DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Major Reuben R. Brown, right out of Brazoria County. Now, there are men who drifted into Texas history sideways — not through the grand battles everybody knows by name, but through the kind of trouble that has a way of finding the bold ones first.
Reuben R. Brown was that kind of man. He was born February 3, 1808, and he came into the Texas War for Independence the way a lot of young men did — chasing something bigger than himself.
He joined the Matamoros Expedition of January 1836. That expedition had ambitions. And early on, Brown's detachment managed something worth crowing about: they captured horses belonging to General Urrea of the Mexican army.
Horses. Right out from under a Mexican general. That is either very brave or very audacious, and in Texas those two things have always been close neighbors.
But General Urrea was not the kind of man who let that kind of thing go unanswered. A counterattack came, and Reuben R. Brown was made captive.
Just like that, the hunter became the held. What followed was eleven months in prison in Mexico. Eleven months.
You sit with that number a moment. And then — and this is where the story earns its keep — he escaped. The marker doesn't say how, and maybe that's fitting.
Some things a man carries out of a prison he doesn't explain to strangers. Brown lived a long life after all of that. Born 1808, and he didn't leave this world until March 2, 1894.
In his old age, he lived at a place called Sur Mer — the home of his daughter, Mrs. James Perry Bryan. Now Mrs.
Bryan was, by marriage, a great-granddaughter of Moses Austin, the man whose courage, as the marker puts it, had led to the colonization of Texas. So there was Reuben R. Brown, a man who had ridden on a Mexican general's horses and sat in a Mexican prison, spending his final years in a home connected — by blood and by history — to the very founding of the Texas he had fought to free.
Some men end up exactly where they belong.
What the marker says
(February 3, 1808 - March 2, 1894) In Texas War for Independence, joined Matamoros Expedition of January 1836. In detachment that captured horses of Gen. Urrea of Mexican army. Brown was made captive in a counterattack, and spent 11 months in prison in Mexico, but finally escaped. In his old age, he lived at "Sur Mer", home of his daughter Mrs. James Perry Bryan, a great-granddaughter by marriage of Moses Austin, whose courage had led to colonization of Texas. Recorded - 1970