Nicholas D. Labadie

Labadie began as a seminarian and ended as a wharf owner. Born in Canada, he studied for the priesthood at St. Mary's of the Barrens in Missouri, left it by 1828 for medicine, and reached Anahuac in 1831 as post surgeon. He wrote about the 1832 Anahuac fight and the San Jacinto campaign for the Texas Almanac of 1859. The army's commissary general sued him for libel, and the case was not dismissed until 1867, the year he died. In Galveston he traded his plantation for wharf rights in 1851 and shipped Florida lumber.

What the plaque says

Nicholas D. Labadie Nicholas D. Labadie Nicholas Descomps Labadie was born in Canada in 1802. In Missouri, he trained for the priesthood and later changed to the study of medicine. In 1831, he moved to Texas, serving as post surgeon at Anahuac. He served in the Second Regiment of Texas Volunteers as surgeon and infantryman during the Texas Revolution and, at San Jacinto, interpreted Santa Anna's surrender to Sam Houston. He moved his family to Galveston and became a prominent physician and business leader. He was a strong supporter of the first local Catholic Church and the charity hospital. After long service to Galveston and Texas, he died of pneumonia in 1867. Recorded - 2002

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Moody Mansion — 1.1 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 — 1.3 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 — 1.5 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

• Nahor Biggs Yard — steps away
• Michel B. Menard — steps away
• Warren D. C. Hall — steps away
• Lt. Commander Edward Lea — steps away