DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one passin' it along. Now, most men who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence lived long enough to see what they'd put their names to. Edward Conrad was not most men.
He was born in Pennsylvania in 1810, and by 1835 he had made his way to Texas — which, if you know anything about 1835 in Texas, tells you something about the kind of man he was. Things were building toward something. You could feel it in the air, if you were there.
And on March 2, 1836, Edward Conrad was there. He put his name to the Texas Declaration of Independence. Right there alongside the others, his signature on a document that would echo through history.
But here is where the story takes its turn. Edward Conrad did not step back from the fight once the ink was dry. He was serving as an officer in the Army of the Republic of Texas — the very republic those signatures had just called into being.
And on July 13, 1836, he died. In Victoria. The republic he helped declare existed.
He had seen to that. He just didn't get much time to live inside it. The State of Texas erected this marker in 1936 — one hundred years after Conrad signed his name and gave what followed.
Some men build the door. Not all of them get to walk through it.
What the marker says
Born in Pennsylvania in 1810. Came to Texas in 1835. A signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence March 2, 1836. Died in Victoria July 13, 1836 while an officer in the Army of the Republic of Texas. Erected by the State of Texas 1936