Established in 1849 in what is now far south Hood County at the confluence of George’s Creek and the Brazos River, Barnard’s Trading Post was located near a spring used by local Indians (thought to be Delaware and Shawnee) for drinking water.
Charles Barnard and Juana Cavasos Barnard.
Charles Barnard had come to Texas from Hartford, Connecticut in 1844 and joined his brother George to operate the Tehuacana Trading Post near present day Waco, trading goods with peaceful Indians and whites. In 1846 George ransomed a captured Spanish girl from her Comanche captors. Her name was Juana Cavasos , born in the Canary Islands of Spanish-Italian parents, she had been a captive for about 3 months.
Barnard's Trading Post Marker
Soon after her ransom, Juana and Charles were romantically involved, and were married in 1848. When George and Charles acquired a large tract of acreage near Comanche Peak in 1849 for $3250.00, Charles and George founded this trading post to be operated by Charles and Juana. To the couple were born fourteen children, four of whom survived to adulthood.
Barnard's Trading Post site as it appears today.
Charles bought out his brother George’s interest in the trading post in 1859, the same year the Army moved all Indians to the Fort Belknap Reservation. The trading post rapidly declined as a result, and Charles built a grist mill on the Paluxy River as a new enterprise. The town of Glen Rose grew up around the mill. When Charles sold the mill in 1870, the Barnard’s returned to the trading post and occupied it as their personal residence until their deaths; Charles in 1900 and Juana in 1906.
Today little remains of the trading post but scattered foundation stones, an old barn and a windmill sitting atop a knoll created by excavating the surrounding bottom land. The family cemetery remains within eyesight of the trading post site.
