General Edward H. Tarrant

Tarrant's remains were moved three times. The Handbook of Texas says he died on August 2, 1858, at the home of William Fondren about ten miles from Weatherford and was buried there. He was reburied on his Chambers Creek farm on January 28, 1859, and again on March 3, 1928, in Pioneer Rest Cemetery. In Red River County his household included relatives, hired men and enslaved people. In 1847 he ran for lieutenant governor and lost to John Alexander Greer. Tarrant County takes its name from him.

What the plaque says

General Edward H. Tarrant South Carolina native Edward H. Tarrant enlisted in the Kentucky Militia in 1814 and served under Gen. Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans. Moving to Tennessee after 1816, he was elected Colonel of the Henry County Militia and served as County Sheriff. Tarrant arrived in Texas in November 1835, settling in Red River County. He served in the Republic of Texas Congress and became a Brigadier General in the Texas Militia in 1839. He commanded the Texas Rangers at the Battle of Village Creek in present Tarrant County in 1841 and, with George W. Terrell, negotiated treaties with many of the Texas Indian tribes at Bird's Fort in 1843. Tarrant represented Bowie County at the Annexation Convention of 1845. By February 1846, he had moved to Navarro County, where he became Chief Justice and was elected to the 3rd and 4th Texas Legislatures. In the 1850s, Tarrant commanded a force of Texas Rangers defending the frontier at Fort Belknap. He died in Parker County in 1858 and was buried there. The next year, his remains were moved to his farm in Ellis County. In 1928, his body was reinterred here by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. Tarrant County, created in 1849, was named in his honor. (1986)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tarrant County Courthouse — 0.6 mi
  A pink-granite courthouse of 1895 on the bluff where the Army set up Fort Worth in 1849, in a county named for the man who led the 1841 attack on the Native villages of Village Creek.
• Fort Worth Stockyards — 2.0 mi
  The brick-street cattle market where Armour and Swift built packing plants in 1902, now a National Register district with a Coliseum, a museum and a longhorn drive twice a day.
• Kimbell Art Museum — 2.4 mi
  Louis Kahn's cycloid-vaulted museum of 1972, built from Kay Kimbell's bequest and joined in 2013 by Renzo Piano's pavilion for the exhibitions the Kahn galleries could not hold.
• National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame — 2.8 mi
  A hall of fame begun in Hereford in 1975 to honor rodeo women, widened in 1977 to Western heritage, and housed in Fort Worth's Cultural District since 2002.

More markers nearby

• Pioneer's Rest Cemetery — steps away
• Allen Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church — 0.5 mi
• Eastern Cattle Trail — 0.6 mi
• Paddock Viaduct — 0.6 mi