What is certain, however, is that after a murderous raid of a neighbor’s Clarksville homestead in April of 1941, Denton rallied his militia of Rangers. By May, a company of Tarrant’s 4th Brigade militia under Capt. Bourland left Fannin County to recover livestock and exact revenge upon the raiders. Captain Denton, commanding a small detachment of scouts with Henry Stout, located Indian encampments along Keechi Village Creek (near present-day Arlington) and proceeded to raid then burn the first two villages with little resistance.

Denton and Stout split into separate units to scout further, stumbling upon a sprawling streamside community now alerted to their presence. Stout cautiously halted his men but the fiery-tempered Denton fearlessly charged ahead into an ambush by rallying braves. In the fire-fight, Captain Denton was killed immediately and Stout was wounded while their unit scrambled to withdraw. Learning that the Keechi villages contained over a thousand braves, now returning from a hunt, Tarrant called the retreat. The fleeing brigade buried Denton’s body under a tree beside the creek as they hastily crossed into what would become Denton County, later so named in 1846 to honor their fallen hero.

Yet the story of John B. Denton does not end with the Battle of Village Creek. When a grave was discovered by some boys along Oliver Creek in Denton County in 1856, Denton County rancher John Chisum (who would become a legendary cattleman and one namesake of the famed “Chisholm Trail“) recalled the stories of Denton’s death and burial told to him by his father Clabe, also a member of Denton’s Texas militia company. The cattleman investigated with survivors of the raid, who identified the bones by the blanket they were wrapped in, an old broken arm, and some gold teeth. Chisum took the remains back to his home and buried the box in a corner of his yard to await reclamation. When Chisum sold his property to J.M. Waide years later, he left a written account authenticating the grave with his friend J. W. Gober.

By 1900, the Old Settler’s Association of Denton County wanted to bury John B. Denton in the town that proudly bears his name. They placed an advertisement in the paper which John Gober answered, producing the letter written by Chisum authenticating the remains. These remnants of Captain Denton were exhumed once again and buried during a large ceremony on the southeast corner of the Denton County Courthouse lawn on November 21, 1901, then 60 years after Capt. Denton’s death and 44 years after the city of Denton was founded in 1857.

There are also ghost stories of Denton’s restless spirit, tales that are best told another time, but the colorful story of Captain Denton nevertheless reminds us that our history can inform intriguing insights into our present and future.