First State Meeting of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas

The idea came from two young women, Betty Ballinger and Hally Bryan, who in 1891 planned an association of direct descendants of the people who founded the Republic. Their first name for it was the Daughters of Female Descendants of the Heroes of '36. Hally's father, Guy M. Bryan, suggested the motto "Texas, One and Indivisible," and the group met first on November 6, 1891, in Mary Jane Briscoe's Houston home. One early project was persuading the legislature to buy the San Jacinto battleground, where members placed markers at sites the veterans pointed out.

What the plaque says

First State Meeting of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas On April 20, 1892, thirteen members of the Daughters of the Lone Star Republic met in joint session with the Texas Veterans Association in Lampasas. Having been organized the previous November in Houston, the Daughters had been at work in the interim preparing a constitution and by-laws. Guy M. Bryan, vice president of the Texas Veterans Association, presided at the 1892 annual convention in the Lampasas County Courthouse. Mrs. Willie Ashe of Houston, representing her grandmother, Mrs. Anson Jones, President of the Daughters, addressed the gathering and eloquently stated the goals and objectives of the new organization. Following the adjournment of the Texas Veterans' meeting on April 21, the Daughters of the Lone Star Republic reconvened at the Lampasas Methodist Church (2 blocks east). With Mrs. Anson Jones presiding, the members changed the name of the association to the Daughters of the Republic of Texas and adopted a constitution. The first state meeting of the DRT solidified the members' desire to organize and inaugurated a Texas institution dedicated to the preservation of the heritage of the Republic era. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hancock Springs Park — 0.8 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.
• Colorado Bend State Park — 18 mi
  Old ranch country on the Colorado above Lake Buchanan, where a spring-fed creek drops 70 feet over fern-covered travertine at Gorman Falls.
• Inks Lake State Park — 25 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 27 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.

More markers nearby

• Horrell-Higgins Feud — steps away
• Lampasas County — steps away
• Gunfight at the Lampasas Saloon — steps away
• Lampasas County, C.S.A. — steps away