Rachel Plummer

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Rachel Plummer was a member of the Parker clan that settled on the frontier of the "Comancheria" in Texas in the 1830s. She was captured at Parker's Fort¹ by a Native American raiding party, mostly Comanche, on May 19, 1836 at the age of seventeen during what has come to be called the "Fort Parker massacre" near present-day Groesbeck, Texas.

Rachel was born March 22, 1819 in Illinois to James W. Parker and Martha (Patsey) Duty. She married L.T.M. Plummer, and gave birth to the first child born at the Parker's fort, James Pratt Plummer, on January 6, 1835. On the day of the Comanche raid, the 16-month-old was captured along with his mother, who was three months pregnant, but they were soon separated, never to see one another again. Six months later, she gave birth to her second child, but the Comanche killed the infant when six weeks old. Rachel was in captivity for 21 months before she was finally ransomed and reunited with her husband, afterward publishing an account of her ordeal. She died March 19, 1839. Young James Pratt Plummer was eventually ransomed in late 1842.