Dillard Cooper

Cooper was born in South Carolina about 1814, and he and his wife, Lucinda, lived in Alabama and Tennessee before he came to Texas. After independence he lived in Hays County, then settled on land the Republic granted him on the east bank of Cummins Creek in Colorado County, and the 1860 census listed him as a farmer with a personal estate of $3,500. His own account of the Goliad Massacre appeared in the Columbus Citizen on July 30, 1870. They had five children. Widowed, he married Elizabeth E. Gholson in 1878 and then Amanda Talk in 1883.

What the plaque says

Dillard Cooper South Carolina native Dillard Cooper came to Texas in Jan. 1836 with Capt. John Shackelford's Red Rovers, landing at Copano Bay and joining Col. James Fannin's command. Following the Texians' defeat at the Battle of Coleto Creek on March 20, the wounded Cooper was among many soldiers taken prisoner at Goliad. One week later, Mexican troops shot and killed more than 300 prisoners; Cooper was among a handful who escaped. He and companions spent two weeks traveling at night through enemy lines and abandoned settlements to reach Texian forces at the Brazos River. Cooper lived in Hays and Colorado counties before moving to farm with his stepson Samuel Stoudenmier in Llano and San Saba counties by 1878. Cooper died in 1896. (2008)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Llano County Courthouse Square — 0.5 mi
  The 1893 Romanesque courthouse on Llano's square, built after a fire at the height of a boom that was meant to make the granite town an iron city.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 17 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.
• Inks Lake State Park — 18 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Enchanted Rock State Natural Area — 19 mi
  A dome of pink granite north of Fredericksburg that rises some 385 feet above Sandy Creek, creaks as it cools at night, and has drawn people for thousands of years.

More markers nearby

• O'Henry School Building — 0.2 mi
• St. James Lutheran Church — 0.3 mi
• First Christian Church of Llano — 0.3 mi
• Richmond Alexander McInnis — 0.4 mi