Sarah Creath McSherry Hibbens Stinnett Howard
Shiner, Lavaca County, Texas
Marker Inscription
SARAH HOWARD SUFFERED MUCH AT THE SAVAGERY OF THE TEXAS WILDERNESS. BORN IN ILLINOIS, SARAH CAME TO TEXAS WITH HER HUSBAND, JOHN McSHERRY, IN 1828. THE NEXT YEAR, JOHN WAS KILLED NEAR THEIR HOME BY INDIANS. SARAH LATER MARRIED JOHN HIBBENS, BUT INDIANS TOOK THE LIVES OF JOHN AND SARAH’S BROTHER NEAR THIS SITE. SARAH AND HER TWO SONS WERE TAKEN CAPTIVE, AND SHE ALONE ESCAPED. EVENTUALLY, SARAH’S OLDEST SON WAS RETURNED UNHARMED. IN 1836, SARAH MARRIED CLAIBORNE STINNETT. TWO YEARS LATER, HE WAS KILLED BY RUNAWAY SLAVES. IN 1839, SARAH MARRIED COL. PHILLIP HOWARD IN GONZALES. SARAH EPITOMIZES THE TEXAS PIONEER WOMAN BY HER DETERMINATION AND WILL TO SURVIVE.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This marker remembers Sarah Howard, who came to Texas from Illinois with her first husband in 1828 and endured extraordinary hardship on the frontier. Over the following decade she lost husbands and family to frontier violence, survived captivity, and escaped to raise her surviving son, marrying four times before settling with Col. Phillip Howard in Gonzales in 1839. Her repeated survival became emblematic of the endurance demanded of pioneer women on the early Texas frontier.
Why it matters
Sarah Howard's life distills the peril and resilience of women who helped hold the line of Anglo-Texan settlement during the violent birth of the republic.
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Related people
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Themes & tags
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