TEXAS RANGERS

SIEKER, LAMARTINE PEMBERTON (1848~1914)

Lamartine Pemberton Sieker, Civil War veteran and quartermaster of the Texas Rangers, son of Dr. Edward A. Sieker, was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on April 8, 1848. Lamartine Sieker had two interests in life: a liking to conduct his affairs in a military manner and a desire to work for the Texas Rangers. One ranger captain characterized Sieker as an "honest gentleman" and "fearless officer," who was a "disciplinarian" and a believer in "good order."

After attending more than one school, including a military academy, Sieker served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. He enlisted in Capt. W. W. Parker's Company of Virginia Light Artillery in the forces of Gen. Robert E. Lee from the summer of 1863 to early 1865. Although still in his teens, Sieker stood out in a military engagement in his red flannel shirt. His patriotic sense of duty made him volunteer for special duty and fight with courage and distinction.

After the war, Sieker served as a clerk and in 1873 migrated to Texas. By now, tall, thin, with a mustache and protruding ears, he carried himself with a regal bearing and dignified expression. Ranger records show that Sieker joined Company D of the Frontier Battalion on May 25, 1874. In this company he rose through the ranks to become lieutenant in 1881 and then captain on September 1, 1882. As a ranger officer Sieker directed operations against Indians and investigated murder cases and other crimes committed by Texan desperadoes.

After three years, Sieker served the Frontier Battalion, renamed the Ranger Force after a legal dispute in 1901, as quartermaster from 1885 to 1893 and from 1899 to 1905. Sieker's military background and interests made him fit well in the ranger's chain of command from the adjutant general and battalion quartermaster in Austin to the companies in the field. In his role as quartermaster, Sieker stressed administrative efficiency and frugality. He also instructed John A. Brooks, John R. Hughes, William J. "Bill" McDonald, and John H. Rogers in making out ration returns, vouchers, and monthly reports.

Besides his ranger service Sieker served as assistant adjutant general from 1889 to 1895, took an active role in affairs of the United Confederate veterans and became an officer in the Texas National Guard. He retired in 1895 and tried his hand at ranching. In 1905 he operated a hotel in Brazoria. Sieker married Nannie L. Dill on September 12, 1887. His three brothers, Edward, Frank (killed in action), and Thomas, also served with distinction in Company D of the Frontier Battalion. While on a business trip to Houston, Sieker died on November 13, 1914, and was originally buried in the Glenwood cemetery.

He was reinterred in the Texas State Cemetery August 10, 1928.

Section:Confederate Field, Section 2
Row:F  Number:2 Reason for Eligibility:Confederate Veteran; Texas Ranger Birth Date:April 8, 1848 Died:November 13, 1914 Buried:Reinterred on August 10, 1928 

ROBERTS, DANIEL WEBSTER (1841-1935).

Daniel Webster Roberts, Texas Ranger, was born in Winston County, Mississippi, on October 10, 1841, one of the eight children of Alexander (Buck) and Sabra Roberts. In his later years he remarked, "father followed up the frontier, and I was reared, and almost rocked in the cradle of Texas warfare." In 1836 the family made the first of its three moves to Texas. Thinking the frontier unsafe, Mrs. Roberts insisted in 1839 that the family return to Mississippi. Alexander and his brother Jeremiah remained in Texas, however, and fought at the battle of Plum Creek under Mathew Caldwell in August 1840. Alexander Roberts returned to Mississippi soon thereafter. Over his wife's protests, the family returned to Texas in 1843 and settled near Round Mountain, a Blanco County community some fifty miles west of Austin. With the outbreak of the Mexican War in 1846 the family returned once again to Mississippi but returned in 1855 to Blanco County, where Mrs. Roberts died in July, soon after reaching Cole Creek; she is said to have been the first pioneer buried in that section of Blanco County. Between 1856 and 1863 the family lived in Blanco, Gillespie, and Llano counties. Alexander Roberts married for a second time and had six more children.

Roberts grew to tall and slim manhood and quickly became a veteran of border warfare. The "constant raids of savage foes upon Texas," he later wrote, gave to him and his friends "the field that our more youthful days had pictured for us." At the outbreak of the Civil War he joined Capt. W. H. Perry's company of mounted rifles in the Twenty-sixth brigade of the Texas Militia and served as a scout against Indian raiders in the Devil's River region. His father is said to have joined the Union army as a captain. On February 26, 1862, Roberts enlisted as a private in Company K of Col. Peter C. Woods's Thirty-sixth Texas Cavalry regiment; he deserted with many other members of his company on February 2, 1864, when the regiment was dismounted. His first recorded Indian fight came in August 1873 when he, with his brother George T. Roberts and eight other settlers from Round Mountain, pursued a band of raiding Comanches. "All of us were young men," Roberts remarked, "but we were seasoned plainsmen inured to the hardships of life on the frontier. We knew how to ride hard and shoot straight." George was severely wounded in the battle of Deer Creek, and Dan was shot through the left thigh. The hard-pressed boys were reinforced by Cicero R. (Rufe) Perry, but the Indians escaped. Each of the group was awarded a coveted Model 1873 Winchester rifle for his service in the fight. In May 1874 Richard Coke, the first Democratic governor after Reconstruction, recommended to the legislature the formation of a battalion of six companies of seventy-five Texas Rangers each to patrol the Texas frontier from Jacksboro to the Rio Grande. The Frontier Battalion was to be commanded by Maj. John B. Jones. Roberts did not apply to enlist in the new battalion, since he planned to move instead to New Mexico, where he had spent some time previously; but on May 10 he met Rufe Perry, a close personal friend and army comrade, near the Capitol in Austin and received from him a commission as second lieutenant of Company D. James B. Gillett was appointed sergeant of the company. According to Roberts, however, officer's rank meant little to the rangers, for "They were all `generals.' When we detailed a man to go anywhere to make an arrest or do any particular work, we didn't need to send another man with him to tell him what to do." By August the company was camped on the San Saba River twenty miles south of Fort McKavett, where it experienced the first of its many Indian fights. In addition to its strictly military duties, the company assisted civil officers in the enforcement of law on the frontier and became, in Roberts's words, the courts' "certain dependence." Thus Roberts and his fellow rangers took part in the Mason County War. The ranger company also cooperated with the United States Army, not only in fighting Indians but in surveying and building a military road from Fort McKavett to Fort Stockton. Generally the rangers held "soldier boys" in contempt, but Roberts found Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie of the Fourth United States Cavalry to be "a born fighter" and one of the very few regular army officers who "got out of the Rip Van Winkle column." When Perry resigned from ranger service in 1875, he recommended Roberts to command the company. With the rank of first lieutenant, Roberts led his men on campaigns in Kimble, Mason, and Menard counties and followed Indian raiders onto the Llano Estacado.

Roberts married Luvenia Conway of Columbus, Texas, on September 13, 1875, and intended to resign from the rangers, but Major Jones persuaded him to bring his bride into the company. She "knew comparatively little about the frontier," Roberts remarked, but he proposed that they make their lives together in the rangers' camp, and "happily, she agreed to the programme, and appeared to think it the climax of all the romance she had ever indulged in." In 1878 Roberts resigned the command of Company D and moved to Houston. The company then came under the command of Lt. Frank Moore, but with trouble on the border Roberts was reinstated to command and promoted to captain with an increase in pay from $225 to $300 per quarter. He moved his headquarters to Laredo. There the company patrolled the Rio Grande from Carrizo to Roma; they executed at least one extralegal border crossing to arrest outlaws. The company returned to Uvalde County where times were quiet enough that Roberts "could afford to go fishing" until June 25, 1880, when Fort Stockton and Fort Davis, despite the presence of army garrisons, were sacked by bandits. Roberts's company was moved beyond the Pecos, where it arrested stage robbers and stock thieves and "put the border counties safely in the hands of their civil officers." In the fall of 1882 Roberts again resigned from ranger service and, in deference to his wife's health, moved to Nogales, New Mexico, then a raw gold-mining community. There the couple lived for thirty years, and Roberts worked as a stock raiser and miner. There, too, the childless couple adopted Lillie Roberts, who later became the wife of Governor J. F. Hinkle of New Mexico, and her brother Fred, both the children of Roberts's brother, George. Dan and Luvenia Roberts at last returned to Austin "to pass the remainder of our days in our beloved State." At the age of ninety-three, Captain Roberts suffered a fracture of his left shoulder. The fracture developed into pneumonia, from which he died in his Austin home on February 6, 1935. He is buried in the State Cemetery. In eulogy the pastor pronounced Roberts "a diamond in the rough, [who] though he sleeps is not dead, because when Captain Dan W. Roberts dies, all Texas will die." Roberts's autobiography, Rangers and Sovereignty, published in 1914, tells the exciting tale of his ranger service in a forthright and blunt style. The book details the social life of the rangers, their relations with frontier society, their food, dress, and entertainment. Luvenia Roberts's memoir, A Woman's Reminiscences of Six Years in Camp with the Texas Rangers (1928?), complements her husband's book in showing the life of the Texas Rangers in the 1870s and 1880s, the twilight years of the heroic Texas past.

Location:
Section:Republic Hill, Section 1
Row:K  Number:25 Reason for Eligibility:Captain, Texas Ranger Birth Date:October 10, 1841 Died:February 6, 1935 Buried:February 8, 1935 

WHEELOCK, ELEAZAR LOUIS RIPLEY (1793~1847)

Eleazar Louis Ripley Wheelock, soldier and surveyor, was born on March 31, 1793, in Hanover, New Hampshire, the son of Col. Eleazar Wheelock, Jr., a Revolutionary War veteran, and Thankful (Pennock) Wheelocck. At the age of thirteen he moved with his family to Boat Run, Ohio.

After the deaths of his parents he entered the United States army and served first in the Ohio Militia and later as an ensign in the New York Twenty-first Infantry Regiment, seeing active duty during the War of 1812. After the war he settled in Illinois, where he became a successful businessman and in 1818 married Mary Prickett. Their daughter and four sons were all born in Illinois, but as early as 1820 Wheelock began to invest in Texas real estate.

In 1823 he made his first visit to Texas, where he spent a year surveying the town of Tampico. During a second visit in 1823 he met Sterling C. Robertson in San Felipe and returned home determined to settle his family in Robertson's Colony. In 1832 he answered the call of Governor Reynolds of Illinois for volunteers and served in the Black Hawk War. Throughout his adult life he was active as a militiaman in several states and had risen to the rank of colonel by 1833, when he brought his family to Texas and established the town of Wheelock in what is now Robertson County. There he served as a surveyor, land agent, lawyer, rancher, farmer, and soldier.

During the Texas Revolution he organized and captained a company of Texas Rangers. During the years of the Republic of Texas he served as a regional land commissioner. From 1836 through 1845 he was either advisor or leader on all expeditions that went out from Robertson and Milam counties against the Indians. During one of these raids his son in law was killed and he and his daughter taken prisoner, but like his friend Sam Houston, he was a defender of Indian rights. Toward the end of the Republic he served as Indian commissioner under President Anson Jones.

In 1837 he organized the Texas University Company and gave land generously for its support. The coeducational institution died aborning due to Indian raids. In the spring of 1845 the Mercer Colony contracted with Wheelock as sub-agent to aid in surveying sixteen townships on the west side of the Trinity River. By September he had traveled nearly 1,700 miles within the grant and had been captured by Indians several times. He supported Robertson in his winning dispute with Stephen F. Austin over the control of Robertson's Colony.

After statehood Wheelock expanded his business interests to include plans for silver and copper mining and traveled to Washington, D.C., to gather financing and support for this venture. In 1847 Sam Houston and the other members of the Texas delegation to Congress wrote to President James K. Polk on his behalf. On his way home Wheelock died unexpectedly in Edwardsville, Illinois, on May 14, 1847, at the home of his brother-in-law.

Location:
Section:Republic Hill, Section 1
Row:R  Number:5 Reason for Eligibility:Veteran, War of 1812; Texas Ranger; House Concurent Resolution Birth Date:March 31, 1793 Died:May 14, 1847 

BILLINGSLEY, JESSE (1810-1880).

Jesse Billingsley, San Jacinto soldier, ranger, and legislator, was born on October 10, 1810, in Rutherford County, Tennessee, the son of Jeptha and Miriam (Randolph) Billingsley. In 1834 he moved to Mina, Texas. On November 17, 1835, he joined Capt. Robert M. Coleman's company of Mina Volunteers?forty-nine Bastrop County men, including George B. Erath. Billingsley served until December 17. When this unit mustered into Sam Houston's army at the beginning of the Texas Revolution, it was designated Company B of Col. Edward Burleson's First Regiment, and on March 1, 1836, Billingsley was elected its captain. He commanded the company at the battle of San Jacinto, where he received a wound that crippled his left hand for life. The company disbanded at Mina on June 1. Billingsley thereafter served as a private in John C. Hunt's ranger company, from July 1 through October 1, 1836.

He was elected from Bastrop County to the House of Representatives of the First Congress of the Republic of Texas and is said to have "furnished his own grub, slept on his own blanket, and wor[n] a buckskin suit that he took from a Comanche Indian whom he killed in battle." Billingsley was reelected to the House of the Second Congress in 1837. In February 1839 he commanded a company of volunteers under Edward Burleson that pursued and engaged the band of Comanche raiders who had killed the widow of Robert Coleman and their son Albert and kidnapped their five-year-old son, Thomas. In 1842 Billingsley recruited volunteers to aid in the repulse of the invasion of Adrian Woll and fought with John C. Hays at the battle of Salado Creek. After annexation he served as a senator in the Fifth (1853-54) and Eighth (1859-61) legislatures. Billingsley died on October 1, 1880, and was buried in the front yard of his house near McDade. On September 3, 1929, he was reinterred in the State Cemetery at Austin.

Location:
Section:Republic Hill, Section 1
Row:K  Number:24 Reason for Eligibility:Republic of Texas Veteran; Texas Ranger; Member, Republic of Texas House of Representatives; and Member, Texas State Senate. Birth Date:October 10, 1810 Died:October 1, 1880 Buried:Reinterred September 3, 1929 

BOOTH, JOSEPH GRAVES (1840~1910)

Joseph Graves Booth was born in Royton, England to William and Sarah Graves Booth. His family came to the United States in 1845, when he was a small boy. For some years he lived in Massachusettes. Graves came to Texas at the age of 19.

He later recalled of his trip to Texas that it was quite an adventure: "Migrating to Texas today and when I first touched the soil of the Lone Star State are two different propositions. It was along in the Spring of 1859. Sam S. Hall and myself were wandering along the East river docks in New York City when we spied a three masted schooner bound for what was then Indianola. With sheep and the crew for companions, we took passage for $20 apiece. Arriving at our destination, we found that we were about as much at sea as we were before we landed. There were no railroads, of course, in those days and the stage coach driver wanted $40 apiece to take us to San Antonio. He might as well said $10,000. Just as hope had all but faded into despair, the driver of a prairie schooner hitched to a couple of Texas steers gave us permission to walk behind the van and camp and eat with him, providing we clubbed our resources and raised enough to buy our bacon and beans. We jumped at the opportunity and after three weeks of tramping we arrived in the town of San Antonio." Shortly after coming to Texas, he joined a ranger company and served on the Texas frontier for some time under Burleson and Ford. When the Civil War began, he became a member of Terry's Texas Rangers. He served with that command until he was disabled at the Battle of Shiloh. As soon as he recovered, he was back in the ranks again and served until the end of the war. Afterwards, he became a mercantile traveler for about 30 years. He died on October 1, 1910 in Austin, Travis County, Texas. He was buried at the Texas State Cemetery on October 5, 1910. Information taken from unknown newspaper articles.

Location:
Section:Republic Hill, Section 2
Row:C  Number:19 Reason for Eligibility: Confederate Veteran; Texas Ranger  Birth Date: July 4, 1840  Died: October 1, 1910  Buried: October 5, 1910