SMS School History
Sartartia- pronounced (Sa TAR sha) is a Karankawa Indian word. The Karankawa Indians were early residents living along the Texas coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Karankawa territory ranged from the west end of Galveston Island to the area around the present day city of Corpus Christi. The Karankawa Indians began to disappear from this area in the early 1800’s. By the 1840’s there were only about 100 members of the Karankawa Nation remaining in Texas. All of the Karankawa tribe disappeared by the 1850’s.
Early settlers, Jesse H. Cartwright and Thomas Walker owned land in what is now considered the New Territory area. Cartwright built a home at the headwaters of Oyster Creek. Walker had a trading post or station on the Brazos River. Walker Station Elementary School derives it's name from this early trading outpost. In 1865 Mr. Littleberry Ambrose Ellis left his home in Mississippi and moved into this area. Some members of the Ellis family had come to Texas much earlier. His uncle and brother were signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence. With the help of a neighbor by the name of Cunningham, Mr. Ellis started a sugar plantation in this area of Fort Bend County. The original name of the plantation was Walker Station. However, Mr. Ellis decided to rename the plantation Sartartia in honor of his oldest daughter. Over the years the name, Sartartia, has been given to several things in this general area – a road, a lake, a dairy, and now a school!