DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just here to make sure you hear it right. Thomas S. McFarland.
Born 1810, died 1880. Now that right there is a name San Augustine County has not forgotten, and there are good reasons — plural — why. The marker gives him three titles before it even gets started: surveyor, soldier, and statesman.
Three words. And then it spends the rest of its lines proving every one of them. Let's take them in order, because the man's life practically demands it.
In 1832, McFarland was serving as Aide-de-Camp to Major Bullock at the battle of Nacogdoches. That's not a ceremonial post, friend. That's the kind of job where you are right next to the man giving orders, in the middle of whatever is happening.
He came through it. And then, the very next year — 1833 — he turned his attention from fighting to founding. McFarland laid off the town of San Augustine.
Laid it off. Drew the lines. Set the lots.
Gave the place its shape. Then 1836 rolls around, and Texas is at war for its life, and McFarland is right back in uniform — a soldier in the Texan army. After the revolution settled into something resembling a republic, he didn't go home and put his feet up.
He served in the Congress of the Republic of Texas, and then became Chief Justice of San Augustine County. Surveyor. Soldier.
Statesman. Turned out the marker wasn't braggin'. It was just keepin' score.
The State of Texas erected this marker in 1936 — and given everything McFarland packed into those years between 1810 and 1880, it seems like the least they could do.
What the marker says
HOME OF THOMAS S. McFARLAND 1810 * * 1880 Surveyor, soldier and statesman. Aide-de-Camp to Major Bullock in the battle of Nacogdoches, 1832. Laid off the town of San Augustine in 1833. Soldier in the Texan army, 1836. Member of the Congress of the Republic of Texas. Chief Justice, San Augustine County Erected by the State of Texas 1936