Site of the Plantation Home of Edward H. Tarrant

This is private land with no public access, and the house is gone; the marker stands for Tarrant's Ellis County years. The Handbook of Texas says he sponsored the bill that created Ellis County on December 20, 1849, and served in the legislature from 1849 to 1853. He married Mary Danforth in 1851 and lived on Chambers Creek near Italy, joining Waxahachie's social life. In 1857 he moved part of his household to Fort Belknap, where he again turned to raising forces against what the Handbook calls Indian depredations. The move came a year before his death.

What the plaque says

Site of the Plantation Home of Edward H. Tarrant (1796-1858) Veteran of the War of 1812. Pioneer Indian fighter. Commander of Texas frontier troops. Statesman of vision. The house was built in 1845. Near by he built the first mill in Ellis County. Here he resided until his death, August 2, 1858. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ellis County Courthouse — 11 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• Hill County Courthouse — 22 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.
• Petroleum Industry Park — 24 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.

More markers nearby

• Chambers' Creek — 1.6 mi
• General Edward H. Tarrant — 3.2 mi
• Avalon Missionary Baptist Church — 3.7 mi
• William Hobart Stafford — 3.8 mi