John Hobson

The Handbook of Texas adds a detail the plaque leaves out: in William Henry Huddle's painting Surrender of Santa Anna in the Capitol, Hobson is about the third man from the left, a pistol in one hand and his other arm in a sling. He fought in Jesse Billingsley's company at San Jacinto, took part in an Elm Creek fight in Milam County in January 1837 and rode with the rangers who founded Fort Fisher at Waco. He served as county commissioner from 1848 to 1852 and from 1854 to 1861, and died about 1862.

What the plaque says

John Hobson Born in Nashville, Tennessee, to John and Susannah Harris Hobson, John Hobson moved to Texas in 1835 and was received as a Robertson colonist in December of that year. Hobson received a headright for a league of land. When Texas went to war against Mexico he enlisted in the Texas Army under the command of Captain Jesse Billingsley and fought at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1863. After the war Hobson remained in the Texas Army, serving as a Ranger until 1837. Receiving additional land grants as payment for his army service, he became one of the largest landowners in the Milam County area. In 1839 he married Eliza Moore, the daughter of a local justice of the peace. Hobson became one of the first commissioners of Milam County in 1846 and helped to select the town of Cameron as the county seat. (1999)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 4.5 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.
• Calvert — 15 mi
  A railroad cotton town of 1868 on State Highway 6 that claimed the largest cotton gin in the world and elected Black men to county and state office during Reconstruction.
• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 30 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.

More markers nearby

• First Presbyterian Church of Maysfield — 3.6 mi
• Maysfield United Methodist Church — 3.6 mi
• Steamboat Washington Landed Here — 3.6 mi
• Site of First Home in Cameron — 4.4 mi