William Harris Wharton

Wharton's public career rested on a plantation. Jared Groce gave his daughter Sarah and her new husband land on the Brazos, and Eagle Island grew cotton and sugar. When Wharton's son owned it, the 1860 census counted 133 enslaved people there. In late 1836 Wharton became the Republic's first minister to the United States, which recognized Texas in March 1837. Returning, he was captured at sea by a Mexican ship and held in Matamoros before he escaped. In 1839 his pistol discharged as he dismounted near Hempstead, and he died; he is buried at Eagle Island, not here.

What the plaque says

William Harris Wharton Participated in the Battle of Velasco, 1832. Member of the Convention of Texas, 1832; president of the Convention of 1833; minister of the United States, 1836-1837; member of the 5th Congress of the Republic. Born in Virginia, 1806; died March 14, 1839.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazoria National Wildlife Refuge — 7.4 mi
  Coastal prairie, salt marsh and bays between Freeport and Christmas Bay, where an auto tour along Big Slough passes wintering geese, ducks and wading birds in the tens of thousands.
• Levi Jordan Plantation State Historic Site — 14 mi
  A sugar and cotton plantation on the San Bernard River whose enslaved builders and their descendants left one of the best-preserved African American archeological sites in Texas.
• Varner-Hogg Plantation State Historic Site — 17 mi
  A Brazos sugar plantation built by enslaved people for the Patton family, later leased convict labor and Hogg family oil, now told through Rachel Patton and Sarah Ford.
• Brazos Bend State Park — 27 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.

More markers nearby

• Dr. Branch Tanner Archer — steps away
• Mammoth Lake — 0.6 mi
• The Brazos Canal — 2.6 mi
• Velasco Cemetery — 3.6 mi