Chambers' Creek
Posted by: 
techiegrl64
N 32° 14.432 W 096° 52.186
14S E 700704 N 3569088
Historical marker indicating the origin of the name for Chambers Creek, located between Forreston and Italy, Texas.
Waymark Code: WM55ET
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 11/14/2008
Views: 39
Thomas Jefferson Chambers, lawyer and land speculator, was born in 1802 in Orange County, Virginia, the youngest of twenty children. Chambers moved to several states during the course of his life and career, eventually becoming acquainted with Vice Governor Victor Blanco of Coahuila and Texas. With Blanco's influence Chambers became a certified surveyor and in 1829 he was named surveyor general of Texas. In 1834, for his activities as surveyor he received eleven leagues of land that he located in Ellis, Navarro, Chambers, Liberty, and Hays counties. During this time he was also involved in large-scale land speculation. During the same year he and others worked to reform the Texas judicial system to make it more responsive to Texas needs. One of the changes was the Chambers Jury Law, which provided for a jury of twelve and a verdict based on a majority of eight. The legislature mandated a Texas supreme court on April 17 of that year, and two months later the governor named Chambers chief justice. He remained in office only one year and five months but never presided over a court during that time. For this service he was entitled to receive $3,000 a year, payable in land at the rate of $100 a league. He claimed a salary based on thirty leagues but had located only thirteen of his leagues before the land offices were closed by the Texas Revolution.
In January 1835 he asked the council for the rank of major general in return for raising and equipping 1,145 volunteers, the "Army of Reserve", to be marched to Texas by May 15. He left for Kentucky in February and did not return until 1837, having sent fewer troops than promised. For his service as major general he applied for a bounty of 1,280 acres which he received in 1846.
Over the next several years Chambers ran for governor twice but was unsuccessful in his efforts. Chambers had married Annie Chubb in 1851 and the couple lived in a fine house they had built in Anahuac. On the night of March 15, 1865, the family was gathered in an upstairs parlor when an assassin fired a shotgun through the open window and killed Chambers. Though nobody was arrested, local people believed the gunman was Albert V. Willcox. The general was buried near his home, but the next year his wife moved his body to the Galveston Episcopal Cemetery and sold the property in Anahuac to Charles Willcox. In 1925 the Texas legislature appropriated $20,000 to pay Chambers's descendants for his controversial claim to the site of the Capitol and other land in Austin.
Marker is located in a picnic area just off US 77, between Forreston and Italy. Marker faces the roadway, and there is plenty of safe parking available in the picnic area.
Marker Number: 7088
Marker Text:
Named in honor of Thomas Jefferson Chambers (1802-1865) to whom the first land grant within present Ellis County was made in 1834 by the Mexican government also known as Howe's Settlement in honor of William R. Howe, first settler in the region in 1843. An early post office in Robertson County first county seat of Navarro county, 1846-1848.
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