Town of Anderson, Montgomery County Texas
From Heritage Museum of Montgomery
http://www.heritagemuseum.us/countyhistory.shtml
 

ANDERSON. Originally named Fanthorp – the name of the town was changed after Kenneth Anderson who was the last vice-president of Texas. Anderson died in Fanthorp in 1845.

Anderson is an anomaly - a county seat with a small population just a few miles from the largest town in the county. Although the population never exceeded 500 persons, it managed to retain its status as county seat.   Navasota got the railroad. In the 19th Century, getting the railroad meant the difference between guaranteed prosperity and a slow economic death. The distance between the towns is a mere ten miles. During the early days of the Republic of Texas, stagecoaches rumbled across East Texas, carrying passengers from one distant community to another.

But passengers who were unlikely to have friends and relatives conveniently living in certain communities found overnight lodging hard to come by.  Some roadside homeowners saw the need and opened their homes to the passengers. As a result, many pioneer homes evolved into some of East Texas' best known stagecoach inns.
One such place was the Fanthorp Inn in Anderson today maintained as a state historical park with many of its original furnishings. Henry Fanthorp, an Englishmen who migrated to Texas in 1832, and his wife Rachel founded the Inn in the l840s to serve stagecoach passengers passing the dogtrot log house he built in 1834. The house was expanded by Fanthorp between 1848 and 1859 to accommodate more guests and soon became known as the Fanthorp Inn. The Fanthorps' parlor became a room where travelers could rest on their journey.

The stagecoaches not only carried East Texans and the mail, but newcomers seeking new lives for their families in Texas, where land was plentiful, fertile and inexpensive.  Anderson residents picked up their mail at the inn (Fanthorp was the postmaster). The inn also became a community center, a polling place, the site of dances and community parties, and the founding site for a Masonic Lodge and a Methodist church.

Business was brisk in the town, which at the time was known as Alta Mira, meaning high view. An early victim of annexation, Alta Mira lost its identity in 1846 when Grimes County was organized and the settlement was absorbed into Anderson.

Fanthorp, a shrewd businessman, served liquor in the parlor, guaranteeing the return of the men of the community as well as traveling men. Women seldom traveled in those days. General Sam Houston, a friend of Fanthorp, was a frequent visitor. So were Anson Jones, Ulysses S. Grant, Zachary Taylor, Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Kenneth Anderson, the last vice president of the Republic of Texas and the man for whom Anderson was named.

Just outside the dining room was the kitchen, where slaves prepared meals. A nearby cistern became a breeding ground for mosquitoes and a contributor to yellow fever, a disease that killed Henry and Rachel in 1867.  After their deaths, the Fanthorps' daughter, Mary Fanthorp Stone, took over the inn. She turned it into a private home, however, and Fanthorp descendants lived in the house until it was conveyed to the state.