New Washington
Morgan's Point, Harris County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Located at the junction of Buffalo Bayou and San Jacinto Bay, the townsite of New Washington was settled by Col. James Morgan (1786-1866), who bought 1600 acres of land in the area in 1835. A native of Philadelphia, Morgan had come to Texas in 1830 and served at various times and places as merchant, civic leader, and land agent. While away from his home, serving as a colonel during the Texas Revolution, Mexican troops burned the town of New Washington. After the war, Morgan and others rebuilt New Washington, and the townsite began to flourish. Morgan realized, however, that it could never compete with the growth of nearby Houston, and during the 1850s he began to promote plans for a channel along Buffalo Bayou that would increase the region's trade potential. That dream was completed in 1876 with the dredging of the Houston Ship Channel by steamship tycoon Charles Morgan. As Houston continued to grow, New Washington was recognized only as a major bend for the ship traffic along the bayou. Now known as Morgan's Point, the townsite was incorporated in 1949 and stands as a reminder of the early commercial history of Harris County.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
At the junction of Buffalo Bayou and San Jacinto Bay, Philadelphia-born Colonel James Morgan bought 1,600 acres in 1835 and laid out New Washington, working as merchant, land agent, and civic leader. Mexican troops burned the town during the Texas Revolution while Morgan served as a colonel, but it was rebuilt and flourished until nearby Houston outgrew it. Morgan's 1850s dream of a navigable channel along Buffalo Bayou was realized in 1876 when steamship magnate Charles Morgan dredged the Houston Ship Channel; the town, now Morgan's Point, was incorporated in 1949.
Why it matters
New Washington's story anticipates the Houston Ship Channel, the waterway that would make Houston one of the nation's great ports and industrial centers.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · James Morgan
- · Charles Morgan
Related events
- · Texas Revolution
- · Dredging of the Houston Ship Channel (1876)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
City of Baytown
Baytown, TX
Set among eight bays on the Gulf Coast, the land that became Baytown was home to the Attakapa, Akokisa, Bidai, and Karankawa peoples before Anglo pioneers gathered near Lynch's Ferry in 1822. Rice farms and clay brickyards built up the area through the 1800s, and the discovery of the Goose Creek Oilfield in 1903 — remembered as one of the nation's first offshore drilling ventures — triggered an oil boom that fused the towns of Goose Creek, Pelly, and Bay Town into a single city at consolidation in 1948.
Old River
Old River-Winfree, TX
Old River, a looping channel of the Trinity, drew some of the earliest pioneers to this corner of southeast Texas in the 1820s and 1830s, among them Robert and Eleanor Wiseman on land grants taken up in 1827. Fertile soil and open grassland made it a farming and ranching center whose hides, timber, and charcoal were shipped down to market in Galveston. That trade fostered shipbuilding firms, brick kilns, and ferry operations, seeding a pattern of settlement whose descendants still live in the area.
La Porte
La Porte, TX
A group of Colorado land developers formed the La Porte Land and Town Company in 1890, bought over a thousand acres, and began selling lots to settlers lured from New York and the Midwest. A railroad reached the Sylvan Beach Resort in 1899, and the beach joined agriculture as the town's economic mainstay. Storms in 1900 and 1915, a nearby oil strike in 1916, and post–World War II industrialization steadily reshaped La Porte from a farming and resort town into part of the greater Houston industrial coast.
Houston Yacht Club
La Porte, TX
Founded in 1897 by prominent Houstonians meeting downtown in the Binz Building, the Houston Yacht Club weathered reorganizations and financial troubles before settling into a Spanish mission clubhouse on Galveston Bay in 1927. From its earliest regattas the club sent members racing at every level, including the Olympics. In wartime its members lent their boats to patrol the ship channel and bay, and its clubhouse sheltered residents during natural disasters.