Hiram Rattan
Cooper, Delta County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(homesite 3/10 mi.; grave 4/10 mi. north) Delta County pioneer, born 1805. Settled in Texas, 1835, on brother Larkin Rattan's 1,000-acre land grant; later became site for city of Paris. Both Rattan families moved to Delta County in 1839. Hiram obtained two third-class land grants for producing grain and livestock. Larkin later joined the California Gold Rush, then returned to his native Illinois. Four Rattan relatives were massacred by Texas Indians. Civil War and politics divided family but never their devotion to Texas. Descendants include educators, military and political leaders.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Hiram Rattan, born in 1805, came to Texas in 1835 and settled on his brother Larkin's land grant—ground that would later become the city of Paris—before both families moved to Delta County in 1839. Hiram earned two land grants raising grain and livestock, while Larkin chased the California Gold Rush before returning to Illinois. The family knew frontier hardship firsthand: four relatives were killed in Indian raids, and the Civil War split their loyalties without shaking their devotion to Texas.
Why it matters
The Rattans' story—land grants, gold fever, frontier violence, and wartime division—distills the whole arc of nineteenth-century westward expansion into a single pioneer family.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Hiram Rattan
- · Larkin Rattan
Related events
- · California Gold Rush
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
DeSpain Bridge
Cooper, TX
Built before 1850 by landowner Brig DeSpain and his neighbors where the Bonham–Jefferson Road crossed the South Sulphur River, this pioneer bridge of native oak and bois d'arc carried the region's cotton trade for some twenty years. The land traced back to Randolph DeSpain, a Texas Revolutionary soldier killed in the 1836 Goliad massacre. When floods washed the crossing out after 1870, the state replaced it, and the counties kept cotton and corn wagons rolling between the two regions for decades more.
Delta County
Cooper, TX
Carved from parts of Lamar and Hopkins counties, Delta County was created on July 29, 1870, and organized that October during the Reconstruction era. Its name reflects its triangular shape, wedged between the forks of the Sulphur River, with the town of Cooper chosen as county seat.
Oaklawn Cemetery
Cooper, TX
The first burials in Cooper were made on a hill near Dr. J. A. Blackwell's home — reputedly beginning with the young daughter of Dr. R. C. Andrews — but the site soon proved unsuitable. In 1891 Asa White donated five acres for a new cemetery, and most of the old graves were moved here, including the community's oldest surviving monument to Mary Cumming, born in 1791. The Independent Order of Odd Fellows tended the grounds and added land until Oaklawn Cemetery was chartered in 1959.
Turbeville, Sam B.
Cooper, TX
Born in Mississippi in 1856, Sam B. Turbeville came with his wife Saluda to Texas in 1879 and settled in Delta County as a farmer. Elected county sheriff in a contested special election in 1897, he served several terms, counseling young people and enforcing Prohibition. His career culminated in appointment as U.S. Marshal for the Eastern District of Texas.