Robert L. Foard

Robert Levi Foard was born in Maryland on January 18, 1831, graduated from Princeton and was admitted to the bar at Elkton in 1852, the year he moved to Columbus. He married Georgiana Sherrill, probably in 1855; their two children did not live to adulthood, and he later adopted a four-year-old nephew whom he renamed Robert Levi Foard, Jr. After the war he practiced law, raised stock and was a principal moneylender until Columbus had banks. The Handbook of Texas says the county was named for him at the request of his law partner, State Senator Marcus H. Townsend.

What the plaque says

Star and Wreath County named for Texas Confederate officer Robert L. Foard (1831 - 1898) Came to Texas from Maryland, 1853. Prominent pioneer lawyer and citizen. Lt. Columbus Grays Texas Militia Co. 1861. Confederate major 13th Texas Infantry Regiment, which successfully guarded portion Texas coast against raiding parties from Union blockading vessels. 13th stationed 7 weeks, 1863, Brashear City, LA., as part campaign to prevent split of South by loss of Mississippi River. Returned to coast duty until war's end. A memorial to Texans who served the Confederacy. Erected by the State of Texas, 1963

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fire Hall Museum — steps away
  Crowell's local museum in the 1922 firehouse on Main Street, in a county-seat town that was almost wiped away by the tornado of April 1942 and rebuilt.
• Copper Breaks State Park — 9.7 mi
  Red badlands on the Pease River between Quanah and Crowell, streaked with the green copper that lured a Civil War general here to mine, with longhorns and a dark-sky designation.
• Quanah, Acme and Pacific Depot Museum — 22 mi
  The Spanish Colonial Revival depot of a little railroad that set out for El Paso and never got past Floydada, now Hardeman County's museum alongside the county's 1890 jail.
• Red River Valley Museum — 26 mi
  Vernon's museum on College Drive, with rooms on the Waggoner ranch empire, Doan's Crossing and early Vernon, and the largest known collection of Electra Waggoner Biggs's art.

More markers nearby

• First Officials of Foard County — steps away
• First Christian Church — steps away
• Foard County — 3.0 mi
• Site of the Town of Margaret — 8.3 mi