First Navy of the Republic of Texas

The first Texas navy was assembled from odd hulls. The Liberty was the converted William Robbins, the Independence a former United States revenue cutter, and the Invincible, built in Baltimore for the trade in enslaved Africans, now carried guns. Liberty took the Mexican merchant schooner Pelicano on March 5, 1836, and in May convoyed the schooner carrying the wounded Sam Houston to New Orleans, where she was sold because Texas could not pay the repair bill. New York's customs collector Samuel Swartwout paid to save Brutus and Invincible. The Independence was captured in April 1837, in sight of Galveston.

What the plaque says

First Navy of the Republic of Texas Dedicated to the first navy of the Republic of Texas established by Governor Henry Smith November 25th, 1835. The Fleet: BRUTUS, INDEPENDENCE, LIBERTY and INVINCIBLE. Commemorating the heroism of its personnel; defenders of an empire.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — steps away
  An iron barque launched in Aberdeen in 1877 that called at Galveston twice, ended up smuggling in the Adriatic, and was bought back from a Greek scrapyard to sail again from Pier 22.
• The Strand — 0.2 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 0.7 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.
• 1892 Bishop's Palace — 0.8 mi
  Nicholas Clayton's stone house on Broadway for the railroad lawyer Walter Gresham, later home to Galveston's Catholic bishops and one of the most admired Victorian houses in the country.

More markers nearby

• Battle of Galveston — steps away
• Juneteenth — 0.2 mi
• The Stewart Building — 0.2 mi
• Old Galveston Market House and City Hall — 0.2 mi