Captain Jesse Burnam
Marble Falls, Burnet County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Texas Patriot Jesse Burnam (also spelled Burnham), born in Madison county, Kentucky, was the youngest son of seven children. In 1812, Jesse married Temperance Null Baker in Shelbyville, Tennessee. Jesse was a private in the Mounted Volunteers of Tennessee in the War of 1812, serving from Sep. 1814 to Apr. 1815, including the Battle of New Orleans. Jesse, Temperance and family arrived in Texas in 1821, settling at Pecan Point (Red River County). By 1823, they were among Stephen F. Austin’s “Old Three Hundred,” building a home, fortified trading post and ferry service on the Colorado River frontier. Austin commissioned Burnam as a captain of militia in May 1824. Temperance died in 1833, leaving Jesse with nine children. He later married Nancy Ross, who bore him seven more children. Jesse was a delegate to the Conventions of 1832 and 1833 and the Consultation of 1835. He aided Col. James W. Fannin in gathering volunteers and supplies during the Texas Revolution, and Gen. Sam Houston arrived at Burnam’ s Crossing on March 17, 1836, ordering the ferry, homestead and store burned ahead of the advancing Mexican army. Jesse was a Representative in the Republic of Texas’ provisional government and its first congress. Jesse and Nancy moved their family to Burnet County in 1855, following two older sons who had settled here. Jesse’s land was southeast of present-day Marble Falls on Double Horn Creek, where he established one of the first sheep raising operations in the area and a large wheat farm. The historic Burnam homestead, now in the family’s fifth generation, includes a log cabin, two-story home, spring house, and family cemetery where Jesse, Nancy and others are buried.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Kentucky-born Jesse Burnam fought as a Tennessee volunteer in the War of 1812, including the Battle of New Orleans, before bringing his family to Texas in 1821 and joining Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred." On the Colorado River frontier he built a home, fortified trading post, and ferry, served as a militia captain and delegate to the conventions leading to the Texas Revolution, and saw Sam Houston order his crossing burned in 1836 ahead of the Mexican army. In 1855 he resettled in Burnet County, raising sheep and wheat on land where the family homestead still stands.
Why it matters
Burnam's life traces the arc of early Anglo-American Texas, from War of 1812 soldier to Austin colonist to a builder of the Republic itself.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Jesse Burnam's life spanned the most formative decades of the American frontier. Born in Kentucky and married in Tennessee, he came of age when the young United States was still testing whether it could hold its ground — most dramatically in the War of 1812. He served as a private in the Mounted Volunteers of Tennessee, and his service carried him to the Battle of New Orleans, the war's celebrated final clash.
When he brought his family to Texas in 1821, he was entering something entirely different: not a state, not even a republic yet, but a sparsely settled Mexican frontier being opened to Anglo-American colonists. The land was raw, the rivers were the highways, and law and defense were largely what settlers made of them.
This was the world of Stephen F. Austin's colony, where a family's home might also have to be a fort, a trading post, and a river crossing all at once. Burnam's story unfolds precisely in that seam between arrival and nationhood.
People & events
Burnam and his wife, Temperance, first settled at Pecan Point on the Red River, but by 1823 they were among Austin's famous "Old Three Hundred" — the first families of the colony. On the Colorado River frontier they built a home, a fortified trading post, and a ferry, and in May 1824 Austin commissioned Burnam a captain of militia. He was, in short, both settler and defender.
Life exacted a heavy toll. Temperance died in 1833, leaving Jesse with nine children; he later married Nancy Ross, who bore him seven more. Through these years he stepped repeatedly into public life, serving as a delegate to the Conventions of 1832 and 1833 and the Consultation of 1835 — the gatherings where Texas argued its way toward revolution.
When the Texas Revolution came, Burnam aided Colonel James W. Fannin in gathering volunteers and supplies. Then, on March 17, 1836, General Sam Houston arrived at Burnam's Crossing and ordered the ferry, homestead, and store burned ahead of the advancing Mexican army — a scorched-earth sacrifice of everything Burnam had built on that river. Afterward he served as a representative in the Republic's provisional government and its first congress. In 1855 he and Nancy moved to Burnet County, following two grown sons, and on Double Horn Creek southeast of present-day Marble Falls he raised sheep and wheat on the land where the family homestead still stands.
Its place in the American story
Trace Jesse Burnam's life and you trace the making of Texas itself. A War of 1812 soldier becomes an Austin colonist, becomes a militia captain, becomes a delegate and legislator of a brand-new republic. Few single lives connect so many chapters of the early American frontier so directly.
The burning of his crossing in 1836 is a small window onto a hard truth of the Revolution: independence was won partly by ordinary settlers who watched their own property put to the torch as a military necessity. Burnam's loss was one household's share of a war's cost.
And his life reflects the larger westward current of the nineteenth century — the same restless movement that carried Anglo-American families across the continent, building, losing, and rebuilding as they went. That a Burnam homestead still stands into a fifth generation says something about how deeply such families rooted themselves in the ground they claimed.
If you visit
The historic Burnam homestead lies southeast of present-day Marble Falls, on Double Horn Creek, and it remains in the family's hands generations later. Because it is a private, living homestead — with a log cabin, a two-story home, a spring house, and the family cemetery where Jesse and Nancy are buried — treat it as you would any place still cared for by descendants, and view what is publicly accessible with respect.
What rewards a visitor here is the layering of a single site: a log cabin from the earliest days standing near a later two-story home, a spring house that speaks to how a family secured water, and graves that close the circle of the story. It is a rare thing to see so much of one pioneer life gathered in one spot.
The Hill Country setting itself helps you imagine it. Picture the same rolling land as sheep pasture and wheat field — Burnam ran one of the area's first sheep operations here — and you begin to feel how a man who had crossed rivers and revolutions finally chose this quiet valley to finish his long American journey.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Jesse Burnam
- · Stephen F. Austin
- · Sam Houston
Related events
- · War of 1812
- · Texas Revolution
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