Site of the McDonald Massacre

The captives taken here shared a fate known across the Texas frontier. In the half century after warfare with Whites broke out in the 1830s, many settlers were taken captive. Raiders often killed children who lagged during pursuits, but those who reached the villages were usually adopted in place of dead relatives and treated as true sons and daughters; some later resisted being redeemed. Captives were rescued or ransomed by relatives, Rangers, soldiers, Indian agents and traders. When the Comanches and Kiowas were forced onto reservations and made to release their prisoners, many assimilated captives chose to stay.

What the plaque says

Site of the McDonald Massacre Pioneer preacher Matthew Taylor and the families of his daughter and two sons moved here in 1863 from their homestead on the Llano River. They built a cabin on this site near the source of the Pedernales River. In August 1864, Matthew and his son Jim returned to the Llano for a load of hay, leaving in charge Eli McDonald, husband of Matthew's daughter Caroline. On August 8, 1864, at a nearby spring, Jim Taylor's wife Gill was surprised by a band of Kiowas and wounded by an arrow. Before she died, she warned the others, who took refuge in the cabin. After a brief fight, the Indians killed Eli McDonald. They captured his wife Caroline and daughters Mahala and Becky Jane; and Alice, James, and Dorcas, children of Matthew's son Zed. Matthew's wife "Aunt Hannah" escaped and hid in a cave in what is now Harper Community Park. Matthew and Jim Taylor discovered the tragedy the next day and sought help from Eli McDonald's nephew Monroe. The two victims of the massacre were buried near Spring Creek, twelve miles east of Harper. "Aunt Hannah" was found and reunited with her husband. the captives wandered as far north as Oklahoma with the Kiowa tribe before they were located and ransomed by the U.S. Government. (1977)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Schreiner Mansion — 19 mi
  The 1879 downtown home of Charles Schreiner, the Alsatian-born merchant, banker and rancher whose store and mohair trade built Kerrville.
• Eckert James River Bat Cave Preserve — 19 mi
  A limestone cave on the James River where about four million Mexican free-tailed bats raise their young each summer, kept open to visitors by a family's gift.
• Vereins Kirche and Main Street — 22 mi
  The octagonal Society Church on Fredericksburg's market square, rebuilt in stone in the 1930s, beside a main street laid out like a Rhine village.
• National Museum of the Pacific War — 23 mi
  A museum of the war in the Pacific in Chester Nimitz's hometown, dedicated at his request to the two million who served with him, with a garden given by Japan.

More markers nearby

• Harper Independent School District — 0.3 mi
• First Baptist Church of Harper — 0.4 mi
• St. Anthony Catholic Parish — 0.5 mi
• St. James Lutheran Church — 0.5 mi