Harvey Homan
Houston, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Came to Texas in January, 1836. Fought at San Jacinto in Captain Richard Roman's company. Born in Kentucky, 1806; died in Houston July, 1846.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Harvey Homan arrived in Texas in January 1836, at the very outset of the revolution, and that spring fought at San Jacinto in Captain Richard Roman's company—the decisive battle that won Texas its independence. Born in Kentucky in 1806, he made his life in the new republic's rising city of Houston, where he died young in July 1846.
Why it matters
Ordinary volunteers like Homan filled the ranks at San Jacinto, and their willingness to fight in a matter of weeks turned a scattered rebellion into an independent Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Harvey Homan arrived in Texas in January 1836, and the timing could hardly have been more dramatic. Tensions between Texas colonists and Mexico's central government had already broken into open fighting in 1835. By early 1836, a Mexican army under Antonio López de Santa Anna was marching north to crush the rebellion.
The next few months changed everything. The Alamo fell in March, Texans declared independence, and settlers fled east in what became known as the Runaway Scrape. Then, in April 1836, the Texan army under Sam Houston turned and fought at San Jacinto. In a short, decisive battle, the Texans defeated Santa Anna's force and captured the general himself.
In the years that followed, Texas was an independent republic, and the new town of Houston, founded in 1836 and named for the victorious general, grew up near the bayous not far from the battlefield. By the time of Homan's death in 1846, Texas had just joined the United States.
People & events
Harvey Homan was born in Kentucky in 1806. Like many young men from the American South and border states, he looked west to Texas for land and opportunity. He came to Texas in January 1836, just weeks before the revolution reached its climax.
He did not stay on the sidelines. The marker records that he fought at San Jacinto in the company of Captain Richard Roman. Companies like Roman's were the basic building blocks of the Texan army. They were small groups of volunteers, many of them recent arrivals, fighting beside men they may have known for only a short time.
After the victory, Homan made his life in Texas and died in Houston in July 1846, at about forty years old. The marker does not tell us what he did in the decade between the battle and his death, and it would be wrong to guess. What we know is enough: he came, he fought, and he stayed to become part of the country he helped create.
Its place in the American story
The Battle of San Jacinto is one of the most important battles in North American history. It won Texas its independence and set the stage for annexation, the U.S.-Mexican War and a vast change in the map of the United States. Those big consequences depended on ordinary volunteers like Harvey Homan.
Homans's story also shows how new so many of San Jacinto's soldiers were to Texas. He had been in Texas only a few months when he went into battle. Many of the Texan army's men had similar stories. They were recent immigrants from the United States who found themselves at the center of a revolution soon after crossing the border.
Markers like this one honor individual veterans rather than generals. They remind us that the story of Texas independence was written by hundreds of ordinary people, most of whose names are known only through records like this.
If you visit
This marker stands in Houston, the city that grew up around the memory of San Jacinto and bears the name of its commanding general. Take a moment to picture the rough young town Homan would have known in the 1840s. It is almost impossible to imagine now among the modern city.
Markers honoring individual San Jacinto veterans are scattered across Texas, and each one adds another name to the story. Reading this one, notice how compact it is: birth, arrival, battle, death. These few facts represent a whole life lived during a turbulent time.
To round out the story, plan a trip to the San Jacinto Battleground east of downtown Houston, where the battle Homan fought in took place. Seeing the battlefield after this marker connects a single volunteer to the event that made him part of history.
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
- · Harvey Homan
- · Richard Roman
Related events
- · Battle of San Jacinto
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fielding G. Secrest
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Fielding G. Secrest rode with Captain Henry W. Karnes's cavalry at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, the decisive fight that won Texas its independence from Mexico. He died in Houston in 1840, only a year after the death of his wife, Eliza.
John Cheevers
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John Cheevers came to Texas in 1829, in the years when Anglo colonists were streaming into what was then Mexican territory. When the fight for Texas independence reached its climax in 1836, he stood among the men of Captain Thomas H. McIntire's company at the Battle of San Jacinto, the short, decisive clash that secured the Republic. He lived out his remaining years in the growing town of Houston, dying there in 1846.
George Allen
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Born in New York in 1812, George Allen came to Texas in the 1830s and fought in the war for independence, later joining the Somervell Expedition. In 1838 he settled in Houston to help his brothers Augustus and John Kirby Allen establish the new city, and in 1839 became the first committeeman charged with improving Buffalo Bayou, its vital shipping artery. His work helped set Houston on its course as a commercial port.
James Collinsworth
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James Collinsworth (1806–1838), Tennessee-born, packed an extraordinary public career into a few short years of the Texas Republic. A delegate to the 1835 Consultation and a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, he "bore himself as a chief" at San Jacinto, then served as Secretary of State, senator, and the first Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court. After he drowned at Galveston in 1838, his remains were carried up Buffalo Bayou for the first Masonic funeral held in Texas.