Captain James Burleson

Burleson led the clan that followed his son Edward to Texas. Born in Washington County, Tennessee, he married Elizabeth Shipman in 1791 and raised twelve children. In 1813 he and his brother Joseph served as commissaries in the Creek War and fought with Lt. Sam Houston at Horseshoe Bend. The family moved to Missouri in 1816 and to Hardeman County, Tennessee, in 1825. In 1831 he took a league on the Colorado below the Little Colony. He died at his daughter Rachael Rogers's home north of Bastrop and lies in the McDuff Cemetery.

What the plaque says

Captain James Burleson Chosen commissary by General Andrew Jackson, War of 1812. Edward Burleson, his son, accompanied him as bookkeeper. Participated in the Battle of New Orleans, January 8, 1815. Served under his son, Edward, Army of Texas in the Grass Fight, 1835. Born May 4, 1758; died January 3, 1836.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bastrop State Park — 1.8 mi
  The westernmost loblolly pines in the United States, cut off from the East Texas forest by a hundred miles of post oak, burned almost entirely in 2011 and growing back.
• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 20 mi
  A museum at Serbin of the Wends, a Slavic people from Lusatia whose congregation of nearly 600 crossed on the Ben Nevis in 1854, losing seventy-three to cholera on the way.
• McKinney Falls State Park — 25 mi
  Limestone falls on Onion Creek inside Austin, where people camped under a rock overhang for thousands of years and a financier of the Texas Revolution built his stone ranch house.
• Lockhart Courthouse Square — 26 mi
  A cotton-era courthouse town named the Barbecue Capital of Texas, built near the 1840 Plum Creek fight that followed the killing of Comanche leaders at peace talks.

More markers nearby

• Home Town of Texas Confederate Major Joseph D. Sayers — steps away
• Baron de Bastrop Monument — steps away
• First National Bank of Bastrop — 0.2 mi
• Bastrop Methodist Church — 0.3 mi