our history: THE PARKER FAMILY
disappeared
the
Part 3
The Unsavory Affair of Rachel Parker Plummer’s
21-month Captivity Among the
Comanche Indians
STORY & PHOTOS BY MEL W. RHODES
M
ost people never come faceto-face with true terror, not the
color-draining, heart-stopping
kind. But Rachel was one of the unlucky ones. Sheer terror and the horrific turn of events that followed shaved
decades off her short life.
SEPTEMBER 2015
PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
Rachel Parker Plummer came to the
wilds of Revolutionary Texas with the
hearty Parker clan that built Fort Parker
in 1835 near the headwaters of the
Navasota River on the western edge
of East Texas. Her grandfather, Elder
John Parker, patriarch of the family —
sometimes called a “Squealing Johnny” because of his emphatic preaching
style — was a foot-washing, Predestinarian Baptist who believed all things
were ordained by God, predestined.
That belief and faith would be severely
tested.
Cynthia Ann Parker31