Fort Sherman

Fort Sherman was a frontier outpost in present-day Titus County. In the late 1830s this area saw increased conflict as more homesteaders settled in Northeast Texas on land formerly inhabited by Caddoans as well as various immigrant groups such as the Cherokee and their allied tribes. Gen. John H. Dyer of Clarksville dispatched Capt. William B. Stout and a detachment of forty-two men to establish a fort in December 1838. Stout and his men constructed a post just north of the Big Cypress Creek crossing of the Cherokee Trace, an early road and trading route that passed through the region. The location of the structure was approximately thirteen miles southwest of the site of Mount Pleasant and near present-day Lake Bob Sandlin State Park. Stout named the post Fort Sherman after Lt. Col. Sidney Sherman, a commander at the battle of San Jacinto.

Settlers living along the Cherokee Trace relied on the militia and fort for protection. After the initial construction approximately eight or nine families, including the Blundell, Harris, Coots, and Gibson families, lived in Fort Sherman. Titus County resident Charles Brantley relayed the account of his grandfather John Gibson who had stayed in the post during Indian scares. Gibson had described a stockade-like structure with ten-foot-high logs that enclosed a large complex. Water was secured from a well inside the fort and from a nearby spring located on a tributary known as Bell's Branch. Stout later reported some disciplinary problems when a number of his enlistees determined that they would leave Fort Sherman after their terms of enlistment had expired, but Stout ordered the men to extend their service.