W. T. G. Weaver

Weaver was district judge when the hangings reached the courts. The Handbook of Texas says that after the war he presided over the acquittal of the first six jurors of the Citizens Court: Samuel C. Doss, Reason and Wiley Jones, Benjamin Scanland, William J. Simpson and Thomas Wright. General Sheridan's authority under the 1867 Reconstruction Act removed Weaver from the bench that November. He then helped defend Thomas Barrett, who was acquitted of charges tied to the Great Hanging. The same entry says Weaver had opposed secession before serving as a Confederate officer.

What the plaque says

W. T. G. Weaver (April 25, 1832 - October 18, 1876) William Thomas Green Weaver came to Texas from Illinois in 1840 with his father and three siblings. As a young adult, he taught school for a time, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1856. He came to this city to practice law and in 1860 was elected district attorney for the 20th Judicial District. After serving in the Confederate army, he resumed his law practice in north central Texas. As a delegate to the Texas Constitutional Convention of 1875, Weaver advocated giving women the right to vote. Outside the legal field, Weaver was a noted romantic poet who had his verse published and read throughout the state of Texas. (2001)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Great Hanging Memorial — 0.5 mi
  Two granite monuments in a Gainesville park, dedicated in 2014, for the Cooke County men the Confederate militia hanged in October 1862 on suspicion of Unionism.
• Stonewall Saloon Museum — 22 mi
  Saint Jo's first permanent building, a stone saloon of 1873 with rooms upstairs for trail drovers, in a town named, the story goes, as a joke on a founder who did not drink.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 24 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.

More markers nearby

• Gainesville National Bank — steps away
• Barbed Wire in Cooke County — steps away
• Gainesville Community Circus — 0.2 mi
• Cooke County Free Library — 0.2 mi