Parker family.

The stories of many early Euro-Americans in Limestone County, including the Anglins and the Parkers, are bound together with the story of Parker's Fort in Limestone County, Texas. The Parker, Anglin, Plummer, and several other extended families came to Texas from Illinois in 1833, and settled north of Groesbeck, Limestone County, in 1835. The small group built a fort for defense in case of Indian attacks, and concentrated on farming. On 1836 May 19 the fort was attacked by an Indian force of several hundred warriors, long understood by eyewitnesses to be Comanche Indians. Several Parker family members were killed and others were captured, but many escaped.

The few who were captured endured the loss of everything they knew. Different captives had different experiences. Eventually all of the captives were released and went back to their family in Texan society, but one girl, Cynthia Ann Parker, remained behind.

Cynthia Ann Parker, just twelve or thirteen when taken captive, was adopted into the tribe and became thoroughly Comanche. She married warrior Peta Nocona, who might have taken part in the attack on the Parker's fort. Cynthia and Peta had three children together, two boys and a girl, Quanah, Pecos, and Topsannah. Peta Nocona was killed in the Battle of the Pease River in 1860. Cynthia Ann was recaptured by Texas Rangers in this battle, and was identified as the Parker's Cynthia Ann, who had been with the Comanche for almost twenty-five years. Though she was returned to Texan society, Cynthia Ann never recovered from her capture and made several attempts to escape back to her life on the plains. She died in 1870, widely understood to have passed away from a broken heart. She was buried in Fosterville Cemetery, Anderson County, but was reinterred in the Post Oak Mission Cemetery near Cache, Oklahoma, in 1910. Cynthia Ann was reburied a final time in 1957 in the Fort Sill Post Cemetery, Lawton, Oklahoma.

Cynthia Ann's son Quanah Parker, not captured at the Battle of the Pease River, became the last major Comanche chief to surrender to United States authorities. A warrior in the Quahada subtribe of the Comanche, Quanah surrendered with what remained of his people in 1875. He adjusted to reservation life easily, and became a very wealthy man considering the circumstances he and his people were in. Though increasingly powerful in Indian-government relations, he could not stop the movement to break up the reservations and distribute the land among the individual Indians, who were then forced to sell much of their land by unscrupulous land dealers. Quanah continued his efforts to help his people however he could. After a visit to the Cheyenne Reservation, Quanah became ill and died twelve days later, in 1911. His remains have been moved once, from Post Oak Mission Cemetery in Oklahoma to Fort Sill Post Cemetery, Lawton, Oklahoma.

After the Parker's Fort episode, the Parkers, Anglins, and other families resettled elsewhere in Texas, though some did stay in the Limestone County area. The correspondence in this collection indicates that some Anglin family members still lived in Waco in the early 1900s. The Parker family continues today to gather from Texas, Oklahoma, and elsewhere for an annual family reunion as explained through the Quanah Parker Family Collection. It is unknown whether descendants of the Anglin family continue to live in the Central Texas area today.