TACKETT, PLEASANT (1803–1886). Pleasant Tackett (Tackitt), pioneer minister, was born on April 22, 1803, near Louisville, Kentucky, the son of Lewis and Elizabeth (Bashum) Tackett. He later went to Arkansas, where in 1826 he served as a licensed minister of the Methodist Church. In 1835 he married Keziah F. Bruton; they had ten children. While in Arkansas Tackett served as missionary to the Cherokee Indians and postmaster of Pope County; he was elected representative to the Arkansas general assembly in October 1842. In the 1850s Tackett and his family moved to Texas; they settled first in Collin County, then in Parker County, then in 1856 at a site near Fish Creek, about eight miles south of Fort Belknap in Young County. Tackett served as minister and county official and did missionary work for the Brazos Indian Reservation. Under his leadership the first Methodist church in Young County was established at Fort Belknap in 1858; he founded other churches in Collin and Parker counties. Because of his battles with Indians, Tackett became known as the "fighting parson." Tackett Mountain in Young County was named for him in memory of the skirmish there in 1860 between the Tackett family and a band of Indians led by a Comanche known to the settlers as Piny Chummy (or Pine-o-Channa). During the Civil War Tackett served as chief justice and postmaster in Young County and as enrolling officer in the Confederate Army. In 1882 he returned to Parker County, where he died on July 2, 1886; he was buried near the Goshen church, which he had founded, five miles west of Springtown.
Carrie J. Crouch, Young County: History and Biography (Dallas: Dealey and Love, 1937; rev. ed., A History of Young County, Texas, Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1956). Gustavus Adolphus Holland, History of Parker County and the Double Log Cabin (Weatherford, Texas: Herald, 1931; rpt. 1937). Barbara Neal Ledbetter, comp., The Fort Belknap of Yesterday and Today (1963). Joseph Carroll McConnell, West Texas Frontier (Vol. 1, Jacksboro, Texas, 1933; Vol. 2, Palo Pinto, Texas, 1939). Rupert N. Richardson, The Frontier of Northwest Texas, 1846 to 1876 (Glendale, California: Clark, 1963).
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this article.Handbook of Texas Online, Barbara A. Neal Ledbetter, "Tackett, Pleasant," accessed December 04, 2016, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fta01.
Uploaded on June 15, 2010. Modified on August 17, 2015. Published by the Texas State Historical Association.