John McNabb

The expedition McNabb joined was President Lamar's attempt to draw part of the Santa Fe Trail trade to Texas and to bring New Mexico, which the republic claimed, under Texas rule. With merchants, teamsters and guests it numbered 321, with twenty-one ox wagons carrying goods worth $200,000, when it left Kenney's Fort on Brushy Creek on June 19, 1841. Lost and short of water and food, it surrendered to Governor Manuel Armijo's troops without a shot that September and October. The prisoners were marched to Mexico City, and most were released in April 1842.

What the plaque says

John McNabb Member of the Santa Fe Expedition, 1841. Born in Scotland; died, April 27, 1894.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• 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.
• The Menil Collection — 24 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 24 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.
• Rothko Chapel — 24 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.

More markers nearby

• Thomas Jefferson Smith — steps away
• Walter Moses Burton — steps away
• Morton Cemetery — steps away
• Site of the Home of Randal Jones — steps away