Washington County
Washington, Washington County, Texas
Marker Inscription
To the memory of those courageous souls, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention held here March 1-17, 1836 who declared Texas free, organized a Republic, and framed its constitution Jessie B. Badgett; Dr. George Washington Barnett; Thomas Barnett; Stephen William Blount; John White Bower; Asa Brigham; Andrew Briscoe; John Wheeler Bunton; John S.D. Byrom; Mathew Caldwell; Samuel Price Carson; George Campbell Childress; William Clark, Jr.; Robert M. Coleman; James Collingsworth; Edward Conrad; William Carroll Crawford; Richard Ellis; Dr. Stephen Hendrickson Everitt; John Fisher; Samuel Rhoades Fisher; James Gaines; Dr. Thomas Jefferson Gazley; Benjamin Briggs Goodrich; Jesse Grimes; Robert Hamilton; Bailey Hardeman; Augustine Blackburn Hardin; Samuel Houston; William Demetris Lacey; Albert Hamilton Latimer; Edward Oswald Legrand; Samuel Augustus Maverick; Collin McKinney; Michel Branamour Menard; William Menefee; John W. Moore; Dr. Junius William Mottley; Jose Antonio Navarro; Martin Parmer; Sydney Oswald Pennington; Robert Potter; James Power; John S. Roberts; Sterling Clack Robertson; Francisco Ruiz; Thomas Jefferson Rusk; William Bennett Scates; George Washington Smyth; Elijah Stapp; Dr. Charles Bellinger Stewart; James Gibson Swisher; Charles Standfield Taylor; David Thomas; John Turner; Edwin Waller; Claiborne West; James B. Woods; Dr. Lorenzo De Zavala May these names be engraved on the hearts of all Texans
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
On this ground at Washington-on-the-Brazos, delegates gathered from March 1 to 17, 1836, to declare Texas independent, organize a republic, and frame its constitution—even as Santa Anna's army closed in on the Alamo. The marker inscribes the names of all the signers, from Sam Houston and Lorenzo de Zavala to Tejano leaders José Antonio Navarro and Francisco Ruiz, calling on Texans to keep their memory engraved on their hearts.
Why it matters
Washington-on-the-Brazos is the birthplace of the Republic of Texas, where a diverse convention founded a nation that would ultimately reshape the map of the United States.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In early 1836 Texas was in open revolt against Mexico. Tensions had been building for years over immigration, trade, slavery, local self-government, and the centralist turn of the Mexican government under Antonio López de Santa Anna. Fighting had broken out in the fall of 1835, and by the new year a Mexican army was marching north to crush the rebellion.
Washington, a small town on the Brazos River, was chosen as the meeting place for a convention of delegates from across Texas. It was hardly a capital. Delegates met in a plain, unfinished frame building, and by traditional accounts the weather that March was bitterly cold. News from the front was grim. While the delegates debated, Santa Anna's forces were besieging the Alamo in San Antonio, which fell on March 6.
The convention worked under that pressure. It declared independence early, then drafted a constitution and set up an interim government, racing against an army that might arrive any day. When it adjourned on March 17, members scattered quickly as the Mexican advance drew closer. That flight, together with the civilian exodus of the same weeks, is remembered as the Runaway Scrape.
People & events
The names on this monument are the whole convention, and they make a remarkably varied group. George Campbell Childress, a Tennessee-born lawyer, is traditionally credited with drafting the Texas Declaration of Independence, adopted on March 2, 1836, which happened to be Sam Houston's birthday. Richard Ellis presided over the convention. Houston himself was confirmed as commander of the Texas army and rode off to take charge of a war that looked, at that moment, nearly lost.
Three of the signers, José Antonio Navarro, Francisco Ruiz, and Lorenzo de Zavala, carry the story beyond the common image of the revolution as an Anglo affair. Navarro and Ruiz were native Texans from San Antonio, Tejanos who judged that their homeland's future lay in breaking with Santa Anna's government. Zavala was a seasoned Mexican liberal statesman who had broken with Santa Anna. He became the interim vice president of the new Republic.
Other names have their own echoes. Samuel Augustus Maverick's surname became an English word. Collin McKinney and Sterling C. Robertson came from the empresario and settler world that had shaped Anglo Texas. Together they declared a republic, wrote its first constitution, and then hurried away. Six weeks later, the war was won at San Jacinto.
Its place in the American story
This is the birthplace of the Republic of Texas. The nation founded here lasted nearly ten years, sent its own diplomats abroad, and then joined the United States in 1845. Annexation helped set off the U.S.–Mexican War, and the war's settlement moved the American border to the Pacific. Few rooms in American history launched a chain of events that redrew so much of the map.
The convention also shows how Americans of that era built governments. Its declaration borrowed openly from the language of 1776, and its constitution drew heavily on the U.S. model. That constitution also protected slavery and put limits on free Black residents. This part of the founding story must be told honestly, because it shaped Texas and helped sharpen the national conflict that led to the Civil War.
The roster itself makes a point worth keeping. Men born in Tennessee, Virginia, and Kentucky signed their names beside men born in San Antonio and Yucatán. The founding of Texas was a borderland event, and the monument's closing wish that these names be carried in Texans' hearts includes all of them.
If you visit
This monument belongs to the landscape now preserved as Washington-on-the-Brazos, one of the most meaningful historic places in Texas. Take a slow walk along the long list of names. Try reading them aloud, and you will hear the mix of Anglo and Hispanic Texas that made the convention. Kids enjoy hunting for familiar names like Houston, Maverick, and McKinney, which later turned up on counties, towns, and even in the dictionary.
The area around the old town site is well worth a few unhurried hours. Walk down toward the Brazos River and picture delegates arriving on horseback in the March cold, with the news from the Alamo still unknown or fresh. The setting is open and green, and on a spring morning it can be lovely.
Washington fits neatly into a Texas independence road trip. San Felipe, Gonzales, and the San Jacinto battleground near Houston each tell another chapter of the same months in 1836. Check current visitor information before you go, and allow time for the countryside of Washington County, whose rolling farmland is especially pretty in wildflower season.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Sam Houston
- · José Antonio Navarro
- · Lorenzo De Zavala
- · George Campbell Childress
- · Francisco Ruiz
Related events
- · Convention of 1836
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Washington-on-the-Brazos
Washington-on-the-Brazos, TX
This village on the Brazos River began in 1822 as a ferry crossing on the historic La Bahia Road and became the birthplace of the Texas nation: here, in an unfinished building owned by a gunsmith, delegates signed the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836. As Santa Anna's army advanced, the provisional government fled and townspeople joined the panicked "Runaway Scrape." After San Jacinto secured independence, Washington served again as capital from 1842 to 1845 and later became a state park preserving "Barrington," home of Anson Jones, the Republic's last president.
George Campbell Childress Statue
Washington, TX
Born in Nashville in 1804, George Campbell Childress came to Texas in 1835 after helping raise funds and volunteers for the Texas cause. As a delegate to the 1836 Constitutional Convention held at Washington-on-the-Brazos, he chaired the Committee of Five that drafted the Texas Declaration of Independence, and he was soon dispatched to Washington to seek U.S. recognition of the new republic. He died in Galveston in 1841.
Andrew Robinson Sr.
Washington, TX
Andrew Robinson Sr. was the first of Stephen F. Austin's "Old 300" colonists to reach Texas, arriving in November 1821 with his family and later receiving title to over 9,000 acres. He co-founded the town of Washington, ran a ferry at the La Bahia Crossing, and kept a hotel and saloon. In 1835 he fought at the Battle of Gonzales, where his unit carried the original Lone Star flag sewn by Sarah Dodson.
Asa Brigham
Washington, TX
Born in Massachusetts in 1790, Asa Brigham became a leading figure in Texas's fight for nationhood, serving as alcalde of the Brazoria municipality in 1835 and signing the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836. He went on to serve the young Republic as auditor and, for most of its existence, as treasurer. He died in 1844 at Washington, the town where independence had been declared.