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).