Josefa Augustina Flores de Barker

Josefa Augustina Flores de Barker, donor of the site of Floresville, was born to Jose' Maria Flores and Maria Leonides Flores probably in the early 1800s. She grew up on the family's extensive lands and, in San Antonio on April 17, 1854, married Samuel Williams Barker, who became the first sheriff of Wilson County. When her father died, Josefa inherited a portion of his estate, 200 acres of which she donated to establish the town of Floresville in 1833, with the request that the settlement be named in honor of her great-great-grandfather, Francisco Flores de Abrego, whose hacienda was six miles from the site of the present town. Many of her descendants have continued to live in the community and surrounding areas, and in 1990 some still owned the land that was handed down to them through five generations of the Flores de Abrego family.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Louise Stadler, ed., Wilson County History (Dallas: Taylor, 1990).