Even in the bustling, modern community that first meets a traveler’s eye today, there are clues to the hardscrabble past that kept Dripping Springs a tiny, isolated village for most of its history. And while it was inevitable that the beautiful valley around the “dripping springs” would some day be tamed, the three pioneer families who first braved this wilderness earned for themselves a place of honor in any history of the Texas Hill Country.

The three families were: John Lauter Moss, his wife, Indiana ("Nannie"), and a seven-year-old son named Joseph; newlyweds Dr. Joseph McKegg Pound and his wife, Sarah; and John Lee Wallace, his wife, Malvina and a daughter named Carrie. The three men and Mrs. Wallace were from Kentucky; Nannie and Sarah were sisters, from Vicksburg, Mississippi. John Moss had apparently married Indiana Ward and brought her back to Kentucky about seven years before the Kentuckians moved to Vicksburg. Dr. Pound, who had been to Texas as a soldier in the Mexican War, accompanied his friends to Mississippi, where he met and married Sarah Ward in 1853. They brought all their belongings to Texas in wagons, and apparently were enchanted by the scenic valley just off the Austin-to-Fredericksburg Road.

All three men were slave owners, but Moss was the wealthiest of the three, owning 11 slaves valued at $8,000 when they arrived at their destination in January of 1854. He bought 1,107 acres and Dr. Pound (the first doctor in Hays County) bought 700 acres just to the north, where his dog-trot log cabin later served as medical clinic, church and schoolhouse; Wallace bought 377 acres, and built his home on the slope of what is now called Wallace Mountain, where he operated a stage stop just east of the present townsite.

There were very few towns in the Hill Country when the brave Kentuckians arrived; Fredericksburg was the best-established town, but the other settlements were small and remote. Wild animals and wilder ...

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