Near Here at the Old Jonesboro Crossing Sam Houston
Manchester, Red River County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Near here at the Old Jonesboro Crossing, Sam Houston, an envoy of President Andrew Jackson first set foot on Texas soil, December 2, 1832.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On December 2, 1832, Sam Houston crossed the Red River at the old Jonesboro Crossing and set foot on Texas soil for the first time, arriving as an envoy of President Andrew Jackson. The future hero of San Jacinto and president of the Republic entered a Mexican Texas already stirring toward revolution.
Why it matters
It marks the arrival of the man who would lead Texas to independence, at the threshold of one of the most consequential chapters of American westward expansion.
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Related people
- · Sam Houston
- · Andrew Jackson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Robert Hamilton
Negley, TX
Robert Hamilton, born in Scotland in 1783, cast his lot with the Texas independence movement and on March 2, 1836, was among the delegates who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos. He settled in Red River County, where he died in 1843, during the years of the young Republic of Texas.
Jonesboro
Manchester, TX
On the Red River, Jonesboro was one of the earliest ports of entry into Texas for Anglo-Americans, in use by 1814 and busy by 1817, named for ferry owner Henry Jones. Claimed by both Mexico and the United States, it served as county seat of Arkansas's Miller County and counted some 2,350 residents by 1834. Sam Houston crossed into Texas here in 1832 and David Crockett in 1835 — but by 1840 the town had lost its trade and settlers to rival communities.
Jane Chandler Gill
Manchester, TX
Jane Chandler Gill was an Englishwoman who died in 1816, soon after settling at Jonesboro in what is now Red River County — decades before Texas independence, when the region was still a remote borderland of New Spain. Her grave is counted among the oldest marked European-American burials in Texas.
New Haven Cemetery
Clarksville, TX
Founded on land given in 1859 by George M. Sargeant for a church, school, and graveyard, New Haven Cemetery has gathered the settlers of Red River County for well over a century. Its first grave held a veteran of the War of 1812, and among the pioneer families rests the infant Dimple Dee Crockett, whose name lives on in the nearby Dimple community. Later gifts of land from the Jamison family expanded the burial ground alongside a Baptist congregation.