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John B. Denton: Life and Legend

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As its subtitle suggests, Mike Cochran’s study of John B. Denton is more than biography. In addition to fact and historical data, it offers an explanation of the legendary fiber encasing the story of the man for whom Denton County as well as its county seat has been named. Denton’s life was in itself short yet representative of the lives of settlers in Texas in the early 1800s—mainly Anglo-European and Protestant, something of a contrast to the Spanish and French creoles who ruled Texas during its colonial period. Following the Louisiana Purchase, these settlers pushed westward, down the Appalachians into territories such as West Virginia and Arkansas, and thence into Texas.

John B. Denton became a tireless and passionate circuit riding minister in Texas as well as Arkansas, known for his “considerable powers of oratory” (9) despite his complete lack of education. Eventually he married, purchased a headright of 640 acres in North Texas, and fathered six children. Under the tutelage of his young wife Mary, he learned to read and write. His family and his intellectual interests (which were expansive) pulled him in the direction of pragmatic concerns, though he maintained his interest in Scripture and the ministry. Eventually he began to “read law” in the office of established attorneys in Clarksville, and he became interested in politics.

In 1841 the public-minded Denton was drawn into a mission that would end his life. The family of Ambrose Ripley—a man known to Denton—were massacred in their homestead by marauding Comanche natives. A Frontier Battalion of the Texas Rangers was formed, and Denton became one of about seventy volunteers. The “Tarrant Expedition”—named for General Edward Tarrant—was largely unsuccessful—hardly able to find the marauders after three attempts.

On the fourth, they encountered Native American encampments near the western fork of the Trinity River at a place referred to as Village Creek. Initially successful, the Rangers finally met a larger force in nearby encampments; they were ambushed, largely because of the daring and aggressiveness of Denton, who was the first and only member of the expedition to die. Realizing the true strength of their enemy, the rangers retreated, burying their fallen comrade near a creek about an hour’s ride from the site of the ambush.

In 1846, as thirty-two new counties were created for the annexation into American statehood, Texas stood in need of heroic names, and Denton’s was enthusiastically put forth by now-influential former participants of the Tarrant Expedition: “John B. Denton’s life story was entwined with the story of the Battle of Village Creek and his posthumous popularity helped keep the battle alive in public memory” (97). Never mind that the expedition had failed to avenge the Ripley massacre and that the natives encountered were not Comanches. The “Larger-Than-Life Story of the Fighting Parson and Texas Ranger” had become a political necessity and a popular sentiment. Although numerous recoveries of Denton’s remains were claimed (most famously by well-known rancher John Chisum, son of one of Denton’s fellow rangers) none to this day have been fully confirmed; in November, 1901, a great ceremony and burial took place on the lawn of the Denton County courthouse in which the Rev. William H. Allen, author of the first biographical volume on Denton, referred to him as a “martyr to Texas civilization” (127).

Aside from these more or less political motives, the public appetite for sensational heroism and sentimental reminiscence contributed to the “larger-than-life” image of John B. Denton as journalists and writers of so-called dime westerns began to exploit the image of the man of God turned Indian fighter. Most notorious of these was Alfred W. Arrington, who like Denton was a self-educated Methodist minister and lawyer as well as a gifted speaker. Unlike Denton, however, Arrington was morally dissolute, a womanizer and “debauchee from his fourteenth year” (150). He had no qualms about portraying a hero named Denton, using the names Paul and James in place of John. He melodramatically manufactured a Dickensian childhood of extreme poverty and abuse, as well as numerous heroic adventures such as the sudden courtroom appearance of the husband of Mary Denton to rescue her with brilliant eloquence from the charge of murdering a man who would have degraded her. Arrington also published a very popular poem entitled “An Apostrophe to Water,” supposedly penned by Denton as the climax of a temperance lecture. So wide was the influence of such compositions that when Denton’s son Dr. Ashley Newton Denton died in 1901, the State Medical Association of Texas in an honorary tribute extolled Ashley as the son of “Paul Denton.”

Cochran’s volume is exceedingly well-researched and documented, and it culls its findings from numerous and diverse sources. In a way, an important aspect of his study is its careful clearing away of the lingering falsehoods and misapprehensions concerning the life of John B. Denton—many of them made by well-meaning and competent scholars. He hardly confirms Denton’s status as “martyr,” keenly respectful of Native American culture and its place in Texas history. Ultimately, he upholds Denton’s significance—not as martyr but as a “real man of his time, who earned the respect of his contemporaries” (172), a symbolic representation of the hardworking and morally committed settlers whose character and ambitions helped to define Texas as it moved from territory into statehood.