Name Moses Lapham | Died 1838 | |
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Moses Lapham (October 16, 1808 – 1838) was a soldier in the Texas Army during the Texas Revolution, noted for a daring action during the Battle of San Jacinto that helped seal the decisive Texian victory.
Biography
Lapham was born near the town of Smithfield, Rhode Island and was the son of Amos and Marcy Aldrich Lapham. He arrived in Texas in July 1831 and taught school at San Felipe, Texas. In 1836 he enlisted in the Texas army, was a member of Captain Moseley Baker's "San Felipe Company", and fought at the Battle of San Jacinto, where he was one of the men who destroyed Vince's Bridge. The others who were with him on that mission were Deaf Smith, John Coker, Dimer W. Reaves, Young Perry Alsbury, John T. Garner and Edwin R. Rainwater. After the war, Moses Lapham worked as a surveyor and helped to lay out the new town of Houston, Texas. He was later employed as a deputy surveyor by Samuel Maverick of San Antonio to survey land for him. The party of five, (Mr. Maverick, the sixth member had returned home was on October 20, 1838) was attacked by Comanche Indians on Leon Creek about four miles from San Antonio, Texas and Moses Lapham, Cornelius Skinner, a Mr. Jones, and one other of the party were killed. The surviving members returned to town and spread the news. Thirteen prominent men headed by Benjamin Franklin Cage, a San Jacinto veteran, hurriedly left San Antonio and went to the place where the massacre had occurred. The Indians, estimated at a hundred or more, surrounded the Texans and killed Captain Cage, Dr. Henry G. McClung, R. M. Lee, a Mr. O'Blye, Peter Conrad, John Pickering and a Mr. Green, and badly wounded General Richard Dunlap and Major William H. Patton. The next day a search party brought in the remains of the dead. On the following day, their remains were interred in a single grave just outside the Catholic Cemetery. Judge Robinson delivered the funeral oration.