Ripley A. Arnold
(1817-1853)
Ripley A. Arnold (1817–1853) was a major in the United States Army and founder of Camp Worth in 1849, later renamed Fort Worth, Texas. In 2014 a 22-foot statue was dedicated to Arnold. It was erected along the Trinity River below the army camp site he established and named after one of his military commanders.
Early life
Arnold was born in Pearlington, Mississippi, on January 17, 1817, to Willis Arnold.
Army life
He was appointed to West Point in 1834 and graduated thirty-third in his class. He was sent to the Second Dragoons in Florida in 1838 and brevetted captain in 1842 for gallantry in the Seminole War and major in 1846 for his role in the battle of Palo Alto. After the Mexican–American War, he was given command of Company F of the Second Dragoons and sent to Texas to establish a military post close to the Trinity River. After locating a suitable site, Arnold left Fort Graham with 42 dragoons to establish Camp Worth, named after his former commanding officer, who had recently died of cholera in San Antonio. It was completed by the winter of 1849 and later renamed Fort Worth.
Personal life
He eloped with Catherine Bryant on August 26, 1839.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ripley A. Arnold” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.