Van Ness, George F. X. (1822–1855)

George F. X. Van Ness, lawyer and member of the Texan Santa Fe expedition, son of Cornelius P. and Rhoda (Savage) Van Ness, was born in Virginia in 1822. In 1838 he joined his brother Cornelius Van Ness at San Antonio, Texas, where he practiced law. In 1841 he was appointed by President Mirabeau B. Lamar as a member of the commission to represent the Texas government on the Texan Santa Fe expedition. He was captured on the expedition and held in Perote Prison until February 3, 1842. He was back in San Antonio at the time of the Adrián Woll expedition on September 11, 1842, and was again captured by the Mexicans. Van Ness was in prison in Saltillo on January 30, 1843, when Thomas Jefferson Green and other prisoners of the Mier expedition arrived there. He was ordered released in November 1843, but was not finally liberated until April 1844. In 1849 he was a notary public in Bexar County, and in 1851 he was postmaster at Fort Duncan. At some point, he married Marie Isabel Leal and fathered one son, Antonio. He died at Eagle Pass, Texas, in 1855.