De Witt County

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. De Witt County. Three counties walked into a room, so to speak, on March 24, 1846.

Gonzales, Victoria, and Goliad. And out of that meeting came something new. A county all its own.

The organization followed not long after, July 13, 1846, with Cameron named as the county seat. Now, a county needs a name, and this one carries the name of Green De Witt. A man worth knowing about.

De Witt was a Texas Empresario, one of those bold figures who took on the enormous task of bringing settlers into this land. He was born in Kentucky, February 12, 1787. And he lived a life pointed squarely at Texas.

But here is where the story turns quiet, and you have to sit with it a moment. Green De Witt died in Mexico, May 18, 1835. He never saw the Republic he helped build.

Never saw the state that would carry his name forward. And yet, here it is. De Witt County, stretching out under a wide Texas sky, named for a Kentucky-born empresario who gave what he had to a place that remembered him long after he was gone.

That's the kind of legacy that outlasts a man.

What the marker says

Created March 24, 1846 from Gonzales, Victoria and Goliad counties; organized July 13, 1846, with Cameron as the county seat. Named in honor of Green De Witt, a Texas Empresario born in Kentucky February 12, 1787. Died in Mexico, May 18, 1835.