The Fearless Fifty-Nine, Bailey Hardeman

Bailey Hardeman was the 41 year old Matagorda representative. Hardeman had an active and prominent life in Tennessee before moving to Texas in 1835. He served as an artillery officer in the War of 1812 under his father’s friend Andrew Jackson. He was a store proprietor, deputy sheriff of Williamson County and lawyer. He was in the early Sante Fe trade and made considerable profits off of it. After coming back from trading, he endowed Hardeman Academy, donated lands to Wilson’s Creek Baptist Church and opened a tavern and store. At the Convention, he served on the drafting committee of the Declaration and then on the committee to draw up a constitution for the Republic. Later, he was elected the secretary of treasury and for a brief time took over secretary of state duties. As acting secretary of state he negotiated and signed two treaties, an open document honorably ending the war and providing for removal of Mexican soldiers from Texas, and a secret agreement in which Mexican general Antonio López de Santa Anna promised diplomatic recognition of the new republic.