DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, there are names carved into Texas history that fill up whole chapters — generals, governors, men with portraits hanging in fancy halls. But then there are names like Abram Wiley Hill, and those names deserve a moment too.
Just a few words on a marker out in Bastrop County, but listen to what those words carry. Abram Wiley Hill was a soldier in the Texas War for Independence. Eighteen thirty-six — that year the whole fate of this land hung by a thread.
And Hill was there. Not just somewhere in the campaign, mind you — he was at San Jacinto. A San Jacinto veteran.
That's the marker's phrase, plain and unadorned, and it doesn't need dressing up. San Jacinto is San Jacinto. The State of Texas thought enough of Abram Wiley Hill to erect this marker in his honor, and I think that's exactly right.
Some stories don't need embellishment. They just need to be told.
What the marker says
Star and Wreath Soldier in the Texas War for Independence, 1836. A San Jacinto veteran. Erected by the State of Texas, 1962