Moses Lapham

Lapham was a college man who missed educated company on the frontier. Born in Smithfield, Rhode Island, in 1808, he attended Miami University in Ohio, came to Texas in 1831 and surveyed with Thomas H. Borden at San Felipe, teaching school there one winter. As one of Houston's spies in 1836 he helped burn Vince's Bridge, then fought at San Jacinto. That October he helped lay out the town of Houston. In 1838 he was surveying near San Antonio for Samuel A. Maverick when the attack came. His letters often lamented the lack of cultured company in Texas.

What the plaque says

Moses Lapham Near here on October 20, 1838 Moses Lapham a veteran of San Jacinto, and three of his companions were killed by Indians, as were seven members of a rescue party on the following day Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Casa Navarro State Historic Site — 6.8 mi
  The adobe and caliche-block home of José Antonio Navarro, a native-born signer of the 1836 declaration, and the last remnant of the Tejano neighborhood called Laredito.
• King William Historic District — 6.9 mi
  Mission farmland turned German merchants' quarter on the San Antonio River, renamed in World War I, then saved by a neighbor who restored fourteen houses, starting with his own.
• Spanish Governor's Palace — 6.9 mi
  The last visible piece of the Presidio San Antonio de Béxar: a presidio captain's house with a 1749 keystone, a century as shops and saloons, and a romantic 1930 restoration.
• San Fernando Cathedral — 7.0 mi
  The Canary Islanders' parish church on Main Plaza, where Bowie married and Santa Anna raised a red flag, rebuilt in Gothic Revival around the walls of the 1750s church.

More markers nearby

• "Kelly No. 2" Flight Line — 2.6 mi
• Station "X" — 2.9 mi
• "Battle" of Adams Hill — 3.3 mi
• Lydia Mendoza — 3.5 mi