Patriot Thomas C. Holmes Memorial Marker Ceremony

The PineyWoods Chapter #51 along with members of the TXSSAR Color Guard will be assisting the Daniel Witcher DAR Chapter and the Alexander Love DAR Chapter in the placement of memorial markers commemorating the service of Patriot Thomas C. Holmes.

The DAR bronze memorial marker and the SAR marker will be placed in the Holmes family plot in the Trout Creek Cemetery in Trout, TX.  The actual location of the grave of Thomas C. Holmes is in the "Blackshear Fields" in the southeastern part of the Farrsville community off of Highway 63, approximately 40-45 miles north of the Trout Creek cemetery.  The Farrsville location is inaccessible without serious off-road capability and therefore is not conducive to any type of public ceremony.

The service of Patriot Thomas C. Holmes is described in FPG (NSSAR) Clovis Brakebill's book "American Revolutionary Soldiers Buried in Texas" as follows:

"Thomas C. Holmes was born in Wayne County, North Carolina in 1759 and married Elizabeth Jourdon in 1794.  He served as an express rider for Capt. Benjamin Harrison's 1st South Carolina Regiment, under General Francis Marion, The Swamp Fox, and carried a message from General Marion to General George Washington.  He applied for his pension in 1854 while living in Newton County, Texas where he had been living since 1835, and he died there in 1861.  There is a brass US Government marker on his grave, but no SAR or DAR marker."

Note:  Although the Brakebill book and the brass marker at the actual grave site (see picture below) list the date of death as 1861, this cannot be verified from any source.  Thomas C. Holmes' will was probated in 1856, further disputing the date.

Details of the ceremony are as follows:

Date:  Saturday, 26 April 2008
Time:  1:00pm
Place:  Trout Creek Cemetery, Call (Trout), Texas
Directions:  (See the Map and Directions page)

Invitation to the Thomas C. Holmes Ceremony

Marker at actual grave site of Thomas C. Holmes