End of Battle of Village Creek

End of Battle of Village Creek. Death of Captain John B. Denton. On May 24, 1841, Captain John B. Denton, an aide to General Edward Tarrant, was killed by Indians who were waiting in ambush in the thickets surrounding Village Creek near its junction with the Trinity River just west of this marker. Ignoring the certain danger of likely ambush, Denton and another captain, Henry Stout, led a small scouting party into the creek near here in pursuit of Indians who had fled two villages which their expedition had attacked along the creek south of here. Captain Denton’s death marked the end of what came to be called the Battle of Village Creek. Due largely to their leadership of this expedition, both Denton and Tarrant were later honored with the naming of Texas counties "embracing the theater of their fearless exploits". This marker commemorates not only Denton’s death, but also his life and times in context with the Native Americans who died along with him in the new Texas Republic on that day in May of 1841. The official Army Archives report of the Republic of Texas counted “12 Indians killed...and a great many more likely killed and wounded”. Destroyed were 225 lodges which were the homes of “a good many tribes-principally the Cherokees, who were driven from Nacogdoches County, some Creeks and Seminoles, Wacos, Caddos, Kickapoos, and Anadarcos”. The Battle of Village Creek marked a crossroads in the history of the Cross Timbers, and resulted in the permanent abandonment of settlements that Native Americans had long inhabited along the creek which is named for their bygone villages., Denton was the only fatality among the 69 volunteers who Brigadier General Tarrant of the Texas Militia had recruited for his “expedition into the Indian country of the Three Forks”. This was due primarily to the fact that over half of the villages’ braves were away on a buffalo hunt at the time of the attack. Volunteers for this and other expeditions came from settlements near the Red River. Scouting forays were organized by the Militia, whose job it was to locate and remove the Indians, with the help of volunteers who were called upon to commit to three-month service campaigns. By May of 1841, General Tarrant had decided the time had come for another punitive campaign. Tarrant called for a retaliatory expedition in answer to depredations committed by the various tribes who were trying to take a stand against the encroachment of settlers upon what little hunting grounds they had left. Among the incidents cited were attacks during the winter of 1840-41 on Bird's Fort, which Tarrant had commissioned to be built nearby (east of Highway 157 near its crossing of the Trinity)., Denton was representative of early frontiersmen who aspired to leadership in the wilderness that was the Republic of Texas. He was born in Tennessee in 1807 and orphaned at the age of 8. By the time he was 18, he had made his way to Arkansas, married and learned to read from his young wife. From 1826 to 1836, he ministered to settlers in Arkansas and southern Missouri as a Methodist circuit-rider. In 1836, he crossed the Red River and later moved his family to Clarksville. There, he became a noted Texas orator as both a lawyer and a minister before his death at the age of 34., This signage was produced by the Arlington Landmark Preservation Committee and the Arlington Parks and Recreation Department and funded through a grant from the Junior League of Arlington. Artwork was donated by Ernesto Pacheco. (Also see trail markers south of here about the Battle of Village Creek and the Native Americans who inhabited this valley).