Major Leon Dyer

Dyer's Texas ties ran through his sister. In 1825 Rosanna Dyer married Joseph Osterman in Baltimore, and Leon, who had seen Galveston for himself, urged his brother-in-law to try the new republic. The two stocked a schooner in New Orleans, and Osterman reached the island in 1839. In 1852 Osterman donated the ground for the Hebrew Benevolent Cemetery, the oldest Jewish burial ground in Texas, where a visiting New Orleans rabbi led what the Handbook calls the first official public Jewish service in the state. Leon's son Joseph Osterman Dyer later transcribed the diaries.

What the plaque says

Major Leon Dyer LEON DYER WAS BORN FEIST EMANUEL HEIM (HAIM) ON OCT. 2, 1807 IN MAYENE, GERMANY, TO JOHN MAXIMILIAN AND ISABELLA (BABETTE) NACHMANN DYER. THE FAMILY IMMIGRATED TO THE U.S. AROUND 1812 AND SETTLED IN BALTIMORE WHERE THEY BEGAN A MEAT PACKING BUSINESS. ON OCT. 4, 1833, DYER BECAME A CITIZEN OF THE U.S. HE WAS ELECTED TRUSTEE OF THE BALTIMORE HEBREW CONGREGATION TWO YEARS LATER. SHORTLY AFTER BEING INVOLVED IN THE BALTIMORE BANK RIOTS IN AUGUST 1835, DYER MOVED TO NEW ORLEANS TO OPEN A BRANCH OF THE FAMILY PACKING HOUSE. DYER PARTICIPATED IN THE SECOND SEMINOLE WAR IN FLORIDA, AND ON FEB. 28, 1836, HE WAS APPOINTED REGIMENTAL QUARTERMASTER OF THE LOUISIANA VOLUNTEER MILITIA. IN APRIL 1836, DYER MET GENERAL THOMAS JEFFERSON GREEN AND JOINED THE TEXAS WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. HE ARRIVED IN GALVESTON ON APRIL 20, 1836 AND ACCORDING TO NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS, PROVIDED GENERAL HOUSTON WITH SUPPLIES. ON MAY 18, 1836, DYER WAS APPOINTED MAJOR BY DAVID G. BURNET, THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS, AND SAW ACTIVE SERVICE WITH CLEARING WESTERN TEXAS OF MEXICAN TROOPS. IT IS ALSO SAID THAT DYER WAS ASSIGNED THE TASK OF ESCORTING GENERAL SANTA ANNA TO WASHINGTON, D.C. IN JAN. 1837. FROM 1840-1845, DYER RETURNED TO BALTIMORE, AND IN 1847, HE RECEIVED A HAYS COUNTY LAND GRANT FOR HIS SERVICE TO THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS. THEREAFTER, HE LIVED THROUGHOUT THE U.S., LONDON, AND GERMANY. HE MARRIED HIS COUSIN, SARAH NACHMAN, ON JULY 6, 1852 AND THEY HAD FOUR CHILDREN. REMEMBERED AS A BUSINESSMAN, POLITICAL ACTIVIST, SOLDIER, AND DIPLOMAT, DYER DIED IN LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY ON SEPT. 14, 1883. HE IS BURIED AT HEBREW BENEVOLENT SOCIETY CEMETERY IN GALVESTON.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Moody Mansion — 1.2 mi
  A four-story, 28,000-square-foot house on Broadway, finished in 1895, that W. L. Moody Jr. bought just after the 1900 storm and his family kept until Hurricane Alicia in 1983.
• 1859 Ashton Villa — 1.4 mi
  A brick Italianate house on Broadway, built with enslaved labor in 1859, whose lawn has held Galveston's Juneteenth commemoration of General Orders, No. 3 every year since 1979.
• Galveston Seawall and the 1900 Storm — 1.4 mi
  The concrete wall along the Gulf that Galveston built after the hurricane of September 8, 1900, which killed between 6,000 and 8,000 people in a city of 38,000.
• The Strand — 1.6 mi
  Five blocks of iron-front brick buildings near the harbor that were once called the Wall Street of the Southwest, emptied after 1900 and brought back by preservationists from the 1960s.

More markers nearby

• Greensville S. Dowell — steps away
• Nicholas D. Labadie — steps away
• Nahor Biggs Yard — steps away
• Michel B. Menard — steps away