Map - Gillespie County, Texas (Gillespie County)

Gillespie County is a county located on the Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2020 census, its population was 26,725. The county seat is Fredericksburg. It is located in the heart of the rural Texas Hill Country in Central Texas. Gillespie is named for Robert Addison Gillespie, a soldier in the Mexican–American War.

On December 15, 1847, a petition was submitted to create Gillespie County. In 1848, the legislature formed Gillespie County from Bexar and Travis Counties. While the signers were overwhelmingly German immigrants, names also on the petition were Castillo, Pena, Munos, and a handful of non-German Anglo names.

Gillespie County comprises the Fredericksburg, TX Micropolitan Statistical Area.

Early native inhabitants were the Tonkawa, Comanche, Kiowa, and Lipan Apache peoples. In 1842, the Adelsverein organized in Germany to promote emigration to Texas. The Fisher–Miller Land Grant set aside three million acres (12,000 km2) to settle 600 families and single men of German, Dutch, Swiss, Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian ancestry in Texas. Henry Francis Fisher sold his interest in the land grant to the Adelsverein in 1844. Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels secured the title to 1265 acre of the Veramendi grant the next year, including the Comal Springs and River, for the Adelsverein. Thousands of German immigrants were stranded at port of disembarkation, Indianola, on Matagorda Bay. With no food or shelters, living in holes dug into the ground, an estimated 50% die from disease or starvation. The living began to walk to their destinations hundreds of miles away. About 200 German colonists, who walked from Indianola, founded the town of New Braunfels at the crossing of the San Antonio-Nacodoches Road on the Guadalupe River. John O. Meusebach arrived in Galveston. The first wagon train of 120 settlers arrived from New Braunfels. Surveyor Hermann Wilke laid out the town. Meusebach named it Fredericksburg, in honor of Prince Frederick of Prussia.

In 1847, the Meusebach–Comanche Treaty was made. About 150 settlers petitioned the Texas Legislature to establish a new county, suggested names "Pierdenales" or "Germania". The Vereins Kirche became the first public building in Fredericksburg. It served as a nondenominational church, school, town hall, and fort. Locals referred to it as “the Coffee Mill Church” for its shape. Wilhelm Victor Keidel was the county's first doctor. Mormon leader Lyman Wight founded the community of Zodiac.

The Legislature formed Gillespie County from Bexar and Travis Counties in 1848. They named it after Tennessee transplant Capt. Robert Addison Gillespie, a hero of the 1846 Battle of Monterrey in the Mexican–American War. Fredericksburg became the county seat.

Fort Martin Scott was established in 1848 at Barons Creek, a Pedernales tributary. An angry mob of soldiers burned down the store-courthouse in 1850, destroying all county records. The melee apparently started when County Clerk John M. Hunter, who also owned the store, refused to sell whiskey to a soldier. Words were exchanged, and Hunter stabbed the soldier; about 50 soldiers stormed and burned the store, destroying all contents. Soldiers prevented townspeople from saving the county records.

John O. Meusebach was elected to the Texas Senate in 1851 to represent Bexar, Comal, and Medina Counties, and in 1854, received a special appointment as commissioner from Governor Elisha M. Pease to issue land certificates to those immigrants of 1845 and 1846 who had been promised them by the Adelsverein. The Texas State Convention of Germans met in San Antonio and adopted a political, social, and religious platform, including: Equal pay for equal work, direct election of the President of the United States, abolition of capital punishment, "Slavery is an evil, the abolition of which is a requirement of democratic principles", free schools – including universities – supported by the state, without religious influence, and total separation of church and state.

In 1852, Bremen seaman Charles Henry Nimitz, grandfather of Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz, built the Nimitz Hotel in Fredericksburg. In 1870, he added a steamboat-shaped façade.

Surveyor Jacob Kuechler was commissioned as a captain by Sam Houston to enroll state militia troops in Gillespie County. Texas seceded from the Union in 1861, and joined the Confederate States of America, and Houston was dismissed from office in March by the Confederacy. Gillespie County voted 400 -17 against secession from the Union. Unionists from Kerr, Gillespie, and Kendall Counties participated in the formation of the Union League, a secret organization to support President Abraham Lincoln's policies. Kuechler signed up only German Unionists in his frontier company, and was dismissed by Governor Francis R. Lubbock.