Ira Ingram

In the week before Christmas 1835, men holding Goliad signed a declaration of independence that Ira Ingram drafted, three months before the convention at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Thirty of its ninety-two signers came from Matagorda. Ingram had taken part in capturing the town and served as commissary and secretary to its commandant, Philip Dimmitt. A Vermonter who reached Texas in January 1826 at his brother Seth's urging, he sat in the conventions of 1832 and 1833 and in 1836 joined Thomas Stewart's Matagorda Volunteers. On April 5, 1836, Houston ordered him to recruit volunteers in East Texas and the United States.

What the plaque says

Ira Ingram First alcalde of Matagorda municipality, 1834. Member of the Congress of the Republic and first Speaker of the House of Representatives, 1836. Pioneer patron of public school. Born in Vermont August 18, 1788 died September 22, 1837.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 28 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.

More markers nearby

• Seth Ingram — steps away
• Richard Royster Royall — steps away
• Dr. Albert Moses Levy — steps away
• Sinclair David Gervais — steps away