Horton, Alexander

Early Texas settler and civic leader Alexander Horton (1810-1894) came to Texas from North Carolina with his mother in 1823 and settled on the Attoyac River. Horton participated in suppressing the Fredonian Rebellion in 1827. On August 2, 1832, he fought in the battle of Nacogdoches under his brother-in-law, Captain James Whitis Bullock. After serving as the sheriff of Ayish Bayou, later known as San Augustine, from 1831 to 1835, Horton attended the Consultation at San Felipe. In 1836, he was appointed aide-de-camp and secretary to Sam Houston and fought at the battle of San Jacinto. Following the Texas Revolution, he continued his career as a government and city official, holding positions such as president of the board of land commissioners (1838), collector of customs in San Augustine (1838-1839), sheriff of San Augustine (1844), mayor of San Augustine, and representative of San Augustine and Sabine counties in the Fifteenth Texas Legislature (1876). He died near San Augustine in 1894.

Source: Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. “Horton, Alexander,” http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/HH/fho63.html (accessed July 21, 2010).