Dr. Peter Gunsolus

The legend counts more family than the records do. A Stephens County researcher who went through them finds five wives and eleven children for Dr. Peter Gunsolus, not the seven wives and as many as fifty-three children of the stories. Two of his sons raised families in the county, and some of their children were credited to the doctor by mistake. The family settled on Duck Creek about 1850, and the stream was later renamed in his honor. The marker stands near the creek's bank in Breckenridge's city park.

What the plaque says

Dr. Peter Gunsolus (March 18, 1801-May 23, 1886) A native of Chicago, Dr. Peter Gunsolus came to this area in the 1850s. He lived and practiced medicine in Shackelford, Parker, and Stephens Counties. Gunsolus eventually settled here on Duck Creek, which was later renamed in his honor, and was a valued member of the community. Although some accounts state he was the father of 53 children from his seven marriages, many of those may have been step-children. Gunsolus Creek has played an important role in Breckenridge history as the site of social, religious, and civic activities. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Griffin State Historic Site — 22 mi
  The ruins of an 1867 cavalry post on a plateau above the Clear Fork of the Brazos, judged unfit for habitation and used nine more years, now home to the official state longhorn herd.
• Old Jail Art Center — 23 mi
  An art museum in Albany's 1878 stone jail, where the masons carved their initials to be sure of pay, now holding Chinese tomb figures and works by Picasso and Klee.
• Old Rip at the Eastland County Courthouse — 25 mi
  A horned lizard in a glass-topped casket in the 1928 Eastland courthouse, the creature said to have come out alive from the old building's cornerstone after thirty-one years.
• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 30 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

• Walter Prescott Webb's Formative Years — 0.4 mi
• Stephens County Courthouse — 0.4 mi
• Breckenridge Stephens Walker — 0.4 mi
• Camp Breckenridge, C.S.A. — 0.4 mi