DUANE
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Duane's take
The way the official marker tells it, here's what Parker County was, and what it chose to become. Now, this land started out as part of a colonial grant, and not just any grant, one held by S.M. Williams and Stephen F.
Austin, the man history calls the father of Texas himself. Grand beginnings. But for all that pedigree, there were no permanent settlers here before 1850.
The land just sat there, waiting. Then in 1855 the county was created and named for Isaac Parker, its legislative sponsor. Five years later, by 1860, four thousand two hundred and thirteen people called it home.
A real place now, with real stakes. And when the question of secession came before Parker County voters in 1861, they didn't agonize long; five hundred thirty-five voted in favor, sixty-one against. The county had made its choice.
One name you need to know from this era is Oliver Loving. A settler. An official stock raiser.
When the Confederacy needed beef, Loving furnished it. And beyond that, he and eighteen other men organized a full-time patrol against what the marker calls frequent, bloody Indian raids, raids bad enough that citizens from adjacent counties came pouring into Parker County just to take refuge. Now here's where it gets complicated, the way things in wartime always do.
In 1864, same year that patrol was riding hard against those raids, three local men were charged with treason. One of them admitted to something that must have made jaws drop in every parlor in the county: he had invited Federal General J.G. Blunt to come down from the Cherokee nation and give Parker County protection from the Indians.
A Confederate county. Asking a Union general for help. War has a way of making men's loyalties harder to read than they first appear.
Meanwhile, there was General John R. Baylor, local rancher, Confederate officer. He was part of the Arizona-New Mexico campaign, the one aimed at stretching the Confederacy all the way to the Pacific, making it an ocean-to-ocean nation.
Baylor won victories out there and became Governor of Arizona. Then he served in the Confederate Congress from 1863 to 1865. Not a small life.
And Parker County kept sending men to the cause; nine companies in all to the Confederate army. Among them, Company E of the 19th Texas Cavalry, riding with Parsons' Brigade. That brigade fought more than twenty engagements over three years, and the marker gives them a phrase worth holding onto: considerable distinction.
So there it is. A county carved from an empresario grant, named for a legislator, tested by raids and treason charges and a war that asked everything of it, and it answered, in complicated, very human ways, that are still marked on the land today.
What the marker says
Part of a colonial grant to S.M. Williams and Stephen F. Austin, father of Texas, but with no permanent settlers before 1850, this county was created in 1855 and named for Isaac Parker, its legislative sponsor. By 1860 it had 4,213 people and in 1861 its voters favored secession 535 to 61. Oliver Loving, a settler, was an official stock raiser, furnishing beef to the Confederacy in the Civil War. He and 18 other men organized a full-time patrol against the frequent, bloody Indian raids. Citizens of adjacent counties took refuge here. In 1864 three local men were charged with treason. One admitted inviting federal General J.G. Blunt to come from the Cherokee nation and give Parker County protection from the Indians. General John R. Baylor, a local rancher, was an officer in the Arizona-New Mexico campaign to make the Confederacy an ocean-to-ocean nation, and after victories there became Governor of Arizona. He was in the Confederate Congress from 1863 to 1865. Parker County sent the Confederate army nine companies. Its Company E, 19th Texas Cavalry, served in Parsons' Brigade--which fought over 20 engagements in three years with considerable distinction. (1964)