DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — Dolphin Ward Floyd, the man a whole county carries to this day. Now, Floyd County didn't get its name by accident, and it didn't get it from just anybody. When this county was created in 1876, the folks doing the naming reached back forty years to honor a man named Dolphin Ward Floyd — born in 1804, died in 1836, and every single day between those two years lived with the kind of intention that tends to get counties named after you.
Dolphin Ward Floyd was a native of North Carolina, and in 1825 he left that home behind. By about 1832, he'd made his way to Gonzales, Texas — which, if you know your Texas history, is a town that has a way of producing consequential moments. Floyd put down roots there.
He married Esther Berry House. They had two children together. By all appearances, he was building something — a life, a family, a future in this rough and promising land.
Then February of 1836 arrived. Lieutenant Colonel William B. Travis sent out a call for help.
He was at the Alamo, in San Antonio, and he needed men. Dolphin Ward Floyd heard that call. So did thirty-one other residents of Gonzales.
Thirty-two people looked at what was being asked, and they went anyway. During the battle that followed, Floyd and his comrades were killed — fighting for Texas' independence from Mexico. Thirty-two volunteers from one town.
One of them was a husband, a father, a man forty years away from having a county bear his name. Sometimes the land itself is how a place says: we remember.
What the marker says
When this county was created in 1876, it was named in honor of Dolphin Ward Floyd (1804-1836). A native of North Carolina, Floyd left his home in 1825 and arrived in Gonzales, Texas, about 1832. He married Esther Berry House and they had two children. In February 1836, Floyd, along with 31 other Gonzales residents, answered Lt. Col. William B. Travis' call for help at the Alamo in San Antonio. During the battle that ensued, Floyd and his comrades were killed fighting for Texas' independence from Mexico. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986