Foreman, Arkansas

(1837 - 1925) Native of Kentucky. In Civil War, fought at Shiloh, Chickamauga and other battles. After being wounded twice, became a guard at Confederate White House. When Richmond fell on April 3, 1865, was placed in escort for the departing president. Rode 5 weeks toward Florida, where President Jefferson Davis was planning to sail for Mexico to join many other Confederate leaders. (These Southerners intended to regroup an army, march north to Texas and continue their fight for states' rights.) President Davis and his guards were followed by thieves trying to steal the Confederate treasury, the horses and the wagons. The assassination of Abraham Lincoln on April 14 and the offer of a reward of $100,000 caused many adventurers to hunt for President Davis. Just before dawn on May 10, near Irwinsville, Ga., Federals captured him and his party, including 2 Texans, Postmaster-General John H. Reagan and Presidential Aide F. R. Lubbock, a former Governor of Texas. Mrs. Davis and children were soon freed, but all the men were imprisoned. Sanders was released in a year. Later he came to Texas and lived near this site after 1887-- honored for years as the last man of the Davis bodyguard. (1965)

A Virginian by birth and education - Jurist and statesman of Alabama, 1813-1825 - Came to Texas, 1825 - President of the Constitutional Convention, March 1836, and member of the Congress of the Republic of Texas - Born February 14, 1781 - Died here December 20, 1846 Erected by the State of Texas 1936

Blacks in the area north of New Boston have been served by this church since its organization in Feb. 1872 by the Rev. Forrest Hooks, the first pastor for the 14 charter members. According to oral histories, the fellowship first met near this site in a log cabin on land belonging to Abram Ellis, former slave of Texas Independence patriot Richard Ellis. The current building was erected in 1912-13, during the pastorate of the Rev. W. M. Sexton, on land acquired from Mr. and Mrs. N. A. Williams, son-in-law and daughter of Richard Ellis. 
 Charter member Bob Tiller donated land for the nearby church cemetery. Records show that a school opened at Pleasant Hill in 1903, probably in the log cabin which first housed Pleasant Hill Church. A school building was erected in 1928 next to this sanctuary, but was moved when the school at Pleasant Hill consolidated with the New Boston School District. 
 Through the years Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church has provided a focal point for the rural community. Membership peaked during the 1920s, but worship services for the small congregation continue to be held on the fourth Sunday of every month as they have been since the church's early days. (1982) Incise on back: Charter Members: Bob Tiller, Henry Sims, Frank ware, Sam Whitfield, Annis Ellis, Sarah Ellis, Patsy Ellis, Charlotte Ellis, Mary Sims, Belle Smith, Louisa Justice, Mary Ware, Charity Singleton, Laura Tiller

Dan Blocker, television actor, was born on December 10, 1928, in DeKalb, Texas, the son of Ora Shack and Mary (Davis) Blocker. His delayed birth certificate, filed by a doctor on March 22, 1929, recorded his name as Bobby Don Blocker. When he was six years old the family moved to O'Donnell, in West Texas, where his father operated a general store. Dan attended local schools before entering Texas Military Institute in San Antonio at the age of twelve. He studied at Hardin-Simmons University and then entered Sul Ross State Teachers College (now Sul Ross State University) in Alpine in 1947. He was always big-fourteen pounds at birth, reportedly the largest baby ever born in Bowie County. He stood over six feet and weighed 200 pounds as a youth of twelve; by the time he became a star football player at Sul Ross he was six feet, four inches tall and weighed over 275 pounds. At college Blocker became interested in acting. When he graduated with a B.A. degree in speech and drama, he refused offers of professional careers in both football and boxing. He acted in summer stock in Boston and soon afterward was drafted for combat duty in Korea, where he served as an infantry sergeant with the Forty-fifth Division. In 1952 he returned to Sul Ross, where he earned an M.A. degree. There he married his college sweetheart, Dolphia Lee Parker, on August 25, 1952; they had four children. Blocker taught school in Sonora, Texas, and Carlsbad, New Mexico, before moving to California in 1956 to work on a Ph.D. degree at the University of California at Los Angeles. During this time he also worked as a substitute teacher at Glendale and began his career as a professional actor in Los Angeles. In 1959 he was cast in the role of "Hoss" Cartwright on the NBC network television production, Bonanza , one of the longest-running and most popular TV series. Blocker was an enormously popular actor and successful businessman; he was co-owner of a nationwide chain of steak houses called Bonanza. He received the Texan of the Year Award in 1963 from the Texas Press Association , and in 1966 he served as honorary chairman of the Texas Cancer Crusade. He played the role of Hoss Cartwright for thirteen seasons on national television, until his death on May 13, 1972, from complications following an operation. The television series was terminated soon after his death. Blocker was buried in Woodmen Cemetery, DeKalb, Texas.

DeKalb is on the Missouri Pacific Railroad and U.S. Highway 82 twelve miles northwest of New Boston in western Bowie County. It was one of the earliest settlements in the county. According to some county histories a community had begun to take shape in the winter of 1835, when David Crockett visited the site on his way to the Alamo. These sources claim that when Crockett enquired about the name of the town, residents told him it had none and then asked him to name it. He suggested the name of the Prussian Baron de Kalb, a general of the American revolutionary army. One purpose for founding the community was to establish a school. In fact, several of the early settlers were involved in the successful effort to get the Texas Congress to grant land for the establishment of DeKalb College in 1839. The school, however, seems to have been located several miles south of the community. Because DeKalb was supposed to serve as an educational focal point for surrounding farmers, the owners of the land attempted to restrict settlement to those they considered acceptable. As David Chisholm put it in 1837, "This town or village is situated on Browning's and my land, about one half mile from my house. This land is not to be sold to any Tom, Dick, or Harry to put up dram shops on, but for those who wish to have the river for health or the benefit of the school." Despite the facts that DeKalb served as the first seat of Bowie County in 1841 and that it was on prime agricultural land, the town grew very slowly. One important cause was the lack of efficient, reliable transportation. When the Texas and Pacific Railway was built through the county in 1876, DeKalb became a station on the rail line and began to grow. By 1884 it had two churches, a school, a gin, a sawmill-gristmill, and a population of 200. By 1890 the town had a population of 500, a bank, and a weekly newspaper, the Flag , edited by L. A. Petit. Afterward, DeKalb grew slowly to a population of 1,023 by the 1930s. In 1980 it had a population of 2,217. Agriculture remained of vital importance to the local economy, but, whereas cotton had been the dominant area crop during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it had been replaced by vegetables, fruit, livestock, and hay. The town's businesses reflected that change. By the 1970s DeKalb was known for its cannery and its large shipments of tomatoes. Many of its residents were also employed at Red River Army Depot in eastern Bowie County. In 1990 the population was 1,976, and in 2000 it was 1,769.

Richard Ellis, planter, jurist, and legislator, son of Ambrose and Cecilia (Stokes) Ellis, was born in the "Tidewater Section" (probably Lunenburg County) of Virginia, on February 14, 1781. After a common-school education he possibly attended college, but no record of attendance has survived. In any event, he studied law with the Richmond firm of Wirt and Wickham until 1806, when he was admitted to the Virginia bar and joined that law firm. Sometime between 1813 and 1817 Ellis left Virginia and settled at Huntsville, Madison County, and later at Tuscumbia, Franklin County, Alabama, where he established a plantation and continued the practice of law. Then, in 1818, he was elected one of two delegates to represent Franklin County at the Alabama Constitutional Convention. The next year saw him elected a judge of the Fourth Circuit Court of Alabama, an election that automatically made him an associate justice of the Alabama Supreme Court. During his tenure on the bench, Ellis had a reputation for firm administration and a rough manner that made him unpopular with the other members of the bar. In 1829 he helped to found and served on the first board of trustees of La Grange College in Franklin County, Alabama. The college had a Methodist connection, which may indicate that Ellis was a Methodist. Ellis made his first trip to Texas in 1826 not as a colonist but in a futile effort to collect a debt from a Colonel Pettus. In December Stephen F. Austin induced him, along with James Kerr and James Cummings , to go to Nacogdoches in an unsuccessful effort to persuade Haden Edwards to abandon his revolt against the Mexican government. It was not until February 22, 1834, that Ellis moved his family and more than twenty-five slaves to Pecan Point in the disputed territory claimed by Mexico as part of Old Red River County and by the United States as part of Miller County, Arkansas. Ellis's land grant of 4,428.4 acres (one league and one labor) was located near Spanish Bluff in what became Bowie County, Texas. He established a considerable cotton plantation there and entertained lavishly at his elegant home. Late in 1835 he was chosen by Miller and Sevier counties as a delegate to the Arkansas constitutional convention scheduled to meet at Little Rock on January 4, 1836. Ill health forced him to decline, and he resigned his seat by January 21, 1836. Near the end of the month he was selected as one of five delegates from around Pecan Point to the Texas constitutional convention scheduled to meet at Washington-on-the-Brazos on March 1, 1836 ( see CONVENTION OF 1836 ). As the convention opened Ellis was unanimously elected president. On March 2, 1836, he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence as president of the convention. Although some observers were critical of him as a presiding officer, the general verdict is that he had a good grasp of parliamentary procedure and that he presided with a remarkable degree of gentleness and urbanity. Most importantly, he held the convention together for the seventeen days needed to draft a constitution for the Republic of Texas . Between October 3, 1836, when he was first elected, and February 5, 1840, when he retired from public life, Ellis represented his district as a senator in the First, Second, Third, and Fourth congresses of the Republic of Texas. On January 9, 1806, he married Mary West Dandridge, daughter of Nathaniel West and Sarah (Watson) Dandridge of Hanover County, Virginia. The bride was a second cousin of Martha Custis Washington and a first cousin of Dolly Madison. Richard and Mary Ellis had at least two children. An obituary printed in the Clarksville Northern Standard ( see CLARKSVILLE STANDARD ) reports that Ellis died at his home in Bowie County on December 20, 1846, at age sixty-five and states, "Judge Ellis came to his death suddenly by his clothes taking fire." He was buried in the family cemetery near New Boston, Texas, but in 1929 his remains and those of his wife, who died on