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