Thomas Ransdell Brite
Leming, Atascosa County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Thomas Ransdell Brite was born in 1824 in Callaway County, Missouri. His family moved to Bastrop County when he was 16. In 1842, when Mexican armies invaded Texas, Thomas volunteered to serve in the Vasquez, Woll and Somervell campaigns in the conflict. In the Mexican War in 1846, Brite served in Captain McCulloch’s Company of Mounted Volunteers. By 1849, Brite had settled in Caldwell County with his wife and children, and later moved in 1854 to what became Atascosa County. In 1855, Thomas joined the Texas Rangers to fight against Native American raids. He later became Atascosa County’s first elected tax assessor-collector and then county treasurer. He died in 1859 and was buried in Brite Cemetery.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Missouri in 1824 and raised in Bastrop County, Thomas Ransdell Brite came of age amid the conflicts of early Texas. He volunteered against Mexican incursions in the 1842 Vasquez, Woll, and Somervell campaigns, served in the Mexican War under Captain McCulloch in 1846, and joined the Texas Rangers in 1855 to counter frontier raids. Settling in what became Atascosa County, he was elected its first tax assessor-collector and later county treasurer before his death in 1859.
Why it matters
Brite's life traces the militarized frontier of early Texas, where settlers moved repeatedly from soldiering to Ranger service to building a county's first offices.
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Nearby & related markers
Brite Cemetery
Leming, TX
Brite Cemetery has served Atascosa County since the 1850s, formally set aside when pioneer Thomas Ransdele Brite died in 1859, though his infant son's 1854 grave is the earliest marked burial. Brite came to Texas in 1839, served in the Republic of Texas Army campaigns and the Mexican-American War, and became the county's first tax assessor-collector. Among those buried here are Texas Ranger and Mexican-American War veteran Robert E. Neill and San Jacinto veteran Alfred Kelso, alongside many other early settlers.
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