Fort Parker massacre of his life, and most of his fortune, searching for his daughter Rachel, his grandson James, his niece Cynthia, and his nephew John Richard. After many near-death escapes, he finally settled with his family. John Wayne's character Ethan Edwards, in the John Ford Western "The Searchers", was modeled by author Alan Le May after Parker and others affected by child abductions. Former Dallas Morning News columnist Frank X. Tolbert in his book "An Informal History of Texas" entitled one of his book's chapters "Was Uncle James (Parker) The Villain" which expressed an entirely different take on the reverend. James W.
Riders of the Purple Sage (1925 film) Riders of the Purple Sage (1925 film) Riders of the Purple Sage is a 1925 American silent western film directed by Lynn Reynolds and starring Tom Mix, Mabel Ballin, and Warner Oland. Based on the 1912 novel "Riders of the Purple Sage" by Zane Grey, the film is about a former Texas Ranger who pursues a corrupt lawyer who abducted his married sister and niece. His search leads him to a remote Arizona ranch and the love of a good woman. The film is preserved today. When corrupt lawyer Lew Walters (Warner Oland) is run out of a Texas town,