Captain Nathen Brookshire

San Felipe, TX

Near this spot in the old capital of Anglo-American colonization stood a town hall built about 1830 that became a cradle of Texas self-government. Within its walls met the Conventions of 1832 and 1833 and the Consultation of 1835, and the provisional government operated here until Texas declared independence in March 1836. As the Mexican army advanced weeks later, the building and the town of San Felipe were burned to deny them to the enemy.

San Felipe, TX

San Felipe de Austin was the unofficial capital of Anglo Texas, the seat of Stephen F. Austin's colony — and this was the only home Austin, the "Father of Texas," ever owned in the region. In March 1836, as Santa Anna's army advanced during the Texas Revolution, Texans deliberately burned San Felipe to deny it to the enemy, and Austin's house went up with the town. The scorched-earth retreat was part of the desperate "Runaway Scrape" that preceded the victory at San Jacinto.

Wallis, TX

Born in Kentucky in 1780, Martin Allen surveyed roads with his father before joining the ill-fated Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition to wrest Texas from Spanish rule in 1812–13 — a fight that cost the lives of his father and nephew at the Battle of Medina. In 1821 he came to Texas as one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred" colonists, among the first to settle along the Colorado River. Later established at Eight Mile Point, the Allens ran a "Public House" frequented by a young William B. Travis, and Martin, a veteran of the Texas War for Independence, was buried nearby.

Richmond, TX

Born in Virginia in 1808 and raised in Georgia, Thomas Jefferson Smith joined the fight for Texas independence in 1836, serving under James W. Fannin at Refugio. Captured at Goliad, he was spared to repair weapons for the Mexican army and escaped amid the confusion of the Battle of San Jacinto. He settled in Richmond after the war, running a blacksmith shop, hotel, and livery stable, and served as Fort Bend County sheriff in the 1850s.