James W. Parker

Who was James W. Parker?

James W. Parker was the uncle of Cynthia Ann Parker and the great uncle of Quanah Parker, last chief of the Comanches. A man of English American descent, he was a member of the large Parker frontier family that settled in east Texas in the 1830s.

Parker was present in 1836 during the raid of Fort Parker by Comanches and allied tribes near present-day Groesbeck, Texas. During that raid, his daughter, Rachel Plummer, his grandson, James Plummer, his niece Cynthia Ann Parker, and his nephew John Richard Parker were kidnapped by a Native American raiding party. Parker made the search for his family a lifetime obsession. For nine years he roamed the Comancheria searching for his lost relatives.

Many historians and Hollywood observers believe that Parker was the inspiration for John Wayne's character Ethan Edwards in the John Ford movie, The Searchers.