Colonel William C. Young

Born in Davidson County, Tennessee, in 1812, Young came to Texas in 1837 and settled at Sherry's Prairie near Pecan Point, where he became the first sheriff of Red River County. Sam Houston appointed him a district attorney in 1844. He fought at Village Creek with Edward H. Tarrant's company and helped bury John B. Denton. At Gainesville in 1862 he and Col. James G. Bourland supervised the citizens' court that condemned seven Unionists, and nineteen more were executed after his own murder. He is buried near Dexter in Cooke County.

What the plaque says

(1812-1862) Tennessee lawyer, U.S. Marshall, frontier Texas Ranger, Annexation Convention member 1845, colonel Mexican War. During Civil War, raised and commanded 11th Texas Cavalry. Secured safety of northern Texas through capture of Forts Cobb, Washita and Arbuckle and negotiations with Comanches, Kiowas and Chickasaws. Fought Battle Chustenalah. Murdered in Red River cane "brakes" by renegades for testimony in Gainesville hanging. (Erected by the State of Texas 1963.) (1963)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Belknap — steps away
  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.
• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 9.2 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.

More markers nearby

• Major Robert S. Neighbors — steps away
• Camp Belknap, C.S.A. — steps away
• Tonkawa Scouts, C.S.A. — steps away
• Major Robert Simpson Neighbors — 0.5 mi