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- Second President of the Republic of Texas. Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar was born near Louisville, Jefferson County, Georgia; expert horseman and fencer, excellent speaker, and writer of poetry. Many of his poems are published.
He established the Columbus Enquirer newspaper in Muscogee County, Georgia and was elected state senator in 1829. After the deaths of his first wife and a son, he started to travel and in 1835, left Georgia for Texas.
His first goal in going to Texas was to collect historical data which he recorded in his journal. After a trip to Georgia to make his move permanent, he rushed back to Texas after hearing about the battle of the Alamo and the Goliad massacre.
He joined the army as a private. After saving Thomas J. Rusk and Walter Paye Lane at the battle of San Jacinto, he was made the secretary of war and even later commander in chief of the Texas army.
He was elected vice-president of the Republic of Texas in 1836. In 1838, he followed Sam Houston, as the second president of the Republic of Texas. He served until 1841.
He was controversial in that he was determined to eradicate the Cherokee Indians from Texas. However, he was called "the father of Texas public education" and has many schools named after him in Texas. He also started the Homestead Law of Texas. Another notable achievement is that he was responsible for moving the state capital to Austin.
After the deaths of his mother and his daughter Rebecca, he was again grief-stricken and started traveling. He fought in the battle of Monterrey during the Mexican War. He remarried in 1851.
In 1857, he was appointed the U.S. minister to Nicaragua and Costa Rica. He returned in 1859 to his Richmond, Texas plantation where he died that year. A burial plot next to him belongs to Jane Long, the "Mother of Texas".
It is rumored that Mirabeau and Jane were best of friends and that he once asked her to marry him after her husband died. She refused. [1]
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1798 - 1859 (61 years)
