Borders of the district included the Old San Antonio Road to the south, the Sabine River to the north, and the Neches and Angelina rivers to the west and east. Despite repeated attempts, the Cherokees had never been able to establish a secure title to this land, and in the summer of 1839 the Indians living there had been driven out of Texas by President Mirabeau B. Lamar and others antagonistic to their presence (see CHEROKEE WAR). Fredonia was located very near the northeast corner of what had been the Cherokee claim.

Edwards received a patent for the league including the site of Fredonia on February 10, 1843. On July 7 he was issued a license to operate a ferry across the Sabine at Fredonia, at a spot then known as Cotton’s Crossing. Travel to and from Fredonia was accomplished by roads north and south to Gilmer and Nacogdoches. The north road crossed the Shreveport-Tyler Road (Red Rock Road) near Pine Tree. It was a long time before a direct east-west route was established. One had to go either north or south before reaching a road going east and west. Later the Longview-Fredonia road, beginning in Longview as Fredonia Street, was cleared, as was the Wallings Ferry Road.

Very little documentary evidence of the town has been found. No plat of Fredonia can be found nor one showing the “2,000 lots” advertised in Edwards’s 1839 broadside. Outlines of the town can be seen on early maps of the Edwards league. Deeds of record establish the existence of Fredonia, and at least fifty-five documents from 1851 to 1883 in the Rusk County Courthouse refer to the town of Fredonia. Deed Record Books B, C, D, and E of Rusk County were destroyed in a fire at Henderson in 1877.

River traffic to and from the Gulf of Mexico, especially from New Orleans, stopped at Fredonia. The first steamship to reach town was the Buffalo in 1848. At one time the Sabine was navigable for 300 miles, but travel was not regular or necessarily year-round; it was said to have been “informal.” The steamboats had very shallow drafts, no more than eighteen inches; the boilers on the decks resulted in many fires and accidents. The boats often went aground in shallow water, and on these occasions they would either have to turn around and go back downstream or wait until upstream rains raised the river level. The captains always kept themselves informed as to the river conditions, though communications were poor. The boats were equipped with “snag-cutting” booms, winches, and other means with which to extricate themselves from riverbank and bottom troubles. An alternate route for river traffic was used when the Sabine was not navigable to Fredonia. Shipments could be sent up the Red River, through Caddo Lake to Port Caddo, the official port of entry to Texas in this area, then freighted by wagon to Fredonia. This, however, meant an overland trip of more than fifty miles.