Sara Haden (1899-1981)

    Born Katherine W. Haden on November 17, 1899 in Galveston, Texas, Sara was the second daughter of Dr. John Brannum Haden and character actress Charlotte Walker, one of the great stage beauties at the turn of the century. Her parents divorced when she was young and the children split their time between New York and Galveston. Sara and her elder sister Beatrice attended the Sacred Heart Academy in Galveston, where they boarded during school terms. She made her debut onstage in the early 1920s as Nora in Macbeth. She lacked the beauty of her mother, having the appearance of a lonely school marm, and thus was always cast in character roles and supporting parts. Sometime in the mid-20s she changed her professional name to Sara, although it was often spelled Sarah on the programs. 

    She made her film debut in 1934 in the Katharine Hepburn vehicle Spitfire. Sara later became a Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer contract player and had small roles in many of the studio's films, most notably as spinsterish Aunt Milly in the Andy Hardy series. She was most notable for her stern, humorless characterizations such as a truant officer in Shirley Temple's Captain January (1936), but she also played the much-loved teacher Miss Pipps who is unjustly fired in the Our Gang comedy Come Back, Miss Pipps (1941). Her other notable films include Poor Little Rich Girl (1936), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), Woman of the Year (1942) and The Bishop's Wife (1947). She made her last film in 1958 (Andy Hardy Comes Home) and turned to television, performing on episodes of Climax!, Bourbon Street Beat, Perry Mason and Bonanza, with her last TV appearance in a 1965 guest spot on Dr. Kildare. She retired, and spent the rest of her life socializing with her friends and decorating her home. Sara died of an unknown illness on September 15, 1981, in Woodland Hills, California, and buried in Galveston.

Note: Unmarked. There are several crypts inside the Haden family mausoleum, all marked with small nameplates except for two - those of Sara and her mother Charlotte.

Haden Mausoleum
Trinity Episcopal Cemetery
Galveston

COORDINATES

29° 17.621, -094° 48.682

John Joseph Linn (1798-1885)

    John J. Linn, merchant, statesman, soldier, and historian, was born on June 19, 1798, in County Antrim, Ireland. His father, John Linn, a college professor, was branded a traitor by British authorities for his participation in the Irish rebellion of 1798 but escaped to New York, where he resumed his teaching. Most sources indicate that he brought his family to Poughkeepsie, New York, in 1800 and apprenticed his oldest son in 1816 to a merchant in New York City, where the young man eventually became a bookkeeper. John J. Linn established his own merchant business in New Orleans in 1822 and became interested in Texas during business trips to Mexico. He was attracted to De León's colony and settled in Guadalupe Victoria in 1829. Although he received land grants in both the De León and James Power settlements, Linn maintained his residence and business in Victoria. He also established a wharf and warehouse at Linnville on Lavaca Bay about 1831 as a port of entry for merchandise shipped from New Orleans. Linn was fluent in Spanish and became a liaison between Mexican and Irish colonists; he was called Juan Linn by the Mexicans, among whom he was popular. Linn was intensely loyal to Texas and the De León colony and was among the first to oppose Antonio López de Santa Anna. He helped unite sentiment against the dictator by writing letters to Stephen F. Austin's colonists. With Plácido Benavides he served in Victoria's Committee of Safety and Correspondence and upon advice from friends in Mexico warned that Gen. Martín Perfecto de Cos would land at Copano as early as July 1835. Benavides, captain of the Victoria militia, and Linn, who had been a captain in the New Orleans militia, helped train the Texan forces amassing at Gonzales after the skirmish there of October 2, 1835. Upon Cos's landing at Copano, Linn and others proposed intercepting the Mexican general on his way to Goliad and San Antonio. Finding small support at Gonzales, however, Linn and Benavides joined a contingent of about fifty men under Benjamin Fort Smith and William H. Jack, who set out to liberate Goliad from Cos's occupation; another Texan force under George M. Collinsworth gained this victory, however, on October 10. On October 8, 1835, Linn became quartermaster of the Texas army, and with James Kerr joined the Goliad garrison, bringing carts, oxen, supplies, and munitions. Linn and Kerr, together with Thomas G. Western, successfully negotiated a treaty of neutrality with local Karankawa Indians on October 29. Two days later Linn served as adviser in Ira Westover's victorious campaign against Fort Lipantitlán on the Nueces River north of San Patricio, a campaign that removed the only remaining link in the Mexican line between Matamoros and San Antonio.

    Linn then traveled to San Felipe to represent Victoria in the Consultation of 1835, already in session, which protested Santa Anna's measures and supported the Mexican Constitution of 1824. He also served in the General Council, the provisional government of Texas as a separate Mexican state. In 1836 Linn was elected alcalde of Guadalupe Victoria and in that capacity entertained the Red Rovers and New Orleans Greys on their way to join James W. Fannin's command at Goliad. Linn's wife used their home as a meeting place for the women of Victoria, who molded bullets there for the cause. With José M. J. Carbajal, Linn was elected to the Convention of 1836, which declared the independence of Texas from Mexico. The two men did not reach Washington-on-the-Brazos to sign the document, however, because the approach of the Mexican army to Victoria necessitated their return. As army quartermaster, Linn supplied Fannin with twenty yokes of oxen to hasten the commander's retreat from Goliad, but in so doing deprived his family and fellow Victorians of a means of escape. Nevertheless, as alcalde he directed his citizens to retreat to Cox's Point, east of Lavaca Bay, and secured his family in the protection of Fernando De León. During the ensuing occupation of Victoria by José de Urrea's forces, Linn's house was plundered. Eventually Linn joined Sam Houston near Groce's Retreat. Because Linn's merchant ship had not been captured, Houston sent him to supervise the evacuation of Harrisburg. Under orders from Houston and ad interim president David G. Burnet, Linn then sailed to Galveston Island at his own expense to pick up $3,600 worth of supplies; then, with about fifty men and two cannons, the quartermaster sought Houston and the Texas army. He found them celebrating victory at San Jacinto, where his supplies were the first to reach the Texans after the battle. At the request of President Burnet, Linn interviewed the captured Santa Anna, who knew the alcalde from Victoria. Linn also supplied the first reports of the San Jacinto victory, which were published in the New Orleans Bee and Bulletin. As part of the surrender settlement he provisioned the retreating Mexican army to prevent plundering. Ironically, Linn was arrested as a spy in June 1836 in Harrisburg and upon returning to Victoria was arrested with some members of the De León family as a potential enemy of the Republic of Texas because of supposed sympathies with Mexico. He was soon released.

    During the Republic of Texas era, Linn, the last alcalde of Victoria, was elected the town's first mayor, on April 16, 1839. He served in the House of the Second and Third congresses of the Republic of Texas, 1837-39, where he ardently supported the policies of President Houston. After 1836 the port of entry he established at Linnville attracted settlers and promised growth, but it was sacked and burned in the Comanche raid of August 1840 and never rebuilt. In 1842 Linn joined a reconnaissance force to discover the location of the invaders led by Rafael Vásquez and supplied the Texas army with beef. By 1850, at age fifty-two, Linn had $20,000 in property, and the 1860 census listed him as owning seven slaves. He served Victoria again as mayor in 1865 and was a leader in the establishment in 1850 of the San Antonio and Mexican Gulf Railway. He was also a charter member of the Powderhorn, Victoria and Gonzales Railroad Company, which planned a road to bypass Port Lavaca and connect Indianola with Victoria and Gonzales, but was never built. In 1883 he published his memoirs, Reminiscences of Fifty Years in Texas, significant for its account of the revolutionary period. Although these memoirs are Linn's own retrospection, the book was actually ghostwritten by his close friend, the historian Victor Marion Rose. On October 27, 1885, Linn died in the home he had built fifty-six years earlier as a De León colonist. Among his brothers were Edward, a civil engineer, county surveyor, and Spanish translator in the General Land Office; Henry, a lawyer in New Orleans; and Charles, a doctor who died administering aid in Candela, Coahuila, during a cholera epidemic in 1833. John J. Linn married Margaret C. Daniels of New Orleans in 1833, and among their fourteen children were Charles Carroll, an inspector of hides and animals and a captain in the Fourth Texas Mounted Volunteers; John, Jr., who fought for the Confederacy and died at Brownsville; William F., a druggist and the editor and publisher of the Wharton Spectator; and Edward Daniel, a four-term congressman and three-term senator in the Texas state legislature, editor and publisher of the Victoria Advocate in the 1870s and 1880s, author of his father's lengthy Advocate obituary of October 31, 1885, and a director of the New York, Texas and Mexican Railway Company; in the Advocate building. Edward Linn also maintained a small collection of animal fossils now in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Source

Evergreen Cemetery
Victoria

COORDINATES

28° 48.660, -097° 00.558

Jethro Russell Bancroft (?-1848)

    Jethro Bancroft came to Texas in 1830 and settled near Harrisburg. He participated in the Storming and Capture of Bexar, December 5 to 10, 1835, as part of the Texian army and after being discharged, moved to Lynchburg. On March 8, 1836, he re-enlisted as a member of Captain Thomas M. McIntire’s Company and fought at San Jacinto on April 21. He was discharged on June 8 and returned home. Bancroft died on January 7, 1848 while living in Harris County, and was buried in Houston's city cemetery.

Note: This is a cenotaph. Founders Memorial Park, originally founded in 1836 as Houston's first city cemetery, was rapidly filled due to a yellow fever epidemic and closed to further burials around 1840. The cemetery became neglected over a period of time, often vandalized and was heavily damaged by the 1900 hurricane. In 1936, despite a massive clean up effort, a century of neglect had taken its toll. The vast majority of grave markers were either destroyed or missing and poor record keeping prevented locating individual graves. Several cenotaphs were placed in random areas throughout the park in honor of the more high-profile citizens buried there, but a great number of graves go unmarked to this day.


Founders Memorial Park
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 45.445, -095° 22.765

William Mosby Eastland (1806-1843)

    William Mosby Eastland, soldier, was born in Woodford County, Kentucky, on March 21, 1806, the son of Thomas B. and Nancy (Mosby) Eastland. As a child he moved with his family to Tennessee where he was reared and educated. As a young man he entered the timber business and was persuaded by his friend and former neighbor Edward Burleson to move to Texas in 1834. With his wife and children, two brothers, and a cousin, Nicholas Mosby Dawson, he settled near the site of present La Grange in Fayette County. From July 25 to September 13, 1835, Eastland served as first lieutenant of a volunteer company under Col. John H. Moore against the Waco and Tawakoni Indians. From September 28 to December 13, 1835, he served under Capt. Thomas Alley and participated in the siege of Bexar, and from March 1 to May 30, 1836, he served under Capt. Thomas J. Rabb. Eastland was elected second lieutenant of Rabb's Company F of Col. Edward Burleson's First Regiment, Texas Volunteers, on April 3, 1836, and advanced to first lieutenant when Rabb left the company and 1st Lt. W. J. E. Heard moved up to captain. At the battle of San Jacinto, according to Robert Hancock Hunter, when Sam Houston ordered that the killing of Mexican fugitives cease and that his men begin to take prisoners, Eastland responded, "Boys take pris'ners, you know how to take pris'ners, take them with the but of guns, club guns, & said remember the Alamo remember Laberde [La Bahía], club guns, right & left, nock there brains out." 

    Eastland enlisted in the Texas Rangers on September 5, 1836, and on December 14, 1836, succeeded Capt. M. Andrew as commander, but when he attempted to instill military discipline in their ranks the men "marched out, stacked their arms, told him to go to hell and they would go home." According to Walter P. Webb, however, Eastland yielded gracefully, maintained the rangers' respect, and continued to serve until as late as January 22, 1838. In 1839 he was elected captain of one of the three companies that campaigned against the Comanches on the upper Colorado River. Eastland's wife, the former Florence Yellowly, died in September 1837, and in 1839 he married Louisa Mae M. Smith, the daughter of Rev. Dr. William P. Smith, a Methodist minister. By 1840 he owned 5,535 acres under survey in Bastrop County and four town lots in Bastrop. On January 31, 1840, Eastland was elected one of three land commissioners for Fayette County.  In response to the raid of Adrián Woll in 1842, Eastland raised a company that he led to San Antonio; but he arrived too late to take part in the battle of Salado Creek. He participated in the pursuit, however. His company was incorporated into Col. James R. Cook's First Regiment, Second Brigade, of Gen. Alexander Somervell's Army of the South West for the subsequent Somervell expedition. Eastland, eager for revenge for the killing of his cousin Nicholas Mosby Dawson and his nephew Robert Moore Eastland by Woll's men, chose to remain on the Rio Grande with William S. Fisher's command when Somervell ordered his expedition to return to San Antonio.

    Eastland was elected captain of Company B for the Mier expedition. He was taken captive with his men after the battle of Mier on December 26, 1842, and marched to the interior of Mexico. There he participated in the Texans' abortive escape attempt and was the first of the Texans to draw a fatal black bean, the only officer of the expedition to do so. In a brief private interview with Fenton M. Gibson Eastland said, "For my country I have offered all my earthly aspiration and for it I now lay down my life. I never have feared death nor do I now. For my unjustifiable execution I wish no revenge, but die in full confidence of the Christian faith." After giving his money to his brother-in-law, Robert Smith (who responded with the joyous shout that he had "made a raise!"), and sending word to his wife that "I die in the faith in which I have lived", Eastland was shot to death, on March 25, 1843. Diarist Israel Canfield, to whom Eastland was handcuffed on the march to Salado, observed with some satisfaction that Robert Smith later died at Perote Prison. On February 17, 1844, the Texas Congress passed a bill for the relief of Eastland's family. In 1848 Eastland's remains, together with those of the other Mier victims, were moved to Monument Hill. near La Grange for reinternment. Eastland was a cousin of the famed Confederate partisan ranger Col. John Singleton Mosby. His nephew, Charles Cooper Eastland, a private in Capt. Jacob Roberts's Company F of Col. John Coffee Hays's First Regiment, Texas Mounted Rifles, died in Mexico City on December 20, 1847, during the Mexican War. Another nephew, William Mosby Eastland II, was born on March 15, 1843, ten days before the death of his uncle at Salado. Eastland County is named in Eastland's honor. Source


Monument Hill State Historic Site
La Grange

COORDINATES

29° 53.339, -096° 52.618

John Harrington (1848-1905)

    John Harrington, Medal of Honor recipient, was born at Detroit, Michigan, in 1848. On September 12, 1874, Private Harrington was with Company H, Sixth United States Cavalry, at Washita River, Texas, when he was sent with Sgt. Zachariah Woodall, privates Peter Roth and George Smith, and scouts William (Billy) Dixon and Amos Chapman to carry dispatches for Nelson A. Miles to Camp Supply. They were attacked by 100 warriors, in what became known as the Buffalo Wallow Fight. Smith was killed, Chapman's leg was shattered, and Harrington was wounded in the hip. The men took refuge in an old buffalo wallow, which they deepened with their hands and knives. 

    In the afternoon a cold rain began to fall, and by nightfall the Indians left. On the morning of the thirteenth Dixon left the wallow and made contact with troops commanded by Maj. William Price, who in turn notified Miles of their condition. Miles sent an ambulance on the fourteenth, which took the men to Camp Supply. All five were awarded the Medal of Honor. Harrington returned to duty and remained in service until at least 1898.

CITATION

While carrying dispatches was attacked by 125 hostile Indians, whom he and his comrades fought throughout the day. He was severely wounded in the hip and unable to move. He continued to fight, defending an exposed dying man.

Section F
San Antonio National Cemetery
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 25.279, -098° 28.038

Seger Pillot Ellis (1904-1995)

    Ellis was born on July 4, 1904, in Houston, the son of a prominent banker who hoped that Seger would join him in that business when he came of age. Instead, Kelley became interested in playing piano from watching Houston pianists Peck Kelley, Charlie Dixon, and Jack Sharpe, but he had no formal training in the instrument. Following high school, in 1921 he began playing solo piano for an hour and a half each week on local radio station - what was later called KPRC. In 1925 he auditioned for Victor Records in Houston and was brought in to perform as a member of the Lloyd Finlay Orchestra on field recordings. Impressed by Ellis’s playing, Victor representatives invited him to their studio in Camden, New Jersey, to record more songs using a new invention, the electric microphone. Two of his compositions, Prairie Blues and Sentimental Blues, became hits. His first royalties from Victor for Prairie Blues totaled $3,500. After the session Ellis returned to Houston and resumed work in vaudeville and radio. He also began singing along to his piano playing, and quickly became one of the most popular keyboard artists during the 1920s. He also had the distinction of helping introduce Victor Talking Machine Company’s innovative Orthophonic Victrola. He toured England in 1928 and headlined at Café de Paris in London. During the late 1920s he recorded for the Columbia and OKeh labels and was the third ranked recording artist in record sales in the United States. His recordings included legendary jazz accompanists such as Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey, Joe Venuti, Pee Wee Russell, and Louis Armstrong.  In 1930 he had a nightly national radio program on WLW, Cincinnati. He discovered the Mills Brothers there and became the group’s manager. During the 1930s he also appeared with the Paul Whiteman orchestra.

    In 1936 he sang in the film One Rainy Afternoon. By that same year he had organized his band, the Choir of Brass, which featured four trumpets and four trombones. His first wife, vocalist Irene Taylor, who had performed with the Paul Whiteman outfit, eventually performed as vocalist with the Choir of Brass. He played at large hotels in New York that had airtime. In 1941 the group disbanded, and Ellis moved back to Texas. In 1942 he joined the United States Army Air Corps. During the 1940s and 1950s he continued to find success with his songwriting. Some of his most popular pieces included No Baby, Nobody But You, Shivery Stomp, Gene’s Boogie recorded by Gene Krupa, You Be You (But Let Me Be Me), and the standard You’re All I Want For Christmas recorded by Bing Crosby. He also wrote Oilers - the official song of the Houston Oilers professional football team. Ellis lived out his life in Houston and went into the nightclub business for several years. He died in Houston on September 29, 1995, at the age of ninety-one and was buried in that city in Hollywood Cemetery. He was survived by his wife Pamela and a stepson. Source

Everglade Meadow
Hollywood Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 47.426, -095° 21.986

Paul Prichard Haney (1928-2009)

    Paul Haney was born in Akron, Ohio in 1928. He put himself through Kent State University by working nights for the Associated Press, earning a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism in 1945. After working for newspapers in Erie, Pennsylvania and Memphis, Tennessee, he joined the staff at the Washington, D.C. Evening Star newspaper in 1954. Three months after the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was formed in 1958, Haney joined the organization as an information officer, and from 1960 to 1962, served as NASA's first News Director. In that position, he managed the Cape Canaveral and Project Mercury information programs. His work in the Mercury program set the standard for all subsequent NASA information efforts. From 1962 to 1963, Paul Haney was the Public Affairs Officer for the Office of Manned Space Flight. 

    In September 1963, he moved to Houston, Texas, and as Public Affairs Officer for the Manned Spaceflight Center (now the Johnson Space Center), directed the information flowing out of the Gemini and Apollo manned spaceflight programs. In this position he became well known as the "Voice of NASA's Mission Control," and the "Voice of Apollo." He also established the first NASA open-door museum at the Johnson Space Center (formally known as the Manned Spacecraft Center) in Houston. Paul Haney served with distinction throughout the Gemini program and the early phases of the Apollo program. He retired from NASA on April 25, 1969, after the successful Apollo 9 mission. Paul Haney passed away on May 28, 2009, in Alamogordo, New Mexico.

Lakeview Mausoleum

Forest Park East Cemetery
Webster

COORDINATES

29° 30.802, -095° 07.397

Glenn Corbett (1933-1993)

    An American lead and supporting actor, the ruggedly handsome Corbett was born Glenn Edwin Rothenburg on August 17, 1933, the son of a garage mechanic. After serving time in the United States Navy as a Seabee, he met his wife Judy at Occidental College, and with her encouragement, began acting in campus theater plays. He was seen by a talent scout and was signed to a contract with Columbia Pictures. His film debut was in The Crimson Kimono (1959); it was followed with supporting roles in The Mountain Road (1960), Man on a String (1960) and Homicidal (1961). In 1963, Corbett replaced George Maharis on the wildly popular CBS television series Route 66. Corbett, playing Lincoln Case, co-starred with Martin Milner during part of the third season and the fourth, and final, season of the series (1963-1964).

    His other notable television roles in the early-to late-1960s were as Wes Macauley on It's a Man's World (1962-1963) and an episode of Gunsmoke in which a man gets a reputation as a gunman when he's found with four dead outlaws at his feet. He is probably best remembered by science fiction fans for his guest starring role in the second season Star Trek episode Metamorphosis (1967) as Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of warp drive. He returned to movies in the 1970s, and starred with John Wayne in the films Chisum (1970), and Big Jake (1971). Later in the 1970s he had the lead role in Nashville Girl (1976) and in Universal's war epic Midway (1976). In 1977, he joined the cast of the NBC daytime soap opera, The Doctors, and stayed with the show until 1981 when he was cast in the long-running television series Dallas. After his character was written off the show in 1988, he stayed with the Lorimar Television production company for three more years as its dialogue director. In January 1993, Glenn Corbett died of lung cancer at the Veterans Affairs hospital in San Antonio, Texas, at the age of 59 and was buried in the veterans' cemetery there.

Section Q
Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 28.564, -098° 25.806

John Plunkett (1808-1886)

    John Plunkett was born in Belfast, Ireland in 1808, the son of John and Elizabeth (Keenan) Plunkett. His parents, because of financial reverses, emigrated to the United States in 1830 with their children and located near Andover, Massachusetts. His father only lived a short time after reaching America, dying at Baltimore on his return home from a visit to a brother in the South. In the year 1834, Plunkett came to Texas and settled at Matagorda where he engaged in merchandising and later in various other enterprises. At the onset of the Texas Revolution, he enlisted on February 23, 1836 with Robert J. Calder's Company for a term of three months, during which time he fought in the Battle of San Jacinto. Upon his discharge on May 24, he re-enlisted in Captain Thomas Stewart's Company, Matagorda Volunteers for an unknown period, after which he returned home to his businesses. Plunkett died some fifty years later at his home in Matagorda, October 3, 1886, unmarried and childless, leaving his estate to his two sisters.

Section D
Matagorda Cemetery
Matagorda

COORDINATES

28° 42.008, -095° 57.327

John Henry Faulk (1913-1990)

    John Faulk, humorist and author, fourth of five children of Henry and Martha (Miner) Faulk, was born in Austin, Texas, on August 21, 1913. His parents were staunch yet freethinking Methodists who taught him to detest racism. He entered the University of Texas in 1932. Under the guidance of J. Frank Dobie, Walter P. Webb, and Roy Bedichek, he developed his considerable abilities as a collector of folklore. For his master's degree thesis, Faulk recorded and analyzed ten African-American sermons from churches along the Brazos River. His research convinced him that members of minorities, particularly African Americans, faced grave limitations of their civil rights. Between 1940 and 1942, Faulk taught an English I course at the University, using mimicry and storytelling to illustrate the best and worst of Texas societal customs. Often made to feel inferior at faculty gatherings, Faulk increasingly told unbelievable tales and bawdy jokes. His ability both to parody and to praise human behavior led to his entertainment and literary career. 

    Early in World War II the army refused to admit him because of a bad eye. In 1942 he joined the United States Merchant Marine for a year of trans-Atlantic duty, followed by a year with the Red Cross in Cairo, Egypt. By 1944 relaxed standards allowed the army to admit him for limited duty as a medic; he served the rest of the war at Camp Swift, Texas. Radio provided Faulk the audience he, as a storyteller, craved. Through his friend Alan Lomax, who worked at the CBS network in New York, Faulk became acquainted with industry officials. During Christmas 1945, Lomax hosted a series of parties to showcase Faulk's yarn-spinning abilities. When discharged from the army in April 1946, CBS gave Faulk his own weekly radio program, entitled Johnny's Front Porch; it lasted a year. Faulk began a new program on suburban station WOV in 1947 and the next year moved to another New Jersey station, WPAT, where he established himself as a raconteur while hosting Hi-Neighbor, Keep 'em Smiling, and North New Jersey Datebook. WCBS Radio debuted the John Henry Faulk Show on December 17, 1951. The program, which featured music, political humor, and listener participation, ran for six years. Faulk's radio career ended in 1957, a victim of the Cold War and the blacklisting of the 1950s. 

    Inspired by Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, AWARE, Incorporated, a New York-based, for-profit, corporation, offered "clearance" services to major media advertisers and radio and television networks. For a fee, AWARE would investigate the backgrounds of entertainers for signs of Communist sympathy or affiliation. In 1955 Faulk earned the enmity of the blacklist organization when he and other members wrested control of their union, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists from officers under the aegis of AWARE. In retaliation, AWARE branded Faulk a Communist. When he discovered that the AWARE bulletin prevented a radio station from making him an employment offer, Faulk sought redress. Several prominent radio personalities and CBS News vice president Edward R. Murrow supported Faulk's effort to end blacklisting. With financial backing from Murrow, Faulk engaged New York attorney Louis Nizer. Attorneys for AWARE, including McCarthy-committee counsel Roy Cohn, managed to stall the suit, which was originally filed in 1957, for five years. When the trial finally concluded in a New York courtroom, the jury had determined that Faulk should receive more compensation than he sought in his original petition. On June 28, 1962, the jury awarded him the largest libel judgment in history to that date - $3.5 million. An appeals court subsequently reduced the amount to $500,000. Legal fees and accumulated debts erased the balance of the award. Despite his vindication, CBS did not rehire Faulk - indeed, years passed before he worked again as a media entertainer. He returned to Austin in 1968. 

    From 1975 to 1980 he appeared as a homespun character on the television program Hee-Haw. During the 1980s he wrote and produced two one-man plays. In both Deep in the Heart (1986) and Pear Orchard, Texas, he portrayed characters imbued with the best of human instincts and the worst of cultural prejudices. The year 1974 proved pivotal for Faulk. CBS Television broadcast its movie version of Fear on Trial, Faulk's 1963 book that described his battle against AWARE. Also in 1974, Faulk read the dossier that the FBI had maintained on his activities since the 1940s. Disillusioned and desirous of a return to the country, Faulk moved to Madisonville, Texas. He returned to Austin in 1981. In 1983 he campaigned for the congressional seat abdicated by Democrat-turned-Republican Phil Gramm. Although he lost the three-way race, the humorist had spoken his mind. During the 1980s he traveled the nation urging university students to be ever vigilant of their constitutional rights and to take advantage of the freedoms guaranteed by the First Amendment. The Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin sponsors the John Henry Faulk Conference on the First Amendment. In 1940 Faulk wed one of his students at the University of Texas, Hally Wood. They had a daughter. After he and Hally were divorced, Faulk married Lynne Smith, whom he met at a New York City rally for presidential candidate Henry Wallace in the spring of 1948. Born of their marriage were two daughters and a son. After his divorce from Lynne, Faulk married Elizabeth Peake in 1965: they had a son. Faulk died in Austin of cancer on April 9, 1990. The city of Austin named the downtown branch of the public library in his honor. Source

Section 3
Oakwood Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 16.716, -097° 43.583

George Frank Robie (1844-1891)

    A native of Candia, New Hampshire, George Frank Robie was a sergeant in Company D, 7th New Hampshire Infantry, during the Civil War. As part of the Union army, he was commended for his performance during a reconnaissance mission (September, 1864) near Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, for which he was later awarded the Medal of Honor (June 12, 1883). Unfortunately, during his time in Virginia, he contracted “rheumatism” -  probably polymyalgia rheumatica, a particularly virulent form of arthritis, which could have resulted from sleeping on cold, wet ground, and he was mustered out of the army with the rank of first lieutenant. In 1869, Robie went to Galveston where he worked as a bookkeeper in a railroad office, but eventually his condition forced him to stop working entirely. He managed to visit friends and relatives in Massachusetts and New Hampshire in 1883, but his return trip to Galveston exhausted him completely and he never left the city again. He died June 5, 1891 (some records say June 10) as a result of his illness.

Note: His original stone lies only inches behind a prominent headstone and is easily overlooked; in fact, it was considered lost after the hurricane of 1900. A Civil War scholar rediscovered it while researching Union soldiers in the Houston-Galveston area and a new, more prominent military marker for Robie (shown below) was dedicated on November 11, 1997.

CITATION

Gallantry on the skirmish line.

New City Cemetery
Galveston

COORDINATES

29° 17.588, -094° 48.822

Felix Anthony "Doc" Blanchard (1924-2009)

    Doc Blanchard was born on December 11, 1924 in McColl, South Carolina. His father was a doctor and the family moved frequently when Felix was a child before settling in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. He seemed to be naturally gifted in athletics, and while at Saint Stanislaus College in Bay St. Louis led the school's football team to its first undefeated season in 1941, resulting in offers from Notre Dame, Fordham and Army, which he refused. Now nicknamed "Doc" due to his father's occupation, he chose to play for the University of North Carolina Tar Heels, in part because its coach was a relative. In 1943, Doc decided to enlist in the Army. He was stationed in New Mexico with a chemical-warfare unit until July 1944, when his father secured him a spot at West Point in July 1944. During his three years of playing for West Point, Doc racked up an undefeated streak of twenty-seven games. An all-around athlete, Blanchard served as the place kicker and punter in addition to his primary roles as an offensive fullback and a linebacker on defense, and his skills won him the Heisman trophy in 1945, as well as the cover of Time magazine. He had the opportunity to play professional football after being selected third overall in the 1946 NFL Draft by the Pittsburgh Steelers, but was refused a furlough.

    In 1947, Blanchard played himself in the movie The Spirit of West Point, the same year that he graduated and commissioned a second lieutenant in the United States Air Force. He coached Army’s freshman team in the 1950s, but never played professionally, choosing a military career as a fighter pilot instead. He would be inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1959. While with the 77th Tactical Fighter Squadron and flying back to his base at RAF Wethersfield near London in 1959, a gas leak in his F-100 Super Sabre broke and caught his plane on fire. Rather than escaping and parachuting out safely, he decided to stay with the plane and land it safely, because of a village on the ground that would have been damaged. The event garnered him an Air Force commendation for bravery. In the Vietnam War, Blanchard flew 113 missions from Thailand, 84 of them over North Vietnam. He piloted a fighter-bomber during a one-year tour of duty that ended in January 1969. He retired from the Air Force in 1971 as a colonel and spent several more years as the commandant of cadets at the New Mexico Military Institute. Blanchard died of pneumonia on April 19, 2009 in Bulverde, Texas, where he had been living with his daughter for the last twenty years of his life. He was interred at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio, Texas. In Blanchard's honor, the Interstate 20/U.S. Route 15 interchange near his hometown of Bishopville, South Carolina was named the Felix "Doc" Blanchard Interchange.

Section 50

Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 28.543, -098° 25.101

Jerome B. Alexander (?-1842)

    Jerome B. Alexander, soldier of the Republic of Texas, moved to Texas in January 1832. During the Texas Revolution he served as a private in Capt. John York's volunteer company at the siege of Bexar and as a private in Capt. Moseley Baker's Company D of Col. Edward Burleson's First Regiment, Texas Volunteers, at the battle of San Jacinto. He was elected clerk of the Third Judicial District court in January 1838 and was reelected in January 1842. During this period he was a resident of Fayette County with title to 200 acres of land and an additional 611 acres under survey. He also owned two town lots in La Grange, four horses, fifty cattle, and a silver watch. He had an additional 1,476 acres under survey in Gonzales County. When Adrián Woll raided San Antonio in 1842, Alexander was elected lieutenant in the volunteer company of Capt. Nicholas M. Dawson. He was killed in action in the infamous Dawson Massacre on September 18, 1842. He was buried with his companions at Monument Hill near La Grange, Fayette County. Source

Monument Hill State Historic Site

La Grange

COORDINATES

29° 53.339, -096° 52.618

Thomas Jefferson Gazley (1798-1853)

    Thomas J. Gazley, physician and legislator, was born in 1798 in Duchess County, New York. He established himself as a physician in Louisiana in 1828 but returned shortly to Baltimore, where he had received his medical training, to marry Eliza Boyce. They had four children. The family traveled to Texas from Ohio in November 1828 and settled in what is now Bastrop County. On April 29, 1829, Gazley applied for a license to practice medicine in San Felipe de Austin. On February 1, 1830, he was appointed clerk of the ayuntamiento. The Convention of 1832 appointed him a member of the subcommittee of safety and vigilance for the District of Bastrop. He was a delegate to the Convention of 1833. From September 28 to November 9, 1835, he was surgeon in Michael R. Goheen's company in the Texas army. 

    Gazley was one of three representatives from Mina (Bastrop) at the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos and there signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. After the Texas Revolution he moved to Houston and on September 4, 1837, was elected from Harrisburg County to the House of the Second Congress of the Republic. At that time he was a law partner of John Birdsall. Gazley was senior warden of Holland Lodge No. 36 and a charter member of the Grand Lodge of Texas, organized on December 20, 1837. He moved from Houston to Bastrop County and settled near the site of present Smithville, where he died on October 31, 1853. In 1937 his body was reinterred in the State Cemetery in Austin. Source 

Note: The birth date on his stone is incorrect.

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 15.918, -097° 43.645

Reuben White (1795-1847?)

    Reuben White, one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred, was the son of William and Amy White and was born in 1795 in what is now Vermilion Parish, Louisiana. In the War of 1812 he served in Capt. Shadrack Porter's Company, Baker's Regiment, Louisiana Militia. He married Christina Faulk on June 15, 1818. They had at least eight children. The family was Catholic. He moved to Texas in 1824 with his widowed mother and received his grant of one league on the east bank of the San Jacinto River. He was listed with his family in the Atascosito Census in 1826 as a farmer and stock raiser. Reuben and his brother Henry White were on the grand jury of Harris County in 1837. In 1838 he appeared before the Board of Land Commissioners of Harris County to petition for one labor of land due him as a colonist. He appeared on the Ad Valorem Tax Rolls of the Republic of Texas in 1837 and in subsequent years. His taxable property (after considerable exemptions) was 2,214 acres of land, two pleasure horses, 150 cattle, and one clock. He was a successful farmer-rancher of the period. Reuben White died before October 1848, as proven by a probate court record of his estate in Harris County in 1848. After White died, his widow married Hervey Whiting. In 1854 she married Isaac Curtis, and in the 1860 census she and her two youngest sons were living with a son-in-law, Thomas W. McComb, at Lynchburg. Source

Note: Unmarked. The modern-day White Cemetery evolved from the original White family cemetery, now located to the rear left of the grounds. Although Reuben White's grave location has been lost, he is likely buried in the area shown in the photo below, as this site contains the oldest graves and the still-standing tombstone of his youngest brother William.

1824 Lawn Crypts A-B Section
White Cemetery
Highlands

COORDINATES

N/A

Richard Bennett Hubbard (1832-1901)

    Richard Hubbard, governor of Texas and diplomat, son of Richard Bennett and Serena (Carter) Hubbard, was born in Walton County, Georgia, on November 1, 1832. He spent his formative years in rural Jasper County, Georgia. He graduated from Mercer Institute (now Mercer University) in 1851 with an A.B. degree in literature and was elected National University Orator, a high honor at Mercer. He briefly attended lectures at the University of Virginia, then went to Harvard, where he was awarded the LL.B. in 1853. Later that year he and his parents moved to Smith County, Texas, where they settled in Tyler and then on a plantation near the site of Lindale. Hubbard first entered politics in 1855, when he opposed the American (Know-Nothing) party. In the 1856 presidential election he supported James Buchanan, who appointed him United States district attorney for the western district of Texas, a position he resigned in 1859 to run for the state legislature. He served in the Eighth Legislature, where he supported secession. After his failure to win election to the Confederate States Congress from the Fifth District, he recruited men for the Confederate forces. During the Civil War he commanded the Twenty-second Texas Infantry regiment and served in the Trans-Mississippi Department in Arkansas and Louisiana.

    Hubbard's postwar law practice, supplemented by income from real estate and railroad promotion, enabled him to resume his political career by 1872, when he was chosen presidential elector on the Horace Greeley ticket. He was elected lieutenant governor in 1873 and 1876 and succeeded to the governorship on December 1, 1876, when Richard Coke resigned to become a United States senator. Hubbard's gubernatorial term was marked by post-Reconstruction financial difficulties, by general lawlessness, and by the fact that the legislature was never in session during his administration. Though political opponents prevented his nomination for a second term, he remained popular with the people of Texas. His accomplishments as governor include reducing the public debt, fighting land fraud, promoting educational reforms, and restoring public control of the state prison system.

    When he left the governorship in 1879 he was the object of acrimonious political and personal attacks. In 1884 Hubbard served as temporary chairman of the Democratic national nominating convention. He campaigned vigorously for the party nominee, Grover Cleveland, who appointed him minister to Japan in 1885. His oratory gained him the cognomen "Demosthenes of Texas." His four years in Japan marked a delicate transitional period in Japanese-American relations. Under American and European influences, Japan was emerging from feudalism and dependency and had begun to insist on recognition as a diplomatic equal, a position Hubbard strongly supported. He concluded with Japan an extradition treaty, and his preliminary work on the general treaty revisions provided the basis for the revised treaties of 1894-99. When he returned to the United States in 1889, he wrote a book based upon his diplomatic experience, The United States in the Far East, which was published in 1899. Hubbard was a Freemason, a member of the Smith County Agricultural and Mechanical Society, and a member of the board of directors of Texas A&M. In 1876 he was chosen Centennial Orator of Texas to represent the state at the World's Exposition in Philadelphia. There he urged national unity and goodwill in an acclaimed oration. Hubbard was a Baptist. He was first married to Eliza B. Hudson, daughter of Dr. G. C. Hudson of Lafayette, Alabama, on November 30, 1858; one daughter of this marriage, Serena, survived. Hubbard's second marriage, on November 26, 1869, was to Janie Roberts, daughter of Willis Roberts of Tyler. Janie died during Hubbard's mission to Japan, leaving him a second daughter, Searcy. Hubbard lived his final years in Tyler, where he died on July 12, 1901. Hubbard in Hill County is named for him. Source


Oakwood Cemetery
Tyler

COORDINATES

32° 21.218, -095° 18.556

John J. Given (1840-1870)

    John J. Given, Medal of Honor recipient, was born at Owensboro, Kentucky, in 1840. As a corporal in Company K, 6th United States Cavalry, he was cited for "bravery in action" at the battle of the Little Wichita River, July 12, 1870. On duty with Company L and under the command of Capt. Curwen Boyd McLellan, fifty men were engaged in a battle with 200 Indians. During the battle the horse of 2d Lt. H. P. Perrine, commander of the rear guard, was shot from under him. Given, seeing Perrine's plight, turned his horse around and drove off attacking Kiowas. Private Blum, a close friend of Given, was shot in the head. Given requested and received permission to go to his aid; he gave his picture and those of his sisters and sweetheart to guide James Dosher to hold until he got back. As Given reached the side of his friend, Kicking Bird, the Kiowa chief, rode out of an arroyo and drove his war lance into Givens' back, killing him instantly. For this and other actions Given and twelve others were cited for bravery in action and awarded the Medal of Honor. Givens' body was never recovered from the battlefield. A headstone "In Memoriam" stands at the San Antonio National Cemetery. Source

CITATION

Bravery in action

Section MA
San Antonio National Cemetery
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 25.277, -098° 28.022

Teala Loring (1922-2007)

    Teala Loring, American actress, was born Marcia Eloise Griffin on October 6, 1922 in Denver, Colorado. She was the sister of actors Debra Paget, Lisa Gaye, and Reull Shayne. At the start of her film career, she was sometimes credited as Judith Gibson. From 1942, Loring appeared in uncredited or bit parts in films at Paramount, turning up as a cigarette girl in Holiday Inn and as a telephone operator in Double Indemnity, for example. In 1945-46, she appeared in ten films released by the low-key Poverty Row studio Monogram Pictures, including Fall Guy (1947), the Charlie Chan vehicle Dark Alibi (1946), and two films starring Kay Francis, Allotment Wives (1945) and Wife Wanted (1946). Having failed to achieve the success that her sister Debra would capture in the 1950s, Loring made her final film, Arizona Cowboy in 1950. She died at the age of 84 on January 28, 2007 from injuries she sustained in an automobile accident in Spring, Texas.

Section S1

Houston National Cemetery

Houston

COORDINATES

29° 55.948, -095° 27.333

Nathaniel C. Hazen (1808-1836)

    Born in 1808, Nathaniel C. Hazen came to Texas in January, 1836, likely just to enlist in the Texian army. He arrived in Nacogdoches on January 14 and subscribed to the oath of allegiance, then enlisted two days later for a ten month period with eight others to Lieutenant Samuel Sprague. The nine men traveled south towards Goliad to meet up with James Fannin, who was to be their acting commander. They arrived on March 19, and within a week, they, and the rest of Fannin's command, were captured by the Mexican army and sentenced to death for treason. On March 27, Hazen and the others were led out of the presidio where they were being held and marched to a spot near the river, where the Mexicans opened fire, killing hundreds of men in what would come to be known as the Goliad Massacre. Hazen, however, along with perhaps a dozen others, ran towards the wooded area along the river and made his escape.

   He discovered that the main force of the Texian army under Sam Houston was moving east towards Louisiana, and was able to catch up with them at the Brazos River, where he told the men about the details of Goliad and was assigned to Captain William H. Patton's Company. Two weeks later, Hazen fought at the Battle of San Jacinto, fiercely determined to avenge his slaughtered comrades at Goliad. After the battle, he continued to serve the rest of his enlistment, leaving the army for good on November 10, 1836. He traveled to Columbia in Brazoria County to look for property to build a homestead, but sadly died of unknown causes on December 27. He was buried in the Old Columbia Cemetery in what is now West Columbia. His grave went unmarked until 1936, when the Texas Historical Commission placed a granite stone there.

Columbia Cemetery
West Columbia

COORDINATES

29° 08.396, -095° 38.852

Don Deadric Robey (1903-1975)

    Don Robey, music entrepreneur, was born on November 1, 1903, in Houston. A life-long passion for music led Robey into promotional work for ballroom dances in the Houston area. In the late 1930s he spent three years in Los Angeles, where he operated a nightclub called the Harlem Grill. After returning to Houston, he opened the famous Bronze Peacock Dinner Club in 1945. He booked top jazz bands and orchestras to play the club, which became a huge success. Building from this venture, with his assistant Evelyn Johnson, Robey opened record stores and started Buffalo Booking Agency a talent-management agency, by 1950. The first client he had signed was a twenty-three-year-old singer and guitarist named Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown. Dissatisfied with the way Aladdin Records was handling Brown, Robey decided to start his own record company in 1949; he named it Peacock Records after his nightclub. 

    Over the years Robey added an impressive array of talent to his label, with artists including Memphis Slim, Marie Adams, Floyd Dixon, and Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton, whose 1953 recording of "Hound Dog" was later imitated by Elvis Presley. Robey added a gospel division to Peacock Records with artists such as the Dixie Hummingbirds, the Sensational Nightingales, and the Mighty Clouds of Joy. Peacock became one of the leading gospel labels in the United States. Robey added a second gospel label, Song Bird, in 1963-64. In August 1952 he formed a partnership with Duke Records owners David J. Mattis and Bill Fitzgerald. Less than a year later, in April 1953, Robey gained full control over the Duke label. He closed his Bronze Peacock Club and established the headquarters of both Duke and Peacock there. His acquisition of Duke brought recording rights to artists Johnny Ace, Junior Parker, Roscoe Gordon, and Bobby "Blue" Bland. Between 1957 and 1970, Bland recorded thirty-six songs that reached the Billboard R&B charts, thus becoming Robey's most consistently successful artist.

    A subsidiary label, Back Beat, was formed in 1957 and became a soul-music label in the 1960s. The talent roster on Back Beat included Joe Hinton, O.V. Wright, and Carl Carlton. At the height of his music-promotion and recording success, Robey had more than a hundred artists and groups under contract to his various labels. At his headquarters, he built an in-house studio that served largely as both a rehearsal complex and a facility for making demo recordings. He made a considerable number of his released recordings at Houston’s ACA and Gold Star studios. Although controversial because of his shrewd business practices and dealings with artists, he is credited with substantially influencing the development of Texas blues by finding and recording blues musicians. His music director, Joe Scott, helped define Texas blues through his distinctive arrangements. Robey's business began to decline in the mid-1960s. He sold Duke-Peacock Records and the subsidiary labels to ABC–Dunhill on May 23, 1973, with the agreement that he would stay on as consultant and oversee the release of catalog materials, a position he held until his death. He was a leader in the United Negro College Fund Drive, a member of Douglass Burrell Consistory No. 56, Doric Temple No. 76, and Sanderson Commandery No. 2 K.T.; and a Century Member of the YMCA, NAACP, and Chamber of Commerce. He died of a heart attack in Houston on June 16, 1975, and was survived by his wife of fifteen years, Murphy L. Robey, three children, three sisters, and seven grandchildren. The Masonic Lodge performed graveside services for him at Paradise North Cemetery in Houston. On April 16, 2011, the Harris County Historical Commission dedicated a Texas Historical Marker to Robey’s Peacock Records at its original offices (now the Louis Robey Professional Building) on Lyons Avenue. Source


Paradise North Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 53.306, -095° 27.289

William Joseph Stafford (?-1840?)

    William J. Stafford, one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists, was a native of Tennessee. His first wife, Martha Donnelle, died in 1818; they had four children. He soon married Martha Cartwright, with whom he had four children. He had operated plantations in both Mississippi and Louisiana before moving to Texas in 1822 as an original member of the first Austin colony. On August 16, 1824, he received title to 1½ leagues and a labor now in Fort Bend and Waller counties. The census of March 1826 listed him as a farmer and stock raiser aged between forty and fifty. That year his family consisted of his wife, a son, a daughter, two servants, and eight slaves. Two of his sons by his first marriage, Harvey and Adam Stafford, were grown by that time, and their sisters had married Clement C. Dyer and William Neal. The Fort Bend County plantation called Stafford's Point had a cane mill and a horse-powered gin. Because the Staffords feared that the Mexican government would free their slaves, the second Mrs. Stafford spent much of her time moving them back and forth across the Sabine River. In June 1835 Stafford killed a man named Moore and fled to the United States. 

    On April 15, 1836, while the family was away, a detachment of Mexican soldiers led by Antonio López de Santa Anna halted at Stafford's plantation. Upon resuming their march, the soldiers burned the Stafford residence and the gin houses. In October 1836 Stafford appointed his wife his agent and attorney in Texas and gave much of his Texas property to his four grown children. In December 1838 fifty citizens of Fort Bend County petitioned Congress to permit Stafford to return home and be exempt from judicial prosecution on the grounds that Moore, the man he had killed, had been "destitute of character" and was "much addicted to brawls." Stafford, the petitioners argued, was ordinarily a peace-loving and enterprising citizen and had killed Moore only after much provocation. On December 27, 1838, the House recommended executive clemency. Stafford returned to live at Stafford's Point until his death, sometime before September 25, 1840, when Clement Dyer was appointed administrator of his estate. Source

Note: Unmarked. Originally this small piece of land was part of William Joseph Stafford's plantation grounds, which had a small family cemetery. The specific location of this cemetery is uncertain, but in the 1960s local historians deemed this spot as the most likely area for the graveyard and several historical markers have been erected here denoting it so. The GPS coordinates given below are taken from the Texas-shaped memorial shown below.

William J. Stafford Cemetery
Stafford

COORDINATES

29° 36.349, -095° 35.158

William Christian Menefee (1796-1875)

    William Menefee (Menifee), lawyer and public official, was born in Knox County, Tennessee, on May 11, 1796, son of John and Frances (Rhodes) Menefee. He studied law and was admitted to the bar sometime before 1824, when his family and that of John Sutherland Menefee moved to Morgan County, Alabama, and settled near Decatur. In 1830 he moved to Texas with his wife, the former Agnes Sutherland, daughter of George Sutherland, and seven children. Another daughter was born in Texas. Menefee settled in the community of Egypt in what is now Colorado County. By 1840 he had acquired title to 1,300 acres of land and owned fifty cattle, four horses, and seven slaves. He was a delegate from the district of Lavaca to the conventions of 1832 and 1833. He represented Austin Municipality in the Consultation and on December 8, 1835, was seated as a member of the General Council of the provisional government. 

    On January 9, 1836, he was elected first judge of Colorado Municipality. He and William D. Lacey were delegates from Colorado to the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos and there signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. Menefee was appointed the first chief justice of Colorado County on December 20, 1836. In 1839 he was one of the five commissioners who selected Austin as the capital of the Republic of Texas. He was nominated secretary of the treasury of the republic on December 23, 1840, but the Senate had taken no action by January 21, 1841, and the nomination was withdrawn. Menefee represented the Colorado district in the House of the Second, Third, Fourth, and Fifth congresses of the republic, September 1837 to November 1841, and in the Ninth Congress, December 1844 to February 1845. He was defeated by Edward Burleson for the vice presidency of the republic in 1841. In 1842 he participated in the campaign against Rafael Vásquez. Menefee was elected chief justice of Colorado County on July 13, 1846, but during that year moved to Fayette County, which he represented in the House of the Fifth Legislature. He died on October 28 or 29, 1875, and was buried in the Pine Springs Cemetery, six miles from Flatonia. The state of Texas later moved his remains and those of his wife to the State Cemetery. Source

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 15.921, -097° 43.621

Carlton Shane Dronett (1971-2009)

    Shane Dronett was an American football defensive lineman who played for the NFL's Denver Broncos, Detroit Lions and Atlanta Falcons between 1992 and 2002. He was born in Orange, Texas, and graduated from Bridge City High School in Bridge City, Texas in 1989. He attended the University of Texas at Austin on a football scholarship and in 1991 he was named an All-American. In the 1992 NFL Draft, the Denver Broncos selected Dronett in the second round. He remained with the Broncos for four seasons, playing all 16 games in his first year. Dronett played for both the Atlanta Falcons and the Detroit Lions in 1996, playing 12 games total. The Lions released Dronett at the end of the 1996 season, and he was rehired by the Falcons, who had just hired as their new head coach Dan Reeves, who had originally drafted Dronett to play for the Broncos. 

    Dronett played a significant role in the Falcons' defense, which ranked second in the NFL against the run, allowing only 75.2 rushing yards per game, and produced 313 tackles, 29.5 sacks, and 13 forced fumbles. When the Falcons won the NFC Championship in 1998, Dronett played in Super Bowl XXXIII against the Denver Broncos. In January 2000, he signed a five-year contract worth $20 million. In September, he suffered a torn ACL when sacking the Carolina Panthers quarterback. He suffered several other injuries, including knee and shoulder problems, over the next two seasons that limited his ability to play. He was released by the Falcons in 2003. In 2006, Dronett began to exhibit paranoia, confusion, fear, and rage. According to his family, his behavior changed radically. He was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor in 2007. Its removal did not alleviate Dronett's symptoms. He confronted his wife with a gun on January 21, 2009. As she ran for safety, he turned the gun on himself. His death was ruled a suicide by the Gwinnett County Medical Examiner's office. After his death, his brain was tested at Boston University School of Medicine's Center for the Study of Traumatic Encephalopathy. Scientists determined that Dronett suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a brain disease associated with repeated head trauma. He left a wife, Chris, and two daughters, Berkley and Hayley.

Forest Lawn Memorial Park
West Orange

COORDINATES

30° 04.135, -093° 45.661