Wiley George

The woman George married in 1845 had seen this coast remade. Anna McConnell came to Texas in 1840 with her first husband, Thomas McConnell, who lost his home in the Comanche raid on Linnville that August and helped found Lavaca in its aftermath. Widowed in 1844, she married George the next year. Two of their three children, Mary and Anna, died young in the town's epidemics; only William lived to raise a family, in Jackson County. After George's death Anna drew a pension on his War of 1812 service, moved to Victoria and died in Dallas in 1884.

What the plaque says

Wiley George (1797-1862) Born in North Carolina, Wiley George enlisted in the Georgia militia at the age of 17, fighting in the War of 1812, He lived in Georgia and Alabama and was married to Nancy Jones (d. 1834) before coming to Texas in 1840. Settling in San Antonio, he engaged in business for some time, eventually marrying Anna McConnell in Victoria in 1845. They moved to Port Lavaca in 1848 to reside in a fine new home while George speculated in horses. He and Anna had one son, W. B. George, born in 1849. When Wiley George died in 1862, his estate was valued at $4,613.50. George is buried in the Port Lavaca Cemetery in an unmarked grave. (1998)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Half Moon Reef Lighthouse and Linnville — 2.1 mi
  The last screw-pile lighthouse of the Texas coast, brought ashore at Port Lavaca, a town founded by refugees from Linnville, the port Buffalo Hump's Comanches burned in August 1840.
• Indianola — 9.9 mi
  The site of Texas's second port, where Morgan's steamships, Army freight and the first refrigerated beef passed until the hurricanes of 1875 and 1886, now mostly under Matagorda Bay.
• Matagorda Island — 22 mi
  A 38-mile barrier island reached only by boat from Port O'Connor, with a lighthouse of 1852, the ghosts of two towns and a fort, and no water, power or cars.
• Aransas National Wildlife Refuge — 23 mi
  Blackjack Peninsula's refuge on San Antonio Bay, winter home of the only wild migrating flock of whooping cranes, which fell to about fifty birds and now numbers over five hundred.

More markers nearby

• Port Lavaca Cemetery — steps away
• Jefferson Beaumont — steps away
• Mt. Sinai Baptist Church — steps away
• Sunlight Girls Club — steps away