Juan Nepomuceno Seguin

The only Mexican Texan in the Republic's Senate, he chaired its military affairs committee despite his limited English and pushed to have the laws printed in Spanish. He resigned in 1840 to aid the Federalist general Antonio Canales and came back to be chosen mayor of San Antonio, but quarrels with Anglo squatters and his business with Mexico drew suspicion after the 1842 Vásquez invasion, and he fled south. He rode with Woll's invasion, by his account under duress, then returned to Texas and served briefly as Wilson County judge.

What the plaque says

Juan Nepomuceno Seguin (1806-1890) Born in San Fernando de Bexar (San Antonio), son of Erasmo Seguin, whose ancestors came to America about 1700. Juan N. Seguin and his father in 1834 rallied fellow Texans against dictator Santa Anna. Young Juan Seguin raised Mexican-Texan troops, and fought in Siege of Bexar, 1835. He provided horses for soldiers of Col. W. B. Travis, further aiding as a courier during the Siege of the Alamo. Between fall of the Alamo and the Battle of San Jacinto, he led his Co. A, 2nd Regiment, Texas Cavalry, as rear guard for Gen. Sam Houston, protecting the civilians fleeing in front of army of Santa Anna. His men and Moseley Baker's troops held San Felipe, preventing Mexican Army from crossing the Brazos there. Then Seguin's unit joined Gen. Sam Houston's army and fought in the Battle of San Jacinto. In May 1836, Seguin gave military burial to the ashes of the heroes of the Alamo. From 1837 to 1840 he served the Republic of Texas as a Senator. Town of Walnut Springs, on the Guadalupe, changed its name, Feb. 25, 1839, to "Seguin", to honor this hero. Juan N. Seguin married Maria Gertrudis Flores. At his death he was buried in Nuevo Laredo, where his grave is cared for by citizens of City of Seguin. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 13 mi
  The hilltop where Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels raised the Adelsverein's headquarters in 1845, now the museum and archive of the German colony that became New Braunfels.
• Gruene Historic District — 14 mi
  A cotton town on the Guadalupe that the boll weevil emptied, rescued in the 1970s by a kayaking architecture student, with a dance hall that says it has never closed.
• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 22 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.
• Natural Bridge Caverns — 24 mi
  The largest known cavern in Texas, found in 1960 by four college cavers under a ranch family's land, entered beneath a 60-foot limestone bridge and still growing.

More markers nearby

• Juan Seguin — steps away
• Guadalupe County, C.S.A. — steps away
• Colonel John Ireland — steps away
• Black Education in Seguin — 0.4 mi