George Campbell Childress

(January 8, 1804 - October 6, 1841) Born into a prominent Nashville, Tennessee, family, George Campbell Childress attended Davidson Academy (later the University of Nashville). He was admitted to the bar in 1828, the sam year he married Margaret Vance. She died in 1835, soon after the birth of a son. Childress first visited Texas in 1834, at the urging of his uncle, empresario Sterling Clark Robertson. He soon returned to Nashville, however, and worked as a newspaper editor. By January 1836, he had returned to Texas and settled in Robertson's colony. The following month Childress and Robertson were elected delegates to the Convention of 1836, where the Texas Declaration of Independence was adopted on March 2. Childress is considered to be the primary author of that document. Sent by the Republic of Texas to attain recognition of the new country by the United States, Childress was unsuccessful and returned to Tennessee for a time. While there he married Rebecca Stuart Jennings. By 1841 Childress was in Galveston in an unsuccessful attempt to establish a law practice. Despondent over his financial situation, he committed suicide on Oct. 6 and was buried in an unmarked grave. Thirty-five years later Childress County was named in his honor.