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- All family historians agree that the apple of Solomon's eye was his youngest daughter, Narcissa Ophelia Henrietta Jane Barrow, who was born in 1846. Her father used to load her onto his favorite horse and ride her across the prairies, and sometimes took her on long walks. As an older woman, she remembered him frequently stopping to chop on various trees, which was often used to mark specific locations. Her recollections gave rise to other buried treasure stories, although Narcissa was never able to remember the location of the marked trees. Nothing in his life was quite as controversial, however, as his death. Several stories have circulated over the years, but most stories agree that he was poisoned by his mulatto slave, Margaret. Most tales agree that Solomon had promised her freedom upon his death, and Margaret apparently tried to hasten that event. The stories diverge on other circumstances. Some folks say she put arsenic in his soup, while others contend he died from poisoned bread. Margaret's trial was held in Liberty in March 1856, and some fifteen witnesses testified. The jury, however, was split and Margaret was never convicted. The Barrow family sold her to another plantation. Villamae Williams said her new master, coming home on furlough from the War Between the States, found she had mistreated his aged mother and shot her. Solomon's widow, Elizabeth Winfree Barrow, lived on a couple dozen more years. She died around 1880. Both were buried on the old homeplace in unmarked graves. Their old homesite and the presumed locations of their graves is now contained within McCollum Park near Beach City in western Chambers County.
Reuben Barrow, Jr. (1806-1871)
Reuben Barrow, Jr. was a single man when he arrived in present-day Chambers County in 1824 and did not make his petition for land until 1827. Like many of his peers, however, he did not get his land grant until 1838 during the days of the Republic of Texas. By that time Reuben had married Miss Susannah Dunman, a daughter of James and Sarah (White) Dunman, which made her a niece of the legendary cattleman James Taylor White. Reuben and Susannah settled near Gilchrist on the Bolivar Peninsula, which is in Galveston County. This put them in close proximity to Susannah's brother, Martin Dunman, who remains a fairly interesting character in his own right. Martin's homeplace was on a large land grant that now covers the place where High Island is located. Some newspaper accounts of that time refer to the place as "The High Islands." The late Villamae Williams felt that this first homeplace for Reuben and Susannah was probably near Rollover Pass. It was a lovely place, except for the hurricanes and the large mosquitoes that inhabited the place then as now. Those conditions eventually prompted Reuben to settle on land he received at Double Bayou as a bounty grant for military service to the Republic of Texas. Reuben and Susannah had six children who lived to maturity: Richard Vincent, Mary, Sarah, Martha, Henry and Julia. Richard Vincent Barrow married Sophronia Miles. Martha Barrow married Joseph LaFour. There are any number of men in the Barrow family who carried the name Reuben, although this gentleman was often called "Bully Reuben" to differentiate him from his father and his nephews. The late Lorraine Silva, a lifelong Barrow family researcher, said he earned that nickname because of his propensity for picking fights, usually initiating hostilities by coming up behind a man's favorite horse and cutting off the animal's tail. Most folks didn't like that. Reuben Barrow, Jr. died sometime before October 24, 1871, when an application for probate of his estate was filed.
Benjamin Barrow (1808 - 1877)
The youngest of these three Barrow brothers, Benjamin was only 16 years old in 1824 when
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