Martin Varner

The Handbook of Texas calls Varner Wood County's first permanent settler and says he patented more than 6,000 acres here, much of it bought as land certificates from San Jacinto veterans with money from selling his Brazos plantation. His death took two lives. During a dispute with a neighbor, Simon Gonzales, he was shot in the back, and his only son, Stephen, eighteen, was killed trying to rescue him. The family's enslaved man, Joe, subdued the killer, who later died of knife wounds Varner had inflicted. Varner left his wife, Elizabeth, and six daughters.

What the plaque says

Martin Varner (March 4, 1787 - Feb. 14, 1844) Came to Texas before 1820, and, in partnership with Henry Jones, operated a trading post in the Red River settlement of Jonesboro. He was a member of the "Old Three Hundred" who settled Stephen F. Austin's first colony. Varner first homesteaded near present Independence in 1822, then moved near Columbia in 1824, where he built the Varner Plantation. He fought in the Battles of Velasco (June 26, 1832) and San Jacinto (April 21, 1836). In 1841, Varner migrated to Wood County, where he was mortally wounded in an altercation over a debt. He is buried 100 yards east. (1975)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Governor Hogg Shrine — 11 mi
  Quitman's 27-acre city park, once a state historical park, where two houses tied to James Stephen Hogg's marriage stand beside an arboretum, a nature walk and the grounds of the Old Settlers Reunion.
• Tyler State Park — 12 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 18 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 21 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.

More markers nearby

• New Hope Baptist Church — 4.2 mi
• Lillian Richard — 4.6 mi
• First Election in Wood County — 4.9 mi
• Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church — 6.0 mi