DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells this story, and here's my telling of it. Christmas Day, 1774. A child comes into the world in North Carolina, and they name him John Swanson Yarbrough.
Nobody at that cradle could have guessed the ground he'd cover before he was done. Yarbrough came to Texas in 1832 — early days, when this land was still finding itself — and he put down roots in what is now Houston County, out in east Texas. He didn't stay a settler for long before history called on him.
When the Texas War for Independence broke out, Yarbrough answered. He was at the Siege of Bexar in 1835, when Texian forces pressed the fight for San Antonio. And then he stood at San Jacinto — the decisive battle, the one that turned everything.
John Swanson Yarbrough was there. After all that, a man might've thought he'd earned the right to stay put. For a while, he did.
Houston County held him until about 1850. But Yarbrough had one more act left in him. In 1858, he gathered up a group of settlers and led them to the Frio River.
They built something there — a community, a foothold — and it came to be known as the Yarbrough Bend settlement, in what would become McMullen County. He was well into his eighties by then, and he was still leadin' people somewhere new. John Swanson Yarbrough died on October 20, 1862.
He was laid to rest at the Yarbrough Bend Cemetery, the settlement he'd carved out of the Texas brush. But even that wasn't quite the end of his story. In 1982, when the construction of Choke Canyon Reservoir reshaped that stretch of country, his grave was relocated to this very site.
The land changed around him, as Texas land tends to do. But John Swanson Yarbrough stayed in the county he helped settle. Some men are just too stubborn to be moved very far.
What the marker says
(Dec. 25, 1774 - Oct. 20, 1862) A native of North Carolina, John Swanson Yarbrough came to Texas in 1832 and settled in what is now Houston County in east Texas. A veteran of the Texas War for Independence, Yarbrough participated in the 1835 Siege of Bexar and in the decisive Battle of San Jacinto. He moved from Houston County about 1850 and led a group of settlers to the Frio River in 1858 to establish the Yarbrough Bend settlement in what became McMullen County. Yarbrough's grave was relocated to this site from the Yarbrough Bend Cemetery in 1982 as part of the construction of Choke Canyon Reservoir. Recorded - 2001