Richard Bache Jr.

Richard Bache, Jr. (1784–1848), was a Representative to the Second Texas Legislature in 1847 and assisted in drawing up the Texas Constitution of 1845, the first of Texas' five state constitutions.

Biography

Early life and ancestors

Richard Bache, Jr. was born on March 11, 1784 at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Richard Bache, Sr. a marine insurance underwriter and importer in Philadelphia. Bache, Sr. had also served as United States Postmaster General from 1776 to 1782.

His mother was Sarah Franklin Bache (September 11, 1743 – October 5, 1808), who was the daughter of Benjamin Franklin, one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America, and his wife by common law marriage to Deborah Read.

Education

He was an 1812 graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.

Marriage and family

He married on April 4, 1805, Sophia Burrell Dallas, the daughter of Arabella Maria Smith and Alexander J. Dallas an American statesman who served as the U.S. Treasury Secretary under President James Madison. Richard and Sophia were the parents of nine children.

• Alexander Dallas Bache (1806–1867)
• Mary Blechenden Bach (1808–1873), married Robert John Walker, Secretary of the Treasury under President James Knox Polk.^[1]
• George Mifflin Bache (1811–1846), whose son was George Mifflin Bache, Jr.
• Richard Bache III (1813–1850)
• Sophia Arabella Bache (1815–1904), who married William Wallace Irwin, Mayor of Pittsburgh and a Whig member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania.
• Matilda Wilkins Bache (1819–1900), who married General William H. Emory, a United States Army officer and surveyor of Texas.
• Henrietta Constantia Bache (1822–1887)
• Sarah Franklin Bache (1824–1880), who married Richard Wainwright
• Maria Campbell Bache (1827–1851)

His brother was Benjamin Franklin Bache
His nephew was Andrew A. Harwood

Career

He served as a captain of the Franklin Flying Artillery of the Philadelphia Volunteers in the War of 1812. He also served in the United States Navy and as Philadelphia postmaster. When he moved to Texas from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1832, he abandoned his family, possibly for financial reasons,^[2] and settled in Stephen F. Austin’s colony at Brazoria. He served on the Zavala in the Texas Navy and on May 1, 1836, he was mustered into the Louisiana Independent Volunteers, commanded by J. J. Robinson, and while in service he briefly guarded Antonio López de Santa Anna after the Battle of San Jacinto.

In 1838-39 he served as chief clerk in the Navy Department at Houston and was enrolling clerk of the House of Representatives in the Third Congress of the republic. In 1842 he settled in Galveston, where he held a number of government posts of trust and responsibility. He became commissioner of the navy yard, elected to the office of collector of customs, and was a justice of the peace for Galveston County when he was elected a delegate to the 1845 Texas Annexation Convention. He was the only elected official to vote against annexation, allegedly because he did not wish to enlarge the domain of his brother-in-law, George M. Dallas, the vice-president of the United States;^[3] nevertheless, he helped draw up the Constitution of 1845. He was elected twice, to the First and Second Texas Legislatures, representing Galveston in the Texas Senate, District 11.^[4]

Death

He died in Austin, Texas, on March 17, 1848, and is buried at the national historic Oakwood Cemetery located in central Austin.^[5]

References