Governor Sayers House
Bastrop, Bastrop County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This Greek Revival residence was constructed in 1868 by Joseph D. Sayers (1841-1929) for his bride Ada Walton. Sayers had moved to Texas from Mississippi with his father in 1851. After serving in the Civil War as a Confederate officer, he returned to Bastrop to teach school and practice law. An active political leader, Sayers was a state senator, lieutenant governor, and U. S. congressman prior to his two terms as the Governor of Texas, 1899-1903. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1971
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Joseph D. Sayers built this Greek Revival home in Bastrop in 1868 for his bride, Ada Walton, having come to Texas from Mississippi as a boy and served as a Confederate officer in the Civil War. Returning to teach school and practice law, he rose through Texas politics as state senator, lieutenant governor, and U.S. congressman before serving two terms as governor from 1899 to 1903. The house stands as a physical anchor to one of the more consequential political careers of the post-Reconstruction South.
Why it matters
It links a single Texas dwelling to the arc from the Confederacy through Reconstruction to Gilded Age statehouse power, embodying how ex-Confederate leaders reshaped Southern political life.
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Related people
- · Joseph D. Sayers
- · Ada Walton Sayers
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hubbard - Trigg House
Bastrop, TX
This home was built in 1890 by Robert W. Hubbard, a Confederate veteran remembered for having fought in one of the last engagements of the Civil War. It later passed to a family descendant and was recognized as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1964. The house stands as a tangible link between the postwar generation and the conflict that shaped their lives.
Home Town of Texas Confederate Major Joseph D. Sayers
Bastrop, TX
Joseph D. Sayers enlisted at Bastrop as a private in 1861 and rose through the Confederate ranks, winning a captaincy for gallantry at Valverde and organizing an artillery battery from cannons captured there. Wounded repeatedly in the Red River campaigns and the fighting in Louisiana, he served as a staff officer to Generals Tom Green and Richard Taylor. He returned home on crutches and later became a state senator, lieutenant governor, U.S. congressman, and, from 1899 to 1903, governor of Texas during the Spindletop oil strike and the Galveston hurricane.
Governor J. D. Sayers
Bastrop, TX
Joseph Draper Sayers moved to Bastrop as a boy in 1851 and won distinction in the Civil War, rising to adjutant general of the Confederate Army through his battlefield valor. A Mason, Methodist layman, and lawyer, he built a long political career: state senator in 1873, lieutenant governor from 1879, U.S. congressman from 1885 to 1899, and governor of Texas from 1899 to 1903.
Milton Garrett York, Sr.
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Milton Garrett York, born in East Texas in 1843 and orphaned young, returned from Arkansas to teach school and, after Confederate service through the Civil War, put down roots along the Brenham-Austin Trace. He helped organize newly created Lee County in 1874, served as county commissioner, and won election to the Texas House of Representatives in 1890. A Mason and champion of local schooling, he embodied the civic builders who knit frontier counties into functioning communities.