Britt Johnson

The Handbook of Texas puts Britt Johnson's birth about 1840, probably in Tennessee. He was enslaved by Moses Johnson, a Peters Colony landholder, yet served as a kind of ranch foreman with wide freedom and raised his own horses and cattle. After the Elm Creek raid he searched Oklahoma reservations and frontier forts until the summer of 1865. Accounts of the rescue differ; the Handbook calls it most likely that the Comanche chief Asa-Havey ransomed his family that June during peace talks. Afterward Johnson hauled freight between Weatherford and Fort Griffin from a home in Parker County.

What the plaque says

(1823-1871) Cowboy, Indian scout, orderly at Fort Belknap in 1850s, who lost a son (Jim) as one of 12 persons killed in Elm Creek Indian raid, Oct. 12, 1864. His wife Mary and children, Jube and Cherry, were among 6 persons captured. Johnson traced his family and by stealth took them from Indian Territory. But the Indians took vengeance. On Jan. 24, 1871, Johnson's camp near here was attacked by Kiowas. Over 100 empty rifle shells at the site showed how valiantly he and companions Dennis Cureton and Paint Crawford fought before being killed and scalped. They were buried by U.S. cavalrymen. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 5.9 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.
• Fort Belknap — 7.6 mi
  The 1851 northern anchor of the first Texas frontier forts, on the Brazos below Newcastle, a Butterfield stop and the post beside the Brazos Reservation until its people were driven out in 1859.

More markers nearby

• Addie M. Graham — 5.3 mi
• Cattle Raisers Association Oak — 5.8 mi
• An 1890 Bank Building — 5.8 mi
• Standpipe Mountain — 5.8 mi