Edward Lee "Big Ed" Stevens (1925-2012)

    Ed Stevens was a first baseman in Major League Baseball who played from 1945 through 1950 with the Brooklyn Dodgers and Pittsburgh Pirates. Born in Galveston, Texas, Stevens was originally signed as a 16-year-old by the Dodgers. He played minor league ball in parts of four seasons before joining the big team in 1945. As a rookie, he shared duties at first with incumbent Augie Galan, batting a .274 average with four home runs and 29 runs batted in in 55 games. Stevens became a regular in 1946, ending with a .242 and 60 RBI in 103 games, while his 10 home runs were the second-highest on the team, being surpassed only by Pete Reiser. Although he had been the regular in that season, Stevens was replaced at first base by Jackie Robinson in 1947. He appeared in just five games and was sent to Triple-A Montreal Royals, where he hit .290 with 27 homers and 108 RBI in 133 games. 

    During the off-season, he was purchased along with Stan Rojek by the Pirates from the Dodgers. Stevens opened 1948 with Pittsburgh, where he replaced retired Hank Greenberg. As a regular at first base, he posted career numbers in games (128), at-bats (468), runs, hits, RBI (69) and matched his career-best of 10 home runs, which were third-best on the team. He was used sparingly for the next two seasons before returning to the minors in 1951. He finished with a .252 average in 375 major league games. Following his playing days, Stevens went on to a long career as a coach, which included working for the San Diego Padres in 1981, and scouting. Stevens was still doing the latter up till when he retired in 1989. In 2009 he gained induction into the International League Hall of Fame.

Section 411
Forest Park Westheimer Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 44.597, -095° 36.641

Benjamin Briggs Goodrich (1799-1860)

    Ben Goodrich, signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, son of John Goodrich, was born in Brunswick County, Virginia, on February 24, 1799. After the family moved from Virginia to Tennessee, Goodrich went to Maryland, where he graduated from a medical college in Baltimore and began to practice medicine. He later practiced in Vicksburg, Mississippi; Tuscaloosa, Alabama; Tallahassee, Florida; and again in Alabama, where he served one term in the state legislature. Goodrich and his brother, John Calvin Goodrich, arrived in Texas on April 30, 1834. Dr. Goodrich purchased a lot in Washington on December 16, 1835. 

    As one of the four representatives from the Municipality of Washington at the Convention of 1836 he signed the Declaration of Independence. While attending the convention he secured from each delegate present his age, place of birth, and the name of the state from which he emigrated to Texas. Goodrich married Serena Corrothers, a native of Kentucky; they were parents of nine children. Sometime after 1836 he settled near the site of present Anderson in Grimes County. He died on November 16, 1860, and was buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Anderson, where the state of Texas erected a joint monument at the graves of Goodrich and his wife in 1932. Source


Odd Fellows Cemetery
Anderson

COORDINATES

30° 29.261, -096° 00.299

Sidney Sherman (1805-1873)

     Sidney Sherman, soldier and entrepreneur, one of ten children of Micah and Susanna (Frost) Sherman, was born at Marlboro, Massachusetts, on July 23, 1805. Sherman was orphaned at twelve and at sixteen was clerking in a Boston mercantile house. The next year he was in business for himself but failed for lack of capital. He spent five years in New York City; in 1831 he went to Cincinnati. In Newport, Kentucky, across the Ohio from Cincinnati, Sherman formed a company, the first to make cotton bagging by machinery. He was also the first maker of sheet lead west of the Alleghenies. Sherman became a captain of a volunteer company of state militia in Kentucky and in 1835 sold his cotton bagging plant and used the money to equip a company of fifty-two volunteers for the Texas Revolution. The volunteers left for Texas by steamer on the last day of 1835. That they were already regarded as soldiers in the Texas army is shown by a land certificate for 1,280 acres awarded Sherman for services from December 18, 1835, to December 16, 1836. They carried with them the only flag that the Texans had for the battle of San Jacinto. Sherman's volunteers went down the Ohio and the Mississippi and up Red River to Natchitoches, where Sherman was detained by illness. 

     They reached Texas the day before the election for delegates to the Convention of 1836. Sherman's company demanded and received the right to vote. They proceeded to San Felipe, where they were received by Governor Henry Smith and Sherman received his command. When Sam Houston organized his first regiment at Gonzales in March 1836, Edward Burleson was made colonel and Sherman lieutenant colonel. The army was reorganized at Groce's Ferry and Sherman, recently promoted to colonel, was given command of the Second Regiment of the Texas Volunteers. On the retreat across Texas, Sherman was eager to fight. At the Colorado he asked permission to re-cross the river and engage Joaquín Ramirez y Sesma, but his request was refused. On the afternoon of April 20, 1836, the opposing armies faced each other at San Jacinto. Sherman called for volunteers to seize the Mexican cannon, but the weapon was withdrawn. On the following day Sherman commanded the left wing of the Texas army, opened the attack, and has been credited with the battle cry, "Remember the Alamo." 

     After the battle he acted as president of the board of officers that distributed captured property among the soldiers. President David G. Burnet refused to accept Sherman's resignation when the fighting was over and instead commissioned him as colonel in the regular army and sent him to the United States to raise more troops. After weeks of illness Sherman made his way back to Kentucky and sent troops and clothing back to Texas. His wife, the former Catherine Isabel Cox, returned to Texas with him. They established their home, Mount Vernon, a one-room log house, on a bluff below the San Jacinto battleground. In 1839 the family moved to Cresent Place on San Jacinto Bay. Sherman was Harris County's representative in the Seventh Congress of the Republic, serving as chairman of the committee on military affairs. During his term in office he introduced a bill to establish the position of Major General of the Militia and increase protection along the western and southwestern frontiers. In 1843 he was elected major general of militia, a position he held until annexation. It was in his capacity as head of the militia that he presided over the trial of Capt. Edwin W. Moore. 

     After annexation, Sherman moved to Harrisburg and with the financial support of investors bought the town and the local railroad company. The town was laid out anew, and he organized the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway Company, which constructed the first rail line in the state. In 1852 Sherman was among the passengers when the steamer Farmer burst its boilers; he was saved by clinging to a piece of wreckage. In 1853 the Harrisburg sawmill, owned by Sherman and DeWitt Clinton Harris, was burned. After his residence also burned, Sherman sent his family to Kentucky, and he moved into the railroad office at Harrisburg. Then that office burned. Sherman was keeping the Island City Hotel in Galveston when the Civil War came. Appointed commandant of Galveston by the Secession Convention, he performed his duties ably until he became ill and retired to his home on San Jacinto Bay. A son, Lt. Sidney Sherman, was killed in the battle of Galveston. David Burnet Sherman, the remaining son, died after the family moved to Richmond, and Mrs. Sherman died in 1865. Sherman spent his last years in Galveston. He died there at the home of his daughter, Mrs. J.M.O. Menard, on August 1, 1873. Sherman County and the city of Sherman in Grayson County are named in his honor. Source

Section C

Lakeview Cemetery
Galveston 

COORDINATES

29° 16.392, -094° 49.566

Jonathan C. Peyton (?-1834)

    Jonathan C. Peyton, one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists, was probably the son of John E. Peyton of Tennessee. He was living in Nashville when he married Angelina Belle, later known as Angelina Belle Eberly. The Peytons lived for a time in New Orleans, then on June 2, 1822, left there on the ship Good Intent and on June 18 landed at Matagorda, Texas. They lived for brief periods at Hawkins Landing and at McCluskey's Tanyard and made a crop in 1823 on land near Jesse Burnam's In late 1823 and in 1824 Peyton was at Nacogdoches and at Natchitoches, Louisiana. He finally settled at San Felipe de Austin in October 1825. The census of March 1826 listed him as a farmer and stock raiser, aged between twenty-five and forty. His household included his wife, a young son, and two servants. Peyton was not altogether satisfied with his treatment by Stephen F. Austin but applied for land in the Austin colony; in 1827, as one of the Old Three Hundred settlers, he received title to a league on the east bank of the Colorado River, about three miles northwest of what would become Lake Austin, in an area that became Matagorda County. Peyton operated a ferry and freighting service and had a tavern at San Felipe. He died in San Felipe in May 1834, leaving his widow and two children, Alexander and Margaret. An inventory of his property at the time of his death included eight slaves and four town lots in San Felipe. Mrs. Peyton operated the tavern until San Felipe was burned in 1836. Subsequently she moved to Columbia, where she married Jacob Eberly. Source

Note: Unmarked. During the Texas Revolution, the town of San Felipe was largely destroyed by Mexican troops chasing after the Texan army. Nothing was spared, not even the town graveyard. The majority of those buried here prior to 1836 are no longer marked, so although Jonathan Peyton is known to be buried here, the exact location has been lost. The photo below shows the oldest section of the cemetery where it is possible he still rests.


San Felipe de Austin Cemetery
San Felipe

COORDINATES

N/A