William Gammell

Gammell's family story reaches from Scotland to Hobart Town. Louis Kemp's sketch says he came to the United States young with his parents, who settled in Lowell, Massachusetts, and that William changed the family's Gemmell spelling in Texas. His name was left off the official San Jacinto rolls printed in 1836; Adjutant General Wharton and Captain Wyly vouched for him. He married Jane McDaniel in Houston on June 18, 1839, and settled north of Buffalo Bayou. His brother Andrew, captured in a failed French Canadian revolt, was held at Hobart Town before reaching Houston in 1858.

What the plaque says

William Gammell Born in Scotland. Fought at San Jacinto in Captain A. H. Wyly's company. Died in Houston, April 10, 1869 and was buried here. His widow Jane McDaniel Gammell died November 11, 1908 and was buried in the Glenwood Cemetery. Supplmental plaque: Later research shows William Gammell (Oct. 18, 1812 - Apr. 10, 1869) was buried in the Masonic Cemetery (now Sam Houston Park) on Apr. 11, 1869 and reinterred in the German Society Cemetery (now Washington Cemetery) on Jan. 22, 1900. His wife, Jane McDaniel Gammell (Mar. 28, 1825-Nov. 12, 1908) was interred in the German Society Cemetery on Nov. 13, 1908. Texas Historical Commission - 2006

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 0.5 mi
  Ten historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 1.5 mi
  A museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.
• Emancipation Park — 1.7 mi
  The Third Ward park that freedpeople bought for Juneteenth in 1872, rebuilt in 2017 on Emancipation Avenue and still the center of the city's June 19 celebration.
• Rothko Chapel — 1.7 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.

More markers nearby

• Major Isaac N. Moreland — steps away
• John Cheevers — steps away
• Moses W. Brigham — steps away
• William S. Stilwell — steps away