Besser, General John Slater

Besser's prison years ended in a confrontation. The Texas State Library says he was appointed the penitentiary's financial agent in 1852, wrote its early rules and ran its textile mill, and that he openly opposed secession. He faced an investigation into the mill's management but kept Governor Lubbock's support. In 1863 he resigned after Texas state troops stormed the prison factory to take clothing at gunpoint and fired shots into his office. In a December 1863 letter he wrote that he seized a musket while his wife and son were threatened.

What the plaque says

Besser, General John Slater A native of Pennsylvania, John Slater Besser was a brigadier general, legislator, and judge in Missouri before moving his family to Texas in 1842. While living in Montgomery and Walker counties, Besser held a number of public offices before and after the Civil War. He served as director and financial agent of the state penitentiary under Governors Bell, Henderson, Pease, Runnels, Houston, Clark, and Lubbock, and was Walker County Judge from 1878 to 1880. Married four times, Besser was the father of nine children born to his first wife, Julia Hampton. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site — 31 mi
  A cedar-log dogtrot cabin of 1834 on the road through Anderson that grew into a seventeen-room inn and post office for travelers of the Republic, kept by one family until 1976.

More markers nearby

• The Huntsville Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1867 — steps away
• Anthony Martin Branch — steps away
• Baker, James Addison — steps away
• Pleasant Williams Kittrell — steps away