This is copy of a map of northeast Gillespie County depicting the area described in "Ambush at Billings' Spring," where James Billings was murdered by a group of Indians and possibly white men in January 1863 is  from my dad's effects.  This story is included in the remarkable website of W.L. McKeehan, SONS OF DEWITT
COLONY TEXAS.

        The map is annotated to mark the site of Billings' Spring, off the highway from Fredericksburg to Llano, and notes where the homes of James Billings and his brother-in-law Bosman Kent were located at the time of the ambush.

        James was one of several children of Peter Billings of White Co., Tennesse (this area renamed DeKalb County in 1837, a year before Peter's death in 1838) to move to the Lavaca and Gonzales county areas of Texas.  James (b. 1819) and sister Alsey moved to the "old Clinton" area about 1840, following their sister Rebecca who had married their Tennessee neighbor Richard Heath and moved to Texas about 1836.  Richard had earlier acquired a land grant from the Republic of Texas, and has been described as one of the first settlers of Lavaca County.  Peter's son John moved to Gonzales County about 1850, and Gibson, my great-great grandfather,  followed these family members to Gonzales in 1854.

        James married Louisa Naomi Kent, whose brother Bosman Kent purchased land near them in Gillespie County, where both families moved in 1856.  This map lays out that area of Gillespeie County where they lived, and where the Ambush of 1863 took place.