DUANE
Duane's take
The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of George Washington Glasscock — and friend, it is one worth pulling over for. He was born in Kentucky in 1810, which means by the time history started movin' fast, George Glasscock was already right there in the middle of it. He served in the Illinois militia during the Black Hawk War of 1832 — and he did it in the same two units as a lanky fellow you may have heard of named Abraham Lincoln.
Same units, same war. Let that settle over you for a second. And it didn't stop there.
After the militia, George became Lincoln's business partner, the two of them flat-boating together on the Sangamon River. Now that is a friendship forged on moving water. But George Glasscock was not a man who stayed in one place long.
In 1834, he came to Texas and settled in Zavala. And then 1835 arrived — and if you know your Texas history, you know that year did not stay quiet. Events unfolded fast, and George moved with them.
He found himself fighting alongside Jim Bowie and Ben Milam in the Siege of Bexar. The company he kept, I tell you. After independence, George turned to surveying — reading the land rather than fighting over it.
In 1846 he moved to the Williamson County area, where he opened the area's first gristmill and donated land for the county seat. He later settled in Austin, became a state legislator, and by all accounts a prominent citizen. And when Texas went looking for names to put on the map — on a county seat and on a whole county — they reached for his.
Georgetown and Glasscock County both bear his name. From a Kentucky birth in 1810 to two units with Lincoln to the siege at Bexar to the founding of a county seat — George Washington Glasscock didn't just pass through Texas history. He helped build the place.
What the marker says
Born in Kentucky in 1810, G. W. Glasscock served in the Illinois militia in the Black Hawk War of 1832 in the same two units as Abraham Lincoln. Later he was Lincoln's business partner in flat-boating on the Sangamon River. In 1834, George came to Texas and settled in Zavala. As events unfolded in 1835, he quickly became involved in the Texas Revolution, fighting alongside Jim Bowie and Ben Milam in the Siege of Bexar. After independence, George was a surveyor and moved to the Williamson County area in 1846, where he opened the area's first gristmill and donated land for the county seat. He settled in Austin and became a state legislator and a prominent citizen. Georgetown and Glasscock County are named in his honor. (2014)