Cartwright, Jesse H. (ca. 1787–1848)

Jesse H. Cartwright, public official, early settler, and one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred, was born about 1787 in Nashville, Tennessee. He moved to Texas from Woodville, Mississippi, in 1825. The census of March 1826 listed him as a farmer and stock raiser aged between twenty-five and forty. His household included his wife, Nancy (Gray), a son, a daughter, two servants, and eight slaves. Cartwright's title to a league and a labor of land now in Fort Bend and Lavaca counties was granted on March 31, 1828. In 1830 he built his home on the Samuel Isaacks league at the head of Oyster Creek. Cartwright presided over the August 1830 election of electors for choosing the state governor and vice governor; as second regidor at San Felipe de Austin in December 1830 he was on a committee to examine the validity of land titles in Austin's first colony. Cartwright, along with Randolph Foster and William Walker, apparently served on a procurement committee during the early stages of the Texas Revolution, for on October 11, 1835, Richard Royster Royall requested that the trio bring lead and powder to San Felipe for the use of the Texas army. In June 1836 Cartwright blossomed as a realtor and advertised lots in Fayetteville, to be located on Round Lake, on the east side of the Brazos River. This town he tried, unsuccessfully, to make the county seat of Fort Bend County in 1838. In October 1836 Cartwright represented Harrisburg County in the House of the First Congress. About 1841 he sold most of his Fort Bend County holdings and moved west to the Guadalupe River. Apparently Cartwright divorced Nancy; he married Martha Adcock on May 31, 1843, in Harris County. Nancy died in Fort Bend before May 4, 1847, and Jesse was administrator of her estate. He died on March 11, 1848, in Guadalupe County.