizabeth Dawson (Howell) Ware, in Muhlenburg County, Kentucky, according to some sources, and in Richmond County or Augusta County, Georgia, according to others. In 1828, with his first wife, Ann McMurphy and three children, he moved to Texas, settling on Ware Creek (now Lake Conroe), two miles west of the site of present Willis. His wife died soon thereafter.
Ware raised and commanded a company of volunteers at the siege of Bexar at which he was slightly wounded. With Antonio López de Santa Anna's return to Texas in 1836, Ware reenlisted in the Texas army on March 12, 1836, and was elected captain of the Second Company of Col. Sidney Sherman's Second Regiment, Texas Volunteers. He took part in the battle of San Jacinto, where James Washington Winters described his effort "like a wild mustang."
In Montgomery County in 1836 Ware married Elizabeth Ann Crane, the daughter of John Crane. In 1840 he owned 3,864 acres in Montgomery County, as well as eleven horses and seventy-five head of cattle. In 1844 he moved his family, which had now grown to eight children, to Kaufman County where they remained until 1849. The family then moved to a farm on York Creek, twelve miles south of New Braunfels, where Elizabeth Ware died on December 20, 1849.
In 1850 Ware's family, eight children and three of his wife's younger siblings, were living on Cibilo Creek in Bexar County, where their property was assessed at $3,500. In 1852 Ware moved west again with his son, John Crane Ware, and six slaves in 1852, thus fulfilling a resolution he had made in 1835, when he first saw the place. With 600 head of cattle and two ox-drawn wagons full of seeds, fruit trees, food, and tools, they had to move large boulders to get the wagons through the pass into the canyon. On August 17, 1852, he established the community of Waresville (now Utopia) in Uvalde County. At that time his was said to be the only Anglo-American family between D'Hanis and the Rio Grande. Ware died at Waresville on March 9, 1853.
Contributed on 4/24/20 by tomtodd
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Record #: 304498