James Harper Starr

Starr's sons shaped what became of his Marshall money. The Handbook of Texas says the land and banking agency James H. Starr and Son was formed in Marshall, that the family moved there in 1870, and that Starr and his son Frank retired in 1873 when Amory Reily Starr took control of the firm. A plaque at the Starr Family Home State Historic Site names Amory among the Texas and Pacific officers who formed the first White Citizens Party in 1878. Starr died in Marshall on July 25, 1890, and is buried in Greenwood Cemetery.

What the plaque says

James Harper Starr Connecticut-born. Came to Texas 1837. A doctor in Nacogdoches. Secretary of the Treasury and army surgeon, Republic of Texas. At start of Civil War appointed to take and sell the property of enemy aliens, the proceeds going to Treasury of Confederacy to aid the war effort. Became Postmaster General for western C.S.A. in 1864. The South was then spit in two parts by federal control of the Mississippi River. Starr's problem was to provide mail service in Louisiana, Arkansas and Texas and to devise means to get mail through the enemy military lines and naval blockade to and from westerners fighting east of the river and the confederate capital. This was essential to soldier and home front morale and to maintain necessary military and governmental communications. The mail was carried by pony express, wagons, blockade running vessels, stage coach lines, couriers, spies and army details. Starr competed with the army to get drivers, wagons and horses. Draft by military of postal employees was fought by writs of habeas corpus. "Men" under 16 were hired. Printing facilities were limited and forms, supplies, stamps had to be smuggled. The children of a cabinet officer once came through enemy lines with $3,000,000 worth of stamps for him. After the war, Starr in 1865 looked into East Texas oil showings. He founded Marshall's first bank. Starr county was named in his honor. Erected by the State of Texas 1963

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Harrison County Historical Museum — steps away
  Galleries in Marshall's 1901 courthouse that run from the Caddo to the present, with Wiley College, Lady Bird Johnson's inaugural gown and a military gallery across the square in Memorial City Hall.
• Starr Family Home State Historic Site — 0.3 mi
  Maplecroft, the 1871 Greek Revival house Frank Starr built in Marshall, with Ruth Starr Blake's glass and china, an 1880s kitchen restored in 2019 and a retirement home built for a formerly enslaved person.
• Texas and Pacific Railway Depot and Museum — 0.5 mi
  The only surviving building of the Texas and Pacific shops at Marshall, a 1912 Mission Revival depot saved from demolition in the 1990s, still an Amtrak stop, with a railway museum and a Mikado locomotive.
• Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 14 mi
  Wetlands and woods on part of a former ammunition plant, now a refuge for wood ducks, prothonotary warblers and alligator snapping turtles, with four easy trails and a free visitor center on a Ramsar lake.

More markers nearby

• Home Town of Texas Confederate General Elkanah Greer — steps away
• Governor Edward Clark — steps away
• Marshall — steps away
• Harrison County — steps away