Richard Royster Royall
Matagorda, Matagorda County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Temporary chairman of the consultation, 1835 member of the general council of the provisional government of Texas 1835-1836. Born in Virginia June 1, 1798, died May 28, 1840.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Richard Royster Royall, born in Virginia in 1798, became a leading figure in the earliest days of Texas self-government. He served as temporary chairman of the 1835 Consultation and sat on the General Council of the provisional government during the pivotal months of the Texas Revolution. He died in 1840, having helped guide Texas from colony toward independence.
Why it matters
Royall was among the delegates who improvised a government amid revolution, part of the founding generation that turned scattered Anglo and Tejano settlements into the Republic of Texas.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Richard Royster Royall
Related events
- · Consultation of 1835
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Ira Ingram
Matagorda County, TX
Vermont-born Ira Ingram cast his lot with Texas in its revolutionary years, serving as the first alcalde of the Matagorda municipality in 1834 and, two years later, as the first Speaker of the House in the Congress of the new Republic of Texas. An early champion of public schooling, he died in 1837, barely outliving the republic's founding. His grave marks the passing of a founding-generation Texan.
S. Rhoads Fisher
Matagorda, TX
A Pennsylvania-born Quaker, S. Rhoads Fisher came to Texas in 1830 and set up a mercantile house and shipping business at Matagorda. Chosen as a Matagorda delegate to the 1836 convention, he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence and became the young Republic's secretary of the navy under President Sam Houston. When Mexican ships blockaded the coast in 1837, Fisher himself put to sea with the Texas Navy to draw the enemy away from Galveston, Matagorda, and Velasco before resigning late that year; he died in Matagorda in 1839, and a county was named in his honor in 1876.
Matagorda Cemetery
Matagorda, TX
Founded around 1829 as part of Stephen F. Austin's colony, Matagorda Cemetery is among the oldest burial grounds in Texas, its weathered stones chronicling the hardships of coastal frontier life. Those interred include victims of the 1862 yellow fever epidemic, soldiers of the Texas Revolution and Civil War, Karankawa people, and Samuel Rhoads Fisher, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence.
First Burials in Matagorda Cemetery, Benjamin Wightman and Esther Randall Wightman
Matagorda, TX
Benjamin and Esther Wightman, Connecticut natives who had lived in New York's Herkimer County, followed their son Elias to Texas in 1828, arriving aboard "Little Zoe," the first sailing vessel to enter the port of Matagorda. Elias held the grant to the Matagorda town league under the Republic of Mexico, and his parents' graves became the first burials in the town cemetery.