DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. William Jeff Maltby — born December 7th, 1829, died June 27th, 1908 — now there's a name that could carry a whole library of campfire stories on its back, and somehow the man still found time to grow fruit trees. He was a native of Illinois, which might surprise you a little, considering what Texas made of him.
But that's the thing about this state — it has a way of finding its people, no matter where they started. Around 1850, Maltby turned up in Texas and got right to work. He was building frontier forts for the U.S.
Army. Think about that for a moment. Not living in the forts, not garrisoning them — building them, out there where the frontier was still very much a frontier in every dangerous sense of the word.
Before any of that Texas business, though, Maltby had already served in the Mexican War. And he wasn't done yet — the Civil War would come for him too. And somewhere in all of it, he earned his place among the Texas Rangers.
Frontiersman, veteran twice over, Ranger — the résumé alone would make most men hang up their boots and find a porch. But Maltby wasn't finished. In 1878, he retired to Callahan County.
Retired being a relative term, because what he did next was build a nursery that earned him national recognition as a fine horticulturist. The man who built frontier forts was now coaxing living things out of the Callahan County soil, and the whole country took notice. And then, in 1906, two years before he died, Maltby co-authored a partial autobiography.
They called it Captain Jeff. Just in case the life itself wasn't enough — he went and put it down on paper. Born in Illinois, forged on the Texas frontier, recognized coast to coast for what he grew in the ground, and then memorialized in a book he helped write himself.
William Jeff Maltby didn't leave much to chance.
What the marker says
(December 7, 1829 - June 27, 1908) A native of Illinois, William Jeff Maltby gained fame as a frontiersman, veteran of the Mexican War and American Civil War and Texas Ranger. Maltby began his Texas exploits about 1850, building frontier forts for the U. S. Army. He retired to Callahan County in 1878 and developed a nursery that earned him national recognition as a fine horticulturist. Maltby co-authored a partial autobiography, published in 1906, called "Captain Jeff". Recorded - 1992.