Wiley J. Peace (sometimes spelled Willy) was born in 1818 and died in 1871. He is buried in the Peace-Towns Cemetery near Weir, Texas. A veteran of both the Mexican War and the Civil War, he served as a Sergeant in Company B, 2nd Texas Mounted Volunteers during the Mexican War. During the Civil War, he first served in the Texas State Troops from June to August 1861, then as a 1st Lieutenant in the 27th Brigade, the local militia in Williamson County. In August 1861, he joined the 4th Texas Cavalry (Williamson Bowies), a Texas State Troops unit that was converted into the 12th Texas Cavalry in the Confederate Army, where he was promoted to Captain. In 1849, Peace received a 320-acre land grant from the State of Texas. He married Lucy Bradley Stubblefield in 1850, and the couple became among the first settlers in the Towns’ Mill (also known as Townsville) area east of Georgetown along the San Gabriel River. The 1860 census listed him as a prosperous stock raiser with $14,000 in combined real and personal estate. The family cemetery on the property began with the 1865 burial of daughter Eliza. Towns’ Mill was named for James Frances Towns, who built a flour mill there in 1870. The settlement was also known as Townsville, Excelsior Mill, Buffalo Springs, and Prairie Springs. Towns married Eppy Peace, daughter of Lucy and Wiley. The cemetery’s most recent burial was infant Weaver Towns (son of Eppy and James) in 1892. By the 1890s,Towns Mill had a store, blacksmith shop, and cotton gin. It prospered until the Georgetown and Granger Railroad bypassed it around the turn of the century. A post office operated from 1895 to 1903. The town declined sharply after a 1913 flood destroyed the mill and it ceased to exist as a recognized community by 1948.