Formed from Robertson County. Created April 25, 1846; organized July 13, 1846. Named in honor of Jose Antonio Navarro, 1795-1871, soldier, patriot and statesman, signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Member of the Texas Congress 1838. Commissioner on the Santa Fe Expedition, delegate in 1845 to the Constitutional Convention. County seat, Corsicana.

Five of the most prominent delegates to the Constitutional Convention of Texas, held March, 1836, hailed from Pecan Point, in this vicinity. Richard Ellis (an attorney and judge) was chosen president of the meeting and later served four terms in the Senate of the Republic. Collin McKinney (a magistrate) helped draft the declaration and served three terms in the house. A.H. Latimer (an attorney) served two terms. Samuel Price Carson (attorney) became Texas' Secretary of State and with Robert Hamilton (financier) was an agent to the United States.

Born in Tennessee, Peter C. Woods was reared by his maternal grandparents. He graduated from the Louisville, Kentucky, Medical Institute in 1842. Woods married Georgia V. Lawshe in 1846. They moved with their children, Pinckney and Sarah Cherokee, and slaves to Bastrop, Texas, in 1852, and settled in Hays County in 1854. Dr. Woods began a medical practice in the San Marcos Area. Using a little-known aseptic technique learned in New York, he effected an excellent survival and recovery rate among his surgical patients.

Dr. Woods was elected Commanding Officer of the 32nd Texas Cavalry Regiment in March 1862 at Camp Wood south of San Antonio. The 32nd Cavalry Regiment and other Texas Regiments kept the Union Army from invading Texas by patrolling the Rio Grande and Gulf Coast borders to protect the cotton trade with Mexico. They picked up Confederate deserters and conscription evaders. Dr. Woods became a Colonel known for his loyalty to his men, once refusing an order to force the men to give up their own horses to the Confederacy. The Regiment fought in Louisiana at the Battles of Blair's Landing, Grand Ecore, Mansfield, Monett's Ferry, Pleasant Hill and Yellow Bayou, where Woods himself received an arm injury which impaired him for the rest of his life. His aseptic methods saved the limbs of the wounded soldiers in his Regiment.

After the war, Colonel Woods returned to San Marcos. He freed his slaves, giving them tracts of land, and resumed farming and the practice of medicine. He was elected to the Constitutional Convention of 1866. After Georgia L. Woods died in 1872, he married Ella R. Ogletree in 1874.

Replica of the house in which the Constitutional Convention was held March 1 to 17, 1836, and in which the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed.

Born in Kentucky. Came to Texas in 1832. Commanded company of volunteers at Siege of Bexar (San Antonio), Dec. 5-10, 1835. Delegate to Constitutional Convention where he signed Texas Declaration of Independence, 1836. Aide-de-camp to Gen. Sam Houston at Battle of San Jacinto, 1836. Later fought Indians as a Texas Ranger.

Samuel Tubbs, born in Pembroke, Massachusetts in 1792, took the surname of his paternal grandmother, Katurah Angier, in 1812. He received his medical degree from Brown University in 1823 and in 1824 came to Texas as a member of Austin's Old 300 Colony. Prominent area doctor, Angier also was active in civic affairs, was a Freemason, and served as a Judge for the election of local delegates to the 1836 Constitutional Convention. He also participated in efforts to establish a system of public education for the Republic of Texas. Angier died in West Columbia in 1867.

This cemetery is the largest of three slave graveyards which local tradition indicates were established in the area in the early 1850s. It was named for delegate to Texas' Constitutional Convention of 1875 and prominent local citizen Gustavus Adolphus (G.A.) Sessions (1827-1902), who donated the land. The oldest burial here is believed to be that of Anderson Carter, who died in the 1850s. The cemetery is closely associated with the nearby Shiloh Primitive Baptist Church and contains the grave sites of many notable former area slaves and their descendants.

A Virginian by birth and education, jurist and statesman of Alabama, 1813-1825. Came to Texas, 1825. President of the Constitutional Convention, March 1836, and member of the Congress of the Republic of Texas. Born February 14, 1781; died here December 20, 1846.

Soldier-statesman of the Republic of Texas. A hero of San Jacinto. Commander in Chief of the army 1836. Chief justice of the Supreme Court 1839. President of the Constitutional Convention, 1845. United States Senator, 1846. He called Nacogdoches his home from 1835 to 1857.

Last Governor of Confederate Texas. Legal scholar and statesman. Born in Kentucky. Admitted to the bar there. Came to Texas in the 1840s. Developed extensive lands and resources. President of Indianola Railroad, 1859. Counsel for the Southern Pacific R.R. Member of Texas Senate 1857-61, and of State Secession Convention, which placed him on Committee on Federal Relations, to draw up the Ordinance of Secession, and on the committee to draft Constitution. Served in 1861 as military aide to Gov. F.R. Lubbock, and as a Major on the staff of Gen. T.H. Holmes, Commander of the Confederate Armies west of the Mississippi River, in 1862-63. Stood for state election in 1863 and was elevated from office of Lieutenant-Governor when on June 11, 1865, Gov. Pendleton Murrah left state with other southern leaders for Mexico in the hope of making a later fight for independence. Served as chief executive until August 2 deposed by A.J. Hamilton. Pioneered after the war the refrigerated shipping of Texas beef, to help restore state economy. Aided moves to end Reconstruction. Was a leader in the 1875 Texas Constitutional Convention. Died at his home in Cuero Feb. 4, 1890. Buried in Kentucky.