Lee County, Texas - News Article: Willis Parker

**************************************************
Contributed for use in the USGenWeb by:
June E. Tuck <juneet@verizon.net>
USGenWeb Archives. Copyright. All rights reserved
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
**************************************************

[NOTE THAT THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS FALSE INFORMATION.
* Jim Parker, father of Cynthia is NOT the uncle of Willis Parker. There is no
familial relationship at all; they just share a surname.
* Wiley was not born in Kentucky, but rather Nails Creek, Georgia in 1803.
* The headright league of land that Wiley Parker was granted was not the site of
the Steamboat House where General Sam Houston died. This site was on Pleasant
Grey's headright (City of Huntsville) land, which neighbors Wiley's land on his
south line. (Wiley's father, Jesse's league of land was located on Wiley's
westline.) These leagues are located in present day Hunstsville, TX.]

Article from the historical files of June E. Tuck WHO DOES NOT VALIDATE
or dispute any historical facts in this article.

Dallas Morning News Nov. 2, 1901

Willis Parker, the subject of this sketch, is one of the oldest living native
Texans in the State. The father of Willis Parker, immigrated from Kentucky in
1822, and located in Texas near old Nacogdoches, as a member of the Robinson
Colony. There Willis Parker was born Nov. 8, 1825. Later on the family moved
near Huntsville, where Mr. Parker was mostly raised. There and elsewhere in
the State, the family have since lived, and evidences of their sojourn still
remain in such names as Parker Fort and Parker County. The residence of Gen.
Sam Houston in which he died, stood on the land patented by the father of Mr.
Parker. The battle San Jacinto, Mr. Parker distinctly remembers. He was then a
boy nearly 11 years old. After the battle he and others of the family, being
alarmed by a false report that Houston was defeated, walked to Nacogdoches to
escape the Mexicans, as they thought. The general stampede occasioned by this
report has since been known in history as the "Runaway Scrape." The father of
Mr. Parker was in this battle; took sick before he left the service and never
fully recovered, dying five years after.

Texas was then a wilderness full of Indians, revengeful and bloodthirsty. Mr.
Parker has vivid recollections of a number of raids when he, with the other
children, were rushed into hiding by their mother to escape the red men.
Cynthia Ann Parker, whose romantic history every schoolboy knows, was a first
cousin of Mr. Parker. Her father being Jim Parker, an uncle of Mr. Willis
Parker. He was within two miles of the scene when she was stolen, and was
himself in hiding at the time. This occurred at what was then called Parker’s
Fort, when Willis Parker was about 13 years old.

As a young man Mr. Parker fought Indians under Capt. Thomas and Wadkins, and
ranged practically all over the State. At the outbreak of the Mexican War all
his horses were pressed into the service, and his cattle taken also. In return
he was given government scrip, which the Federal authorities forgot to repay.
He afterwards entered the United States army and was detailed by Tom L. Smith
to haul provisions for the Rangers from old Washington to Fort Gates. He
remained in the service till the close of the war, and was at the battle of
Monterey. His captain was Jim Gillespie, Jack Hays Regiment, in General
Taylor’s command.

Mr. Parker, having a large family to support, never entered the Confederate
service, but furnished beeves for the penitentiary and frighted cotton to
Brownsville, for which he was granted certain conditions of exemption from
active services. He owned a number of slaves, cattle, horses and lands
situated on the line of Walker county, all of which was lost as a result of
the war, leaving him comparatively a poor man.

Being well stricken in years at the breakup, Mr. Parker was unable to retrieve
his losses, but has maintained himself and family in comfort, and has not been
assisted by either State or Federal government except a Mexican War pension,
which he has been drawing the last several years.

Mr. Parker now lives in Lee county. He has been twice married, both wives now
dead, and has been the father of eight sons and daughters, three of whom are
still living. These themselves are now well up in years and have families of
grown children.

"Uncle Willis" lives in retirement and seclusion, innocently unconscious of
his importance as an historical figure. A man, he is childlike in his
simplicity, loved by all his associates, and thankful that, through he is
poor, he has been allowed to journey so long in the land of his birth.

E. McIntosh - Tanglewood, Lee Co., Texas