Byrd Lockhart

Lockhart is remembered for the supply run that kept him out of the Alamo, but surveying was his trade. Born in 1782, a widower, he reached DeWitt's colony in 1826 with his mother, sister and two children and was commissioned deputy surveyor that December. In 1827 he took charge of the blockhouses at Gonzales and opened a road from Bexar through Gonzales to Matagorda Bay. In 1830 he took four leagues on Plum Creek as payment. In 1835 he served at Bexar in the same company as his son Byrd Jr. The Handbook gives only 1839 for his death.

What the plaque says

Byrd Lockhart BYRD LOCKHART Byrd Lockhart, Jr. moved to Green DeWitt's Colony from Missouri around 1826 with several female relatives. He worked as a surveyor for the colony and settled in Gonzales, where he organized defenses against Indian attacks and supervised construction of roads from Gonzales to the coast and San Antonio de Bexar. In 1835-36, Lockhart served in the Texan Army at the Siege of Bexar and as a commissioner to negotiate with Indian tribes. Having helped organize the Gonzales rangers ("the immortal 32"), Lockhart left the Alamo to obtain supplies before the final siege. He later acted as a spy for the Texan army. He died in Columbia (now west Columbia) in Brazoria County in 1839. Lockhart, texas, was named in his honor. (2014)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 1.7 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.
• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 9.8 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Brazos Bend State Park — 17 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 21 mi
  Coastal prairie, salt marsh and bays between Freeport and Christmas Bay, where an auto tour along Big Slough passes wintering geese, ducks and wading birds in the tens of thousands.

More markers nearby

• John Adriance — steps away
• John S. D. Byrom — steps away
• Nathaniel C. Hazen — steps away
• Josiah H. Bell — steps away