Marker Details

Marker Text: (December 25, 1807 - August 21, 1859)

Archibald Wynns was born in Henry County, Tennessee to Thomas Henry and Winniford (Outlaw) Wynns. Archibald married Martha Elizabeth Edmunds in January 1836, and the couple soon set out for Texas. The Wynns constructed their first home on the corner of Rusk and Louisiana Streets in the new town of Houston.



Archibald established a law practice in Houston in 1837 and was a founding member of Houston’s First Methodist Church, which was organized in 1839. In 1841, Wynns acquired this property along Buffalo Bayou, located two miles from the courthouse and outside the Houston city limits. He erected a country house at this site, and by the 1850s the Wynns family lived on the farm and rented out their home in town.



Wynns represented Harris County in the Sixth Congress of the Republic of Texas from 1841 until 1842. While a member of Congress, he served in the Army of the Republic, and fought to repulse the advances of Rafael Vasquez into Texas. In 1855, Wynns decided to join the California gold rush and boarded a ship to San Francisco. While in California, he became interested in the activities of adventurer and filibuster Gen. William Walker, who sought to gain control of Latin American nations through military action. Wynns joined Walker’s last Central American expedition, but died during his return trip because of an illness contracted while abroad. His burial location is unknown. In 1871, the Houston Cemetery Company purchased the 42-acre Wynns farmstead for the construction of Glenwood Cemetery. Martha died in 1896 in San Marcos, Texas and is buried there. (2009)



Marker is property of the State of Texas