HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

Thomas J. Jordan

Milford, Ellis County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Soldier in the Texas Army in 1836, born in Tennessee June 17, 1808, died November 24, 1880. His wife Stacy Choate Jordan, born in Tennessee October 15, 1816, died January 27, 1884.

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Thomas J. Jordan carried a rifle for the fledgling Texas Army in 1836, the year Texian forces won independence from Mexico at San Jacinto. Tennessee-born like so many who poured into the new republic, he lived out his days on the Blackland Prairie of Ellis County, where he and his wife Stacy are remembered side by side. Their joined dates trace a full pioneer lifetime spanning frontier Texas from revolution to the Gilded Age.

Why it matters

Ordinary soldiers like Jordan filled the ranks that made an independent Texas possible, and grave markers like this one keep the revolution's rank and file from vanishing into anonymity.

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Related people

  • Β· Thomas J. Jordan
  • Β· Stacy Choate Jordan

Themes & tags

Military & WartimeWestward ExpansionFrontier HistoryMemorial

Nearby & related markers

James McDaniel

Milford, TX

James McDaniel, born in Alabama in 1810, was among the men who served in the Texas army during the revolutionary year of 1836, when settlers won independence from Mexico. He and his wife Idabella lived out long lives on the Texas frontier, dying in the 1880s and 1890s. Their marker preserves the memory of an ordinary soldier-settler of the founding generation.

Milford Cemetery

Milford, TX

In 1853, pioneers W.R. Hudson and J.M. Higgins came west from East Texas and platted the townsite of Milford the following year, quickly building the schools, churches, and post office that anchor a frontier community. The burial ground that grew alongside the town holds generations of those early families, including soldiers of the Texas Revolution and veterans of every American war from the Mexican War through Vietnam. Nearly two hundred small graves of infants and children speak plainly to how hard survival could be on the 19th-century frontier.