John Litton

Litton rode to Texas from Lincoln County, Missouri, around 1827 to join Austin's Little Colony, and about 1835 he married Sarah E. Standifer. In 1836 he joined Jesse Billingsley's Mina Volunteers; during the Runaway Scrape Sarah fled toward the Sabine, and their first child was born and died on the way. Litton served in a rear guard of 250 men protecting supplies for Houston's army, and he fought at Plum Creek in 1840. He later built the area's first house made entirely of sawed lumber. He died of appendicitis.

What the plaque says

John Litton A soldier of the San Jacinto Army. Born in South Carolina, 1812. Died July 4, 1856 Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Cemetery — steps away
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.3 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• George Washington Carver Museum — 0.4 mi
  East Austin's museum of Black history and culture, grown from a segregated branch library moved across town in 1933, with a permanent exhibit on Juneteenth at its core.
• Texas State Capitol — 1.0 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.

More markers nearby

• Colonel Stephen Heard Darden — steps away
• Dr. George Moffit Patrick — steps away
• William C. Crane — steps away
• Judge Edwin Waller — steps away