Governor George Tyler Wood
Coldspring, San Jacinto County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1795-1858) Born in Georgia and married there in 1837 to Martha Evans Gindrat (1809-63), a widow with 3 children, George T. Wood came to Texas with his family in 1839 and settled along the Trinity River near Point Blank. Wood studied law and was elected to the 6th Republic of Texas Congress, 1841-42, and the Annexation Convention of 1845. As a state senator in 1846, he sponsored a bill creating Tyler County. Woodville, the county seat, was named for him, as was Wood County, created in 1850. Wood left the Senate in 1846 to fight in the Mexican War (1846-48). His military heroics helped make him the popular choice for governor in 1847. Under Gov. Wood, the recently-organized state government faced the problems of recurring Indian hostilities and a boundary dispute in Santa Fe County (now part of New Mexico). Gov. Wood urged sale of public lands to pay the large public debt. His administration saw the establishment of a state library and a penitentiary. Mrs. Wood, who raised silkworms and made her own silk cloth, did not accompany her husband to the State Capital at Austin, then a rough frontier town without an official governor's residence. After failing to win a second term in 1849, Gov. Wood returned to his home at Point Blank. He died at age 63 and was buried nearby. (1976)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
George Tyler Wood came to Texas from Georgia in 1839 and settled along the Trinity River, rising through the Republic's Congress and the Annexation Convention. He left the state Senate to fight in the Mexican War, and his battlefield reputation carried him to the governor's chair in 1847. His single term wrestled with Indian conflict, the Santa Fe boundary dispute, and a heavy public debt, while establishing a state library and penitentiary.
Why it matters
Wood embodies the generation that carried Texas from independent republic to American state, governing a raw frontier still without a proper capital.
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Related people
- · George Tyler Wood
- · Martha Evans Gindrat Wood
Related events
- · Mexican War
- · Annexation Convention of 1845
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Near Burial Place of Governor George Tyler Wood
Point Blank, TX
Born in Georgia in 1795, George Tyler Wood came to Texas in 1839 and rose through the Republic's Congress, the 1845 Annexation Convention, and the first state Senate, which he left to fight in the Mexican War. As governor from 1847 to 1849 he rallied defenses against frontier raids, urged public schools and land sales to pay the state debt, and had Texas's laws codified, its library founded, and its penitentiary built. He is buried near here.
Walker County
Huntsville, TX
Walker County was carved from Montgomery County in 1846, the year Texas joined the Union, and first honored Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, a leading advocate of annexation. In 1863 the county was pointedly rededicated to Captain Samuel H. Walker, the daring Texas Ranger who fell fighting in Mexico during the U.S.-Mexico War. Huntsville has served as its county seat throughout.
Townsite of Coldspring
Coldspring, TX
The land beneath Coldspring began as a Mexican grant to Col. Robert Rankin, a veteran of the American Revolution. Its post office cycled through colorful names — "Coonskin," then "Fireman's Hill," and finally "Cold Springs" — before settling on the modern spelling in 1850. After fire destroyed the wooden courthouse in 1915, a stone replacement rose in 1918, and by 1923 most of the town had relocated up the hill to its present site. Early academies and an 1880 "Male and Female Institute" educated its children.
San Jacinto County Courthouse
Coldspring, TX
After fire destroyed San Jacinto County's courthouse in 1915, landowners donated a site and moved the seat of government to "new town" Coldspring, where builders raised this Italian Renaissance–style courthouse in 1916–17 from brick fired locally out of native clay. Merchants and residents followed the courthouse, and within a decade the old town stood deserted. Despite 1936 alterations, its arched doors and windows still carry the original design.