Point Bolivar
Port Bolivar, Galveston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Headquarters for Long's Expedition which attempted to free Texas from Spanish rule in 1819. Named in honor of Simon Bolivar (1783-1830), leader in the Spanish-American War for independence. Here Mrs. Long and a small group remained until news of her husband's death came in 1822. A light house was erected here by the Republic of Texas.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Point Bolivar served as headquarters for James Long's 1819 expedition, a bold attempt to wrest Texas from Spanish rule, and was named for the South American liberator Simón Bolívar. Here Mrs. Long and a small band waited until word arrived in 1822 that her husband had died. Years later the Republic of Texas raised a lighthouse on the point.
Why it matters
It recalls the freebooting struggles over Texas before independence and honors Jane Long's storied vigil on a lonely Gulf shore.
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Related people
- · James Long
- · Jane (Mrs.) Long
- · Simón Bolívar
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long
Port Bolivar, TX
Born in Maryland in 1798, Jane Herbert Wilkinson Long followed her husband into the dangerous filibustering expeditions that sought to wrest Texas from Spain. Left to hold a fort on the Bolivar Peninsula through a brutal winter with her daughter and an enslaved woman named Kian, she gave birth there amid hunger and danger — the episode that earned her the honorary title "Mother of Texas." She later received her own headright of land in Austin's colony, unusual for a woman, and opened her San Felipe boarding house to the rallies and intrigue of the Texas Revolution.
Early History of Galveston County
Galveston, TX
Long a crossroads for Native peoples, privateers, and Spanish and French explorers, Galveston Island briefly became the seat of the Republic of Texas in 1836. As Santa Anna's army pushed east, President David G. Burnet's improvised cabinet fled Washington-on-the-Brazos and sheltered here until the Texan victory at San Jacinto. From this port the fledgling Texas Navy, later reorganized under President Lamar and Commodore Edwin W. Moore, guarded the coast against Mexican invasion until U.S. annexation in 1846.
Warren D. C. Hall
Galveston, TX
North Carolina-born Warren DeWitt Clinton Hall came to Texas early and threw himself into the military expeditions that challenged Spanish and Mexican rule. At the time of the decisive Battle of San Jacinto in 1836 he was serving as acting secretary of war for the young Republic of Texas. He later practiced law and lived in Galveston until his death, and a Panhandle county bears his name.
Henry Journeay
Galveston, TX
A New York native, Henry Journeay (1815–70) joined the fight for Texas independence, serving in the army of Texas in 1836. Six years later he took part in the ill-fated Mier Expedition, a Republic of Texas raid into Mexico that ended in capture for many of its men. His grave marks a life bound up with the violent birth pangs of the Lone Star Republic.