Harry McLeary Wurzbach (1874-1931)

    Harry McLeary Wurzbach, lawyer and legislator, son of Kate (Fink) and Charles Louis Wurzbach, was born in San Antonio on May 19, 1874, and was educated in San Antonio public schools and at Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. He was admitted to the bar in 1896 and began to practice law in San Antonio. That same year he married Frances Darden Wagner. During the Spanish-American War he volunteered as a private in Company F, First Regiment, Texas Volunteer Infantry. He resumed his law practice in Seguin in 1900 and was elected county attorney of Guadalupe County. In 1904 he became county judge and served four terms. On November 2, 1920, Wurzbach was elected to the Sixty-seventh United States Congress from the Fourteenth Texas District, the first native Texan to be a Republican representative. He was also the first Republican from Texas to be elected for more than two terms, for he was reelected to the Sixty-eighth, Sixty-ninth, Seventieth, and Seventy-second congresses. He died in San Antonio on November 6, 1931, and was buried there in the National Cemetery. Source

Section J
San Antonio National Cemetery
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 25.294, -098° 28.054

Mildred "Babe" Didrikson Zaharias (1911-1956)

    Babe Zaharias, athlete, was born on June 26, 1911, in Port Arthur, Texas, the sixth of seven children of Norwegian immigrants Ole Nickolene and Hannah Marie (Olson) Didriksen. Ole Didriksen was a seaman and carpenter, and his wife was an accomplished skater in Norway. In 1915 the family moved to Beaumont, Texas, where the children, with the encouragement of both parents, became skilled performers on the rustic gymnasium equipment that their father built in the backyard. Mildred Didrikson, who changed the spelling of her surname, acquired her nickname during sandlot baseball games with the neighborhood boys, who thought she batted like Babe Ruth. A talented basketball player in high school, Didrikson was recruited during her senior year in 1930 to do office work at Employers Casualty Company of Dallas and to spark the company's semi-professional women's basketball team, the Golden Cyclones. Between 1930 and 1932 she led the team to two finals and a national championship and was voted All-American each season. Her exceptional athletic versatility prompted Employers Casualty to expand its women's sports program beyond basketball. Didrikson represented the company as a one-woman team in eight of ten track and field events at the 1932 Amateur Athletic Union Championships. She placed in seven events, taking first place in five - shot put, javelin and baseball throws, eighty-meter hurdles, and long jump; she tied for first in the high jump and finished fourth in the discus throw. In three hours Didrikson single-handedly amassed thirty points, eight more than the entire second-place team, and broke four world records. Her performances in the javelin throw, hurdles, and high jump qualified her to enter the 1932 Olympics, where she again broke world records in all three events. She won gold medals for the javelin and hurdles and, despite clearing the same height as the top finisher in the high jump, was awarded the silver medal because she went over the bar head first, a foul at that time.

    Didrikson received a heroine's welcome on her return to Texas. She had started another basketball season with the Golden Cyclones when the Amateur Athletic Union disqualified her from amateur competition because her name appeared in an automobile advertisement. Her family was badly in need of money, and Didrikson turned professional to earn what she could from her status as a sports celebrity. Never hesitant to capitalize on her own abilities or to turn a profit from showmanship, she spent 1932-34 promoting and barnstorming. She did a brief stint in vaudeville playing the harmonica and running on a treadmill and pitched in some major league spring-training games; she also toured with a billiards exhibition, a men's and women's basketball team called Babe Didrikson's All-Americans, and an otherwise all-male, bearded baseball road team called the House of David. Since golf was one of the few sports that accommodated women athletes, Didrikson made up her mind to become a championship player, and between engagements she spent the spring and summer of 1933 in California taking lessons from Stan Kertes. Her first tournament was the Fort Worth Women's Invitational in November 1932; at her second, the Texas Women's Amateur Championship the following April, she captured the title. Complaints from more socially polished members of the Texas Women's Golf Association led the United States Association to rule her ineligible to compete as an amateur, thus disqualifying her from virtually all tournament play. Didrikson resumed the lucrative routine of exhibition tours and endorsements, impressing audiences with smashing drives that regularly exceeded 240 yards. She met George Zaharias, a well-known professional wrestler and sports promoter, when she qualified at the 1938 Los Angeles Open, a men's Professional Golfers' Association tournament. They were married on December 23, 1938, and Zaharias thereafter managed his wife's career.

    She regained her amateur standing in 1943 and went on to win seventeen consecutive tournaments, including the British Women's Amateur Championship (she was the first American to win it), before turning professional in 1947. The following year Didrikson helped found the Ladies Professional Golf Association in order to provide the handful of professional women golfers with a tournament circuit. She was herself the LPGA's leading money winner between 1949 and 1951. In 1950 the Associated Press voted her Woman Athlete of the Half-Century. In April 1953 Didrikson underwent a colostomy to remove cancerous tissue. Despite medical predictions that she would never be able to play championship golf again, she was in tournament competition fourteen weeks after surgery, and the Golf Writers of America voted her the Ben Hogan Trophy as comeback player of the year. In 1954 she won five tournaments, including the United States Women's Open. Portrayed as a courageous survivor in the press, Didrikson played for cancer fund benefits and maintained her usual buoyant public persona, but in June 1955 she was forced to reenter John Sealy Hospital at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston for further diagnosis. Medical treatment was unable to contain the spreading cancer, and Didrikson spent much of the remaining fifteen months of her life in the hospital. In September 1955 she and her husband established the Babe Didrikson Zaharias Fund, which financed a tumor clinic at UTMB. She died at John Sealy Hospital on September 27, 1956, at the age of forty-five, and was buried in Beaumont. Didrikson's exuberant confidence, self-congratulatory manner, and cultivation of her celebrity status irritated some fellow athletes, but she was the most popular female golfer of her own time and since. She enjoyed playing to the gallery in her golf matches, and her wisecracks and exhibitions of virtuosity delighted spectators. She was voted Athlete of the Year by the Associated Press six times during her career. Between 1940 and 1950 she won every women's golf title, including the world championship (four times) and the United States Women's Open (three times). She established a national audience for women's golf and was the first woman ever to serve as a resident professional at a golf club. In 1955, a year before her death, she established the Babe Zaharias Trophy to honor outstanding female athletes. Source

Zaharias Circle
Forest Lawn Memorial Park
Beaumont

COORDINATES

30° 07.620, -094° 05.927

Margaret Moffette Lea Houston (1819-1867)

    Margaret Houston, wife of Sam Houston, was born near Marion, Alabama, on April 11, 1819, the daughter of Temple and Nancy (Moffette) Lea. On the death of her father in 1834, she moved with her mother from the family farm in Pleasant Valley, near Marion, into town, to the home of Margaret's elder brother Henry Lea, a successful businessman and state legislator. She was educated first at Pleasant Valley Academy and subsequently at Judson Female Institute. In Mobile, Alabama, in 1839 she was introduced to Gen. Sam Houston at a party held by her sister Antoinette, Mrs. William Bledsoe. Despite an age difference of twenty-six years and Houston's well-known difficulties with drink, they were married on May 9, 1840, after a year-long courtship. Margaret's kin apparently opposed the marriage. Soon after the wedding, members of her family moved to Texas, where they moved in and out of the Houstons' lives for the next quarter century. Margaret, a beautiful young woman, was utterly devoted to Houston through their twenty-three-year marriage. Some of his faults she openly battled, while others she had to learn to tolerate. Being deeply religious, she could not stand his drinking. Rather than nag him, she made him realize that his drinking hurt her and profaned the sanctity of their home; in this way she led Houston to declare total abstinence, which, with some difficulty, he kept to for the rest of his life. Convincing him to join the Baptist Church and be baptized proved a greater task, but one in which she succeeded, with the help of Rev. George W. Baines, on November 19, 1854, when Houston was baptized by Rev. Rufus C. Burleson in Little Rocky Creek, near Independence.

    There were compromises: Houston's wandering she found herself helpless to curtail. Not long after moving to Texas Margaret realized that her health, particularly her chronic asthma, prevented her following him in his restless journeys from place to place; she determined then to make a home that would beckon him, but not to follow. During Houston's long years in the United States Senate, she never once went to Washington, nor did she travel his nearly endless campaign trails. Staying at home, she created a domestic circle on which he looked increasingly as a haven. Her letters to him reinforced the shrine of home. Her method worked, in a great measure, for in his absences he longed for her and the large household, which ultimately included eight children. The letters of husband and wife tell not only of a love of family but a deep love for one another. The Houstons had numerous houses in Texas. Only one of these they kept continuously, Cedar Point, on Trinity Bay. It was a modest building, like most of the rest, built of logs, weatherboarded, with four or five rooms and the household services in separate buildings in the yard. Mrs. Houston, who loved gardening, maintained vegetable and flower gardens at all of her houses. Of their homes only the house at Huntsville, which is greatly remodeled, the rented Steamboat House nearby, and the Governor's Mansion in Austin are still standing. Raven Hill, Cedar Point, and the house in Independence, near old Baylor College, are gone. Surprisingly few of the Houstons' personal possessions survive. The palmy days of the Houstons' life together were the years when he was in the Senate. Then they had money to spend and did not have to rely upon farming or land speculation, at which Houston was never successful. When Houston was in Texas the family was not likely to remain long in one place, but traveled about from house to house in a big horse-drawn carryall enclosed in canvas. Nearly every summer they spent time at Cedar Point. Autumn found them in Huntsville or Independence.

    Before 1853 Nancy Lea lived regularly with them, managing the household, a job that held no interest for Mrs. Houston. Of the fourteen slaves, about five were house servants, presided over by Mrs. Houston's maid, Aunt Eliza, also a slave, who was about ten years older than Mrs. Houston and devoted to her well-being. Mrs. Houston's inquiring mind led her by the late 1840s wholly away from reading novels and plays into religious studies. Her letters to Sam contained long passages on religion and reflected her great insecurity about the beliefs she professed. Often ill, often pregnant, and often idle, for she was waited upon by others, she became subject to periods of depression. The idea of hell terrified her. Circumstances surrounding the death of her close friend Frances Creath at Huntsville in January 1856 led her to conclusions that finally gave her peace on the subject of religion and strengthened her through difficult times. The unhappy climax of Houston's long political career in 1861 and his subsequent removal from the office of governor of Texas were followed by his two final years in retirement and relative obscurity. Living between Huntsville and Cedar Point, Mrs. Houston was with her husband constantly, assuming more duties than ever previously in her married life. Sustained by religion and her children, she saw Houston decline rapidly and gave him support where she could. After his death in Huntsville in 1863, the widow was in serious financial straits. She moved to Independence to be once again near her mother, who had emerged from the war with some money. Mrs. Houston rented a house and labored to hold her family together. Her condition eventually eased when the state legislature voted to pay her the unpaid balance of Houston's salary as governor. In the fall of 1867, while preparing to move with her youngest children to Georgetown to live with her married daughter Nannie, she contracted yellow fever. She died at Independence on December 3, 1867, where because of health laws she was buried at once, next to the tomb that Nancy Lea had built to contain them both. Source


Lea-Houston Cemetery
Independence

COORDINATES

30° 19.191, -096° 20.802

David G. Choate (1811-1845)

    Choate was born in 1811, most likely in Zwolle, Louisiana, as the Choate family was settled there prior to 1818. The family moved to Texas in 1831 and settled in present-day Liberty County. On October 2, 1834, David's father received a league of land on Pine Island Bayou and the family moved and set up their homestead in what is now Hardin County. On or about March 4, 1836, David joined a group of Beaumont volunteers under Capt. B.J. Harper to join the Texas army in the Revolution, and left for Liberty. Upon arrival on March 6, Harper’s and Franklin Hardin’s companies were combined with Capt. William Logan’s company and they marched southwest to join the main army. The companies now combined under Houston, on April 21 the Texas army met the Mexican troops at San Jacinto, and, with that victory, liberated Texas from Santa Anna's Mexican dictatorship. David left the army on June 6 and returned home. From October 29 to January 8, 1837, he was living on Galveston island as a beef provider for the troops stationed there. Sometime in the 1840s, he and his wife moved to Harris County and died there in 1845.

Leatherwood Cemetery
Lumberton

COORDINATES

30° 11.515, -094° 11.121

Samuel Hamilton Walker (1817-1847)

    Samuel H. Walker, Texas Ranger and Mexican War veteran, son of Nathan and Elizabeth (Thomas) Walker, was born at Toaping Castle, Prince George County, Maryland, on February 24, 1817, the fifth of seven children. He attended the common country school and afterward worked as a carpenter's apprentice. In May 1836 Walker enlisted in the Washington City Volunteers for the Creek Indian campaign in Alabama. He was stationed in Florida and apparently saw no combat. After his enlistment ended in 1837, Walker remained in Florida as a scout until 1841. He may also have been a railroad superintendent. He traveled to Galveston in January 1842, where he served in Capt. Jesse Billingsley's company during the Adrián Woll invasion. He then enlisted in the Somervell expedition and took part in the actions around Laredo and Guerrero. He also joined William S. Fisher's Mier expedition. Walker escaped at Salado, was recaptured, and survived the Black Bean Episode. In 1844 Walker joined John C. Hays's company of Texas Rangers and participated in the battle of Walker's Creek near the junction of Walker's Creek and West Sister Creek northwest of present-day Sisterdale in Kendall County. During the engagement the rangers, using new Colt revolvers, successfully defeated about eighty Comanches. 

    When Gen. Zachary Taylor requested volunteers to act as scouts and spies for his regular army, Walker enlisted as a private and was mustered into federal service in September 1845. In April 1846 he formed his own company for duty under Taylor. On April 28 Walker was ambushed with his company en route to join Taylor at Port Isabel. He reached Taylor's camp on April 29; his reports caused Taylor to move his encampment. Walker performed exemplary duty as a scout and courier on numerous other occasions. His company was the only Texas unit at the battles of Palo Alto and Resaca de la Palma. He was presented a horse by the grateful citizens of New Orleans in the spring of 1846 for his numerous exploits with Taylor's army. Walker served as captain of the inactive Company C of the United States Mounted Rifles until the outbreak of the Mexican War. 

    When the First Regiment, Texas Mounted Riflemen, was organized in June 1846, Walker was elected lieutenant colonel. He fought in the battle of Monterrey in September and on October 2, 1846, mustered out of federal service, activated his commission as captain of the mounted rifles, and proceeded to Washington, D.C., to begin recruiting for his company. During his recruitment excursion Walker visited Samuel Colt. Colt credited Walker with proposed improvements, including a stationary trigger and guard, to the existing revolver. The new six-shooter was named the Walker Colt. After arriving with his new company at Vera Cruz, Mexico, Walker was detailed on May 27, 1847, to the First Pennsylvania Volunteers, stationed at Castle San Carlos de Perote to counter Mexican guerrilla activities between Perote and Jalapa. On October 5, 1847, Walker left Perote with Gen. Joseph P. Lane to escort a supply train to Mexico City. En route, Lane was informed of a sizable enemy force at Huamantla and ordered an attack. With Walker's mounted rifles in the lead, the assault force reached Huamantla on October 9. During the spirited contest that followed, Walker was either shot in the back or killed by a man on foot carrying a lance. Following his death his unit took revenge on the community of Huamantla. Walker was buried at Hacienda Tamaris. In 1848 his remains were moved to San Antonio. On April 21, 1856, as part of a battle of San Jacinto celebration, he was reburied in the Odd Fellows' Cemetery in San Antonio. Source

Odd Fellows Cemetery
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 25.277, -098° 28.182

Adam Rankin "Stovepipe" Johnson (1834-1922)

    Adam Johnson, frontiersman, Confederate general, and town founder, was born on February 8, 1834, in Henderson, Kentucky, the son of Thomas J. and Juliet (Rankin) Johnson. In 1854 he left the drugstore where he had worked since he was twelve and moved to Hamilton Valley in Burnet County, Texas, then the edge of the western frontier. There he gained a reputation as the surveyor of much virgin territory in West Texas, as an Indian fighter, and as a stage driver for the Butterfield Overland Mail. On January 1, 1861, he married Josephine Eastland of Burnet. The couple had six children. With the outbreak of the Civil War Johnson returned to Kentucky and enlisted as a scout under Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was one of the few members of the Fort Donelson garrison who escaped capture by evacuating the fort with Gen. John B. Floyd. His subsequent exploits as commander of the Texas Partisan Rangers within the federal lines in Kentucky earned him a colonel's commission in August 1862 and a promotion to brigadier general on June 1, 1864. One of his most remarkable feats was the capture of Newburgh, Indiana, from a sizable Union garrison with only twelve men and two joints of stovepipe mounted on the running gear of an abandoned wagon. This episode won him his nickname. 

    When Gen. John Hunt Morgan and his men were surrounded on Buffington's Island during Morgan's famous raid, Johnson and his men escaped by swimming the Ohio River. On August 21, 1864, Johnson attacked a federal encampment at Grubbs Crossroads, near Canton in Caldwell County, Kentucky, before daylight; he was accidentally shot by his own men and became totally blind. After capture by the federals he was imprisoned at Fort Warren until the end of the war. Upon his release he returned to Texas, where he lived for his remaining sixty years and founded the town of Marble Falls. He worked to develop the water power of the Colorado River, founded the Texas Mining Improvement Company, and served as a contractor for the Overland Mail. General Johnson died at Burnet on October 20, 1922. His funeral services were held in the Senate Chamber of the Capitol in Austin, and he was buried in the State Cemetery there. His memoir, The Partisan Rangers of the Confederate States Army (1904), is one of the most interesting first-hand narratives of antebellum Texas and cavalry operations in Kentucky and Tennessee and was selected as one of the "Texas Basic Books" by John H. Jenkins III. Source

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 15.912, -097° 43.613

Wilmer Allison (1904-1977)

    Wilmer Lawson (Lee) Allison, tennis player, was born in San Antonio, Texas, on December 8, 1904, one of two children of Dr. and Mrs. Wilmer L. Allison. His family moved to Fort Worth in his youth, and he graduated from Fort Worth Central High School, where he was an outstanding amateur baseball player. He enrolled at the University of Texas in 1925 after his father refused to permit him to sign a professional baseball contract with the Beaumont team of the Texas League. At UT he began an internationally acclaimed career as a tennis player. Under the tutelage of Daniel A. Penick he won the Southwest Conference and National Collegiate Athletic Association championships in 1927. Allison won the Wimbledon doubles title in 1929 and 1930 with partner John Van Ryn. They are considered by many tennis historians to be the best doubles combination of the period. Perhaps Allison's finest moment as a singles player came on June 30, 1930, when he upset the legendary Henri Cochet of France in the quarterfinal round of the 1930 Wimbledon tournament. However, he lost the championship in the finals to fellow American Bill Tilden in straight sets. Allison achieved the number-one ranking in the United States in 1934 and again in 1935 and won the United States National Open Championship in 1935 by defeating Fred Perry in the semifinals and then Sydney Wood for the title at Forest Hills, New York. Along with partner Van Ryn he claimed National Doubles in 1931 and 1935 and finished second in 1930, 1932, 1934, and 1936. 

    Allison competed on behalf of the United States in Davis Cup competition from 1928 until 1937. He retired from full-time competition in 1937 after a serious injury to his lower abdomen. Upon retirement, he served as an assistant to Penick at the University of Texas from 1938 to 1941, when he left to join the army air corps; he achieved the rank of colonel. After his discharge he returned to the university in 1947 and served as Penick's assistant until 1957. That year he became the head tennis coach at the university, where he served until his retirement in 1972. He instituted a policy restricting athletic scholarships for tennis to players from Texas. His teams won four Southwest Conference team championships, three singles titles, and one doubles title. He was elected to the Texas Sports Hall of Fame in 1957 and is a member of the Longhorn Hall of Honor. In 1963 he was enshrined in both the national and international tennis halls of fame. Allison died on April 20, 1977, of a heart attack, only four days after the dedication of the new University of Texas tennis facility in his and Penick's honor. He is buried at Oakwood cemetery in Austin. He was survived by his wife, Ann (Caswell). The couple had no children. Source

Section 2
Oakwood Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 16.565, -097° 43.517

Andrew May Clopper (1791-1853)

    Born in Pennsylvania in 1791, Andrew Clopper came to Texas in January, 1828 and settled in the Matagorda Municipality (now Matagorda County). He enlisted and served in the army from April 6 to October 3, 1836 as a member of Captain William H. Smith's cavalry company with whom he fought under at San Jacinto. Clopper died on September 16, 1853, and buried in Morris Cemetery in Seabrook until May 17, 1936, when his remains were exhumed and reinterred in Founders Memorial Park, Houston, as part of Texas' Centennial celebration.


Founders Memorial Park
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 45.460, -095° 22.745

David Spangler Kaufman (1813-1851)

    David Spangler Kaufman, lawyer, Indian fighter, and politician, son of Daniel Kaufman, was born in Boiling Springs, Pennsylvania, on December 18, 1813. After graduating with high honors from Princeton College in 1830, he studied law under Gen. John A. Quitman in Natchez, Mississippi, and was admitted to the bar. He began his legal career in Natchitoches, Louisiana, in 1835. Two years later he settled in Nacogdoches, Texas, where he practiced law and participated in military campaigns against the Cherokee Indians. He was wounded in the encounter in which Chief Bowl lost his life in 1839. Kaufman occupied a number of important positions in the republic and state of Texas. Between 1838 and 1841 he represented Nacogdoches County in the House of the Third Congress of the republic; he served as speaker in the Fourth and Fifth congresses. From December 1843 through June 1845 he represented Shelby, Sabine, and Harrison counties in the Senate of the republic. Texas president Anson Jones named him chargé d'affaires to the United States in February 1845. After annexation Kaufman represented the Eastern District of Texas in the United States House of Representatives during the Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth, and Thirty-first congresses. While in Congress, Kaufman argued unsuccessfully that Texas owned lands that are now parts of New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Wyoming, and Oklahoma. He encouraged Governor Peter H. Bell to have Texas troops seize Santa Fe. He also played a role in the Compromise of 1850, whereby the national government assumed the debts of Texas. No other Jewish Texan served in Congress until the 1970s. Kaufman was a Mason and a charter member of the Philosophical Society of Texas. He married Jane Baxter Richardson, daughter of Daniel Long Richardson, on April 21, 1841. The couple had three sons and a daughter. Kaufman died in Washington, D.C., on January 31, 1851, and was buried in the Congressional Cemetery there. In 1932 his remains were moved to the State Cemetery in Austin. Kaufman County and the city of Kaufman are named for him. Source

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 15.937, -097° 43.642

George Washington Hockley (1802-1854)

    George Washington Hockley, chief of staff of the Texas army during the Texas Revolution, was born in Philadelphia in 1802. As a young man he moved to Washington, D.C., where he worked as a clerk in the commissary division of the War Department and met Sam Houston, who influenced him to move to Tennessee when Houston became governor there in 1828. Hockley followed Houston to Texas in 1835 and was made chief of staff upon Houston's election as commander-in-chief of the Texas army. At the battle of San Jacinto Hockley was in command of the artillery and in charge of the Twin Sisters. Later he was one of those who accompanied Antonio López de Santa Anna and Juan N. Almonte to Washington, D.C. The friendship between Hockley and Houston continued after the revolution. Houston appointed him colonel of ordnance on December 22, 1836, and secretary of war on November 13, 1838, and again on December 23, 1841. Houston also sent Hockley with Samuel M. Williams in 1843 to arrange an armistice with Mexico. Hockley made his home in Galveston. He died in Corpus Christi on June 6, 1854, while visiting Henry L. Kinney, and was buried in the Old Bayview Cemetery at Corpus Christi, where in 1936 the state erected a monument at his grave. Source

Old Bayview Cemetery
Corpus Christi

COORDINATES

27° 48.076, -097° 23.979

Walter Maxwell "Max" West (1904-1971)

    Max West was born July 14, 1904 in Sunset, Texas to Joseph and Bettie Davis West , the last of four children. Scant information can be found about him prior to his short baseball career, other than he attended the University of North Texas, was married to Mildred Brock and had two girls, Martha Glynn and Myrna G. He debuted in the Major Leagues as an outfielder for the Brooklyn Robins (the precursor to the Dodgers) on September 18, 1928. He had a rough time in his first year (a meager .276 batting average didn't help), and after the team finished the 1928-1929 season in sixth place, the Robins let West go. His final game as a professional baseball player was on October 5, 1929. The Wests moved to Houston shortly afterward, where he died on April 25, 1971.

Section 3A
Earthman Resthaven Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 57.612, -095° 25.036

John Cheevers (?-1846)

    John Cheevers came to Texas in 1829 and volunteered for the army at Lynchburg on March 8, 1836, for a three month period. He was assigned to Captain Thomas H. McIntire's Company and with them fought at the battle of San Jacinto on April 21. After the battle, he was transferred to Captain Peter B. Dexter's Company, with whom he served out his remaining enlistment. Some time after his discharge on June 2, 1836 at La Bahia, he moved to Houston. He died there ten years later and was buried in the 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 ParkHouston
COORDINATES29° 45.436, -095° 22.750

Preston Earnest Smith (1912-2003)

    Preston Smith, businessman, legislator, and the fortieth governor of Texas, was born on March 8, 1912, in Williamson County. He was the son of Charles Kirby Smith and Effie Smith. One of thirteen children, he grew up in Williamson County until he was twelve, when his family moved to Lamesa in Dawson County, where he graduated from Lamesa High School in 1930. Smith attended and was graduated from Texas Technological College (now Texas Tech University) with a bachelor of business arts degree in 1934. While in one of his college classes, he was seated alphabetically next to Ima Smith (no relation). Preston Smith and Ima Smith married in 1935. They had two children.  Smith became active in the movie theater business in Lubbock as well as real estate enterprises and developed the political name recognition he needed to win election in 1944 to the Texas House of Representatives. A conservative Democrat, Smith served three terms in the House and in 1956 was elected to the Texas Senate. 

    In 1962, the same year that John B. Connally was elected governor, Smith was elected lieutenant governor. In 1968, when Connally chose not to seek reelection, Smith sought and won the Democratic nomination for the governorship amongst a crowded field of candidates. Smith was known for his polka dot neckties, which he claimed he began wearing in 1962 after Gov. Price Daniel urged Smith to do something to help make himself stand out. During the 1968 gubernatorial campaign, Smith's campaign sent letters to approximately 47,000 Texas families named Smith and asked, "Don't you think it is about time one of us was governor?" Known for his relentless work ethic and corny sense of humor, Smith was the first lieutenant governor to be directly elected to the governorship and the first West Texan to be elected. He was inaugurated as governor on January 16, 1969, and was re-elected to a second term in 1970. During his first term, Smith focused on education issues, including a ten-year pay raise program for teachers. His administration also submitted a state water plan, which failed to pass. Smith's governorship in his second term was tainted by the Sharpstown stock-fraud scandal, which initially focused on charges that state officials profited from certain business deals in exchange for the passage of legislation favored by Houston developer Frank Sharp. Though Smith was never charged with a crime, he was "labeled an unindicted co-conspirator," and the scandal grew to such proportions that Texas voters were in an anti-incumbent mood. 

    Smith ran and lost in the 1972 Democratic primary to Dolph Briscoe, Jr. of Uvalde, who would go on to win the general election and be sworn in as Smith's successor in January, 1973. Smith unsuccessfully attempted a comeback in 1978 and retired from politics. After his political career ended, Smith retired to Lubbock. He remained active in local business and civic affairs and worked as a fundraiser for Texas Tech University. His papers are in the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library at the university library. (As governor he had signed into law the legislation that established the Texas Tech University School of Medicine.) In 1981 Gov. William Clements appointed him to the Texas College and University Coordinating Board, where he served as chairman until 1985. Texas Tech University honored Smith by erecting a statue of him in the Administration Building courtyard on the campus. Smith died from pneumonia at Texas Tech University Medical Center in Lubbock on October 18, 2003, at the age of ninety-one. His wife Ima had died in 1998. He was survived by a son, a daughter, and their respective families. Smith was buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. The city of Lubbock honored Smith by renaming its airport the Preston Smith International Airport in 2004. Source

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 15.932, -097° 43.635

Roy Perez Benavidez (1935-1998)

    Medal of Honor recipient Roy Benavidez was born Raul Perez Benavidez at Cuero, Texas, August 5, 1935. His father was Salvador Benavidez, a Mexican American, and his mother was Teresa Perez, an American Yaqui Indian. Raul's parents died when he was a child, and he and his younger brother were then raised by their Uncle Nicholas and Aunt Alexandria at El Campo, Texas. He dropped out of school during the seventh grade and enlisted in the Texas National Guard at age seventeen. At nineteen he joined the Regular Army as Roy Perez Benavidez and got his infantry training at Fort Ord, California. By 1958 he had served in South Korea and Germany. Returning to the United States he married a childhood sweetheart, Lala Coy on June 7, 1959. They had three children. In 1959 he attended military police school at Fort Gordon, Georgia.

    He was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division and in 1965 was in Vietnam as a military adviser to the Vietnamese Army. While on patrol he was badly wounded after stepping on a land mine and was evacuated to Brooke Army Hospital in San Antonio, with serious bone and cartilage damage to his spine. After a long period of treatment and rehabilitation he volunteered for a second tour in Vietnam, this time in the Special Forces as a Green Beret. On the morning of May 2, 1968, Sergeant Benavidez was in the Forward Operating Base in Loc Ninh, when rescue helicopters returned from Cambodia after an unsuccessful attempt to extract a Special Forces team. Benavidez volunteered for another rescue attempt, an event that would become "six hours in hell" in his own words. Reaching the pick-up zone, Sergeant Benavidez jumped from the helicopter and ran about eighty yards through withering fire to the embattled team. He was wounded in the right leg, face, and head. In spite of his injuries he directed the landing of the extraction helicopter and assisted in the loading of dead and wounded team members, and he then proceeded to collect classified papers and a radio from the dead team leader. During this action he continued to receive wounds from small arms fire and shrapnel. When the chopper pilot was shot and the rescue helicopter crashed Benavidez assisted the wounded and dazed men out of the overturned machine, and facing increasing enemy opposition, he called in tactical air strikes and directed supporting gunfire to attempt another rescue. He then began assisting the wounded aboard another helicopter. He sustained more injuries during hand-to-hand combat with an enemy soldier and also killed two others during the frantic rush to secure all the wounded. Benavidez received a total of seven bullet wounds to his legs and torso as well as numerous other bayonet and shrapnel cuts. His brave and decisive actions during the rescue attempt resulted in saving at least eight soldiers. He received four Purple Hearts and the Distinguished Service Cross. He was released from the hospital in 1969 after a year of intensive medical treatment and therapy and was stationed at Fort Riley, Kansas. In 1972 he was transferred to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, where he served out the duration of his military career until his retirement on September 10, 1976.

    The unselfish devotion of Master Sergeant Roy Benavidez to his comrades, and to his country, was deserving of the Medal of Honor. Many of his comrades thought the recommendation for the MOH was submitted, but the award was not made at that time. Efforts were made on his behalf, sufficient witnesses were finally located, and the award was presented on February 24, 1981, by President Reagan, in the White House. Because this action, for which the award was made, took place in Cambodia, there has been some speculation that political embarrassment may have contributed to the delay. Benavidez retired with total disability from the United States Army in 1976 and moved to El Campo, Texas. After being notified in 1983 that his disability was being questioned by the Social Security Administration, he became a spokesperson for others who were being denied benefits. He was called to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Aging. His testimony contributed to the restoration of benefits to many recipients. Master Sergeant Benavidez died at the age of sixty-three on November 29, 1998, at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio, Texas. He was buried with full military honors in the Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. On July 21, 2001, the U. S. Navy christened the USNS Benavidez, a roll-on/roll-off cargo ship in honor of the military hero. Source

CITATION

Master Sergeant (then Staff Sergeant) Roy P. Benavidez United States Army, who distinguished himself by a series of daring and extremely valorous actions on 2 May 1968 while assigned to Detachment B56, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne), 1st Special Forces, Republic of Vietnam. On the morning of 2 May 1968, a 12-man Special Forces Reconnaissance Team was inserted by helicopters in a dense jungle area west of Loc Ninh, Vietnam to gather intelligence information about confirmed large-scale enemy activity. This area was controlled and routinely patrolled by the North Vietnamese Army. After a short period of time on the ground, the team met heavy enemy resistance, and requested emergency extraction. Three helicopters attempted extraction, but were unable to land due to intense enemy small arms and anti-aircraft fire. Sergeant Benavidez was at the Forward Operating Base in Loc Ninh monitoring the operation by radio when these helicopters returned to off-load wounded crewmembers and to assess aircraft damage. Sergeant Benavidez voluntarily boarded a returning aircraft to assist in another extraction attempt. Realizing that all the team members were either dead or wounded and unable to move to the pickup zone, he directed the aircraft to a nearby clearing where he jumped from the hovering helicopter, and ran approximately 75 meters under withering small arms fire to the crippled team. Prior to reaching the team's position he was wounded in his right leg, face, and head. Despite these painful injuries, he took charge, repositioning the team members and directing their fire to facilitate the landing of an extraction aircraft, and the loading of wounded and dead team members. He then threw smoke canisters to direct the aircraft to the team's position. Despite his severe wounds and under intense enemy fire, he carried and dragged half of the wounded team members to the awaiting aircraft. He then provided protective fire by running alongside the aircraft as it moved to pick up the remaining team members. As the enemy's fire intensified, he hurried to recover the body and classified documents on the dead team leader. When he reached the leader's body, Sergeant Benavidez was severely wounded by small arms fire in the abdomen and grenade fragments in his back. At nearly the same moment, the aircraft pilot was mortally wounded, and his helicopter crashed. Although in extremely critical condition due to his multiple wounds, Sergeant Benavidez secured the classified documents and made his way back to the wreckage, where he aided the wounded out of the overturned aircraft, and gathered the stunned survivors into a defensive perimeter. Under increasing enemy automatic weapons and grenade fire, he moved around the perimeter distributing water and ammunition to his weary men, reinstilling in them a will to live and fight. Facing a buildup of enemy opposition with a beleaguered team, Sergeant Benavidez mustered his strength, began calling in tactical air strikes and directed the fire from supporting gunships to suppress the enemy's fire and so permit another extraction attempt. He was wounded again in his thigh by small arms fire while administering first aid to a wounded team member just before another extraction helicopter was able to land. His indomitable spirit kept him going as he began to ferry his comrades to the craft. On his second trip with the wounded, he was clubbed from additional wounds to his head and arms before killing his adversary. He then continued under devastating fire to carry the wounded to the helicopter. Upon reaching the aircraft, he spotted and killed two enemy soldiers who were rushing the craft from an angle that prevented the aircraft door gunner from firing upon them. With little strength remaining, he made one last trip to the perimeter to ensure that all classified material had been collected or destroyed, and to bring in the remaining wounded. Only then, in extremely serious condition from numerous wounds and loss of blood, did he allow himself to be pulled into the extraction aircraft. Sergeant Benavidez' gallant choice to join voluntarily his comrades who were in critical straits, to expose himself constantly to withering enemy fire, and his refusal to be stopped despite numerous severe wounds, saved the lives of at least eight men. His fearless personal leadership, tenacious devotion to duty, and extremely valorous actions in the face of overwhelming odds were in keeping with the highest traditions of the military service, and reflect the utmost credit on him and the United States Army.

Section AI

Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery

San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 28.586, -098° 25.976

Charles Stephanes (1806-1868)

    Charles Stephanes, veteran of San Jacinto, was born in 1806 in Burgundy, France, and was known to be living in what is now the Houston area as early as 1835. A soldier in the Texas army, he fought at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836 as a member of McIntire's Company. When his term of enlistment expired, he opened a grocery store in the Old Market Square in Houston and was evidently quite successful, acquiring a lot of property and stock in the Texas Central Railroad. As a charter member of St Vincent de Paul Catholic Church, he was buried in its churchyard (now St Vincent's Cemetery) upon his death on November 7, 1868.

Note: Portrait photo courtesy of Nicole Girard, Stephanes' g-g-g-granddaughter.

St Vincent's Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 45.519, -095° 20.672

James Love (1795-1874)

    James Love, jurist and legislator, was born in Nelson County, Kentucky, on May 12, 1795, and attended the common schools in Bardstown, Kentucky. He was orphaned at an early age and moved to Clay County, Kentucky, where he was employed in the office of the clerk of the courts. At the age of seventeen he volunteered for service in the War of 1812. After his military service he returned home to study law, was admitted to the bar, and established a practice at Barbourville, Kentucky. There he married Lucy Ballinger, daughter of Richard and Elizabeth Jennings Ballinger. Love served in the Kentucky House of Representatives from 1819 to 1831 and was speaker of the House for at least one term. He served in the Twenty-third United States Congress from March 4, 1833, to March 4, 1835. Afterward he declined nomination for another term, moved south, and lived for a time in Helena, Arkansas, then in New Orleans. He moved to Houston in 1837 and settled in Galveston in 1838. He was a bitter enemy of Sam Houston and, with Mirabeau B. Lamar and David G. Burnet, a leader of the opposition. Houston, in a speech to militia volunteers in 1842, said these leaders should be executed as traitors. In a speech to the same volunteers Love threatened to put Houston on a ship to the United States. 

    Love was a member of the first board of directors of the Galveston City Company and was elected in 1845 to represent Galveston County at the annexation convention, which framed the Texas constitution. When the state government was formed Love was appointed judge of the first judicial district; he resigned after two years. In 1850 he was appointed clerk of the federal court in Galveston, a position he held until the onset of the Civil War. He had been among the few to argue against secession and predicted its dire consequences; however, when only thirty Galvestonians voted against secession, he entered wholeheartedly into the conflict and served two years with the Eighth Texas Cavalry (Terry's Texas Rangers). When the war ended he was elected the first judge of the Galveston and Harris County Criminal District Court but was removed, with the governor and most Texas officials, by the military commander as an "impediment to reconstruction." Love was confined to his home by ill health for the last several years of his life. He died in Galveston on June 12, 1874, and was interred at Trinity Church Cemetery. Source 

Trinity Episcopal Cemetery
Galveston

COORDINATES

29° 17.629, -094° 48.677

Mary Smith Jones (1819-1907)

    Mary Smith Jones, wife of Republic of Texas president Anson Jones and first president of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, was born in Lawrence County, Arkansas Territory, on July 24, 1819, to John McCutcheon and Sarah (Pevehouse) Smith. After Smith died in 1833, his wife and her five children moved to Texas and settled in January 1834 in Brazoria. There Sarah Smith married John Woodruff, a widower with six children. In April 1836 the Woodruff family and other Brazorians lost their homes when a division of Santa Anna's army forced them to flee toward the Sabine River. The Woodruffs found shelter in the timber of Clear Creek, eight miles from the battlefield of San Jacinto. After December 1836 the family resided in Houston. On July 23, 1837, Mary Smith was married in Houston to Hugh McCrory, a soldier in the Army of the Republic of Texas. McCrory died suddenly seven weeks later.

    In Austin on May 17, 1840, Mary married Anson Jones, a prominent doctor and politician from Brazoria. Jones's political career eventually included a two-year term as senator from Brazoria, service as secretary of state under President Sam Houston, and election as president of the Republic of Texas in 1844. That year the Joneses built their plantation house at their estate, Barrington, four miles from Washington-on-the-Brazos. The estate was later sold at a loss, and after Jones's suicide in January 1858 Mary and the children were destitute. They moved to Galveston, where Ashbel Smith helped Mrs. Jones to buy his brother's 460-acre farm on Goose Creek, near the site of present Baytown. She moved to San Jacinto in 1871 and to Willis in 1874. In 1879 she returned to Houston, home of her son Cromwell, chief justice of Harris County. After his death, she lived with her daughter. One of her driving ambitions in later years was to rectify what she considered gross misrepresentations of her husband's role during the annexation controversy. To that end she repeatedly contacted authors and publishers in an unsuccessful attempt to produce a favorable biography of Anson Jones and to publish his book, Republic of Texas. Her major means of support during these years was the sale of family land in Matagorda, Bastrop, Bexar, and Goliad counties. Mrs. Jones served, largely in a symbolic role, as the first president of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas from 1891 through 1907. She was a Democrat and Episcopalian and was influential in establishing a church in Washington and St. Paul's College in Anderson. The Joneses had four children. Mary Jones died on December 31, 1907, at the residence of her daughter in Houston. Source

Section F1
Glenwood Cemetery
Houston

COORDINATES

29° 45.940, -095° 23.123

Patrick Churchill Jack (1808-1844)

    Patrick Churchill Jack, attorney and legislator, was born in Wilkes County, Georgia, in 1808, a son of Patrick Jack, who commanded a Georgia regiment in the War of 1812. After practicing law in Jefferson County, Alabama, for three years, Jack moved to Texas in 1830 and on April 6, 1831, was issued title to one-fourth of a league of land in Stephen F. Austin's second colony in the area of present Grimes County. Jack, one of the men whose imprisonment led to the Anahuac disturbances in the spring of 1832, was a delegate from the district of Liberty to the conventions of 1832 and 1833. He later moved to Brazoria Municipality, which he represented in the House of the Second Congress of the Republic from September 29, 1837, to November 13, 1838. Jack married Margaret E. Smith at Houston on October 30, 1838. He was appointed district attorney of the First Judicial District on February 1, 1840, and of the Sixth District on March 15, 1841, by President Mirabeau B. Lamar. Jack died of yellow fever in Houston on August 4, 1844, and was buried in the City Cemetery under the auspices of Holland Masonic Lodge No. 1, of which he was a member. Later his remains were removed to Lake View Cemetery, Galveston. They were again exhumed on February 10, 1942, and reinterred in the State Cemetery, Austin. In the act of the state legislature on August 27, 1856, establishing Jack County from Cooke County, it is not stated for whom the county was named. Homer S. Thrall in 1879 said it was named for the brothers, Patrick C. and William H. Jack, and this statement is generally accepted as correct. Source

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 15.915, -097° 43.620

David Young Portis (1813?-1883)

    David Portis, attorney and public official, was born around 1813 in North Carolina and probably moved to Texas after the Texas Revolution. He practiced law with John W. Portis in Houston in 1839 and in 1840 or 1841 moved to Austin County. He replaced James H. Kuykendall, who had resigned, as representative from Austin County in the House of the called session of the Sixth Congress in 1842 and was reelected to the Seventh Congress. On December 28, 1843, he married Rebecca Cumings, daughter of the Rebekah Cumings who was one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists. In January 1845 Portis was chairman of an annexation meeting at San Felipe. He represented the Seventeenth District, comprising Austin, Colorado, Fort Bend, Lavaca, and Wharton counties, in the Senate of the Third Legislature, 1849-50, and in 1853 served as a delegate to the state Democratic party convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos. The United States Census of 1860 listed Portis as owning seventeen slaves and over 35,000 acres with real property valued at $100,000 and personal property valued at $20,000. He represented Austin County in the Secession Convention of 1861. Portis seems to have lived the remainder of his life in Austin County and to have died there in February 1883. Source

Section E
Odd Fellows Cemetery
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 25.284, -098° 28.208

John McFarlan (?-1826)

    John McFarlan (McFarlane or McFarland), one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists, with his brother Achilles McFarlan, owned a cabin at the Atascosito Crossing of the Brazos River as early as May 1823; he was thus apparently the first settler at the site of San Felipe de Austin. McFarlan was judge of the alcalde election in December 1823 and was issued a life-time license by Stephen F. Austin and the Baron de Bastrop to operate the ferry at San Felipe, with the condition that he render an account every six months. On August 10, 1824, McFarlan received title to 1¼ sitios of land that later became part of Waller County. The census of March 1826 classified him as a single man aged over fifty, a farmer and stock raiser who owned five slaves. He apparently died before December 1826, when Samuel C. Hady wrote Austin that McFarlan`s estate lacked sufficient funds to pay his debts. In March 1827 John Sibley asked Austin to settle his accounts against the John McFarlan estate. 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 John McFarland 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

Willis Thomas Avery (1809-1889)

    Willis Avery, Republic of Texas veteran and Texas Ranger, was born in North Carolina on October 15, 1809, to Vincent and Catherine Overton Avery. After the death of his father, Avery's mother married William McCutcheon, Sr. and moved to Lincoln County, Missouri. The McCutcheons had one son, William. While in Missouri, Avery met and married Elzina Weeks. Together, they had nine children, Nancy, Malinda, Vincent, Willis, Lucinda, Henry, Calvin, Harriet, and W.T. On November 12, 1832, the Avery's arrived in what is now Bastrop County. During Texas' fight for independence, Avery's step-father, Jennings, was said to have perished at the siege of the Alamo, while Avery joined Captain Jesse Billingsley's Company of Mina (Bastrop) Volunteers on February 28, 1836. The Mina Volunteers eventually became Company C of General Edward Burleson's regiment, fought at the Battle of San Jacinto. Company C was made up of settlers who lived in and around Bastrop County. Because of his service for Texas, Avery was issued, on May 22, 1838, 640 acres of land. On March 20, 1840, he also received another 320 acres for serving in the army from February 28 to June 1, 1836. Ultimately, the Averys moved to Williamson County and settled on Brushy Creek, near Rice's Crossing, where Elzina died on March 1, 1870. Willis died on July 17, 1889, and both were buried in the family cemetery on their property. On July 3, 1938, the Averys' remains were moved to the Texas State Cemetery in Austin. Source

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 15.923, -097° 43.649

Oscar Branch Colquitt (1861-1940)

    Oscar B.Colquitt, politician and governor, was born on December 16, 1861, at Camilla, Georgia, the son of Thomas Jefferson and Ann Elizabeth (Burkhalter) Colquitt, each of whom boasted some distinguished American ancestors. The family moved in 1878 to Daingerfield, Texas, where young Colquitt worked as a tenant farmer and attended the Daingerfield Academy one term. After a brief apprenticeship as a newspaperman, he founded the Gazette at Pittsburg, Texas, in 1884. He married Alice Fuller Murrell of Minden, Louisiana, on December 9, 1885, and the couple had four sons and one daughter. He sold the Gazette and published the Times-Star of Terrell, Texas, from 1890 to 1897. Colquitt served as state senator from 1895 to 1899 and was the author of delinquent-tax laws that earned him a statewide reputation. He was the state revenue agent during the last eight months of 1898 and, as the tax expert of a special tax commission, wrote the report that this commission submitted to the legislature in 1900. Colquitt acted as a paid lobbyist for several corporations during the sessions of 1899 and 1901 and also practiced law, having been admitted to the bar in 1900. He succeeded John H. Reagan as state railroad commissioner and served from 1903 to 1911.

    He made an unsuccessful run for governor in 1906 and was elected governor in 1910 as an anti-prohibitionist. After being re-elected in 1912, he held the office until 1915. His administration achieved a reform of the prison system, improvement in the physical plants and management of the eleemosynary institutions, great advancement in the educational system, and a number of measures designed to improve the lot of laborers. This program was adopted despite the open hostility of two legislatures, which resulted from the animosities engendered by the prohibition question. Colquitt was pro-German from 1914 to 1916 and tried to secure the financial assistance of the German government in buying the New York Sun, which he planned to edit as a German propaganda organ. He failed in this venture, ran for the United States Senate in 1916, and received a large plurality over six opponents in the first primary. In the runoff, however, he was defeated by the incumbent, Charles A. Culberson. Although he remained interested in politics, Colquitt devoted the next decade to serving as president of a Dallas oil firm. In 1928 he bolted the Democratic party and headed the "Hoover Democrats" of Texas. He then served as a member of the United States Board of Mediation from 1929 through 1933. He became a field representative of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation in 1935 and held this position until his death, on March 8, 1940. Colquitt was a self-made man, obstinate yet affable. Though not a polished orator, he was a convincing speaker and possessed of the "color that drew a crowd"; he was one of the most effective stump speakers in the history of Texas. Source

Section 3
Oakwood Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 16.697, -097° 43.524

John Steward Roberts (1796-1871)

    John S. Roberts, signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, East Texas merchant, and political figure, was born in Virginia on July 13, 1796. At age sixteen he enlisted in the Tennessee Militia for service in the War of 1812; he participated in the Battle of New Orleans as a member of Col. John Coffee's regiment. He was discharged in May 1815 and turned his eyes westward toward Louisiana. By 1822 he was a resident of Natchitoches, where he became a deputy sheriff in 1826. The same year, he joined the Ayish Bayou forces that took part in the Fredonian Rebellion, led by Haden and Benjamin W. Edwards against the Mexican government of Texas. Roberts was a major in the Fredonian forces and served as a judge at the impeachment trial of Samuel Norris, alcalde of the Nacogdoches District, and José Antonio Sepúlveda, captain of the Nacogdoches Militia. Roberts married Harriet Fenley Collier on December 26, 1826, soon after the murder of her husband, Robert, and settled temporarily on her ranch in the Sabine District of East Texas. The next year, however, for reasons of security, the family - including Robert Collier's two children from a previous marriage, Susan and Nathaniel, and Harriet's son, John Fenley Collier - moved first to San Augustine and finally to Nacogdoches. From 1827, when he entered the mercantile business with John Durst, to 1832, when he joined the rebel forces at the battle of Nacogdoches, Roberts was a general merchant and man of affairs in Nacogdoches, where his son Lycurgus was born on April 26, 1830.

    From the battle of Nacogdoches until the early days of the Texas Revolution in 1835, he pursued his career as a merchant and enlarged his fortune by purchasing cheap land grants. Roberts enlisted in the Nacogdoches Independent Volunteers on October 4, 1835, as a first lieutenant (he was later promoted to captain) under Capt. Thomas J. Rusk and saw distinguished service in the siege of Bexar (November 25 - December 5). He was elected a delegate to the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos and signed the Declaration of Independence March 2, 1836, after which he quickly departed for Nacogdoches. After the revolution Roberts formed a partnership with John Durst and George Allen to engage in the mercantile business at a location across Fredonia Street east of the Old Stone Fort on the town square in Nacogdoches. The next year the firm was doing business as Roberts, Allen, and Company; in 1838 Durst bought out Allen, and the firm of Roberts, Durst and [Frederick T.] Phillips was formed. Later that same year the business was sold to one Francis von der Hoya.

    Meanwhile, on May 18, 1837, Maj. Gen. Thomas J. Rusk appointed Roberts quartermaster of the Texas Militia; between that date and July 10, 1839, he served as quartermaster of militia on four different occasions, for a total of more than seventeen months. During this time, by an act of the Congress of the republic dated January 10, 1839, he was authorized to adopt Harriet's son, John Collier, and change his name to John F. Roberts. Roberts and Durst were adventurous in business, but for Roberts the speculation ended in the fall of 1838, when there began a series of law suits, the nature of which is not known, that resulted in his financial ruin. In the late 1840s he first sought to protect the financial interests of his wife and stepson in the estate of Robert Collier. About this time he entered the grocery and saloon business in Nacogdoches - first on the east side of the town square, and later in the Old Stone Fort, title to which had passed into Harriet's hand. He operated this business until his death on August 9, 1871. His body was interred in the old Oak Grove Cemetery in Nacogdoches. Source


Oak Grove Cemetery
Nacogdoches

COORDINATES

31° 36.203, -094° 38.974