Colonel Robert M. Coleman

Coleman's quarrel with Houston ended in a discharge and, soon after, a drowning at Velasco. He had been Houston's aide at San Jacinto, then raised a ranger regiment and was its colonel until at least November 1836. In 1837 he was discharged for distributing a pamphlet criticizing Houston's conduct at San Jacinto, and about July 1 he drowned while bathing in the Brazos at Velasco. Born in Kentucky about 1799, he reached Texas in 1831 and signed the Declaration of Independence for Mina. His wife and eldest son were killed in an attack near Webberville in 1839.

What the plaque says

Colonel Robert M. Coleman Erected by the State of Texas In Memory of Colonel Robert M. Coleman Signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence Aide-de-camp to General Sam Houston at San Jacinto Colonel of the first regiment of Texas Rangers Born in Kentucky in 1799 Drowned at the mouth of the Brazos in July 1837

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 7.7 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.
• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 17 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.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 21 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.
• Galveston Island State Park — 29 mi
  A cattle ranch willed to the state that now runs the full width of Galveston Island, from two miles of Gulf beach across dunes and prairie to the marshes of West Galveston Bay.

More markers nearby

• Four Miles Southeast to the Original Town of Velasco — 0.3 mi
• Velasco Methodist Church — 0.4 mi
• Site of Town of Old Velasco — 0.5 mi
• Velasco Lodge No. 757, A. F. & A. M. — 1.1 mi