Andrew J. Briscoe (1810-1849)

    Andrew Briscoe, merchant, patriot, judge, and railroad promoter, was born on November 25, 1810, on the plantation of his father, Parmenas Briscoe, in Claiborne County, Mississippi. He made several trips on horseback between Mississippi and Texas before settling in Texas, where he registered in 1833 as a citizen of Coahuila and Texas. With a shipment of goods he opened a store in Anahuac in 1835. Briscoe opposed the irregular collection of customs dues by Mexican authorities at Anahuac and presented resolutions of protest at a mass meeting there and later at Harrisburg. When he attempted to trade to DeWitt Clinton Harris goods with unpaid duties, both he and Harris were arrested by Mexican officials. They were released when William B. Travis and his volunteers came to drive Antonio Tenorio out of office. In July Briscoe wrote to the editor of the Brazoria Texas Republican justifying the action taken. In August he received a congratulatory letter from Travis.

    Briscoe was captain of the Liberty Volunteers at the battle of Concepción and followed Benjamin R. Milam in the siege of Bexar. He was elected a delegate from his municipality with Lorenzo de Zavala and attended the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos, but evidently because of the urgency of reentering military service he did not remain until its close. At the battle of San Jacinto he was captain of Company A, Infantry Regulars. In 1836 Briscoe was appointed chief justice of Harrisburg by Sam Houston. When his term ended in 1839, he began dealing in cattle and trying to promote a railroad. In 1839 he planned a road from Harrisburg to the Brazos River. In 1840, when the project was abandoned, about two miles had been graded and laid with ties. That year, in a paper entitled "California Railroad," he gave a complete plan for building a railroad from Harrisburg to San Diego via Richmond, Prairieville, Austin, and El Paso. In 1841 he secured a charter from the Republic of Texas for the Harrisburg Railroad and Trading Company, of which he was president. In the spring of 1849 Briscoe moved his family to New Orleans, where he engaged in banking and brokerage until his death. Source

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 15.917, -097° 43.645

Lester B. Williams (1920-1990)

    Lester Williams, blues guitarist and vocalist, was born in Groveton, Texas, on June 24, 1920. He was little-known outside of the Houston blues scene. He had moved with his family to Houston when he was a boy. Williams grew up singing in church choirs and in school; he later also sang in college. In Houston, he became familiar with the recordings of Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lonnie Johnson. After serving in the military in World War II, he came home to Houston and formed his own band. At this time he heard T-Bone Walker, who became a major influence on Williams’s style. Williams sang with Ike Smalley’s band at the famous Eldorado Ballroom in Houston, but he left the Smalley band and applied to the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston and was accepted. He returned to Houston, bought a guitar, and spent about six months polishing his blues playing. He began performing at Don Robey’s Bronze Peacock Club. He made tapes of his song, Winter Time Blues, which he wrote after his wife and daughter had gone to Los Angeles for the summer. At this time, Williams was attending Texas Southern University.

    Winter Time Blues was eventually released in 1949 on the Houston-based Macy’s label and became a regional hit. Other Macy’s recordings include Answer to Wintertime Blue, Dowling Street Ho, Texas Town, Mary Lou, Hey Jack, and The Folks Around The Corner. Williams joined the Specialty label, which resulted in his biggest hit in 1952 - I Can’t Lose with the Stuff I Use. The song was later covered by B.B. King. Steve Poncio, who had produced Williams's debut single Winter Time Blues, also produced I Can't Lose with the Stuff I Use. The record achieved national popularity, and Lester Williams joined a February 1953 Carnegie Hall bill, which included Billy Eckstine, Dinah Washington, and Nat King Cole. His other recordings with Specialty included Trying to Forget, Lost Gal, and If You Knew How Much I Love You. Williams’s later recordings were not successful; however by 1954 he was regularly performing on Houston radio station KLVL. He was also touring and playing on blues circuits throughout the South. In 1954 he recorded some sessions for Robey’s Duke label, including Let’s Do It and Crazy ‘Bout You Baby. Williams’s recordings have been released on various reissue CDs. The Godfather of Blues (Collectables 1993) includes his Macey’s sides - Dowling Street Hop, Winter Time Blues, Answer to Wintertime Blues, Texas Town, Hey Jack, Folks Around the Corner, and Mary Lou. Other CD releases include I Can't Lose with the Stuff I Use (Ace, 1993), Texas Troubadour (Ace, 1995), and Goree Carter: The Complete Recordings Volume 2 - 1950-1954/The Remaining Lester Williams 1949-1956 (Blue Moon, 2004). Williams continued playing the Houston club circuit for many years, and in 1986 he toured in Europe. He died on November 13, 1990, in Houston. Source 

Section J
Houston National Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 55.742, -095° 26.976

William Durham (1815-1838)

    William Davis Durham, soldier, was born at Bardswell, Norfolk, England, on July 4, 1815, the eldest of seven children of William and Ester (Bloomfield) Durham; he was a brother of George J. Durham. The family immigrated to the United States in 1833 or 1835 and settled in New York. William enlisted in the New Orleans Greys on October 22, 1835, and landed at Velasco, Texas, three days later. As a member of that unit he participated in the siege of Bexar. When the Texas army split, Durham marched to the east and fought at the battle of San Jacinto. His name is engraved (incorrectly, as William Daniel Durham) on the face of the San Jacinto Monument. He died, a victim of a yellow fever epidemic, in Houston on August 27, 1838, and was buried in Old Founders Memorial Park. In 1936 the state placed a monument over his grave. Source

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. His marker has an incorrect middle name.


Founders Memorial Park
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 45.430, -095° 22.750

 

Louis Joseph "The Battler" Rymkus (1919-1998)

    Lou Rymkus was born on November 6, 1919 in Royalton, Illinois and grew up in Chicago. He was a star lineman in high school and won a football scholarship to attend the University of Notre Dame. At Notre Dame, he played on a 1941 team that went undefeated under head coach Frank Leahy. Rymkus was drafted by the NFL's Washington Redskins in 1943 and played one season for the team before joining the U.S. Marines during World War II. Following two years in the service, he signed with the Browns, with whom he spent the remainder of his playing career. In 1960, Rymkus was hired by the new Houston Oilers team to be their first head coach and led them to win the AFL's first championship, The championship provided Rymkus with an extra degree of satisfaction because it came over a Chargers team coached by his arch-nemesis, Sid Gillman.  No one is exactly sure how the feud began, but it stemmed from the days when Rymkus was an assistant coach on Gillman’s Los Angeles Rams team. The two nearly came to blows one day in 1959, and despised each other since.  Despite the 1960 championship, the team’s slow start in 1961 and Rymkus’ outspoken criticism of the Oilers’ owner, Bud Adams, resulted in his dismissal as head coach early in the 1961 season. Following this, he held numerous football jobs, from coaching a high school team in Louisiana to working as an assistant with the Detroit Lions. Rymkus was a finalist for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988 but was not elected. He died of a stroke in 1998.


San Felipe de Austin Cemetery
San Felipe

COORDINATES

29° 47.892, -096° 06.070