Burnet Bay named for complex Texas president

David G. Burnet Park, built on the Burnet homestead, does not have access to Burnet Bay. But it is a nice green space with a playground. And think about this while you wander around: Burnet's wife and three of his four children are buried somewhere on the property although no one knows where their grave sites are located.

I have a fondness for David G. Burnet although he seems to have been a cantankerous, complicated pioneer. He was the guy who was against Texas independence yet became the first president of the republic.

In Baytown I live on a street named for the president of Texas that runs along Burnet Bay and is across the gully from David G. Burnet Park, which features a pavilion replica of the Burnet homestead.

Alas, the street sign says “Burnett.” I understand at one time it was "Burnet Drive," but someone sometime decided the street name needed another ‘t’.

In my small protest, I spell my street name “Burnet.”

And David G.’s last name should be pronounced “Burn-it.”

David Gouverneur Burnet, born in Newark, N.J., in 1788, moved to this area 1831. He was buddies with Lorenzo de Zavala and Mirabeau B. Lamar. And an enemy of Texas' beloved Sam Houston.

According to Texas State Historical Association:

Burnet bought seventeen acres on the San Jacinto River from Nathaniel Lynch for the mill and an additional 279 acres east of Lynch facing Burnet Bay, where he built a simple four-room home called Oakland.  

David G. Burnet

Local residents chose big-talking Burnet to represent them in 1833, and he was appointed head of the Brazos District Court. Forever after he would be known as Judge Burnet.

However since he was against independence for Texas, Burnet was not chosen as a delegate to the Convention of 1836, according to TSHA.

Nevertheless, he attended the session on March 10, where he successfully gained clemency for a client sentenced to hang.

The delegates, who were opposed to electing one of their number president of the new republic, elected Burnet by a majority of seven votes.

It was a volatile six-month tenure. On Burnet’s bitter departure, Texas State Library and Archives Commission says:

In September 1836, Sam Houston was elected president in the first election held in the new-born Republic of Texas. Burnet was exhausted and embittered by the criticism he had received. 

He and his wife were also personally suffering with grief over the death in September of their infant son Jacob. Burnet wrote in the family Bible that Jacob was "a Victim of the War of Revolution." 

On October 23, 1836, Burnet resigned under pressure so that Houston could take office before the official start of his term in December.

 Yet Burnet ran for president again in 1841 aiming to defeat his nemesis Sam Houston.

TSL says: 

The campaign was marked by vicious name-calling.

Burnet alleged that Houston, in addition to being an alcoholic, was an opium addict who had the "blind malignity of a rattlesnake in dog days."

For his part, Houston derisively called Burnet "Little Davy" and "King Wetumpka" (hog thief).

Burnet was soundly defeated by the popular Houston…

 Burnet’s life didn’t get any easier. 

With Hannah Este he had four children. However only son William survived to adulthood, and he was killed in Alabama while fighting for the Confederacy in 1863, according to TSL. Wife Hannah died in 1858.

He was destitute when Galveston friends took him in. Burnet, 82, died in 1870.

In the park's picnic pavilion, a silhouette of Burnet sits at his desk.