Col. William F. Upton

The stone sums up Upton's career; the family he married into lies beside him. On January 21, 1858, he married Mary Ann Henderson in Austin, and they had one son. His service record shows a slower climb than the stone implies: second lieutenant in October 1861, captain of Company H in Bradford's Texas Cavalry in June 1864, lieutenant colonel only in March 1865. When he moved his store to Schulenburg in 1875, his father-in-law, Alfred Henderson, was elected mayor. Upton died here on February 7, 1887, and was buried beside Mary Ann, who died in 1911, and her parents.

What the plaque says

Col. William F. Upton (1832 - 1887) Coming to Texas in 1853, W. F. Upton settled near High Hill. He organized (1861) and was Lieutenant Colonel of Texas state troops guarding frontiers and coastline during the Civil War. A leading state legislator in 1866 and 1879-85, he aided post-war recovery in Texas. Had a store in Schulenburg many years. A West Texas County, created soon after he died, honors name of Col. Upton and a brother, Col. John C. Upton, a hero killed at second battle of Manassas in 1862. Recorded-1976

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Nativity of Mary, Blessed Virgin Catholic Church (High Hill) — 2.3 mi
  A red brick Gothic Revival church of 1906 in a German farm settlement, where two San Antonio painters spent 1912 faking marble columns and stone vaults on wood.
• Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church (Dubina) — 6.0 mi
  The church of Texas's first Czech settlement, under a sky-blue painted ceiling that was whitewashed in the 1950s and brought back from faint traces by its own parishioners.
• St. John the Baptist Catholic Church (Ammannsville) — 7.9 mi
  A wooden Carpenter Gothic church built in 1919 after storm and fire took two before it, its dusty-rose interior painted by an artist whose name was lost for decades.
• St. Mary's Church of the Assumption (Praha) — 8.9 mi
  The mother parish of the Czech settlements around Flatonia, a stone-fronted church of 1895 whose ceiling Gottfried Flury turned into a turquoise garden, with an August 15 feast since 1855.

More markers nearby

• Lyons Family Cemetery — steps away
• Turner Hall — 0.8 mi
• Schulenburg — 0.8 mi
• Bermuda Valley Farm — 1.3 mi