George Campbell Childress

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to give it the telling it deserves. George Campbell Childress. Born in Nashville, Tennessee, on January 8, 1804.

Died in Galveston, Texas, on October 6, 1841. Now those two dates, sitting at either end of a life, don't tell you much on their own. But what happened in between those bookends, that is the part worth slowing down for.

George Campbell Childress was the co-author and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. The co-author. The man who helped put the words to paper that told the world Texas was standing up and calling itself free.

Think about that for a moment. The weight of a declaration. The weight of a signature beneath it.

Not every man who rides into history knows he is doing it. Some of them do. The State of Texas saw fit to erect a marker in his memory, and they placed it right here in Galveston County, the same ground where he drew his last breath.

Nashville gave him his beginning. Texas gave him his purpose. And Galveston, in the end, is where the story closed.

What the marker says

Erected by the State of Texas in Memory of George Campbell Childress, co-author and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Born at Nashville, Tennessee, January 8, 1804; died at Galveston, Texas, October 6, 1841.