William B. Standifer

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm just the one passin' it along. William B. Standifer.

Now that name might not ring out like thunder across every Texas history book you've ever cracked open, but let me tell you what the record says, and sometimes the record says plenty with just a few words. Born in Illinois, February 10, 1819. A long way from Texas, that.

But Texas has a way of calling people to her, and William B. Standifer answered. He rode with Captain Jesse Billingsley's company.

At San Jacinto. If you know anything about Texas, you know what those two words carry. San Jacinto.

That was the fight that settled things, and William B. Standifer was there, standing in that company, part of that moment. The marker doesn't give us a long story.

It gives us the essential one. A man, born in Illinois, who made his way to one of the most consequential hours in Texas history, and then lived on, carrying that with him, until July 8, 1876. What happened in between, well, the marker doesn't say, and I won't invent it for you.

But standing at San Jacinto with Captain Jesse Billingsley's company, that's not a small thing to put on a man's record. That's the whole ballgame right there.

What the marker says

A member of Capt. Jesse Billingsley's company at San Jacinto. Born in Illinois February 10, 1819; died July 8, 1876.