Two Women, From Opposite Sides of the Tracks Influenced the Development of Clarksville

Theresa Huck Martin and Jennie Tomkins Moore came from different backgrounds, but they were were both rooted in Clarksville, and they both helped shape the physical development of the larger Clarksville community - a community that once spanned the International and Great Northern Railroad (present-day MoPac Expressway).

Theresa Huck Martin was a German immigrant who arrived in Texas in 1849 and relocated to Austin with her husband Joseph Martin in the early 1850s. After his death she inherited land on both sides of the railroad and beginning in the 1890s, she sold many of her lots to freedmen and women.

Jennie Moore was a formerly enslaved woman who acquired property from Lucadia Pease with earnings from her employment as a domestic servant in the household of the Smoot family. Her land was located near where O. Henry Middle School is located and she too sold some of it to freedmen and women.

During March’s Clarksville Conversation, Dr. Tara A. Dudley, an Assistant Professor with UT-Austin’s School of Architecture, spoke at length about Theresa Martin and Jennie Tomkins and their influence on Clarksville’s development

Jennie Moore