HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

John C. Walling

Whitney, Hill County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Star and Wreath Served in the Texas Army, 1836. Erected by the State of Texas 1957

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

This state marker honors John C. Walling, who served in the Texas Army in 1836 during the war for independence from Mexico. The "Star and Wreath" designation and the 1957 dedication by the State of Texas identify him as a veteran of the revolution that created the Republic of Texas. Such markers were placed to locate and memorialize the graves of the republic's founding soldiers.

Why it matters

The soldiers of 1836 won the independence that made Texas first a republic and then a state, a pivotal step in the westward growth of the United States.

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  • · John C. Walling

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Nearby & related markers

Jesse Walling

Whitney, TX

This state marker honors Jesse Walling, who fought in the Battle of San Jacinto—the decisive 1836 clash where Texian forces under Sam Houston defeated Santa Anna's army and secured Texas independence. Marked with the Star and Wreath, it was erected by the State of Texas in 1957 to remember one of the revolution's soldiers.

Fort Graham

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Fort Graham rose in March 1849 on the site of a Waco Indian village, one of a chain of frontier military posts the U.S. Army planted across Texas as Anglo settlement pushed westward. Established by Brevet Major R. A. Arnold of the Second Dragoons, it honored Lt. Col. William M. Graham, killed at Molino del Rey during the recent war with Mexico. The post was abandoned in 1853 as the frontier line moved farther west, and its barracks were later reconstructed in part from the original stone as a community gathering place.

White Rock Cemetery

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Local lore says this graveyard began with a drifter's burial in 1855, but the first recorded interment was Elizabeth A. Bennett in 1856. For generations it gathered the dead of a cluster of small McLennan County communities, and among its more than 1,600 graves lie many of the area's first settlers alongside veterans of every American conflict from the Texas Revolution to Vietnam.

Roden Taylor Crain

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Roden Taylor Crain left Tennessee to join the fight for Texas independence, serving in a San Augustine County volunteer company at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto in April 1836. Like many veterans of that struggle, he was rewarded with a land grant and pension, and he built his life on that frontier acreage in what became Bosque County until his drowning in the Bosque River in 1891.