Georgia native Albert Clinton Horton came to Texas in 1834 from Alabama, where he had served in the state legislature, and established a plantation along Caney Creek in present Wharton County. In 1835, he returned to Alabama to recruit volunteers for the Texas Army, and he served as colonel of a cavalry unit during the Texas Revolution. After the Republic of Texas was established in 1836, he was elected to congress and later chaired the commission appointed by President M.B. Lamar that selected Austin as the site for the republic's permanent capitol in 1839. When Texas became a state in December 1845, Horton was elected its first lieutenant governor, and he served as acting governor for over a year while Governor Henderson led Texas forces in the Mexican War. He was also a charter trustee of Baylor University when it was founded in 1845. By the 1850s, he had homes in both Wharton and Matagorda, and his home near this site, Sycamore Grove, was razed in 1960. A community leader, he helped found Wharton's First Baptist Church. He and his wife, Eliza Holliday, had six children, only two of whom lived to maturity. Horton died in 1865 and is buried in Matagorda Cemetery.