Barton Warren Stone

Duane's take

The official marker tells this one, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road. Barton Warren Stone, born 1817, died 1881, now there's a man who spent his whole life pickin' a side and then reconsidering it. He came out of Kentucky, made his way through Tennessee, and landed in Dallas in 1851.

Farming and the law; two things that'll keep a man busy and occasionally get him into trouble. And sure enough, trouble came quick. By 1852, barely a year after arriving, Stone was helping lead a flat-out rebellion against Peters Colony agent H.

O. Hedgecoxe. They called it a rebellion.

The marker doesn't soften that word, and neither will I. Now, when the Civil War came knockin', Stone was initially opposed to Texas seceding. A man of convictions, you'd say.

But then, and here's where the story gets complicated, he organized and commanded not one but two Confederate Cavalry regiments. Two. Whatever his reservations had been, he set them aside and went to war.

After it was all over, he moved his family to a farm in Missouri. Maybe Dallas held too many memories. Maybe Missouri just seemed quieter.

But the pull of the place wouldn't let him go, and in 1879, Barton Warren Stone came back to Dallas to practice law one more time. Born 1817. Died 1881.

Two years after coming home. Some men just need to finish where they started.

What the marker says

(1817 - 1881) Kentucky native Barton Warren Stone came to Dallas from Tennessee in 1851. He prospered at farming and the practice of law. In 1852 he helped lead a rebellion against Peters Colony agent H. O. Hedgecoxe. Though initially opposed to Texas' secession, Stone organized and commanded two Confederate Cavalry regiments during the Civil War. He later moved his family to a farm in Missouri, but returned to Dallas in 1879 to practice law. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986