DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Hezekiah Faris, straight out of Walker County. Pull up a chair — this one's got some miles on it. Now, Hezekiah Faris was not a man who came to Texas looking for comfort.
He came looking for a fight — and he found one. Born in Virginia, raised up in Tennessee, he made his way to Texas in 1835, when this place was still a colony reaching for its freedom. He came to fight for that freedom, and fight he did.
Hezekiah Faris was there at San Jacinto, one of the Texans who walked away from that victory with history on his boots. After the fighting was done, the question became: what do you do with a man like that? Well, Texas had an answer.
Bounty land for army service — that was the arrangement — and Faris claimed his, right here in this vicinity. He also claimed his headright in the same stretch of country. So he put down roots.
Deep ones. And here is where the story gets a little warmer. Faris became a local leader out here.
He married Mrs. Matilda Stevens Roberts, and together they had a family — a daughter, Susan, who became Mrs. James Gillespie, and a son, James Morgan.
A household, a community, a place in the world. He also left something on the map. Faris Chapel — named for his home church back in Tennessee.
That's a man carrying his whole past with him into a new country and planting it like a seed. Whatever that church in Tennessee meant to him, he made sure it meant something here too. Now, time has a way of drifting things a little sideways.
The family name, somewhere down the line, became Farris — just that one letter shifting, like a slow bend in a river. But Hezekiah Faris, soldier of San Jacinto, settler of Walker County, founder of Faris Chapel — he knew who he was. And now, out here on this road, so do you.
What the marker says
A soldier who participated in Texans' victory at San Jacinto. Born in Virginia, brought up in Tennessee, Faris came to Texas to fight for colony's freedom, 1835. Locating bounty land for army service and his headright in this vicinity, he became a local leader and named Faris Chapel for his home church in Tennessee. He married Mrs. Matilda Stevens Roberts; children were Susan (Mrs. James Gillespie) and James Morgan. Family name later became Farris.