Thomas Jefferson Sweeny
Sweeny, Brazoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A San Jacinto veteran Born in Tennessee 1812 Died in La Grange, Texas 1869 Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This marker honors Thomas Jefferson Sweeny, a Tennessee-born settler who fought at the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive 1836 clash that won Texas its independence from Mexico. He lived out his years in the young Republic and early state of Texas, dying at La Grange in 1869. The State of Texas erected the marker in 1936 during the centennial of the revolution.
Why it matters
Sweeny was one of the ordinary volunteers whose service at San Jacinto secured Texas independence and reshaped the map of North America on the eve of westward expansion.
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Related people
- · Thomas Jefferson Sweeny
Related events
- · Battle of San Jacinto
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sweeny Cemetery
Sweeny, TX
This burial ground began in 1833 when John Sweeny, an early landowner and member of Stephen F. Austin's colony, chose the site to bury his young daughter Freedonia. The neighborhood has used it ever since, and it holds the graves of veterans of every American war since the Texas Revolution. It stands as a quiet record of the families who settled this stretch of Brazoria County.
Phillips Family Cemetery
West Columbia vicinity, TX
Zeno Phillips was one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred," the first legal Anglo-American colonists in Texas, and he and his brothers took up land here and served in the Republic of Texas Army. The cemetery began in 1835 with the burials of Zeno and his brother John. Later generations of the family were laid to rest at Waverly Place before the land passed out of Phillips hands in 1887.
John Adriance
West Columbia, TX
John Adriance came of age with the Texas Revolution, serving in Captain Jacob Eberly's unit as Sam Houston's army retreated before Santa Anna in the spring of 1836. Detailed to guard Bell's Landing so civilians could flee, he and fifteen comrades then raced to rejoin Houston—arriving to learn the decisive Battle of San Jacinto had already been won on April 21. He lived a long life afterward, marrying Lydia Ann Cook of New York in 1846 and dying in 1903.
Nathaniel C. Hazen
West Columbia, TX
Nathaniel C. Hazen arrived in Texas in January 1836, at the height of the revolution against Mexico. Captured with James Fannin's command, he was led out to be executed in the Goliad massacre of March 27, 1836, yet managed to escape that mass killing. He went on to fight at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto in Captain William H. Patton's company, only to die in Columbia before the year was out.