Thomas Pliney Plaster (1804-1861)

    Thomas Pliney Plaster, soldier and planter, son of Thomas R. Plaster and Margaret (Henderson) Plaster, was born in Rowan County, North Carolina, on June 26, 1804. The family moved to Giles County, Tennessee. In 1835 with his wife, Dollie Burton (Samuel), he moved to Texas and established a plantation near the site of present Bedias in Montgomery (now Grimes) County. From March 1 until April 1, 1836, he served as a lieutenant in Capt. L. B. Franks's ranger company on the northern frontier. On April 2 he enlisted in Lt. Col. James C. Neill's so-called "Artillery Corps" and was elected second sergeant. At the battle of San Jacinto Plaster manned one of the Twin Sisters.

    He was tried by court-martial for a now unknown offense and sentenced by Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Rusk to be reprimanded before the entire army on parade on the evening of June 27, 1836, and dismissed from service. He rejoined the army on July 5, however, as a private in Capt. George Washington Poe's First Artillery Battalion, and by August 1 had been promoted to quartermaster of the First Cavalry Regiment of the First Brigade, Army of the Republic of Texas. From then until November 22, 1836, he was stationed at Camp Johnson, on the Lavaca River.

    Thereafter he returned to his plantation, where by 1840 he owned 2,952 acres. By 1850 his Grimes County real estate had increased in value to $1,400. By 1860 it was worth $11,000, and that year he reported $6,000 in personal property. His wife died in 1857, at age forty-nine, in giving birth to their ninth child, named Dollie after her mother. Plaster served for several years as postmaster at Bedias, and after annexation he was elected to the First Legislature of the state of Texas. He died of pneumonia in Austin on March 27, 1861, and is buried in the State Cemetery. At the time of his death he was doorkeeper of the Texas House of Representatives. Source

Republic Hill
Texas State Cemetery
Austin

COORDINATES

30° 15.933, -097° 43.639

Abner Pickens Blocker (1856-1943)

    Ab Blocker, trail driver, youngest of the three sons of Abner Pickens and Cornelia Randolph (Murphy) Blocker, was born on January 30, 1856, on the family ranch near Austin, Texas. He spent his youth in farm and ranch work and in 1876 joined his older brothers, William B. and John R. Blocker, on their range in Blanco County. In 1877 he helped deliver 3,000 steers to John Sparks in Wyoming. Over the next seventeen years he drove longhorn cattle up the trails from Texas to various buyers in Oklahoma, Kansas, Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana, and as far north as the Canadian border. In the summer of 1885 he delivered 2,500 head from Tom Green County to B. H. (Barbecue) Campbell, manager of the Capitol Syndicate's Buffalo Springs division in Dallam County. Campbell had contracted to buy cattle for the newly established XIT Ranch, and this was the first herd from South and West Texas to arrive. Blocker devised the XIT brand, for which the syndicate's ranch was named. Afterward he was involved in the dispute at Fort Supply, Oklahoma, resulting from the attempts of Kansas ranchers to quarantine the herds of his brother and other South Texas cattlemen and keep the Texans from crossing their land.

    Beginning in 1887 Blocker tried cotton farming for two years, but a period of drought soon put him back in the saddle. In 1890 he was made range boss of his brother's Chupadero Ranch, near Eagle Pass. His last overland trail drive was to Deadwood, South Dakota, with Harris Franklin's herd in 1893. In 1896 he married Florence Baldwin; they had a daughter. The family resided on a ranch in La Salle County, fifteen miles southeast of Cotulla, until a prolonged drought ruined them financially. In 1903, after living in Oklahoma for a year, the Blockers returned to Eagle Pass and subsequently took up residence again at the Chupadero Ranch. There they remained until 1912, when Blocker began working for the Texas Cattle Raisers Association (later the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association). He died in San Antonio on August 9, 1943, and buried in Dignowity Cemetery. Source

Section B
Dignowity Cemetery
San Antonio

COORDINATES

29° 25.408, -098° 28.020

John Arledge (1906-1947)

    Johnson Lundy Arledge was born on March 12, 1906 (his grave marker is incorrect) in Crockett, Texas. After studying at the University of Texas, he started his career in vaudeville for two years and stock with David Belasco before transitioning to film. He kickstarted his acting career in various films such as Young Sinners (1931), Heartbreak (1931) and the remake of Daddy Long Legs (1931) with Janet Gaynor. He also appeared in Week-Ends Only (1932), the sports drama Huddle (1932) with Ramon Novarro and Olsen's Big Moment (1933). He kept working in film throughout the thirties, starring in Flirtation Walk (1934) with Dick Powell, the Charles "Buddy" Rogers musical Old Man Rhythm (1935), the Dick Powell musical Shipmates Forever (1935) and Devil Dogs of the Air (1935). Toward the end of his career, he continued to act in Twelve Crowded Hours (1939), the Vivien Leigh box office smash dramatic adaptation Gone With the Wind (1939) and the drama Strange Cargo (1940) with Joan Crawford. He also appeared in The Grapes of Wrath (1940) and the James Cagney drama City For Conquest (1940). His final film was Dark Passage (1947) with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. Arledge died later that year and was buried in his hometown. Source

Evergreen Memorial Park

Crockett

COORDINATES

31° 19.905, -095° 27.936

Alfred Henderson Wyly (1808-1867)

    Alfred Henderson Wyly, soldier of the Texas Revolution, was born in Virginia in 1808, the son of Robert and Dorcas Balch Wyly. His arrival date in Texas is unknown, but he joined the Texas army at Groce's Retreat on the Brazos River in early April 1836, where he organized and was elected to command a small company from the "Redlands" region. The company was assigned to Col. Sidney Sherman's Second Regiment, Texas Volunteers, and served at the battle of San Jacinto. Wyly was discharged on July 24, 1836. He married a widow named Josephine Louise Williams in Nacogdoches on February 4, 1857. By 1860, the family lived in Upshur County and had four children by Josephine’s first marriage and three by their own. Wyly gave his occupation as “professor.” At some point after 1860, Wyly moved to Hempstead in Waller County where he died on May 11, 1867. He is buried in the Hempstead Cemetery. Source 

Hempstead Cemetery

Hempstead

COORDINATES

30° 05.054, -096° 04.075