Mary Ann Kent Byas Chambers Morriss
Kerrville, Kerr County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Early Texas pioneer Mary Ann Kent was born in Missouri (Calloway Co.) in 1827 to Andrew and Elizabeth (Zumwalt) Kent. Their family moved to Texas in 1830, settling in Gonzales. Andrew was a carpenter, farmer and rancher before joining in the fight for Texas independence. He was killed at the Battle of the Alamo. Soon afterwards, the Kent family joined in the Runaway Scrape, fleeing Gonzales under the orders of Gen. Sam Houston. After the war, the Kent family eventually returned to their home on the Lavaca River.In 1845, Mary Ann married William Byas, a freighter. She managed their farm and household of seven children. In 1864, William returned from serving in the Confederacy during the Civil War, but died shortly afterwards. With a large family to support, Mary Ann sold much of her property and in 1869, after a malaria outbreak, moved her family near waters west of Johnson Creek, about two miles below present day Mountain Home. This creek became known as Byas Branch. Mary Ann and her children were among the earliest settlers in the area.In the early 1870s, a typhoid fever epidemic took the lives of four of Mary Ann's children. In 1879, Mary Ann married Robert Chambers, a farmer and blacksmith; he passed away a year later. In 1881, she wedded her third husband, John " Pap" Morriss. Afterwards, the two moved to land near Schumacher Crossing on the Guadalupe River south of Hunt. John Morriss died in 1897. Although she lost her sight and much of her hearing, Mary Ann continued to stay in her log cabin, where many visitors came to hear her tell of life in early Texas. In 1917, Mary Ann died and family buried her in Nichols Cemetery. Today, she is remembered as a noted pioneer who braved the hardships of the turbulent early years in Texas history. (2008)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Missouri in 1827, Mary Ann Kent came to Gonzales as a small child; her father, Andrew Kent, died at the Alamo, and the family fled in the Runaway Scrape during the Texas Revolution. Widowed young after her first husband returned from Confederate service, she raised a large family through malaria and typhoid epidemics that claimed four of her children, marrying twice more as she settled the Hill Country's Byas Branch and Guadalupe River country. Blind and nearly deaf in old age, she held court in her log cabin, recounting frontier Texas to visitors until her death in 1917.
Why it matters
Her ninety years bridge the Alamo and the modern era, preserving a woman's firsthand memory of Texas independence and the hardships of Hill Country settlement.
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Related people
- · Mary Ann Kent
- · Andrew Kent
Related events
- · Battle of the Alamo
- · Runaway Scrape
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Starkey Cemetery
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This Hill Country burial ground began as a family plot for James Monroe and Martha Adeline Starkey, whose son Jones was the first laid to rest here in 1868. J.M. Starkey, arriving in 1854, was Kerr County's first assessor-collector and later its chief justice, central to organizing the frontier county. Though only a handful of pioneer families rest here, they counted civic leaders, mill builders, ranchers, Texas Rangers, and Civil War veterans among them.
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