Site of The Home of Robert McAlpin Williamson

Duane's take

Well, here's my telling of what the official marker says, right here in Wharton County. So pull up a camp chair and let me tell you about a man who seemed to have his hand in just about everything that mattered in early Texas. His name was Robert McAlpin Williamson, and friend, that is a name worth knowing.

Born in Georgia in 1806, he didn't stay put long. Texas had a way of calling to certain kinds of people, the restless ones, the ones with ink on their fingers and opinions on their tongues. Williamson was both.

He took up the editor's pen for not one but two pioneer Texas newspapers, The Texas Gazette and The Mexican Citizen. Now think about that for a moment. Pioneer newspapers.

That means he was out there setting type and shaping stories before Texas was even Texas, helping people make sense of a world that was still being invented underneath their boots. And when the revolution came, he didn't watch from the pressroom. He was active in it, right in the thick of things.

Then, with the Republic of Texas freshly born in 1836, Williamson took a seat on the Supreme Court of the Republic and held it through 1839. The highest court of a brand new nation. After that, he moved into the Texas Legislature, serving from 1846 to 1849, by which point Texas had traded the Republic's lone star flag for a place in the Union.

Robert McAlpin Williamson lived through all of it, the newspapers, the revolution, the Republic, the statehood, and he kept showing up, kept serving. He died on December 22, 1859. Right here in Wharton County is where he called home, and now you know whose home it was.

What the marker says

Born in Georgia in 1806, editor "The Texas Gazette" and "The Mexican Citizen," pioneer Texas newspapers. Active in the revolution, member of the Supreme Court of the Republic, 1836-1839. Member of Texas Legislature 1846-1849, died December 22, 1859.