The Legacy of John Avery Lomax and Alan James Lomax

We first became acquainted with the name John Avery Lomax, Sr. when we found a 1942 recording of “Goodbye Old Paint,” which song is attributed to singing cowboy Charley Willis.  The following is a brief overview of the many achievements of John Avery Lomax and son Alan James Lomax.

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Liz Carpenter

Mary Elizabeth Sutherland Carpenter was born in Salado, Bell County, Texas on September 1, 1920 to Thomas Shelton and Mary Elizabeth Robertson Sutherland.  Her father was a state highway inspector and her mother was a homemaker.  Liz was the middle child of five children.  According to traditional genealogical sources, her mother, Mary Elizabeth Robertson was the daughter of Maclin Robertson who was in turn the son of Sterling Clack and Sarah Maclin Robertson.  Sterling Clack Robertson was born in 1785 in Tennessee and came to Texas as empresario of his own colony, settling in what would become Bell County near the current town of Salado.  Robertson was also a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence.  On Liz’s father’s side, her Texas roots went back just as far.  Her father was Thomas Shelton Sutherland III.  His father was Thomas Shelton Sutherland II and his father was George Sutherland, born in Alabama and by profession a cowboy and rancher, who is noted as having served in the Texas Army and fought in the Battle of San Jacinto.

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John R. Baylor

Various members of the Baylor family have figured into Texas history over the years.  John Robert Baylor was a nephew of Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor, a judge and a preacher and also co-founder of Baylor University.  John Robert was born in 1822 in Paris, Kentucky to John Walker Bledsoe and Sophie Marie Wiedner Baylor.  John R. Baylor grew up in a military family, as his father was an Army doctor.  John Robert was the brother of George Wythe Baylor, a Texas Ranger and Henry Weidner Baylor, also a surgeon and a Texas Ranger.  Henry Weidner Baylor was the namesake of Baylor County in North Texas.

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Fort Davis

Fort Davis was one of the group of Texas frontier forts.  Also located on the short-lived Overland Trail, it provided protection for the travelers and settlers as well as the U. S. Mail in this contested area.  It was situated roughly equidistant between Fort Clark to the southeast and Fort Bliss to the northwest in what is now known as the Davis Mountains.  We would think of it today as being the northern point of a triangle with the points of the southern base being Marfa to the west and Alpine to the east.

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