The Fearless Fifty-Nine, Samuel Augustus Maverick

Samuel Augustus Maverick was the 29 year old Bexar representative. In his early years, Maverick attended Yale University and became a lawyer in South Carolina. Upon arriving in San Antonio in 1835, he was put under house arrest by Mexico. Once released, he guided a division in the attack on Bexar. He left Texas after the Convention but returned in 1838 to San Antonio where he obtained his Texas law license, engaged in West Texas land speculation and served as the city’s mayor in 1839. He was taken prisoner by another Mexican general when Mexico invaded San Antonio but was released in April 1843. He then served as a representative in the Texas Congress from 1843 to 1844 and was a strong advocate of annexation to the U.S. He and his family lived in Matagorda Bay for short time where he left a small herd of cattle. It was this herd that was allowed to wander and gave rise to the term maverick which denotes an unbranded calf. By his death in 1870, his West Texas landholdings totaled 300,000 acres. He was one of the two biggest investors in the West Texas acreage in the 1850s and 1860s and Maverick County is named in his honor. During the Civil War, he was elected chief justice of Bexar County and served a second term as San Antonio mayor.