On January 9, 1858, the former, and final, president of the Republic of Texas committed suicide in his hotel room at this site. Fourteen years earlier, his continued negotiations with Britain, France, and Mexico during the rancorous U.S. annexation and statehood deliberations had made him an unpopular figure. After an 1857 bid to be appointed U.S. senator was ignored by the Legislature, he sold his slave-labor cotton plantation (which later became the Barrington Living History Farm at Washington-on-the Brazos State Historic Site) and brooded for days in the hotel that had served as capitol during his political heyday. Shortly before shooting himself, Jones told an old friend, "My public career began in this house, and I have been thinking it might close here." | Source: Texas State Library and Archives CommissionDownload Original File
