Thomas Holmes

Holmes was born in South Carolina, lived in Mississippi, and moved his family to Bevil Municipality in 1834, the Handbook of Texas says. At the 1835 Consultation he was one of Bevil's five delegates but took little part in the proceedings. Tax records for 1840 list his property as including 17 enslaved people and 20 cattle. When Newton County was created in 1846 from the eastern half of Jasper County, voters chose him its first chief justice that July, and he served until 1848. By 1860 he owned more than 600 cattle and 200 swine.

What the plaque says

Thomas Holmes (1800-1869?) Delegate for Bevil municipality in Texas Consultation of 1835. First chief justice of Newton County, 1846. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Village Creek State Park — 20 mi
  A 2,466-acre state park on one of the few free-flowing creeks in Texas, with a launch for the Village Creek Paddling Trail, boat rentals and sandy-upland trails in the Big Thicket.
• Big Thicket National Preserve — 22 mi
  Start at the Kountze visitor center, where rangers sort the preserve's scattered units for you, and learn why Congress made this 1974 string of pearls the country's first national preserve.
• Martin Dies, Jr. State Park — 26 mi
  A 705-acre state park on Steinhagen Reservoir at the meeting of the Neches and Angelina rivers, with about 14 miles of paddling trails through sloughs and more than 200 campsites.

More markers nearby

• Site of Former Settlement of Richardson's Bluff — 12 mi
• Early Kirbyville Schools — 12 mi
• Kirbyville, Town of, Site of Town Lot Auction — 12 mi
• Pinetucky — 14 mi