DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker out here in Chambers County is the one I'm going on about today, and it's a story worth every mile of road between here and there. Now, if family tradition has it right — and in Texas, family tradition tends to hold its ground — Charles Nathan Tilton spent his earliest years at sea, working as a cabin boy and boatswain's mate for none other than the pirate Jean Laffite. Let that settle for a moment.
The man whose descendants would become quiet Chambers County landowners once crewed for one of the most notorious figures ever to haunt the Gulf of Mexico. Records show Tilton came to Texas about 1829. Two years later, in 1831, he married Anna Barber, the fifteen-year-old daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth Barrow Barber, and they made their home in this area.
Whatever storms Tilton had weathered at sea, he was now planting roots in Texas soil. And Texas, at that moment, had its own storms brewing. When the revolution came, Charles Tilton fought.
And here's the detail that tells you something about the man — during the chaos of the Runaway Scrape, when settlers were fleeing ahead of Santa Anna's army, Tilton left the fight long enough to come home and ensure his family's safety. Then, presumably, he went back to the business of revolution. In 1838, the new Republic rewarded him for it.
Tilton was granted a headright of 1,496 acres of land near this very site. Not a bad piece of Texas. But the Tiltons weren't ones to stay put.
For a time the family lived on Matagorda Peninsula, where Charles engaged in shipping and cattle ventures and they named their home Tiltona. That name would outlast their tenure there, at least in memory, because in 1847 a land speculator and Congressman by the name of Samuel Maverick bought Tiltona — along with 400 head of cattle. And when Maverick needed a brand for those cattle, he adapted it from Tilton's.
That is what the marker says. Make of it what you will. The Tilton family returned to Chambers County that same year, 1847.
And the land they came back to would, within a few years, become the site of something permanent. Between 1853 and 1860, a man named Michael Chavenoe — a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto and a friend of the Tilton family — died while visiting them. And Charles and Anna Tilton did what you do for someone who dies under your roof and in your care: they set aside an acre of land for a family cemetery.
Charles Tilton himself would be among the first to need it. He died in 1861 in Galveston, while attending to his freight hauling business. They brought him home, and he was interred here on Christmas Day.
Anna Tilton died in 1883 and was buried beside him. Their nine children and the generations that followed continued to use that acre of ground. And the ones who rest there now carried a lot of Texas history on their shoulders — veterans of the Texas Revolution, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War are all interred in this cemetery.
Cared for by Tilton descendants to this day, it remains what the marker calls it: a chronicle of early Texas pioneers. A cabin boy for a pirate who became a revolutionary, a rancher, a freight hauler, and finally a man at rest on his own land, Christmas Day, 1861. That acre of Chambers County holds a whole lot of Texas.
What the marker says
According to family tradition, Charles Nathan Tilton was a cabin boy and boatswain's mate for the pirate Jean Laffite. Records show that Tilton came to Texas about 1829. He married Anna Barber, the 15-year-old daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth Barrow Barber, in 1831. They made their home in this area. Tilton fought in the Texas revolution, returning home during the "Runaway Scrape" to ensure the safety of his family. In 1838 he was granted a headright including 1,496 acres of land near this site. The Tilton family lived for a time on Matagorda Peninsula, where they named their home Tiltona and Charles engaged in shipping and cattle ventures. The land speculator and Congressman Samuel Maverick adapted his brand from Tilton's when he bought Tiltona and 400 heard of cattle in 1847. The Tilton family returned to Chambers County that same year. Between 1853 and 1860, Michael Chavenoe, a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto and a Tilton family friend, died while visiting the family. Charles and Anna Tilton set aside an acre of land for a family cemetery at that time. Charles Tilton died in 1861 while in Galveston attending to his freight hauling business. He was interred here on Christmas Day. Anna Tilton died in 1883 and was buried beside her husband. Charles and Anna's nine children and their descendants continued to use the family graveyard. Veterans of the Texas revolution, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War are interred here. Cared for by Tilton descendants, the cemetery remains as a chronicle of early Texas pioneers. (1999)