Galveston Artillery Club

The company was a citizen force with strict terms. Members bought their own uniforms and weapons, paid a fifty-cent initiation fee and twenty-five cents a month in dues, and had to attend meetings. The Rosenberg Library says it has given an annual ball since 1840. For the centennial ball on December 2, 1940, at the Hollywood Dinner Club, the committee presented no new debutantes and instead honored every woman who had made a formal debut before 1925, the oldest in 1872. A 14-piece orchestra played, and a 50-foot table carried the supper.

What the plaque says

Galveston Artillery Club By 1840, a year after its incorporation, the city of Galveston was home to approximately 1,200 residents, the entry point for scores of immigrants and a major coastal shipping port. Ongoing tensions between the young Republic of Texas and Mexico had led to the creation of several volunteer militia groups. On September 13 of that year, a group primarily composed of local businessmen and their clerks organized the Galveston Artillery Company. The group received its charter in January 1841 to protect the harbor and the city. Members elected John Howe as captain, and he appointed A.C. Crawford, L.E. Nordman, W. Denny, C. Frankland and E.O. Lynch, as well as four sergeants and four corporals, as the company's first officers. The company participated locally in parades, drills, musters and Battle of San Jacinto commemorations, and the group became known for its lavish annual balls. The Texas government rarely called the company into state service; members made their most eventful journey off the island in 1861, at the outset of the Civil War, accompanying other groups to call for Federal surrender of Fort Brown (Brownsville). The Galveston company disbanded during the war, with many members participating elsewhere in the conflict. Following the war, the Galveston Artillery Company underwent several reorganizations, merging with other local militia groups and later allowing memberships in a separate social branch. By 1899, the group was known as Galveston Artillery Club and had evolved into a social rather than a military organization. During the 20th century, the prestigious club continued to evolve, continuing its traditional balls and other events, while maintaining a proud, strong link to its roots in service to the city of Galveston. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Moody Mansion — 0.6 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.
• 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.
• The Strand — 1.1 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.
• Texas Seaport Museum and the Elissa — 1.3 mi
  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.

More markers nearby

• Holy Rosary Catholic Church — steps away
• Site of the Home of Michael Branaman Menard — steps away
• The Mexican Telegraph Company_The Zimmermann Telegram — steps away
• Gail Borden, Jr. — 0.3 mi