Dr. Branch Tanner Archer

Archer arrived in Texas at forty, with a career already behind him. He studied at William and Mary, took a medical degree at the University of Pennsylvania in 1808, practiced in Virginia and served in its legislature before coming to the Brazoria area in 1831. The Consultation of 1835 elected him its chairman, and he went north with Stephen F. Austin and William Wharton to raise loans, returning after independence. Under the Republic he sat in the First Congress, served as speaker of the House in its second session and later was secretary of war.

What the plaque says

Dr. Branch Tanner Archer President of the Consultation, 1835. Texas commissioner to the United States in 1835-1836. Archer County was named in his honor. Born in Virginia, 1790; died September 22, 1856.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 7.4 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 — 14 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 — 17 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.
• Brazos Bend State Park — 27 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.

More markers nearby

• William Harris Wharton — steps away
• Mammoth Lake — 0.6 mi
• The Brazos Canal — 2.6 mi
• Velasco Cemetery — 3.6 mi