Sinclair David Gervais

Duane's take

Here's the tale as the official marker tells it, and I'm just the one passin' it along. Sinclair David Gervais, born a son of South Carolina, came into this world a long way from Texas. He fought in the War of 1812, which is no small thing to put on a man's résumé.

Back home he and his wife Katherine raised four children together. Then Katherine passed, and something shifted. Gervais gathered two of his daughters and pointed himself toward Texas.

That was 1835, and Texas at that moment was not exactly a settled, comfortable place to bring your family. It was the kind of move that says something about a man. He arrived and almost immediately provisional governor Henry Smith took notice, appointing Gervais the first alcalde of the municipality of Mina, the place we now call Bastrop.

First alcalde. Not second, not third. First.

The kind of appointment that lands on a man's shoulders before there's even a tradition to lean on. Then in 1837 he moved again, this time to Matagorda. And President Sam Houston, who had his own eye for capable men, appointed Gervais the second chief justice of Matagorda County.

A soldier, a widower, a father who crossed into a raw republic with two daughters in tow, and wound up holding two different appointments in two different places under two different leaders. The marker doesn't editorialize. It doesn't have to.

What the marker says

A native of South Carolina, Sinclair David Gervais was a soldier in the War of 1812. He and his wife Katherine were the parents of four children. Following her death, Gervais and two of his daughters came to Texas in 1835. He was appointed the first alcalde of the municipality of Mina (Bastrop) by provisional governor Henry Smith. Gervais came to Matagorda in 1837 and was appointed the second chief justice of Matagorda County by President Sam Houston. (1989)