Who is Tarrant Co. named for? A military man who fought Native Americans in North Texas

On May 14, 1841, Brig. Gen. Edward H. Tarrant, known as “Old Hurricane,” led a militia of 69 men from Red River County to quell Native American raids in North Texas. According to the militia payroll roster, at least one Latino, José Maria Gonzales, rode with Tarrant.

Native Americans viewed the flow of white settlers onto their traditional farming and hunting lands as intolerable. Texians welcomed the stream of white settlers and resolved after defeating Santa Anna’s army in 1836 to repel any threat to the newly created Lone Star Republic.

J. R. Edmondson’s rendering of the Battle of Village Creek for a history class taught by Richard Selcer (a contributor of history columns to the Star-Telegram) offered insight. Tarrant’s militia caught a lone Native American close to the present-day downtown Fort Worth and interrogated him about the location of the Native American camp. After he was tied to a tree and threatened with being shot, he directed them to a village a few miles away. On May 24, 1841, Tarrant’s scouts found the village close to a creek where Lake Arlington currently rises.

Gen. Tarrant led the charge along with Capt. John B. Denton, capturing a woman and her son. On discovering a second village two miles away, they stormed it. By then, the surprised Native Americans fought back, wounding several. Some of the men attacked a third village, but retreated. Tarrant regrouped the militia at the second village and was hesitant to venture farther, fearing they were outnumbered. At Denton’s request to scout ahead, Tarrant allowed him to proceed with several men.

Native Americans lying in wait fired on the patrol, scattering them and killing Denton. Tarrant ordered several of the militia to retrieve Denton’s body lest it be mutilated. They buried him in a rock lined grave 25 miles north of the battle. In 1860, Denton’s remains were disinterred and buried at the John S. Chisum ranch. His body was moved again in 1901 and interred on the Denton County Courthouse grounds. Twelve Native Americans were killed and many more wounded at the Battle of Village Creek.

This battle was the culmination of Tarrant’s Native American fighting career. North Texas Native Americans, realizing their wood sanctuary was no longer safe, moved west.

Sam Houston commissioned Tarrant and George W. Terrell to negotiate a peace treaty with several tribes at Fort Bird in 1843. The 24-article treaty established a demarcation line stretching from the Trinity River to San Antonio. Native Americans were permitted to freely hunt and farm in all the lands west of the line. Neither side was permitted to cross over without President Houston’s permission. Comanches refused to negotiate or sign the treaty. The Fort Bird Treaty acted as a momentous invitation for white settlers to migrate to Texas and an end to Native American independence.

Agreeing to exchange captives, Tarrant returned the Native American boy he had captured two years earlier to his uncle José Maria, chief of the Anadarko. The boy eventually reunited with his mother, who had escaped.

Born in 1796 in South Carolina, Tarrant earned his whirlwind reputation as a military leader fighting with Kentucky militia against the British in the War of 1812. He studied law in Kentucky and served in Tennessee as a colonel in the state’s militia, sheriff, and circuit court clerk. Moving to Texas in 1835, he resided in Red River County, where he was elected as chief justice. He ran for lieutenant governor in 1847 but lost. He served in the Texas House of Representatives and represented Bowie County at a convention in Austin considering annexation to the United States.

On a stop in Fort Worth to visit Dr. Carroll Peak, the first Fort Worth physician, his wife Florence recalled he was a “medium-sized, dark haired, vigorous looking man with ruddy-complexion.”

Tarrant moved to Fort Belknap in 1856 to command troops dealing with further Native American uprisings. On his return trip in August 1858 to his farm in Chambers Creek, Ellis County, he fell ill and died at the home of William Fondren. He was buried at Fort Belknap but the next year his body was reburied on his farm near Italy, Texas.

Houston oilman I. W. Kemp searched across the state for Texas pioneer heroes’ burial sites. Some were buried in unmarked graves outside the counties or cities named for them. With the assistance of the Daughters of the Texas Revolution, the Daughters of the War of 1812, and local businessmen, the Pioneers Rest Cemetery Association arranged for the reburial of Tarrant on March 3, 1928, in Fort Worth.

Tarrant’s former slave George Washington Hawkins had tended his grave in Ellis County even after his emancipation. Alice Naylor wrote in a Feb. 28, 1928, Fort Worth Star-Telegram article, “the former slave carrying on a sacred tradition, handed him from parents and, older brothers, of a master whose name and memory is worthy of honor.” In Tarrant’s will, he bequeathed Mallard, a 3-year-old slave, to his adopted son, Jesse Tarrant Gilliam.

A red, granite memorial, on the front lawn of the Tarrant County Courthouse, honors Brig. Gen. Edward H. Tarrant.

Author Richard J. Gonzales writes and speaks about Fort Worth, national and international Latino history.