United States Senator Morgan C. Hamilton

Hamilton's politics shaped his career more than the plaque lets on. The Handbook of Texas calls him an uncompromising Republican, violently opposed to secession. He was appointed state comptroller in 1867 and sat in the 1868-69 constitutional convention with the Radical Republicans who wanted all former Confederates disfranchised, which made his role controversial. He served in the U.S. Senate from 1870 to 1877, then traveled widely and lived in Brooklyn. He never married, died in San Diego on November 21, 1893, and was buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Austin.

What the plaque says

United States Senator Morgan C. Hamilton (1809-93) An outstanding patriot who acted as Secretary of War and Marine in Republic of Texas and later served the state in many roles, Morgan Hamilton in 1837 obtained a 1009-acre land grant in this area. While his brother A.J. Hamilton was governor (1865-66), he retrieved for Texas some bonds sent to Europe during the Civil War. In 1870-77 he served as a United States Senator from Texas. His nephew Theodore Van Buren Coupland (1836-90) settled here and in 1887 founded town of Coupland on land that formerly belonged to Senator Hamilton. (1975)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Round Rock — 18 mi
  A table-shaped stone in Brushy Creek gave Round Rock its name in 1854; the Chisholm Trail crossed the creek near it, and Old Town stayed behind when the railroad pulled the town east.
• Inner Space Cavern — 20 mi
  A Georgetown cave found in 1963 when highway engineers drilled test holes, holding Pleistocene fossils and 72-degree rooms that visitors reach by an artificial tunnel.
• Williamson County Courthouse — 21 mi
  The fifth Williamson County courthouse, a Beaux Arts building by C. H. Page, rises over a Georgetown square of more than 50 Victorian-era buildings.
• LBJ Presidential Library — 23 mi
  A ten-story travertine archive on the University of Texas campus holding 45 million pages from a presidency of civil rights laws, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.

More markers nearby

• Lund — 3.7 mi
• Battle of Brushy Creek — 3.9 mi
• Type Cemetery — 3.9 mi
• Carlson — 4.3 mi