Tall Tales and the History of Reality or: Never Two Without Three

I love to make discoveries about place names, to get at origins and stories about them. Take Tarrant County, "home" of Fort Worth and Arlington, Texas, USA as of 2011 in the "Common Era." I don't write this facetiously but more as a reminder that what we now call part of Texas has at one time or another been under the sway or claim of various prehistoric groups, France, the Comancheria, various tribes, Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederate States of America and the United States of America; in other words, what seems eternal may not and probably will not remain so in the long run. In fact, the present Governor (Rick Perry) has "threatened" to secede from the Union -- for the second time!

I checked two sources about Tarrant County's namesake and it turns out they are at considerable odds about even basic "facts." First, take Michael A. Beatty's County Name Origins of the United States (2001): Edward H. Tarrant (1796-1858) - a native of North Carolina, Tarrant moved with his family to Tennssee at an early age and served in the army under General Andrew Jackson in actions against the Indians and in the War of 1812. In 1835 he immigrated to Texas, became involved in the Texas Revolution and served in the congress of the Republic of Texas. Tarrant served with the Texas Rangers guarding Texas' northwestern frontier and was a brigadier-general on May 22, 1841, when forces under his command attacked Indians on Village Creek, six miles east of today's Fort Worth. The attack was successful and helped open the present Tarrant County County area of Texas to White settlers . . . This county was created on December 20, 1849" (p. 539).

Compare the first with the second version, put forth by the Handbook of Texas Online:

TARRANT, EDWARD H. (1799–1858). Edward H. (possibly for Hampton) Tarrant was born in South Carolina in 1799. It appears that during the War of 1812 he was living in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. By the early 1820s he was in Henry County, Tennessee, where he was elected a colonel of militia in the new frontier environment. In 1825 he helped organize the first Masonic lodge in Paris, Tennessee, and by 1827 he had become sheriff of Henry County. He was a resident of Henderson County, Tennessee, from 1829 to the early 1830s, when he moved to Texas, possibly by way of Mississippi. Tarrant apparently established his household of relatives, hired men, and slaves in Red River County, Texas, by November 23, 1835; on February 2, 1838, he received a league and labor of land from the Republic of Texas as part of a uniform grant made to all heads of families resident in Texas on March 2, 1836. There is no record of his participation in the Texas Revolution. . . Tarrant practiced law, engaged in farming, and took a leading role in the militia's activity against the Indians while he was chief justice; when he resigned from the post on May 30, 1839, he was one of the most prosperous men in Red River County. He was elected by popular vote on November 18, 1839, as commander, carrying the rank of brigadier general, of an organization of Northeast Texas defenders known as the Fourth Brigade. His Indian-fighting career culminated in the battle of Village Creek in May 1841. In 1847 Tarrant ran for lieutenant governor, but he was defeated by John Alexander Greer . . . [TARRANT, EDWARD H.," Handbook of Texas Online (http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fta11), accessed April 05, 2011. Published by the Texas State Historical Association].

How about the Battle of Village Creek in 1841?  Here is the Handbook of Texas online version, considerably more detailed and very different from the first version: http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/btv01
Certainly this sentence is interesting: "The Texans were routed. Tarrant, learning from the prisoners that the villages were home to over 1,000 warriors, decided to withdraw."

Moral: two sources are usually not enough to figure out "the history of reality," not by a long shot. This is where archaeology comes in, among other approaches. At this point, I don't even know if Tarrant was orginally from North Carolina or South Carolina or born in 1796 or 1799 . . . and so on.  

Today's Rune: Initiation.