DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker on John Howland Wood tells it, as best as I can render it for you on the road. Now, if you'd drawn a map of John Howland Wood's life and tried to predict where it would end up, New York — born and raised New York — is probably not where you'd start the pencil. And yet here we are, deep in Victoria County, Texas, talking about a man who made himself at home in just about every corner of this coast.
Wood came to Texas in 1836. Eighteen thirty-six. You know what was happening in Texas in 1836.
He didn't just show up to watch — he fought in the Texas Revolution. After that, he served as quartermaster with the Texas Army in Victoria. Quartermaster.
That's the man who keeps an army fed, supplied, and moving. You want things to go wrong fast, put a bad quartermaster in that job. Wood apparently kept things going right.
When the fighting was done and the dust had settled, Wood did what a certain kind of man does — he found a piece of this coast that suited him and he stayed. In the 1840s he settled on a ranch at Black Point, the place you'd know today as Bayside. And here is where the story gets interesting, because the U.S.
Army had set up camp at Corpus Christi under a general named Zachary Taylor — yes, that Zachary Taylor — and somebody had to supply those soldiers with beef. John Howland Wood was that somebody. Then came the Civil War, and Wood was back in uniform in spirit if not in title — serving as patrol captain in coastal defense.
Watching the water. Keeping an eye on everything moving in and out along that stretch of Texas shore. And when the war was over, Wood turned his attention to something quieter but no less lasting — he became active in developing the City of Rockport.
New York boy. Texas revolutionary. Quartermaster.
Rancher. Beef supplier. Coastal patrol captain.
City builder. The marker doesn't pick a lane for John Howland Wood, and honestly, why would it? The man clearly never did.
What the marker says
Born in New York, John Howland Wood came to Texas in 1836 and fought in the Texas Revolution. After serving as quartermaster with the Texas Army in Victoria, he settled on a ranch at Black Point (now Bayside) in the 1840s. Wood supplied beef to the U.S. Army stationed at Corpus Christi under Gen. Zachary Taylor. He served as patrol captain in coastal defense during the Civil War and was active in developing the City of Rockport. (1985)