Archelaus Bynum Dodson

Dodson's war ended in a sickbed, not on the field. As first lieutenant of the Harrisburg company under Andrew Robinson, he marched to the siege of Bexar and did not get home until early 1836. When Santa Anna's army advanced that spring, he helped protect women and children in the Runaway Scrape, caught measles from sick children among them, and missed the battle of San Jacinto. The Handbook of Texas says so plainly, which contradicts the marker's claim that he fought on until after the victory. His flag story belongs to his first wife.

What the plaque says

Archelaus Bynum Dodson (December 31, 1807-March 10, 1898) Texas patriot famed as man who introduced the Lone Star flag during the Texas Revolution. Born in North Carolina, Dodson came to Texas with his parents in 1827. He served as a delegate to the 1832 Convention seeking governmental reforms. On May 17, 1835, he married Sarah Rudolph Bradley. Later in the year 1835, Dodson was first lieutenant in Texas defense unit under Capt. Andrew Robinson. To Robinson's company his bride presented her handiwork-- a red, white and blue flag of Texas. This banner flew at Washington-on the-Brazos when Declaration of Independence was signed March 2, 1836. Dodson continued to fight in the Texas Revolution until after victory at San Jacinto. He located his headright of land in Grimes County, moving family there in 1844. Mrs. Sarah Bradley Dodson, flag maker and mother of six children, died in 1848. Her grave is in Bethel Cemetery, near Bedias, Grimes County. Dodson in 1850 married Louisa McWhorter, a widow. In 1860 he moved his family west to another Texas frontier, on the Nueces River. In this vicinity he lived to a respected old age. At death he was buried in Collins Cemetery, a half-mile south of here. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Duval County Courthouse — 12 mi
  A red-brick Classical Revival courthouse of 1916 in San Diego, the seat of a county governed for decades by the Parr family machine.
• King Ranch Visitor Center — 19 mi
  The bus-tour gate to a working ranch of about 825,000 acres, founded on Santa Gertrudis Creek in 1853 and worked from the start by the Kineños, families from Cruillas in Tamaulipas.
• Lipantitlán State Historic Site — 20 mi
  Five undeveloped acres on the Nueces named for the Lipan Apaches who camped here, where Mexico built an earth-and-rail fort that Texans took early in the Revolution.
• Lake Corpus Christi State Park — 24 mi
  A lake park in the South Texas brush country above Mathis, on a reservoir of the Nueces, with a Civilian Conservation Corps refectory and more than 200 bird species.

More markers nearby

• Alonso S. Perales — steps away
• Los Preseños — 1.4 mi
• Jim Wells County Courthouse — 1.5 mi
• Alice — 1.6 mi