DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker's got the story, and here's how I tell it. Sit with me a minute, because this one goes back a long way — further back than Houston County itself, all the way to a man named Daniel McLean, born in 1784, who first set foot in Texas not as a settler but as a soldier. The year was 1813, and he came with the Gutierrez-Magee expedition — one of those audacious, borderline-desperate enterprises that history remembers mostly for what went wrong.
And plenty went wrong. There was a battle on the Medina River, and when the smoke cleared, only 93 men had survived. Daniel McLean was one of them.
Ninety-three, out of however many went in. Chew on that number a moment. He made it out.
Most didn't. Now a man who survives something like the Battle of the Medina has got a decision to make — and Daniel McLean's decision was, eventually, to come back. He returned to Texas with his wife Hannah, born a Sheridan, and together they came into Stephen F.
Austin's original colony. In 1821, McLean settled a league of land right here, in the country that would become Houston County, and that made him the first permanent resident of this whole area. First.
Before the towns, before the roads, before most of the names on any map. He and Hannah put down roots in raw, uncharted territory and held on. The land has been McLean land ever since 1821 — the marker says so plain.
But the story doesn't end easy. On May 10, 1837, Daniel McLean and his brother-in-law John Sheridan were killed by Indians near what is now the town of Elkhart, Texas. Daniel McLean, who had walked away from the Medina when nearly everyone else didn't, who had carved a home out of nothing in 1821, was gone by 1837.
He and Hannah are buried near this very marker, on the land they never let go of. Some stories end with triumph. This one ends with the ground itself — the same ground they claimed, the same ground that still carries their name.
What the marker says
Daniel McLean (1784-1837) first came to Texas in 1813 with the Gutierrez-Magee expedition, and was one of 93 survivors of the fateful Battle of the Medina. Returning with his wife Hannah (Sheridan) in the original Austin colony, he settled this league in 1821 and became first permanent resident of area now in Houston County. McLean and his brother-in-law John Sheridan were killed by Indians May 10, 1837, near site of present town of Elkhart, Texas. Daniel and Hannah McLean are buried near this marker. Because of their pioneering spirit, this has been Mclean land since 1821.