John Socrates Darling

Waelder, TX

Born in Tennessee in 1810, Leander C. Cunningham fought at the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive 1836 clash that won Texas its independence from Mexico. He lived out a long life on the Texas land his generation had wrested into a new republic, dying in 1896. He is remembered here alongside his wife Ann, who was born in Kentucky in 1808.

Rockne, TX

Born in 1804, Nicholas W. Eastland came to Texas in 1834 and, in the spring of 1836, joined Captain Horton's company under Colonel James Fannin during the Texas Revolution. When Fannin's command was captured and largely massacred after the Battle of Coleto, Eastland was among the fortunate few who escaped. He lived on until 1891, and the State of Texas raised this memorial to him in 1957.

Muldoon, TX

The Muldoon area traces its name to Father Miguel Muldoon, who held a Spanish land grant here in the 1830s, and settlers steadily filled the county through the century. In 1871 Methodist trustees bought land for a church and burial ground, and the graves that followed hold a cross-section of frontier Texas—San Jacinto veteran Simon Peter Ford, Civil War soldiers, pioneer families, and James Chambers Coulson, the English stonemason whose "Muldoon Blue" sandstone went into the Galveston Seawall and buildings across the state. An old Baptist church moved to the grounds in the 1940s still serves for funerals and meetings.

Muldoon, TX

Simon Peter Ford came to Texas in 1830 as a teenager and, at twenty, fought at the Battle of San Jacinto in Captain William Wood's company—the decisive 1836 clash that secured Texas independence. He lived on into the 1890s, a link between the revolutionary generation and the settled state. Texas erected his marker in 1962, its Star and Wreath honoring a veteran of the founding fight.