Samuel May Williams
Galveston, Galveston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
TEXT: In memory of SAMUEL MAY WILLIAMS Born in Providence, R. I. October 4, 1795 Died in Galveston, Texas September 13, 1858 His wife SARAH SCOTT WILLIAMS Born in Kentucky December 7, 1807 Died in Galveston, Texas August 31 1860 Erected by the State of Texas REVERSE Intimate Friend of Stephen F. Austin and Secretary of Austin's Colony Pioneer Banker Bearer of Important Commissions Commercially the Influential Citizen of Texas. Colony, Republic, State Who Served Patriotically and Efficiently Throughout Years of Self-Sacrifice.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Rhode Island in 1795, Samuel May Williams became one of the most influential figures of early Texas as the intimate friend and colony secretary of Stephen F. Austin. A pioneer banker who handled important commissions for the colony, Republic, and state, he lived out his life in Galveston, dying there in 1858. This state monument honors a man remembered for years of patriotic and self-sacrificing service.
Why it matters
Williams stood at the very center of Anglo-American settlement in Texas, helping turn Austin's colony into a republic and then a state.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Samuel May Williams
- · Sarah Scott Williams
- · Stephen F. Austin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Thomas Henry Borden
Galveston, TX
Thomas Henry Borden was one of Austin's 'Old Three Hundred,' the first legal Anglo-American colonists of Texas. A surveyor, he laid out the town of Galveston, and in 1835 he helped found the Telegraph and Texas Register, the newspaper that chronicled the Texas Revolution. A New York native, he lived in Galveston until his death in 1877.
Samuel May Williams
Galveston, TX
Samuel May Williams sailed from Rhode Island into a life of business and language, learning Spanish in Buenos Aires before joining Stephen F. Austin's Texas colony in 1823 as translator and clerk. He and Thomas F. McKinney ran a mercantile firm whose credit helped bankroll the Texas Revolution, extending some ninety-nine thousand dollars in support, and later helped build ships for the young republic's navy. In 1848 he opened a Galveston bank and lived out his days in this home.
Williams-Tucker House, 1837-40
Galveston, TX
This house—framed in Maine and shipped to Texas by schooner—was built for Samuel May Williams, one of the founders of Galveston and secretary to Stephen F. Austin's colony. Williams organized the first bank in Texas, helped launch the Texas navy and shipping industry, and personally contributed $150,000 toward the Texas War for Independence when he failed to secure a loan abroad. His home survives as a monument to one of the young republic's most versatile builders.
Thomas Joseph
Galveston, TX
Thomas Miller Joseph (1823–1905) arrived in Galveston about 1841 as a young man from Hartford, Connecticut, and made the booming island city his home for the rest of his long life. Admitted to the bar, he rose as a Democratic Party leader, serving as county judge, state legislator, and senator, and raising eight children with his wife Mary. Fittingly for a place battered by hurricanes, his own grave may lie atop his mother's, its exact spot lost after storms swept the cemetery.