Silvestre De Leon

Silvestre De León was the family's merchant and a militia officer. In December 1835 he joined his brother-in-law Plácido Benavides's company of thirty Mexican ranchers at the siege of Béxar. Victoria elected him to the Consultation of 1835, with Linn and Juan Antonio Padilla, but he probably never reached it because he was serving in the army. In 1833 he had received a league on the Guadalupe River near present Nursery. In 1842 he was ambushed, murdered and robbed while returning from selling horses, mules and cattle in Louisiana, and Fernando took in his two sons.

What the plaque says

Silvestre De Leon (1802-1842) Son of the Empresario Martin de Leon, founder of the De Leon Colony and City of Victoria. Silverstre de Leon was active in the Catholic church, served alcade of Victoria, and had other commissions. An Indian fighter and soldier, he was taken prisoner by Mexican Army during Texas War for Independence. He owned and traded in vast herds of horses, mules, and cattle. He married Rosalia de la Garza; had two sons, Martin and Francisco. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• De León Plaza — 0.8 mi
  The central plaza of Guadalupe Victoria, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas, founded by Martín De León in 1824 and taken from his family after 1836.
• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 1.6 mi
  Victoria College's museum of thirteen thousand years on the middle Texas coast, from Clovis hunters and Karankawa potters to La Salle's lost Fort St. Louis and the first ranches.
• Fannin Battleground State Historic Site — 16 mi
  The open prairie east of Goliad where Fannin's retreating column formed a square short of the Coleto Creek timber on March 19, 1836, and surrendered the next day.
• Fannin Memorial Monument — 25 mi
  The 1938 pink granite memorial over the common grave of Fannin's men, shot on the roads out of Goliad on Palm Sunday 1836, the grave itself found again only in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• Dona Patricia De La Garza De Leon — steps away
• Fernando De Leon — steps away
• Don Martin De Leon — steps away
• Darwin M. Stapp — steps away