Eagle Island Plantation
Clute, Brazoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site of the home of Sarah Ann Groce Wharton (1810-1878) and William Harris Wharton (1806-1839). Member of the Convention of Texas, 1832. President of the Convention of 1833; member of the Senate of the Republic of Texas, 1836-1838; Texas minister to the United States, 1836-1837. A gathering place for distinguished people.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Eagle Island was the Brazoria County home of William Harris Wharton and his wife Sarah Ann Groce Wharton, and it served as a gathering place for the leading figures of the Texas independence movement. William Wharton was a delegate to the 1832 convention, president of the pivotal 1833 convention, a senator in the Republic of Texas Congress, and the young republic's first minister to the United States. Here the political currents that carried Texas from Mexican province to independent republic ran through the parlor.
Why it matters
The site marks a hub of the statesmen who negotiated and governed the Republic of Texas in its founding decade.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William Harris Wharton
- · Sarah Ann Groce Wharton
Related events
- · Convention of 1833
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Dr. Branch Tanner Archer
Clute, TX
Branch Tanner Archer was among the Virginia-born physicians and firebrands who threw their lot in with Texas during its break from Mexico. In 1835 he presided over the Consultation, the provisional assembly that set the colonists on the road to revolution, then sailed east as one of three commissioners sent to win money, arms, and sympathy from the United States. A frontier county still carries his name, a common way early Texas honored the men who argued its independence into being.
William Harris Wharton
Clute, TX
Virginia-born William Harris Wharton became a leading advocate for Texas independence during its turbulent 1830s. He took part in the 1832 Battle of Velasco, presided over the Convention of 1833, and after independence served as the young republic's minister to the United States. A member of the Fifth Congress of the Republic, he died in 1839 at just 33.
Site of Crosby's Landing
Freeport, TX
Thomas Phillip Crosby came from New York in 1830 and built a landing on the Brazos to serve the lower river's plantations, understanding that access to water was the key to commerce. Wounded at the 1832 Battle of Velasco, he returned to run docks, a store, a post office, a ferry, and even a voting precinct. When Stephen F. Austin died in 1836, the steamboat Yellowstone carried his body to Crosby's Landing on its way to burial at Peach Point Plantation.
Stringfellow Ranch
Freeport, TX
Robert Edward Lee Stringfellow started on a Brazoria County cattle ranch at fourteen and soon had a herd of his own, opening a Velasco meat market in 1890 that fed the crews building jetties at the mouth of the Brazos. His holdings grew to 20,000 acres and he became an early investor in the new town of Freeport. After a 1932 hurricane injured him, his wife Nannie ran the ranch and the family's Freeport interests for decades more.