William Fielder Sparks, state representative, son of Richard and Elizabeth (Cooper) Sparks, was born in Lawrence County, Mississippi, on January 22, 1814. He joined his parents in Texas in 1834 and lived two miles southwest of Douglass in Nacogdoches County until about 1841, when he moved to Robertson County. He represented Robertson County in the Seventh Texas Congress. In 1847 Sparks was again living near Douglass. In 1848 he was living in Harris County, and in 1850 and 1851 he lived in Fort Bend County. He served in the Texas army in 1836 at the battle of San Jacinto. In 1846 at the outbreak of the Mexican War he became a captain in the Second Texas Mounted Volunteers. On August 7, 1863, he enlisted in the Confederate Army and became second lieutenant in J. M. Weston's company of the Fort Bend Scouts. Sparks resided in Madison County in 1870, but by 1874, he was living in Cleburne and was elected tax assessor for Johnson County for 1879–1880. He and his wife Minerva (McKay) Sparks were the parents of at least five children. Sparks died of heart disease in Waco on July 13, 1900, and was buried at Oakwood Cemetery.
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A Memorial and Biographical History of Johnson and Hill Counties (Chicago: Lewis, 1892). Texas House of Representatives, Biographical Directory of the Texan Conventions and Congresses, 1832–1845 (Austin: Book Exchange, 1941).
The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
Robert Bruce Blake
Revised by
Randolph B. "Mike" Campbell,
“Sparks, William Fielder,”
Handbook of Texas Online,
accessed May 20, 2022,
https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/sparks-william-fielder.
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