Thomas Jones Hardeman

Hardeman was born at Hardeman's Stockade near Nashville; his father sat with Andrew Jackson at Tennessee's constitutional convention. In 1814 he married Mary Ophelia Polk, an aunt of James K. Polk, and that year fought as a captain under Jackson at New Orleans, where the British captured him and slashed his head with a sabre when he refused to give up military secrets. He helped organize Hardeman County, Tennessee, in 1818. After his wife died in 1835 he came to Texas with his brothers Blackstone and Bailey. It was at his suggestion that the new capital was named Austin.

What the plaque says

Thomas Jones Hardeman [Front] Born in Tennessee January 31, 1788 Died in Bastrop County, Texas January 11, 1854 His Wife Eliza De Witt Hardeman Born Sept. 17, 1809 Died Feb. 8, 1863 Erected by the State of Texas 1936 [Back]Member Second Congress Republic of Texas; Chief Justice of Bastrop County Member of the State Legislature Most Worshipful Grand Master of the Grand Masonic Lodge of Texas, 1850

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Cemetery — steps away
  A hill east of the Capitol that began with one general's grave in 1851 and now holds Stephen F. Austin, governors, Barbara Jordan and more than 2,000 Confederate veterans and widows.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.3 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• George Washington Carver Museum — 0.4 mi
  East Austin's museum of Black history and culture, grown from a segregated branch library moved across town in 1933, with a permanent exhibit on Juneteenth at its core.
• Texas State Capitol — 1.0 mi
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.

More markers nearby

• General Moseley Baker — steps away
• Bailey Hardeman — steps away
• William P. Hardeman — steps away
• Xavier Blanchard DeBray — steps away