George Rounds

Rounds left no heirs, only a will. The Handbook of Texas has him in the army by December 22, 1835, paid in Captain Wadsworth's company until September 22, 1836, and also in Fannin's regiment, from which he became separated and so escaped the Goliad Massacre. He may have carried mail on a Brazos riverboat by 1850, and he boarded for a time with Ammon Underwood. On February 1, 1852, he bought land in East Columbia. He died there on September 13, 1855, leaving neither descendants nor heirs.

What the plaque says

George Rounds (1805 - 1855) New Yorker George Rounds served in Col. James W. Fannin's regiment in the Texas War for Independence but escaped the Goliad Massacre. He settled in Columbia, where he operated a tavern. Just before his death, he drew up a will devising his estate to "educating poor and orphan children" in the community. Discoveries of oil and gas on the Rounds property during the 1930s increased the value of the fund. Rounds' philanthropy continues to aid local students today. Recorded - 1976

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 1.6 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.
• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 9.8 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.
• Brazos Bend State Park — 17 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.
• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 21 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.

More markers nearby

• Ammon Underwood — steps away
• Josiah H. Bell — steps away
• Samuel Tubbs Angier, M.D. — steps away
• Old Columbia Cemetery — steps away