Buck Barry, my 2G Uncle, came to Texas in 1845 and this past Saturday, in Walnut Springs, Texas, I attended a presentation, “Character In Action” about Col. Buck Barry and Capt. Jack Cureton. Cureton, like Buck, was also a Texas Ranger and fought Indians, rustlers and thieves with him. Both men made their homes in Bosque County, in what later became Walnut Springs. Much more had been written about Buck so most of the presentation was about him.

Bryan Sowell, author of ‘TEXAS CENTRAL HEADQUARTERS, Walnut Springs”, gave the talk and spoke about what it is that makes one man’s life endure and another forgotten? What makes us cherish Buck’s memory; his courage, character, compassion, rugged individualism, the common good or his love of democracy?

This picture, a Daguerroetype, was made in Corsicana in 1853. It’s probably not the first of this type made in Texas, but it may be the oldest surviving one.

He cited quotes that highlighted these characteristics. A few of these quotes follow.

From the Meridian Tribune on April 9, 1909, a Walnut Springs pioneer, R.W. Aycock described Buck as “One of the best men that ever lived when treated right, but if a man didn’t want to do the right thing, or wanted to pick a scrap, he could get it out of Buck any time!”

According to Dr. James Greer, his biographer and long time family friend, “As a Ranger with Hays, he met the Mexicans; as a sheriff, he encountered outlaws; as a frontiersman, he fought Indians; as a ranchman in Bosque County, he was the nemesis of horse thieves and experienced the annoyance of fence cutting; as a Texan and Southerner during the Civil War, he saw four years of the most grueling and the most undesirable type of military service protecting the Texas frontier from Indians.”

According to Buck, in an article he wrote titled, “Why Do Christians Believe and Atheists Disbelieve In The Bible”? He writes, “God being a spirit without body or form, yet possessing the greatest power known to man; possessing the power of all the elements that are necessary to create; possessing all the power of an infinite and perfect being.”

His biographer sums up Buck Barry very well, “No writer of western stories has created better fiction of adventure that this quite, early settler lived.”

Enough said!