William P. Avant

Duane's take

The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one passin' it along. William P. Avant.

Born in Alabama in 1826, and by 1834 he was already a Texan, brought here by his parents when the county he'd grow up in didn't even have a name yet. That stretch of land that would one day become Henderson County, that's where young William planted roots and came of age. And he didn't waste much time provin' himself.

At fourteen years old, he was riding as a Texas Ranger alongside his father, Durham. Fourteen. Let that settle in for a moment.

Not alongside some distant captain or a stranger. Alongside his own father, in the Rangers, out on the Texas frontier. Whatever those two faced together, they faced it as Avants.

Come 1849, William received a land grant in the Mercer colony, northeast of what is now Athens. He wasn't a ranger boy anymore. He was a man with a wife, Rutha, and children, and land of his own, and a life he was buildin' piece by piece.

He even had a hand in building the road from Athens to Palestine, a real, physical contribution to the country around him, connecting towns, moving people forward. But the country itself was pulling toward something darker. William Avant enlisted in the Confederate Army, and after one year of service, he was gone.

Died in 1863. Born 1826 in Alabama. Died 1863 in the middle of a war.

He'd come a long way from that boy riding with his father through Henderson County, and he never made it back.

What the marker says

(1826-1863) Alabama born William Avant grew up in what is now Henderson County after coming to Texas with his parents in 1834. At the age of 14, he served with his father, Durham, as a Texas Ranger. In 1849 he was issued a land grant in the Mercer colony (NE of present-day Athens) and settled there with his wife, Rutha, and their children. Involved in the building of the road from Athens to Palestine, Avant later enlisted in the Confederate Army and died after one year of service.