Robert L. and Julia Martin Hunter

The grandfather's route to Texas explains the family's plantation. Dr. Johnson Calhoun Hunter, a South Carolinian trained in medicine, reached Texas in 1822 after his vessel wrecked on Galveston Island. He took a sitio near the mouth of the San Jacinto, built a cypress-bark home and sailed two vessels with supplies to colonists, then moved in 1829 to Oyster Creek in what is now Fort Bend County. In 1836 the Mexican army camped on his plantation for three days. His 1826 census household lists three servants; the Handbook of Texas does not say whether they were enslaved.

What the plaque says

Robert L. and Julia Martin Hunter ROBERT LEE HUNTER AND JULIA IVA MARTIN HAD ROOTS IN PEARLAND AS EARLY AS THE 1890s WHEN THE AREA WAS KNOWN AS MARK BELT. ROBERT LEE HUNTER WAS BORN TO JOSEPHINE BONAPARTE ESTES AND THOMAS JOHNSON HUNTER ON NOVEMBER 16, 1869 IN FORT BEND COUNTY ON A PLANTATION STARTED IN THE 1820s BY HIS GRANDFATHER, DR. JOHNSON CALHOUN HUNTER, ONE OF AUSTIN'S OLD THREE HUNDRED. DR. HUNTER BUILT A LARGE HOME FOR HIS FAMILY. FOLLOWING THE PASSING OF HIS PARENTS, ROBERT L. HUNTER TOOK UP RESIDENCE IN THE CABIN AT HUNTER'S PLANTATION. AROUND 1903, HUNTER SOLD HIS PLANTATION HOLDINGS AND MOVED TO PEARLAND IN BRAZORIA COUNTY TO BE NEAR HIS SISTER, EUNICE, AND TO START IN THE CATTLE BUSINESS WITH HER HUSBAND AND SUCCESSFUL RANCHER, WILLIAM T. "BILLY" MAGEE. JULIA IVA MARTIN WAS BORN IN RED CLOUD, NEBRASKA ON MAY 15, 1883 TO ELMIRA MONSELLE [MUNSELL] MARTIN AND SAMUEL PLEASANT MARTIN. THE MARTINS CAME TO TEXAS IN 1894 AND SETTLED IN MARK BELT (PEARLAND). IN PEARLAND, ROBERT HUNTER MARRIED JULIA MARTIN ON SEPTEMBER 27, 1905 AND, FROM 1906 TO 1919, THEY HAD FOUR CHILDREN. THE FAMILY RESIDED IN A HOME ON ORANGE STREET. THE HUNTERS WERE WELL KNOWN AND RESPECTED IN PEARLAND AND, ACCORDING TO ONE OF THEIR DAUGHTERS, REGULARLY OFFERED ADVICE AND HOSPITALITY TO FORMER SLAVES. ROBERT LEE HUNTER DIED IN THE OLD HUNTER HOUSE ON JANUARY 18, 1941 AND JULIA IVA MARTIN HUNTER DIED IN HOUSTON ON MAY 6, 1970. BOTH ARE BURIED IN SOUTH PARK CEMETERY. IN 2008, THE CITY OF PEARLAND CHANGED THE NAME OF ORANGE STREET PARK WHICH COMPRISED PART OF THE HUNTER HOMESTEAD TO ROBERT L. AND JULIA MARTIN HUNTER PARK. DESCENDANTS OF THE MARTIN AND HUNTER FAMILIES STILL LIVE IN PEARLAND. (2013)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Space Center Houston — 11 mi
  The visitor center of NASA's Johnson Space Center at Clear Lake, with flown capsules, a shuttle replica riding a 747, and tram tours to Mission Control and a Saturn V.
• Emancipation Park — 13 mi
  The Third Ward park that freedpeople bought for Juneteenth in 1872, rebuilt in 2017 on Emancipation Avenue and still the center of the city's June 19 celebration.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 13 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 13 mi
  A museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.

More markers nearby

• Zychlinski Park — 0.2 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Pearland — 0.3 mi
• Pearland and The Santa Fe Railroad — 2.0 mi
• Genoa United Methodist Church — 6.2 mi