Braches House
Gonzales County, Gonzales County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Bartlett McClure and his wife Sarah Ann built a log cabin and settled here in 1831 McClure, the first chief justice of Gonzales County, was a member of the convention of Texas in 1833. This house was built in 1842-43. After Judge McClure's death in 1842, Sarah Ann married Charles Braches, a member of the Republic of Texas Congress. The site of many events in early Texas history, the Braches house is a vernacular interpretation of the Greek revival style. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1962
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Bartlett McClure and his wife Sarah Ann built a log cabin here in 1831 in Green DeWitt's colony; McClure went on to become Gonzales County's first chief justice and a delegate to the 1833 Texas convention. The present house, a vernacular take on the Greek Revival style, went up in 1842–43. After McClure's death, Sarah Ann married Charles Braches of the Republic of Texas Congress, and the home witnessed many events of early Texas history.
Why it matters
Standing from the Republic era, the Braches House links the Anglo colonization of Texas to the revolution and statehood that followed.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Bartlett McClure
- · Sarah Ann Braches
- · Charles Braches
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sam Houston Oak
Gonzales County, TX
In March 1836, as Santa Anna's army pushed east after the fall of the Alamo, General Sam Houston pitched his headquarters beneath a great oak near Gonzales during the anxious retreat known as the Runaway Scrape. Here his small, ragged force gathered volunteers streaming in from the eastern settlements. From this camp they marched on toward the decisive fight at San Jacinto.
Herder Half Moon Place
Shiner, TX
George Herder, a veteran of the Texas Revolution turned pioneer farmer and rancher, built this Greek Revival home in the 1880s in the Half Moon community. His son William later ran a butcher shop, worked the land, and opened the house to weary travelers. Held by the family for more than a century, the house and its outbuildings are the last trace of Half Moon.
Half Moon
Shiner, TX
Named for the crescent shape of its timber, Half Moon on Rocky Creek was a gathering place for Native peoples and travelers long before Spanish explorers noted it in 1689. Settlers arrived from the 1830s to trade and farm, and at its height in the mid-1880s the community boasted stores, a saloon, and a post office. When Henry B. Shiner donated land for a railroad in 1887, the rails bypassed Half Moon, and its people and commerce drained away into the new town of Shiner.
David Burkett
Gonzales, TX
David Burkett came to Texas with his family in 1830 as a member of Green DeWitt's colony and took up the cause of Texas independence as a citizen soldier. In 1836 he served as a guard for the women and children fleeing Gonzales ahead of Santa Anna's advancing army — the desperate flight remembered as the Runaway Scrape. He is buried on his 4,428-acre land grant that once stretched south from this site.