William Washington Gant and The Texas Declaration of Independence

One day when my husband visited the Alamo museum, he saw a letter addressed to Mr. William Washington Gant. The person who wrote the letter in 1836, informed that he was taking Mr. Gant's gun and coat to Alamo.

Later, my man used to joke, "There were no Gants among the Alamo defenders but at least a Gant's rifle fought there". Nothing did he know about the family relationship between W.W. Gant and him then. A few years ago when we went to the museum during our honeymoon trip, we did not know about that either. At that time, hubby wanted to show me that letter but, regrettably, it had been removed from the display.

While studying our family ancestry I learned that William Washington Gant was the second son and the third child of William Gant and Leah Norwood. He was born in January 1809 in Maury County, Tennessee. William Washington's great-grandfather was Isham Gant (our great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather's brother) which makes William our second cousin five times removed.

William Washington came to Texas on 21 April 1835. He obtained some land in Washington County.
In November 1835, William Washington Gant helped his friend Asa Walker to relocate to Texas. He covered the cost of it, which was $35.87.

Later, when Asa joined the Texas Army and went to defend the Alamo, he took William's rifle and overcoat with him. Asa was in such a hurry that he had no time to ask the owner of those items for permission. Instead, he left a letter in which he explained why he had done that.

William was a very active man. Supposedly, he was a doctor. On 27 Feb. 1836, he joined the army and with Capt. Robert J. Calder's Company fought at the battle of San Jacinto. William ended his military career on 29 May 1836 and was granted 320 acres of land (Bounty Certificate No. 2066) for his service.

Together with Mr. Andrew J. Greer, William Washington Gant published a newspaper in 1836. It was called The Texas Reporter. I have found an article in one of the Washington-on-the-Brazos papers, in which our cousin and Mr. Greer announced that The Texas Reporter would be issued weekly (see the first column on the left).

If you look at the date when the paper was published, you can see the date: Wednesday, 2 March 1836. The day when the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed.

Independence Hall. Replica of the building where the Declaration of Independence was signed.

The inscription says: "Here a Nation was born."

William Washington Gant represented Washington County at the first Congress of the Texas Republic which took place in Washington-on-the-Brazos.

The room where the building where the Independence of Texas was declared on 2 March 1836.
Our cousin William Washington was there as well. 

Cousin William was also the County representative during the second and fourth Congress of the Republic. He finished his political career on 5 Feb. 1840.

Four months later, on 18 June 1840, William married Mrs. Harriet Eliza Hoke (nee Smith). Harriet was the daughter of  James McConnel Smith and Mary Polly Patton. Harriet Eliza was widowed by her first husband H E Hoke.

Sadly, William and Harriet were married only for a few months. William Washington died on 18 October 1840 in Washington County. His body was later buried in Navasota, Grimes County, Texas.

Credits:
Pictures
The newspaper image:
by  The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History in partnership with The Portal to Texas History, a digital repository hosted by the University of North Texas Libraries.

Independence Hall: By Noconatom - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=51404045

The room: By Reading Associate 17 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=50471585

Gravemarker: Vanessa Burzynski

Information
San Jacinto Museum website
Handbook of Texas