John Porter Gill was born 1801 in Alabama. On August 9, 1835, he joined ninety-three other Brazoria residents in signing a call for a convention “to quiet the present excitement and promote the general interest of Texas”. Gill was elected first lieutenant of Capt. John York’s company of volunteers at the Siege of Béxar and on December 8 commanded a detachment that reinforced the beleaguered Texans occupying Zambrano Row opposite the town’s Main Plaza. Gill served as first lieutenant of Capt. Thomas H. McIntire’s Fifth Company of Col. Sidney Sherman’s Second Regiment, Texas Volunteers, at the battle of San Jacinto, and afterward was elected first lieutenant of Capt. Washington H. Secrest’s company of Washington Cavalry. He served from June 1836 until his discharge on October 23, 1836. On January 21, 1837, Gill was elected captain of one of the two companies of Brazoria County militia in the battalion of Maj. Willis A. Faris.
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