Thomas C. and Eliza V. Felps

Cypress Creek, where the Felpses were killed, rises in rugged country about three and a half miles northwest of Buffalo Peak in northern Blanco County and runs east for twenty-five and a half miles to the Pedernales, a little north of Hammetts Crossing in Travis County. In 1849 a group of Mormon homesteaders settled at Cypress Mill Springs, which rise in the creek bed, and built a mill below them to cut cypress lumber. William Evans filed the first land claim on the creek in 1854 and built his own mill there in 1857.

What the plaque says

Thomas C. and Eliza V. Felps Born in Tennessee in 1836, Thomas C. Felps came to Texas in 1850 and to this area in 1856. He earned a living by freighting and joined the Blanco County Rangers during the Civil War. In 1863 he married Eliza V. White (b. 1846), a native of Ohio. In the summer of 1869, the couple lived with Eliza's parents while Thomas recovered from a fever. Her father, newly-appointed County Judge S. T. White, had gone to Blanco on July 21, 1869, when Thomas and Eliza were killed by a band of Indians on Cypress Creek. Only Eliza was scalped. The couple's orphaned children, Thomas and Caroline, were cared for by Eliza's parents. (1975)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park — 7.2 mi
  The Johnson City district of the national park: the Victorian house where Lyndon Johnson grew up, and the stone barns his grandfather built in the Johnson Settlement.
• Pedernales Falls State Park — 9.4 mi
  The Pedernales stepping down over layered limestone east of Johnson City, a river that can turn from a placid stream to a torrent in minutes.
• Lyndon B. Johnson State Park and Historic Site — 18 mi
  A state park on the Pedernales opposite the LBJ Ranch, with a working Texas-German farm kept as it was around the First World War and the permit desk for the ranch tour.
• Luckenbach — 25 mi
  A store, saloon and dance hall on Grape Creek that a humorist bought in 1971, declared a free state of mind, and turned into a pilgrimage for Texas music.

More markers nearby

• Mt. Horeb Baptist Church — 5.4 mi
• Peyton Colony (Board House) — 5.4 mi
• Lyndon B. Johnson and Hill Country Electrification — 7.2 mi
• First Baptist Church of Johnson City — 7.3 mi