Site of Cameron, First County Seat of DeWitt County

Ewen Cameron was born in Scotland about 1811 and named for Sir Ewen Cameron of Lochiel. He came to Texas during the Revolution and served in the army from April to October 1836. After the Mier expedition's surrender the prisoners chose him as their commander. Recaptured after an escape in February 1843, he drew a white bean in the Black Bean lottery but was shot for a later escape attempt. The Handbook of Texas notes two other namesakes: the Milam County seat, named in 1846, and Cameron County.

What the plaque says

Site of Cameron, First County Seat of DeWitt County This site was chosen in June 1846 as the first seat of DeWitt County and named for Capt. Ewen Cameron (1811-43), slain prisoner of the Mier Expedition. Although a town was platted on the 100-acre tract donated by Joseph Tumlinson, a log courthouse and a county clerk's office were the only buildings erected. In 1850, after four elections and four court decisions, Cameron lost the title of county seat to the nearby town of Clinton. County offices moved to Cuero in 1876. (1977)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum — 3.2 mi
  A cattle-country museum in Cuero's 1903 Knights of Pythias Hall, telling the Guadalupe Valley's 1866 drive north and the Sutton-Taylor feud that bloodied DeWitt County.
• Spoetzl Brewery — 22 mi
  The brewery a Czech and German railroad town started in a tin shed in 1909, run through Prohibition by a Bavarian who had brewed in Cairo, and then by his daughter.
• De León Plaza — 30 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 — 30 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.

More markers nearby

• Site of Friar-Cardwell Stage Stand — 1.9 mi
• Old Chisholm Trail — 1.9 mi
• St. Mark's Lutheran Church — 3.1 mi
• Honoring Texas Confederate General August C. Buchel — 3.2 mi