Governor James Webb Throckmorton
McKinney, Collin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(February 1, 1825 - April 21, 1894) A doctor's son, James W. Throckmorton was born in Tennessee. He migrated with his parents to the Texas frontier in 1841 and settled near this site. At age 17, he became hunter and scout for his pioneer neighbors. He served in the Mexican War (1846-48). In 1848 he married Annie Rattan (1828-1895) and built a home near McKinney. Trained as a physician, Throckmorton disliked medicine and in 1851 entered law and politics. He served 1851-57 in the Texas Legislature, where he promoted railroad building. Later he became attorney for Texas and Pacific Railroad. He was state senator, 1857-61 and 1863-65. Although he upheld the right of secession, he was one of seven men who voted against Texas leaving the union at the Feb. 1861 Secession Convention. During the Civil War (1861-65), he fought in the Confederate Army. Elected governor in the summer of 1866, he grappled with postwar problems of frontier defense and federal military occupation. In July 1867 Gen. Philip H. Sheridan, commander of the 5th military district to which Texas was assigned, removed Throckmorton from office as "an impediment to Reconstruction" and named E.M. Pease provisional governor. Throckmorton continued his political career in the U.S. Congress, serving his North Texas district in 1875-79 and 1883-87. (1977) The Throckmortons settled 1/4 mile NE of US-75 N and Throckmorton Rd. Marker moved in 2016 to Pecan Grove Cemetery where he is buried.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Tennessee in 1825, James W. Throckmorton came to the Texas frontier as a boy in 1841, served as a young hunter and scout, and fought in the Mexican War before turning to law and politics. Though he defended the right of secession, he was one of only seven delegates to vote against leaving the Union in 1861, then served the Confederacy during the war. Elected governor in 1866, he was removed the next year by General Philip Sheridan as 'an impediment to Reconstruction,' and later returned to serve in the U.S. Congress.
Why it matters
Throckmorton's career embodies the wrenching choices of a Union-leaning Southerner navigating secession, Confederate service, and the military rule of Reconstruction Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
James Webb Throckmorton's life tracks Texas through its most turbulent half-century. When his family came to the North Texas frontier in 1841, Texas was still an independent republic, and the land around present-day McKinney was thinly settled and exposed. Survival depended on neighbors, on hunting, and on knowing the country, which is why a 17-year-old could become a hunter and scout for his pioneer neighbors.
Within a few years Texas had joined the United States, and the Mexican War followed. Then came the long, bitter fight over slavery and union that split the country. Texans voted to secede in 1861, fought for the Confederacy, and after defeat lived through Reconstruction. Under the Reconstruction Acts of 1867, Texas was placed under federal military authority as part of the Fifth Military District.
North Texas had its own character in all this. Fewer enslaved people lived there than in the plantation counties of East Texas, and Unionist feeling ran stronger in parts of the region. Throckmorton came out of that more divided ground, and his career shows its tensions.
People & events
Throckmorton was a doctor's son and trained as a physician himself, but he disliked medicine. In 1851 he turned to law and politics, and he rose fast. In the state legislature he promoted railroads, which he understood would decide which Texas towns thrived and which faded, and he later served as attorney for the Texas and Pacific Railroad. Through all of it he made his home near McKinney with his wife, Annie Rattan, whom he married in 1848.
His defining moment came at the Secession Convention in February 1861. Throckmorton believed in the right of secession, yet he was one of only seven delegates who voted against Texas leaving the Union. It was a lonely stand in a room that overwhelmingly wanted out. But once Texas went, he went with it and served in the Confederate Army, a choice many Southern Unionists made out of loyalty to home.
After the war, Texans elected him governor in the summer of 1866. He faced a frontier that needed defending and a federal military presence he resented, and he clashed with the occupying authorities. In July 1867 General Philip H. Sheridan, commander of the Fifth Military District, removed him as "an impediment to Reconstruction" and appointed E. M. Pease provisional governor. Throckmorton wasn't finished. He later served his North Texas district in the U.S. Congress for two separate stretches, 1875–79 and 1883–87.
Its place in the American story
Throckmorton's story is a window into one of the hardest questions in American history: what happens to people whose loyalties are torn in two? He opposed leaving the Union and then fought against it. He won the trust of Texas voters and then lost his office to a federal general. His career shows that the South was never as unanimous about secession as it later remembered itself.
His removal also shows how Reconstruction actually worked. When Congress took control of Reconstruction in 1867, it gave military commanders the power to remove state officials they saw as blocking federal policy. A sitting, elected governor of a large state being removed by an Army general is about as plain an illustration as you'll find of how sharply the postwar order broke with the past, and of the fight over who would decide what freedom and citizenship meant in the defeated South.
Finally, his return to Congress in the 1870s and 1880s follows the larger arc of the era: Reconstruction ended and white Southern leaders came back to national power. You can read his life as a personal story of conscience and compromise, and also as a thread running through the whole national drama from Manifest Destiny to the Gilded Age.
If you visit
Throckmorton's marker now stands at Pecan Grove Cemetery in McKinney, where he is buried. It was moved there in 2016 from its earlier spot near the land where the family settled. That makes the visit a graveside one, and the setting suits a man whose whole life was rooted in this corner of North Texas.
Take a moment to picture what this landscape was when he arrived as a teenager in 1841: open, thinly settled frontier, where a young man's skill as a hunter and scout mattered to his neighbors. Today the area is part of a fast-growing metro region, and that contrast is part of the story. Throckmorton pushed for the railroads that helped bring this kind of growth.
McKinney's historic downtown makes an easy add-on, and the stop fits well into a day exploring North Texas history. If you're interested in Reconstruction or the Civil War's divided loyalties, his grave is a thought-provoking place to stand and ask how you'd have voted in that 1861 convention hall.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · James Webb Throckmorton
- · Philip H. Sheridan
- · E. M. Pease
- · Annie Rattan
Related events
- · Secession Convention of 1861
- · Reconstruction
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Pecan Grove Memorial Park
McKinney, TX
This ground began as a Republic of Texas land grant in 1845, just four years after Dr. William E. Throckmorton led his family from Tennessee to found the first permanent settlement in the area. By the 1850s it held its first burials, and public ownership followed in 1870; a shady stand of trees gave the place its name. Among those honored is Dr. James Webb Throckmorton—Confederate general, Governor of Texas, and long-serving congressman.
McKinney
McKinney, TX
McKinney was founded in 1845 and named for Collin McKinney, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence—the same man who gave his name to the surrounding county. During the Civil War, future Texas governor J. W. Throckmorton raised Company K of the 6th Texas Cavalry here, a well-regarded Confederate unit. The town grew into a center of manufacturing, trade, and medicine for the region.
Site of Buckner
McKinney, TX
John (Jack) McGarrah and his family came from Tennessee in 1842 and opened a trading post here, becoming among the first settlers of present-day Collin County and defending their family fort against raids. When the county was created in 1846, its seat was laid out here as Buckner, where citizens elected their first officials on the Fourth of July and raised a company for the Mexican War. Found to sit outside the county's legal limits, the seat was moved to nearby McKinney by 1848, and Buckner reverted to farmland.
John Myers McKinney
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Born in North Carolina in 1781, John Myers McKinney spent his life moving ever westward — through Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas — before finally bringing his family to Texas in 1846. Barely settled on his Collin County land, he left almost at once to enlist in the Mexican War, joining a company of mounted volunteers, and died in the service in 1847, only a year after arriving. His short Texas chapter ended in a soldier's death on the nation's newest frontier.