General Edward H. Tarrant
Italy, Ellis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Veteran of the War of 1812, member of the Texas Congress and a courageous indian fighter. Born in North Carolina, 1796, died in Parker County, Texas, August 2, 1858. Reburied in Ellis County near his former plantation, 1859. His remains removed to the county named in his honor in 1928 and reinterred in Fort Worth.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in North Carolina in 1796, Edward H. Tarrant fought in the War of 1812 and later served in the Congress of the Republic of Texas while commanding frontier troops in campaigns against Native peoples. He died in Parker County in 1858, and his remains were reburied more than once before finding their final resting place in Fort Worth, in the county that bears his name. His life spanned the founding decades of Anglo settlement in Texas.
Why it matters
Tarrant was one of the soldier-statesmen who shaped the early Republic of Texas frontier, and the county named for him carries that founding-era legacy into the present.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of the Plantation Home of Edward H. Tarrant
Forreston, TX
War of 1812 veteran and Republic of Texas frontier commander Edward H. Tarrant built his home on this Ellis County land in 1845 and raised the county's first mill nearby. A statesman and campaigner against Native peoples, he lived here until his death in August 1858. The State of Texas marked the plantation site in 1936.
Newton Cemetery
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This family plot holds the Newtons, Peters Colony pioneers who reached the Ovilla area in the 1840s. Patriarch Larkin Newton, born in South Carolina in 1794, was a War of 1812 veteran who fought at the Battle of New Orleans and served as a county commissioner in three states before settling in Ellis County, where he built a schoolhouse for his family. The oldest grave is his own, from 1858, joined over time by his wife, children, and grandchildren.
John Marr Hardeman
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This marker honors John Marr Hardeman, a Tennessee-born settler who took up arms as a soldier in the army of the Republic of Texas during the pivotal year of 1836. He lived on into old age in the young state he had helped win, dying in 1891, and is remembered here alongside his wife Mary.
Chambers' Creek
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