Major James Peckham Caldwell

Caldwell held his Mexican land grant for eight years before he saw it. A Baltimore native born in 1793, he received the grant in 1824 but reached Texas in 1832, and he was wounded at Velasco that same year. He was among the men who sought a dispensation for the first Masonic lodge in Texas and was named to serve as one of its principal officers. In May 1835 he married Ann Munson, the widow of his friend Henry Munson, and the couple had two children. Yellow fever killed him at Gulf Prairie in November 1856.

What the plaque says

Major James Peckham Caldwell (January 6, 1793 - November 16, 1856) Adjutant of the Texas army in Battle of Velasco, June 26, 1832. Wounded there, he was guarding civilians at time Texas won independence in Battle of San Jacinto, April 21, 1836. A bosom friend of Stephen F. Austin, Caldwell received land grant from Mexico in 1824. In 1830s he had a sugar mill, said to be the first on the Brazos. He married Ann Munson, widow of his friend H. W. Munson. They had a son and a daughter. Recorded - 1970

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 11 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 12 mi
  Coastal prairie, salt marsh and bays between Freeport and Christmas Bay, where an auto tour along Big Slough passes wintering geese, ducks and wading birds in the tens of thousands.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 16 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.

More markers nearby

• William Joel Bryan — steps away
• Henry William Munson — steps away
• Emily Margaret Brown Austin Bryan Perry — steps away
• James Franklin Perry — steps away