Site of Cameron, First County Seat of DeWitt County
Cuero, DeWitt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This site was chosen in June 1846 as the first seat of DeWitt County and named for Capt. Ewen Cameron (1811-43), slain prisoner of the Mier Expedition. Although a town was platted on the 100-acre tract donated by Joseph Tumlinson, a log courthouse and a county clerk's office were the only buildings erected. In 1850, after four elections and four court decisions, Cameron lost the title of county seat to the nearby town of Clinton. County offices moved to Cuero in 1876.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Chosen in 1846 as DeWitt County's first seat of justice, the town of Cameron honored Captain Ewen Cameron, a prisoner of the ill-fated Mier Expedition who was executed on Santa Anna's order. Though platted on a hundred donated acres, it never grew beyond a log courthouse and clerk's office, and after four elections and four court fights it lost the county seat to Clinton in 1850.
Why it matters
The rise and quick fall of Cameron reflects how fiercely early Texas communities competed for the county seats that determined which towns would survive.
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Related people
- · Ewen Cameron
- · Joseph Tumlinson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
De Witt County
Cuero, TX
This ground lay within Green De Witt's 1825 empresario grant and became DeWitt County in 1846, its seat shifting from Cameron to Clinton and finally to Cuero in 1876. Settled first by Anglo-Americans and, by 1860, half by German immigrants, the county sent its men into nearly every fight of the Texas Revolution — the Alamo, Goliad, Gonzales, and San Jacinto among them. The marker rolls out a long honor list of the pioneers and soldiers who founded and defended it.
Taylor Family Cemetery
Cuero, TX
Also called Taylor-Bennett Cemetery, this DeWitt County burial ground began with Josiah Taylor, whose grave from 1830 is its oldest. Taylor first entered Texas in 1812 with the Gutiérrez-Magee Expedition, fighting at La Bahía and in the battles of Rosillo and Alazán Creek, then settled with his family as part of the DeWitt Colony in 1829. His descendants included Texas Rangers, veterans of the Texas Revolution, and participants in the Runaway Scrape, and among those buried here are men killed in the notorious Sutton-Taylor Feud.
Josiah Taylor
Cuero, TX
Josiah Taylor's life traces the violent birth of Texas across three decades. He first rode into the province in 1812 with the Gutiérrez-Magee filibuster, an armed bid to pry Mexico from Spanish rule, and was wounded repeatedly at the disastrous Battle of Medina. Returning with his family in the 1820s, he took a headright in Green DeWitt's colony, and by 1842 five of his sons were riding with Jack Hays' Rangers against a Mexican invasion.
Allen Caruthers
Cuero, TX
Born in Kentucky in 1804, Allen Caruthers fought at the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive 1836 engagement that won Texas its independence. He and his wife Martha, a North Carolina native, were among the settlers who built lives in the young republic and state before his death in 1863. Their graves near Cuero mark the resting place of one of the veterans whose service is woven into the founding story of Texas.