De Witt County

Green DeWitt arrived at his grant with a life behind him. Born in Lincoln County, Kentucky, he was taken to Spanish Missouri as an infant, went back for two years of school and in 1808 married Sarah Seely of St. Louis. He captained Missouri militia in the War of 1812 and later served as sheriff of Ralls County. After the Texas grant he was accused of misusing Missouri public funds and cleared on October 16, 1825. In 1835 he went to Monclova to seek land, fell ill, probably with cholera, and was buried in an unmarked grave.

What the plaque says

De Witt County Created March 24, 1846 from Gonzales, Victoria and Goliad counties; organized July 13, 1846, with Cameron as the county seat. Named in honor of Green De Witt, a Texas Empresario born in Kentucky February 12, 1787. Died in Mexico, May 18, 1835.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum — 14 mi
  A cattle-country museum in Cuero's 1903 Knights of Pythias Hall, telling the Guadalupe Valley's 1866 drive north and the Sutton-Taylor feud that bloodied DeWitt County.
• Goliad State Park and Historic Site — 23 mi
  Mission Espíritu Santo on the San Antonio River, a mission ranch whose herds seeded Texas cattle country, rebuilt from ruin by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.
• Presidio La Bahía — 24 mi
  A Spanish fort on its third site since 1749, held in turn by filibusters, insurgents and Fannin's Fort Defiance, rebuilt in stone in the 1960s around a chapel that never fell.
• Zaragoza Birthplace State Historic Site — 24 mi
  A rebuilt stone house beside La Bahía marking where Ignacio Seguín Zaragoza, the general of the Battle of Puebla and Cinco de Mayo, was born in 1829.

More markers nearby

• Co-Founders of Yorktown: John York_Charles Eckhardt — 0.6 mi
• Shiloh — 3.2 mi
• Lithuanians in Texas — 3.8 mi
• Site of the Home of Captain John York — 7.3 mi