William Hearne

In 1860 he was a 20 year old stock raiser on his father Ebenezer's large cotton plantation “Estate Place" near Wheelock in Robertson County, TX. He enlisted in Robertson County as a Private in Company C, 4th Texas Infantry on 15 July 1861.

He was in action with his Company at Fox's Gap on South Mountain on 14 September and at Sharpsburg on 17 September 1862.

He was detached as a courier to Generals Hood and Fields from about February 1863 to the end of the war. He was surrendered and paroled at Appomattox Court House, VA on 9 April 1865.

By 1870 he was farming his own place near Hearne (probably named for C.C. Hearne*), Robertson County and in 1880 was nearby in Calvert, TX.

Service information from Davis,1 as W. Hearn, and his Compiled Service Records,2 via fold3. Personal details from family genealogists and the US Census for 1860-1880. His gravesite is on Findagrave.

He married Anna Margaret Dial (1853-1933) in May 1869 in Robertson County and they had 5 children between 1873 and 1882.

* The Hearnes - Ebenezer Hearne (1817-1869), Horatio Reardon Hearne (1818-1896), and Christopher Columbus Hearne (1814-1867) - moved in 1852 and 1854 to Robertson County, Texas where they acquired 10,000 acres. There they operated large cotton plantations.

The original Hearnes probably acquired more land in this area that has ever been under one family ownership, and as they brought more and more acres under cultivation, the moving of crops and getting in supplies became a great handicap, keeping their teams on the road to and from Houston, Texas continuously. So, in 1855 when the rumor of an intended railroad from south to north Texas seemed substantial, Christopher Columbus Hearne went to Houston and told the promoters of the proposed railroad, the Houston and Texas Central Railroad, that if they would give him a shipping station anywhere between Wheelock and Port Sullivan on the Brazos River he would give them all of the land needed for the railroad right of way and a townsite. The railroad officials accepted Mr. Hearne's generous offer, stating to him that the shipping station would be located as requested and would be named Hearne, Texas. Thus the first seeds of the town of Hearne were sown.
- Normal L McCarver and N L McCarver Jr's Hearne on the Brazos (1958)

01/30/1840; Bossier Parish, LA

08/14/1890; Austin, TX