DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Sarah Seely Dewitt. Remember that name, because before this story's done, you're going to understand why it matters.
The marker puts it plain: she and her daughter Evaline made the first battle flag of Texas — the very one raised by the colonists at the Battle of Gonzales on October 2, 1835. That flag didn't come from nowhere. It came from these two women, stitchin' and working, handing something to history before history quite knew what it was reachin' for.
Sarah was born in Virginia in 1789. She came to Texas in 1826, alongside her husband Green De Witt — empresario — and their five children. That's a family pullin' up roots and planting them somewhere altogether new, somewhere raw and uncertain.
Green De Witt was a man of business and ambition, born in Kentucky on February 12, 1787. But here's where the story turns quiet and heavy: Green De Witt died in Monclova, Mexico on May 18, 1835 — while on business there. He never saw October 2nd.
Never saw what his wife and daughter made, or what it meant. Sarah outlived him by nearly two decades. She died November 28, 1854, and she is buried here, on Sarah Seely League — land that carries her name still.
So the next time someone wonders where the spirit of the Texas revolution came from, well — part of it came from a woman and her daughter, a needle, some cloth, and the kind of resolve that doesn't ask permission before it makes history.
What the marker says
Who with her daughter Evaline made the first battle flag of Texas used by the colonists in the Battle of Gonzales, October 2, 1835. Born in Virginia, 1789 came to Texas in 1826 with her husband Green De Witt, empresario, and their five children.Died November 28, 1854, and is buried here on Sarah Seely League. Green De Witt born in Kentucky February 12, 1787. Died in Monclova, Mexico May 18, 1835 while on business there.