General Sam Houston

Houston came to Rocky Creek in the year he broke with his own party. In 1854 he opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill because it left slavery to be settled by popular sovereignty, which angered Texas Democrats, and he leaned toward the Know-Nothings. The Handbook of Texas suggests he joined the Baptists partly in response to those troubles. He joined Independence Church on November 19 and was baptized that day by Rufus Burleson as onlookers crowded the creek bank. A story still told in Independence has him joking that the fish downstream deserved pity.

What the plaque says

General Sam Houston One and one-half miles south General Sam Houston was baptized by Rufus C. Burleson, Baptist minister and president of Baylor University, November 19, 1854 in Rocky Creek. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 0.5 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 11 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Star of the Republic Museum — 12 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.
• Navasota — 16 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.

More markers nearby

• Baylor University for Boys — steps away
• Baylor University on Windmill Hill — steps away
• Home Built in 1845 by General Jerome B. Robertson — steps away
• Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor (1793-1873) — steps away