Coryell Co. TX - Young Pierce

Submitted by Bobbie Ross  <bwross@htcomp.net>

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                                YOUNG PIERCE
                                      
    Young Pierce was born 19 July 1839 in Tennessee and came to Texas with his
    mother Sabina and brother Bird Pierce. He served in Texas Mounted
    Volunteers Company E from November 1, 1854 to February 1, 1855, a Ranger
    unit that protected settlers from Indian depradations. This service earned
    Young the right to homestead land. He married Armelia Gray February 4,
    1858. Armelia was born July 29, 1842 in Mississippi to David Gray and his
    first wife. David married his second wife, Nancy Elms, in Izard County
    Arkansas in 1846 and when they moved to Sugar Loaf in Coryell county,
    Texas, in 1851 with Armelia they were among the first settlers there. Young
    and Armelia built a cabin near Sugar Loaf Mountain on Post Oak Creek and
    not far from Cowhouse Creek. Early morning March 16, 1859 Young drove his
    wagon to a cedar brake to cut fence posts for stock pens. He was attacked
    by some 16 Comanche Indians, stripped of his clothing and killed. The
    Comanches then killed neighbors John and Jane Riggs and horse whipped David
    Elms, a Riggs helper who survived. Armelia Pierce was 16 years old and 5
    months pregnant when her husband Young Pierce died at age 19. Before the
    Civil War personal firearms were rare and expensive and neither Young
    Pierce nor the Riggs were armed. First on the scene of the massacre as
    Ambrose Lee who lived nearby. He was described as a "crusty old
    frontiersman" and the only person there with a gun. Armelia and her
    mother-in-law Sabina were there about the same time and took the two
    remaining Riggs children and walked two miles to "Fort Scoggin", the home
    of methodist preacher Jesse Scoggin and his son Isaac. Young Pierce and the
    Riggs were buried in the Sugar Loaf Cemetery. In 1942, when Fort Hood was
    expanded, the Army moved these gravesites to the Killeen Cemetery where
    Armelia and Young were reinterred next to each other. Armelia married
    Stephen O'Neal February 28, 1861 and died 23 July 1898. They had three
    children. By Eldon Pierce, great grandson of Young Pierce. 

                                      
           copyrighted by Eldon Pierce and Bobbie Ross Sept 2000