HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

Collin Aldrich

Austonio, Houston County, Texas

Marker Inscription

San Jacinto Veteran First Chief Justice of Houston County, 1837-1841 Born May 2, 1801 Died in 1842. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Collin Aldrich, born in 1801, fought at the Battle of San Jacinto in the war that won Texas its independence, then served as the first chief justice of Houston County from 1837 to 1841 under the Republic of Texas. He died in 1842, and the State of Texas erected this memorial to him in 1936, the centennial of independence. His life bridged the battlefield and the founding of civil government on the Texas frontier.

Why it matters

Aldrich embodies the veterans-turned-statesmen who both won Texas independence and built the institutions of the new Republic.

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Related people

  • · Collin Aldrich

Related events

  • · Battle of San Jacinto

Themes & tags

Military & WartimeWestward ExpansionFrontier HistoryMemorial

Nearby & related markers

Elisha Clapp

Crockett, TX

The son of an American Revolution veteran, Tennessee-born Elisha Clapp came to Texas in 1822 and served in a cavalry company at the Battle of San Jacinto during the Texas Revolution. He captained mounted rangers on the frontier and, in 1837, was among the petitioners who organized Houston County, later receiving a captain's commission from President Sam Houston. He also helped found and served as an early trustee of Trinity College in the Alabama community before moving on to Leon County, where he died in 1851.

Captain Elisha Clapp

Houston County, TX

Elisha Clapp came to Texas in 1822, among the earliest Anglo-American settlers, and fought in the Battle of San Jacinto that won Texas its independence in 1836. He went on to serve as a captain in the Texas Army during the young republic's fragile early years. He died in 1856; his wife, Rebecca Robbins Clapp, outlived him until 1875.

Bynum Cemetery

Crockett, TX

When Stephen and Keziah Box brought their family from Alabama to Mexican Texas in 1826, they were among the first Anglo settlers of what would become Houston County, and the acreage they set aside for their dead became one of the region's oldest burial grounds. The earliest grave belongs to their daughter Dicy, wife of a veteran of the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto, and the cemetery later passed to James Bynum, who gave it his name. Generations of the family kept it, and its rows hold veterans of every American war from the Civil War through Korea.

Creek Cemetery

Houston County, TX

Creek Cemetery began in 1889 with the burial of infant Sydney Hester, whose parents had two years earlier deeded land to the community—then called Georgia Camp—for a school. The burial ground grew alongside the settlement and today holds many of the area's pioneer families, along with veterans of the Civil War and both World Wars. Descendants of those early settlers still tend the grounds.