YOUNG PIERCE
Young Pierce was born 19
July 1839 in Tennessee and came to Texas with
his mother Sabina and brother
Bird Pierce. He served in Texas Mounted Volunteers
Company E from November
1, 1854 to February 1, 1855, a Ranger unit that
protected settlers from
Indian depradations. This service earned Young the right to
homestead land. He married
Armelia Gray February 4, 1858. Armelia was born July
29, 1842 in Mississippi
to David Gray and his first wife. David married his second
wife, Nancy Elms, in Izard
County Arkansas in 1846 and when they moved to Sugar
Loaf in Coryell county,
Texas, in 1851 with Armelia they were among the first settlers
there. Young and Armelia
built a cabin near Sugar Loaf Mountain on Post Oak
Creek and not far from Cowhouse
Creek. Early morning March 16, 1859 Young
drove his wagon to a cedar
brake to cut fence posts for stock pens. He was
attacked by some 16 Comanche
Indians, stripped of his clothing and killed. The
Comanches then killed neighbors
John and Jane Riggs and horse whipped
David Elms, a Riggs helper
who survived. Armelia Pierce was 16 years old and
5 months pregnant when her
husband Young Pierce died at age 19. Before the
Civil War personal firearms
were rare and expensive and neither Young Pierce
nor the Riggs were armed.
First on the scene of the massacre as Ambrose Lee
who lived nearby. He was
described as a "crusty old frontiersman" and the only
person there with a gun.
Armelia and her mother-in-law Sabina were there about
the same time and took the
two remaining Riggs children and walked two miles to
"Fort Scoggin", the home
of methodist preacher Jesse Scoggin and his son Isaac.
Young Pierce and the Riggs
were buried in the Sugar Loaf Cemetery. In 1942,
when Fort Hood was expanded,
the Army moved these gravesites to the Killeen
Cemetery where Armelia and
Young were reinterred next to each other. Armelia
married Stephen O'Neal February
28, 1861 and died 23 July 1898. They had
three children.
By Eldon Pierce, great grandson of Young Pierce.