Legacies

A true story of two pioneer families: Wittenburg and Parmer that come together as one on July 3, 1964. The two family's history and the history of Texas melt together. William Wittenburg, born in 1825 in Westphalia, Prussia, was born after Napoleon's army conquered most of Germany between 1800 & 1812, seizing the land and dispossessing the landowners. At 23, William boarded a ship for America, after serving the required three years in the Prussian army and three years acquiring a master's license in sheep husbandry. After arriving in Baltimore, MD. his story takes the reader to the great state of Texas where he becomes the state's most respected Sheepman. He eventually acquires 30,000 acres of ranch land while, as a Sheepman, he faces many difficulties; fighting Indians, cattlemen, fence cutters, barns burned, grassland burned, sheep killed by the cattlemen who hated the sheepmen. Martin Van Buren Parmer (Ringtail Panther) born in Charlotte County, Virginia, on June 4, 1778. After moving to Kentucky, in 1798, he settled in Dickson County, Tennessee. About 1816 he moved to Missouri, where in 1820 he was elected to a two-year term in the Missouri General Assembly. He was named as a delegate to the Missouri Constitutional Convention of 1821. He then served a term in the Missouri State Senate, then was chosen colonel of the Missouri militia and led four military companies against the Indians. He moved to Texas in 1825 settling in Cherokee County where he joined Haden Edwards and fought for Benjamin Edwards in the Fredonian Rebellion. On Nov. 25, 1826 he presided over the court-martial that tried and convicted Samuel Norris and his attorney Jose' Antonio Sepulveda of Nacogdoches. The Mexicans feared Colonel Parmer and Mexican authorities issued an arrest warrant for Parmer. In 1839, Republic of Texas president Mirabeau B. Lamar appointed him Chief Justice Jasper County. Martin Parmer was a smart and tough man, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence,