The Commission

Walker County Historical
Commission
1301 Sam Houston Ave.
Rm. 226
Huntsville, TX 77340
(Courthouse Annex)

Telephone

(936) 435-2497

WCHC Online

Send email

Meetings

3rd Monday of each month
5:30 P.M.
Walker County Museum

Museum

Gibbs-Powell Home
1228 11 St. at Avenue M
Huntsville, TX

Hours

Friday 12-4PM
Saturday 12-4PM
Commission meetings,
and by appointment

Telephone

(936) 295-2914
(936) 436-4928 (fax)

Tours

(936) 291-3581
(936) 577-4257

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Capt. Benjamin Harper

Benjamin Ingram Harper (b. 1809) came to Texas from Virginia, and in 1833, he worked as a schoolmaster in Liberty County. He wed Evelina Vocum in 1834 and had a son. The next year, under Andrew Briscoe, he fought at the battle of Concepción and the Siege of Bexar. In 1836, commissioned as a second lieutenant, he organized a company to assist at the Alamo. They did not reach it in time but did fight at the Battle of San Jacinto. Harper became a captain and received land in Polk and Jefferson counties. He remarried to Nancy J. Reynolds and had four children. Tradition holds that he was buried on his Walker County farm in 1863. The cemetery is now gone, but several of his descendants are buried here. (2003)