Debbie Sanders

I can't believe that, after about 15 years of doing this page, I just learned about the Arcane Texas Fact of the Day, because it's so good and so arcane: Pretty much every Texan knows the story of Cynthia Ann Parker ---- how she was abducted by Comanches in 1836, how she assimilated into their culture, how she was rescued (or recaptured) by Sul Ross 24 years later in 1860, how she never adapted/adjusted to her life among Anglo Texans, and how she died of a broken heart (basically) in 1871. All of that is well-known Texas historical liturgy. Cynthia Ann and her extended family had come from Illinois a couple of years before, walking the whole way alongside their livestock and wagons. It took them three months to make the journey. They were yeoman farmers and also fire-and-brimstone Baptists. The trek had a dual purpose: it offered a fresh start on fertile soil for people who relied upon the earth for sustenance and survival but it also offered a way to to reconsecrate their covenant with God. Devout doesn't begin to describe them. Here's what I did not know until yesterday: the Parker clan crossed the Sabine River on November 11, 1833 and spent their first night in Texas camped near what is not San Augustine. On that first night ---- that very night ---- occurred something so freakish that it was commented on by newspapers, disparate historical characters like Abraham Lincoln, Joseph Smith (founder of the Mormon church) and others, and it became intertwined with the oral story-telling tradition of slaves. You see, it was on that night --- again, THE VERY NIGHT that they crossed into Texas ---- that the greatest meteor shower in American history occurred. It became known as "The Night the Stars Fell." It was one of the most awesome celestial displays ever recorded, so fantastic that the Lakota tribe reset their celestial calendar. On The Night the Stars fell, the heavens blazed with shooting stars as large as moons trailing clouds, "like divine afterthoughts," said one newspaper. All well past midnight, the bright burning sky illuminated the faces of onlookers as if it was high noon. For the Parker clan, it was very easy to detect the hand of God working. "The Old women seemed to think the Day of Judgement had come like a thief in the night," recalled Garrison Greenwould, one of the cousins, later recalled. Daniel Parker, Cynthia Ann's uncle and an itinerant preacher, was stunned. Was God blessing their journey or was he warning of dangers ahead? Daniel, within whom common sense and zealotry waged an eternal struggle, could not decide. But after the celestial light show none of the family could sleep. "The remainder of the night was spent in prayer," Greenwood wrote later. One newspaper reported, “The very heavens seemed ablaze.” An estimated 72,000 “falling stars” per hour lit up the entire North American continent. I've read estimates of 150,000-200,000 per hour, though how anybody could count I can't say. So what was it? Well, we now know that it was a particularly spectacular version of the Leonid meteor shower. Advanced scientific knowledge tells us that “every November the earth passes through debris in the trail of the comet known as Tempel-Tuttle, causing the meteor showers we know as the Leonids.” And roughly every thirty-three years they put on an extra spectacular show — none equaling that of 1833, though. But can you imagine what the Parkers made of this event on the day they arrived in their promised land? It was a fitting moment in their long spiritual and geographic journey. The Parkers, after all, were a people who believed in omens, sought miracles, and created stories from the sky, the wind, and the weather. It must have seemed providential to them. After all, as @LyleLovett once observed, even Moses got excited when he saw the promised land. 😃 How's THAT for a Texas history story? Shown here: William Daniel Parker and his wife Elenore Adeline circa 1870. William's father, Benjamin, was the older brother of Cynthia Ann Parker and made the trip to Texas in 1833 when he (Benjamin) was 14 years old.