Isham Jones Good

Georgia was possibly the only state to arm a Texas force from its own arsenal, and it did so for the Georgia Battalion that Isham Good joined. William Ward enlisted about 120 volunteers at Macon, Milledgeville and Columbus in November 1835, and recruiting along the way to New Orleans raised the number to about 220. About 85 of the battalion's men were later shot in the Goliad Massacre. Georgia billed Texas for the arms in 1855, and in 1857 its legislature agreed a monument would settle the debt. None stood until Albany, Texas, built a fountain in 1976.

What the plaque says

Isham Jones Good Born in Georgia, Isham Jones Good (1813-1866) came to Texas in 1835 with a group of volunteers to join the Texian forces in their war for independence from Mexico. As a member of the Georgia battalion, Good went to the aid of Col. James W. Fannin, but escaped death or capture in the Goliad Massacre in March 1836. After an honorable discharge from military service in May 1836, Good married Melissa Trantham (1811-1870) in Alabama. By February 1838, he had returned to Texas and settled near this site in what was then Gonzales County. As a participant in the 1840 Indian battle of Plum Creek, Isham Good helped open the area to further settlement. He served as first postmaster when the Plum Creek postal station was established. A civic leader, entrepreneur, and land speculator, Good was instrumental in the formation of Caldwell County in 1848 and served as its first sheriff. During the 1850s, Good sold most of his landholdings and moved his family to Bear Creek in Hays County, where he raised cattle until his death. An important local leader during Texas' formative years, Isham Jones Good is buried on his ranch in Hays County. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lockhart Courthouse Square — 5.2 mi
  A cotton-era courthouse town named the Barbecue Capital of Texas, built near the 1840 Plum Creek fight that followed the killing of Comanche leaders at peace talks.
• Palmetto State Park — 21 mi
  Dwarf palmettos, bogs and a spring-fed oxbow on the San Marcos River, with CCC stonework from the 1930s, a swamp an hour from Austin and San Antonio.
• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 21 mi
  The headsprings of the San Marcos River, among the longest-inhabited places in North America, once an amusement park with a swimming pig and now seen from glass-bottom boats.
• McKinney Falls State Park — 21 mi
  Limestone falls on Onion Creek inside Austin, where people camped under a rock overhang for thousands of years and a financier of the Texas Revolution built his stone ranch house.

More markers nearby

• Bethel Primitive Baptist Church — 4.4 mi
• Andrew Lee Brock — 5.1 mi
• Battle of Plum Creek — 5.1 mi
• Dr. D. Port Smythe — 5.2 mi