Jerry Gray (1915-1976)

    Generoso Graziano, a native of Boston, Massachusetts, was a leading composer, arranger, violinist and bandleader who is widely remembered for his work with Glenn Miller as well as Artie Shaw before and during World War II and then his own orchestras. A teenage virtuoso who led his own jazz band, the newly-named Jerry Gray joined Artie Shaw in 1936 as lead violinist and later lead arranger. He wrote some of Shaw’s greatest hits, including Begin The Beguine. When Shaw temporarily disbanded in November 1939, Glenn Miller hired Gray. Their highly successful collaboration produced dozens of major hit records, including a variety of American songbook standards, ballads and original jazz arrangements. With Miller in the AAF, Gray’s background and skill gave him the ability to blend a large string section with a traditional big band in a concert orchestra that some observers describe as “the greatest big band ever assembled”. 

    Gray wrote and contributed to the presentation of popular music, jazz and light classics, his most famous efforts being Pennsylvania 6-5000 and Chattanooga Choo Choo. He wrote arrangements for the postwar Glenn Miller Orchestra led by Tex Beneke, where he developed a friendship with pianist and arranger Henry Mancini. He led his own band for radio broadcasts and records. In 1949, he formed a Miller-style organization, “The Jerry Gray Band of Today” and recorded for Decca records. In 1953 Gray assisted with the production of the Universal-International film The Glenn Miller Story. In 1957, Jerry married Joan Barton, a vocalist and film actress. By the 1960s he had settled in Dallas where he conducted the house band at the Fairmont Hotel. This later band generally featured more modern compositions by Gray and other contemporaries such as Sammy Nestico and Billy Byers. In 1968 he briefly returned to the Miller sound with swing arrangements of contemporary songs for Billy Vaughan's orchestra, including Spanish Eyes, A Walk in the Black Forest, and an AAF-like treatment of One of Those Songs. He continued to lead the Fairmont Hotel band into the 1970s before dying of a heart attack at the age of 61. Source

Abbey Mausoleum
Restland Memorial Park
Dallas

COORDINATES

32° 55.567, -096° 44.369

John Joseph "Johnny" Lipon (1922-1998)

    Lipon was a major league baseball shortstop for the Detroit Tigers, Boston Red Sox, St. Louis Browns and Cincinnati Reds over the course of nine seasons (1942; 1946; 1948–1954). The native of Martins Ferry, Ohio, threw and batted right-handed, stood 6 feet tall and weighed 175 pounds. He served in the United States Navy during World War II in the Pacific Theater of Operations, as an aviation machinist's mate, third class. In 1952, Lipon was part of a trade to the Red Sox that included longtime star Johnny Pesky going to the Tigers. His playing time diminished, and in the 1953 season, he was sold to the St. Louis Browns. In 1954, the Browns moved east to Baltimore, but he was quickly traded to the Chicago White Sox. Before playing a game for the White Sox, however, he was traded to the Cincinnati Reds. He had one National League at-bat before he was farmed to the new Havana Sugar Kings of the International League. He played in the high minors several years, evolving into a player/coach. 

    In 1959, Lipon became a minor league manager, beginning at the Class D level with the Selma Cloverleafs of the Alabama-Florida League in the Cleveland Indians' organization. He spent 30 of the next 34 years as a manager in the Cleveland, Detroit and Pittsburgh Pirates farm systems, winning 2,185 games and losing 1,987. He spent part of the 1961 season as manager of the Triple-A Toronto Maple Leafs of the International League, and his success as skipper of the Portland Beavers of the Pacific Coast League in the mid-1960s earned him a promotion to the Indians' coaching staff, where he served from 1968-1971. Lipon's only chance at a Major League managing job came during the 1971 season, when Cleveland fired Alvin Dark on July 29 with 59 games left and Lipon was named to finish the season as interim pilot. He returned to managing in the minors the next season with the Triple-A Toledo Mud Hens, and continued for the next two decades. He retired from managing after the 1992 season. His last club, the Lakeland Tigers of the Florida State League, won its division's second-half championship. In 1992 he was presented with the King of Baseball award given by Minor League Baseball.

Section 7
Memorial Oaks Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 46.836, -095° 36.996

James Pinckney Henderson (1808-1858)

    James Pinckney Henderson, statesman, soldier, and first governor of the state of Texas, the son of Lawson and Elizabeth (Carruth) Henderson, was born in Lincolnton, North Carolina, on March 31, 1808. He attended Lincoln Academy and the University of North Carolina, studied law, and was admitted to the bar in 1829. After serving as aide-de-camp and major in the North Carolina militia in 1830, he was elected colonel of a regiment. He moved to Canton, Mississippi, in 1835, became interested in news of the Texas Revolution, and began enlistments for the Texas service. He arrived at Velasco, Texas, on June 3, 1836, and was commissioned by David G. Burnet as brigadier general and sent to the United States to recruit for the Texas army. Henderson organized a company in North Carolina and sent it to Texas, reputedly at his own expense. Upon his return to Texas in November 1836, he was appointed attorney general of the republic under Sam Houston and in December 1836 succeeded Stephen F. Austin as secretary of state. 

    Early in 1837 Henderson was appointed Texas minister to England and France and was commissioned particularly to secure recognition and treaties of amity and commerce. Largely through his efforts both England and France entered into trade agreements with the republic and ultimately recognized Texas independence. While in France, Henderson met Frances Cox of Philadelphia, whom he married in London in October 1839. He returned to Texas in 1840 and set up a law office at San Augustine. In 1844 he was sent to Washington, D.C., to work with Isaac Van Zandt in negotiating a treaty of annexation with the United States. The treaty was signed on April 12, 1844, but was rejected by the United States Senate on June 8, 1844, and Henderson, over his protest, was ordered home by President Houston. Henderson was a member of the Convention of 1845, was elected governor of Texas in November 1845, and took office in February 1846. 

    With the declaration of the Mexican War and the organization of Texas volunteers, the governor asked permission of the legislature to take personal command of the troops in the field. He led the Second Texas Regiment at the battle of Monterrey and was appointed a commissioner to negotiate for the surrender of that city. Later he served with the temporary rank of major general of Texas volunteers in United States service from July 1846 to October 1846. After the war he resumed his duties as governor but refused to run for a second term. He returned to his private law practice in 1847. After election by the Texas legislature to the United States Senate to succeed Thomas J. Rusk, Henderson served in the Senate from November 9, 1857, until his death, on June 4, 1858. He was buried in the Congressional Cemetery, Washington. In 1930 his remains were reinterred in the State Cemetery in Austin. Henderson County, established in 1846, was named in his honor. Source

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 15.924, -097° 43.628

Freeman Wilkinson (?-1839)

    As is often the case with early Texas settlers, little is known of Freeman Wilkinson's personal history. He came to Texas in 1835 and served in the Texas Army from March 5 to June 5, 1836. He fought at San Jacinto with Thomas McIntire's Company, then transferred to Peter Dexter's Company a few days later. In 1838, he was living in Harrisburg County in and there married Delia Semore on January 23, 1839. Wilkinson died a few months later of yellow fever in Lynchburg and was buried on the San Jacinto battlefield.


San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site
La Porte

COORDINATES

29° 45.249, -095° 05.349

Alexander Watkins Terrell (1827-1912)

    Alexander Watkins Terrell, jurist, Civil War officer, and statesman, the son of Christopher Joseph and Susan (Kennerly) Terrell, was born in Patrick County, Virginia, probably on November 3, 1827. In 1831 his Quaker parents migrated to Booneville, Cooper County, Missouri, where Terrell grew to maturity. After graduating from the University of Missouri, he returned to Booneville to study law in the office of Judge Peyton R. Hayden. He was admitted to the bar in 1849 and practiced law in St. Joseph, Missouri, until 1852, when he moved to Austin, Texas. There he soon won a reputation as a courtroom protagonist of great astuteness and skill. Terrell was elected judge of the state's Second District in 1857. Due to his office and his friendship with Governor Sam Houston, an ardent Unionist, he took no part in the secession movement. Upon the expiration of his judicial term in 1863, however, he joined the First Texas Cavalry Regiment, Arizona Brigade, of the Confederate Army, as a major. Within two years he was assigned the rank of brigadier general by Gen. E. Kirby Smith, commander of the Trans-Mississippi Department, but the war ended before his promotion was confirmed. As commander of what came to be called "Terrell's Texas Cavalry Regiment," he participated with distinction in the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill during the campaign in northern Louisiana against Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks. 

    When the war ended he fled to Mexico, where he briefly served Emperor Maximilian as a battalion commander. Terrell returned to Texas in 1866 and resumed the practice of law in Houston, but the following year, disgusted with the turmoil of Reconstruction politics, he temporarily retreated to his plantation in Robertson County. Here, for four years, he experimented with scientific agriculture and studied. In 1871 he and Judge A. S. Walker formed a partnership in Austin, and five years later he entered the Texas Senate, where he served four terms (1876-84). Later he served four years in the state House of Representatives (1891-92, 1903-05). During his years in the legislature, he authored several acts: a bill requiring jurors to be literate; the enabling legislation for the Railroad Commission; the Terrell Election Law, which required candidates for public office to be nominated by direct primaries instead of by state or local conventions; and the measure which pledged the resources of three million acres in the Panhandle to the Chicago-based Capitol Syndicate to construct the Capitol. Terrell's reputation as an advocate of the small farmer and consumer spread beyond the state. 

    At the invitation of the University of Missouri, he returned to the campus of his alma mater in June 1885 to address a social problem of his choice. In a notable speech, he criticized private corporations that had too much power in politics and threatened independent labor. Two years later he failed to secure legislative nomination for a seat in the United States Senate. In 1893 President Grover Cleveland appointed Terrell minister plenipotentiary to the Ottoman Empire, a post he held for four years. In 1897 he returned to Austin to reenter private practice and state politics. After Governor Thomas Campbell appointed Terrell a regent of the University of Texas in 1909, Terrell led the campaign to raise funds for a new library building and helped design it. With his partner Judge Walker, Terrell reported and annotated thirteen volumes of Texas Supreme Court decisions (vols. 38-51); subsequently he alone reported eleven more volumes (52-62). He also published several articles in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly and in 1912 served as president of the Texas State Historical Association. His memoir, From Texas to Mexico and the Court of Maximilian in 1865, appeared in 1933. Terrell was married three times. His first wife, Ann Elizabeth Boulding of Howard County, Missouri, bore him five children before her death in 1860. By his second wife, Sarah D. Mitchell of Robertson County, Texas, who died in 1871, he had three children. He married his third wife, Mrs. Ann Eloise Holliday Anderson Jones, in 1883. Terrell died in Mineral Wells, Texas, on September 8 or 9, 1912, while on the way home from visiting family in Virginia. He was buried in the State Cemetery in Austin. Terrell County is named in his honor. Source

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 15.919, -097° 43.625