George Washington Davis
Cuero, DeWitt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Pennsylvania native George Washington Davis (1797-1853) brought his family to Texas in 1831. He selected a league of land near present-day Cuero in the Green De Witt Colony and became an active participant in the movement toward Texas Independence, serving as a delegate to the Second Convention of Texas in 1833 and as a delegate to the Consultation at San Felipe in 1835. After the revolution, Davis held a number of local public offices. He and his wife, Rebecca (d. 1846), are buried 1.8 miles west of this site. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Pennsylvania-born George Washington Davis brought his family to Texas in 1831 and claimed a league of land in the Green DeWitt Colony near present-day Cuero. He threw himself into the independence movement, serving as a delegate to the 1833 Convention and to the 1835 Consultation at San Felipe that helped set Texas on the road to revolution. After independence he held a series of local offices in the young republic.
Why it matters
Davis represents the Anglo-American colonists whose organizing conventions turned scattered settlements into a movement for Texas independence, a pivotal step in America's westward expansion.
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Related people
- ยท George Washington Davis
Related events
- ยท Consultation of 1835
- ยท Convention of 1833
- ยท Texas Revolution
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Buchel Community and School
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Settlers reached this corner of DeWitt County as early as 1839, opening a school and post office within a few years of arrival. In 1894 the Cuero merchant and banker Otto Buchel donated land here for a community school first known as Oak View. When a new building rose in 1921 it took his name, and though the Buchel School closed its doors in 1950, the schoolhouse lived on as a community center. For generations the little school was where a farming neighborhood educated its children and gathered as a community.
Stevens Cemetery
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In 1846 Joseph and Sarah Ann Stevens arrived from Rankin County, Mississippi, with relatives and a number of enslaved people, buying land from members of Green DeWitt's Colony to farm and raise cattle. The family burial ground holds its oldest marker over the 1851 grave of their infant son, and the child's grandfather Elisha Stevens was laid to rest nearby months later. Pioneer family members, veterans, and descendants are honored here.
Site of Cameron, First County Seat of DeWitt County
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Around 1839โ40, Daniel Boone Friar built a home and store at the crossing of two important roads, and it quickly became the hub of early De Witt County life. Within a few years the two-story frame building was serving as a stagecoach stop, a temporary courthouse, and the county's first post office, named Cuero, with Friar as postmaster. Crockett Cardwell bought the place in 1849 and kept it running as a stage stand and gathering spot until the railroad drew the town four miles south in 1873; the old building came down in 1916.