Thomas Jefferson Sweeny (1812-1869)

    Thomas J. Sweeny, soldier and planter, was born in Nashville, Tennessee, on September 10, 1812, the son of John W. and Ann (Fuller) Sweeny. The family entered Texas on January 20, 1835. At Brazoria on August 9, 1835, Sweeny added his signature to a petition calling for a convention "to quite the present excitement and to promote the general interest of Texas," and on March 25, 1836, he and his brother William Burrell Sweeny enlisted as privates in Capt. William H. Patton's Fourth Company-the "Columbia Company"-of Col. Sidney Sherman's Second Regiment, Texas Volunteers. The brothers served at the battle of San Jacinto, where William was on detached duty in Capt. Henry Wax Karnes's cavalry company. Thomas Sweeny was discharged from the army on June 6, 1836. William was murdered in Brazoria in September 1840. In 1844 Sweeny married Diana Frances Haynie, a native of Knoxville, Tennessee. They had five children. In 1850 their Brazoria County property was valued at $4,140. In January 1851 Sweeny was involved in a legal dispute over the ownership of a number of slaves that was argued before the Supreme Court of Texas. By 1860 he was a wealthy planter with $32,000 worth of real estate and $43,000 in personal property, including thirty-nine slaves, in Brazoria County. The topsoil on his plantation is said to have been twenty feet deep. At the time he employed a full-time overseer and a tutor for his children. Sweeny died at La Grange, Fayette County, in 1869 and was buried near the southwest Brazoria County community of Sweeny. His widow died in Angleton in 1904. Source 


Sweeny Cemetery
Sweeny

COORDINATES

29° 02.833, -095° 42.773

Andrew Jackson Houston (1854-1941)

    Andrew Jackson Houston, politician, son of Sam and Margaret (Lea) Houston, was born at Independence, Texas, on June 21, 1854. In 1874, after attending various military academies and colleges including Baylor, he mustered the Travis Rifles to protect the new post-Reconstruction Democratic legislature. He was admitted to the bar at Tyler in 1876 and was United States district court clerk from 1879 to 1889. In 1892 he accepted the "Lily-white" Republican nomination for governor, though the party was split and had no chance of winning. In 1898 Houston gathered a troop of Rough Riders for Theodore Roosevelt, and in 1902 he accepted President Roosevelt's appointment as United States marshal in East Texas, a post in which he served until 1910. In 1910 and 1912 Houston again accepted futile nominations for the governorship, this time on the prohibition slate. He then returned to his legal practice in Beaumont. He was awarded several honors in the 1930s, including the post of honorary superintendent of San Jacinto State Park (now San Jacinto Battleground State Park). In 1938 he published Texas Independence, a book about his father's role in the Texas Revolution.

    After the death of United States senator Morris Sheppard on April 9, 1941, Governor W. Lee O'Daniel wanted to replace Sheppard as senator himself, but was required to appoint an interim senator to serve until election time. He had to find someone of some prominence who would like to be senator but would not run against him in the special election. O'Daniel selected Houston, who was two months short of his eighty-eighth birthday and disabled by illness. At that time Houston was the oldest person ever to serve in the United States Senate. There was some doubt that he would even enter the Senate chamber, since his daughters did not want him to risk the long trip. He did, however, travel to Washington a few weeks after his appointment. There he died after attending one committee meeting. On June 26, 1941, Houston's body was returned to Texas and buried at the State Cemetery in Austin. He had been married twice-to Carrie G. Purnell, who died in 1884, and to Elizabeth Hart Good, who died in 1907. Three daughters survived him. Source

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 43.596, -095° 32.839

Job Starks Collard (1813-1867)

    Born in Missouri, March 21, 1813, Job Collard came to Texas in August 1833. He enlisted in the revolutionary army on March 1, 1836 for a three month stint as a member of William Ware's Company. He fought at the Battle of San Jacinto, served out the rest of his contract, then re-enlisted and commanded a company until at least September 30, 1836. He was married twice; first to Elizabeth Robinson, with whom he had five children, then after her death, married Sarah James, who bore him four more children. They lived in Danville, Montgomery County until Collard's death on June 1, 1867. He was buried next to his first wife Elizabeth, and upon the death of his second wife Sarah on August 7, 1883, she was laid next to him as well.


Madisonville City Cemetery
Madisonville

COORDINATES

30° 56.735, -095° 55.255

Isaac Payton Sweat (1945-1990)

    Isaac Payton Sweat, singer and instrumentalist, was born in Port Arthur, Texas, on July 19, 1945. Ike was born into a musical family. His father, Dawdie Sweat, had played with his three brothers for many dances and events in Pineville, Louisiana, in the 1920s and 1930s. Dawdie's brother, Charly Sweat, had moved to Jefferson County, Texas, to work in the refineries. Dawdie's family joined him there. Ike grew up hearing his father and uncle playing either together or with their friends. Sweat began playing instruments at an early age, beginning with the banjo and then learning guitar and bass. He played in rock bands while attending Nederland High School and, after graduation, enrolled as a pre-med student at Lamar University, where he planned to minor in music. The conflict of musical nights with educational days led him to drop out of school in order to concentrate on music. 

    In the 1960s he became the bass player for the nationally-renowned blues musician Johnny Winter. Sweat continued to play for Winter's bands (first the Crystaliers, later renamed the Coastaleers) occasionally in the 1970s and 1980s. A product of the times, Sweat dabbled with psychedelic rock before returning to country music, a genre he found nearest to his heart. Although he played ably in other genres, whenever he sang, he sang country music. He had his first major success in the early 1980s with a vocal cover of Al Dean's instrumental standard, Cotton-Eyed Joe. The song was popular, especially where people performed the eponymous dance. It was so popular, in fact, that Sweat became known as "Mr. Cotton-Eyed Joe." He performed regularly until his death. After returning from a show in Houston, Sweat was found shot dead in his garage in Richmond, Texas, on June 23, 1990. The case is still unsolved. Sweat is honored in the Gulf Coast Music Hall of Fame at the Museum of the Gulf Coast in Port Arthur. Source

Section 407
Forest Park Westheimer Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 44.383, -095° 36.524

Willet Holmes (1807-1893)

    Willet Holmes, early settler and public official, was born in Shelby County, Kentucky, on May 14, 1807. He moved to Texas in 1833 and after a short time returned for his family to the United States. There he assisted Gen. Thomas J. Chambers in raising two companies for the Texas army. Holmes took his family to Texas in 1837 and settled in Milam County, which he represented in the Seventh Congress of the republic. In 1846 he was ordained a Baptist deacon. He lived for a time in Washington County, where he ran unsuccessfully for sheriff in 1856, and in Burleson County, where he was elected commissioner in August 1858. From 1861 to 1869 he lived in Grimes County, and from 1880 to 1886 he lived in Lee County. His first wife, Amelia R. (Cummins), died in 1843; Holmes married Mary Jane Newman of Virginia in 1853. He was still living in 1892. Source


Old Independence Cemetery
Independence

COORDINATES

30° 19.726, -096° 21.680