DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Eagle Island Plantation, Brazoria County — and friend, even the name sounds like something out of a dream somebody had on a slow river bend. This was the home of Sarah Ann Groce Wharton, born 1810, died 1878, and her husband William Harris Wharton, born 1806, died 1839.
Now just sit with those years a moment, because the story packed into William Harris Wharton's short time on this earth is something else entirely. The man showed up at the Convention of Texas in 1832 — right there in the thick of it, when Texas was still sorting out what it even was. Then he came back the very next year and presided over the Convention of 1833 as its President.
President. The whole room. When the Republic of Texas stood up and started breathing on its own, Wharton was in the Senate, 1836 to 1838, and simultaneously — or near enough — he was serving as Texas minister to the United States from 1836 to 1837, carrying this young republic's case all the way to Washington.
Eagle Island Plantation wasn't just a home sitting quiet by the water. The marker calls it a gathering place for distinguished people, and you get the sense that if something important was being decided about Texas in those years, somebody in that conversation had been to this house. Sarah Ann Groce Wharton outlived her husband by a long stretch, keeping that place and its legacy going until 1878.
Two people, one plantation, and a whole lot of Texas history walking through the front door.
What the marker says
Site of the home of Sarah Ann Groce Wharton (1810-1878) and William Harris Wharton (1806-1839). Member of the Convention of Texas, 1832. President of the Convention of 1833; member of the Senate of the Republic of Texas, 1836-1838; Texas minister to the United States, 1836-1837. A gathering place for distinguished people.