Isaac Byler Maxwell

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. The name on this marker is Isaac Byler Maxwell, though most folks in Llano County knew him simply as Ike. Born April 21, 1837, in Ripley, Tennessee, to Isaac D. and Nancy Love Byler Maxwell.

That's where the story starts, quiet enough. But life has a way of moving people. In 1844, after his mother died, the family pulled up and moved to Bluffton, Arkansas.

Ike was just a boy, carrying that grief and that name of a town with him. Then, a decade later, in 1854, young Ike Maxwell moved again, this time to this stretch of Texas hill country. And the land he settled, he named Bluffton.

After his former home. He brought that name with him all the way from Arkansas and planted it right here in Llano County. Now that is the kind of thing a man does when he's holding onto something.

The Civil War came along, as it came for everybody, and Ike Maxwell served as a scout for frontier units. After the war, he didn't slow down. He served as a justice of the peace, not once, not twice, but three terms.

Then the people of his area elected him to the state legislature, and in that capacity he helped arrange the excavation of granite for the state Capitol. The building that still stands in Austin today. From there to a Church of Christ pulpit, because Ike Maxwell also served as a minister.

Scout, lawman, legislator, preacher. That is one resume. When Ike Maxwell died in 1931, he was reportedly the oldest living Llano County pioneer.

The man who carried the name Bluffton across hundreds of miles and decades of Texas history, right up to the very end.

What the marker says

Isaac Byler "Ike" Maxwell was born April 21, 1837, in Ripley, Tennessee to Isaac D. and Nancy Love Byler Maxwell. In 1844, after his mother died, his family moved to Bluffton, Arkansas. He moved from there to this area in 1854, naming the land Bluffton after his former home. After serving as a scout for frontier units during the Civil War, he was a justice of the peace for three terms. Later elected to the state legislature, he helped arrange the excavation of granite for the state Capitol. He also served as a Church of Christ minister. When he died in 1931, he was reportedly the oldest living Llano County pioneer. Recorded - 2003