DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker on John Lawrence Hall tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, some men come to Texas and Texas takes everything they've got. And some men come to Texas and figure out exactly how the game is played.
John Lawrence Hall — born October 25, 1809, up in Maryland — was very much the second kind of man. He didn't ride straight in from the East, though. He made a stop first.
New Orleans. And if you know anything about New Orleans, you know that a man who passes through there and comes out the other side with his wits intact is a man worth watching. Hall made it to Texas in 1831, and Texas, it seems, was ready for him.
When the shooting started in 1835, Hall was there. Served in the Texas Army through 1836 — those were the years that decided everything about this place. But Hall wasn't done soldiering.
He came back for the Republic of Texas Army in 1841, and then again for the Mexican War in 1846. Three separate calls, three separate answers. The man kept showing up.
And here's where it gets interesting. All that military service came with land grants. That was the currency of the era — acres instead of coin.
Now a lesser man might've taken those grants, built a fence, and called it a life. Not Hall. He kept adding to what he had, buying up more land, speculating, turning acreage into opportunity.
Became, by any honest measure, a successful man. He was a Mason. He counted President Sam Houston among his friends — which in Texas was about as good a calling card as a man could carry.
And in the 1850s, over in Crockett, Hall ran a thriving hotel. A place where travelers came in off the road, sat down, and caught their breath. And if all of that weren't enough, John Lawrence Hall put his name to a petition to create Houston County itself.
He helped draw the lines of this place on the map. He died August 25, 1857. Maryland boy, New Orleans layover, three wars, a hotel, a land empire, and a county bearing the name of his friend.
Not bad for one run through Texas.
What the marker says
(October 25, 1809 -- August 25, 1857) ' Maryland native John Lawrence Hall lived in New Orleans before coming to Texas in 1831. Hall served in the Texas Army (1835-36), Republic of Texas Army (1841), and in the Mexican War (1846). He added to the land grants he received for military service and became a successful land speculator. A Mason and a friend of President Sam Houston, Hall owned a thriving hotel in Crockett during the 1850s, and was among the signers of a petition to create Houston County. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995