It is hard to imagine reading about any of the key events surrounding the Texas Revolution and the times surrounding it without encountering the name of Creed Taylor. Taylor was the son of a family of early Texas settlers. Despite his youth, he is thought to have taken part in the following battles: the “Come and Take It” battle in Gonzalez, the Battle of Concepción, the Grass Fight, the Siege of Bexar, the Battle of San Jacinto and others.
The town of Burleson (32°32′9″N 97°19′38″W) now sits along the border of Tarrant and Johnson counties. It was originally founded by a rancher and minister by the name of Henry Carty Renfro. Born in 1831, Renfro came from a Tennessee family who had originally settled in Cass County, Texas when he was about 20 years old. In 1853, he entered Baylor University when it was located at Independence, in Washington County. One of his mentors there was Rufus C. Burleson, a religiously conservative professor who had become President of the university in 1851.
There were a number of early Texans who had the last name of Baylor. Henry W. Baylor was born in Paris, Kentucky in 1818 to John Walker Bledsoe Baylor and Sophie Marie Weidner Baylor. He studied medicine and liberal arts at Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, founded in 1780, making it one of the oldest universities in the United States. About 1839 he came to visit his brother John Robert Baylor who had relocated to Texas earlier in the year. They joined the forces of Col. John H. Moore to fight Comanches for a time before Henry established a medical practice in La Grange, Fayette County. After going on several campaigns in pursuit of marauding Indians, he interrupted his medical practice to enlist in Company E of Col. John Coffee Hays‘ First Mounted Riflemen, First Rgt., where he served as a surgeon during the Mexican-American War. After his initial enlistment period was up, he reenlisted with Hays in the Second Rgt. where he was chosen as Captain. This unit served under U. S. Gen. Zachary Taylor and operated between Vera Cruz and Mexico City before returning to San Antonio for the duration of his enlistment.
Continue reading Henry Weidner BaylorBurleson County is located in East Central Texas and its county seat is Caldwell. The county is named for General Edward Murray Burleson, who served as Colonel of the First Regiment of Volunteers at the Battle of San Jacinto. He was born in North Carolina on December 15, 1798 and was still a relatively young man when his father James B. Burleson brought him on to act as Secretary as his father fought in the Creek War under Andrew Jackson. They both were descended from Ed Burleson’s grandfather Aaron Burleson, who had fought as a Minuteman in the American Revolution. The family first moved to Virginia, and Ed was elected Lieutenant and later Colonel of the militia. They later relocated to Tennessee where he served as Colonel of the militia from 1823 to 1830 in Hardeman County, Tennessee.
Henry W. Raguet was born in 1796 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. He, along with thousands of other early Texas settlers, would not be considered famous. Individuals like him aren’t written up in textbooks and have no streets, towns, counties or buildings named for them. They simply lived their lives and raised their families, despite whatever hardships and tragedies that they endured.
Texas History Notebook 