Westward Expansion

Hico, TX

Arriving in Hamilton County in 1860, Tennessee-born John Rankin Alford settled on Honey Creek, sold goods from his wagon, and ran cattle before helping the growing settlement win a post office, which he named Hico after his boyhood Kentucky home and served as first postmaster. He soldiered in a Texas frontier regiment during the Civil War, survived the Battle of Dove Creek, and in 1875 became a physician who practiced into his eighties. When the railroad arrived in 1880, Alford moved with the relocating town and opened a drug store, remaining a civic pillar until his death in 1928.

Stockdale, TX

John Reagen Baker was a soldier of fortune in the turbulent borderlands of the 1840s — fighting for the short-lived Republic of the Rio Grande, serving as sheriff of Refugio County, raising minutemen, and repelling Mexican raids into Texas in 1842. He joined the disastrous Somervell and Mier expeditions, was wounded, and afterward settled into the quieter life of a merchant. His career reflects the violent, unsettled decade before Texas found its footing.

Rogers vicinity, TX

John Robert Craddock left Kentucky for Mexican Texas in 1833 and, three years later, took up arms in the Texas Revolution, fighting at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto that won the Republic its independence. He put down roots in Bell County, married Amanda Childers in 1840, and raised thirteen children on the land where the family—several of them in unmarked graves—still rests. His burial here in 1891, and his wife's beside him in 1900, closes a life that spanned Texas's passage from Mexican province to independent republic to state.

Linden, TX

Born in Georgia in 1794 to a family that had emigrated from County Tyrone, Ireland, in 1720, John Robin Heard came to Texas in 1853 and founded the nearby town of Cussetta, amassing large landholdings. In 1861 he donated the ground for this cemetery, and his home stood nearby into the 1940s. Twice married to sisters Martha and Mary Hopkins, Heard fathered twelve children — a sprawling family typical of the antebellum settlers who anchored northeast Texas communities.

Douglassville, TX

John Robin Heard, who came to Texas in 1853 and founded the nearby town of Cussetta, donated the one-acre ground for this family cemetery, where the first burial in 1861 was his infant grandson Cornelius Floyd. Its twenty-three graves include Heard himself and his second wife, Mary Hopkins Heard, while a fence was later provided by another grandson, W.Q. Henderson. Descendants organized a cemetery association and perpetual-care trust in 1974 to preserve the family plot.

Ralls, TX

When the Crosbyton-South Plains Railroad pushed across the high plains of West Texas, John Robinson Ralls saw a town where others saw only ranchland. A Georgia-born storekeeper turned rancher, he traded a thriving general store for a 10,000-acre spread and in 1911 founded the town that still bears his name. He gave away the townsite itself, land for the first school, lots for every church, and built much of the early business district, seeding a community from the ground up.

Paint Rock vicinity, TX

Cattle baron John S. Chisum (1824–1884) grazed tens of thousands of Longhorns on the Concho after moving his "Jingle-Bob" herds here in 1863. During the Civil War he supplied beef to Confederate armies west of the Mississippi, driving cattle toward Louisiana camps through gauntlets of raiders, rustlers, federal patrols, and the deep, cold Brazos. After the war he built ranching empires in New Mexico and became a bystander to the Lincoln County War of Billy the Kid.

West Columbia, TX

John S. D. Byrom, born in Georgia in 1798, was among the delegates who gathered as Texas moved toward independence, serving in the 1835 Consultation and signing the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836. He died the following year, in the earliest days of the Republic. His marker honors one of the founding signers who broke Texas from Mexico.

Nacogdoches, TX

Once a sheriff in Natchitoches, Louisiana, John S. Roberts threw himself into the Texas cause, helping lead the 1832 Battle of Nacogdoches and commanding the Nacogdoches company in the 1835 storming of Bexar. He served in the 1835 Consultation and signed the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836. A Virginia native, he lived out his years in the town he had fought for, dying in 1871.

Groesbeck, TX

Born in 1811, John Sadler came to Texas in 1833 and joined the fight for Texas independence, serving as a volunteer in Captain William Ware's company at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto. He and his wife Bashie lived out their lives on the Texas land they helped win, dying within months of each other in 1885.

San Antonio, TX

John Salmon 'Rip' Ford lived nearly every role the Texas frontier offered: pioneer doctor and newspaper editor, Republic of Texas congressman, state senator, adjutant to Jack Hays in the war with Mexico, and a fearless Ranger captain in border and Indian campaigns. He served as a Confederate colonel during the Civil War and later as mayor of Austin and Brownsville, a constitutional convention delegate, and a charter member of the Texas State Historical Association. His grave marker, erected by the state in 1963, recalls his motto: 'Ready, ay, ready!'

Hays, KS

Built in 1894, this Hays, Kansas home belonged to John Schyler, whose life traced the arc of the closing frontier "from buffalo hunter to statesman." A man who had once chased the great bison herds across the plains lived to see the prairie tamed into towns and politics, becoming a civic figure in the process. His dates, 1849 to 1926, span the very decades that transformed the American West.

Pittsburgh, PA · est. 1958

In 1786, when Pittsburgh was still a raw frontier town at the forks of the Ohio, the Berks County native John Scull printed the first edition of the Pittsburgh Gazette—the first newspaper published west of the Allegheny Mountains. From his home and print shop here, Scull carried the printed word into the trans-Appalachian West and took an active hand in the region's civic affairs. His paper endured, becoming the Post-Gazette in 1927.

Bleiblerville, TX

In 1837 the Pamplin family left Alabama for the young Republic of Texas, settling the next year along Mill Creek where they worked a plantation. When Mexican forces under General Adrian Woll marched into Texas in 1842, John Pamplin and his son-in-law took up arms with the Republic's army to help drive them back. The eight known graves here, marked by obelisks and rock-lined plots, hold members of the Shelburne and Minton families and stand as quiet reminders of the district's first Anglo settlers.

Dallas, TX

Born in Tennessee in 1855 and raised on an Arkansas farm, John Shelby Wisdom came to Texas as a teenager and made his living in ranching and cattle driving. Settling with his wife Hattie and her fiddler son "Pink" Wright, he was so moved by a troop of Boy Scouts holding an Easter service in the woods near his land that in 1922 he deeded 185 acres to the Dallas Boy Scout council. Known thereafter as "Daddy" Wisdom, he spent his final years among the Scouts, mourned at his death in 1931 by thousands of them.

West Point, KY

When Meriwether Lewis and William Clark set out in 1803 to cross the continent to the Pacific, they leaned on a handful of skilled Kentuckians known as the "Nine Young Men from Kentucky." John Shields, a Virginia-born blacksmith and gunsmith living at West Point in Hardin County, was among the most valued of them: he kept the expedition's rifles firing, worked as one of its principal hunters, and even nursed an ailing comrade back to health. After the Corps returned in 1806, Shields moved on to Indiana, dying there in 1809.

Ross, TX

John Silas Edens arrived in Texas as a boy in 1831, when it was still Mexican territory, and lived nearly every chapter of the state's frontier saga: he fought in the Republic of Texas army in 1836, rode with the Texas Rangers on Indian campaigns in 1841, farmed and raised a large family, and served the Confederacy during the Civil War. Back home in Houston County he opened the area's first school before moving on to McLennan County in 1868.

Hertford, NC

In the first years after the Constitution was ratified, the young federal government needed officers to make its authority real in each state. John Skinner became North Carolina's first United States marshal, serving from 1790 to 1794, and as a Federalist he took part in the state conventions of 1788 and 1789 that weighed whether North Carolina would join the new Union. He lived on land about twelve miles southeast of Hertford.

Rosanky, TX

John Socrates Darling came to Texas in 1835 and took up arms in the fight for independence, serving in the Siege of Bexar and then in the decisive Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. He lived out his years in Texas, dying in 1870 within days of his wife, Louranie; the state marked his grave in 1962.

Elkhart, TX

This late Greek Revival home was built in 1856 by John Starr, an 1848 settler, and his wife Susannah — sister of religious leader Daniel Parker and aunt of Cynthia Ann Parker, the girl famously taken captive by Comanches who became mother to the last Comanche chief, Quanah Parker. Its fireplaces were laid from hand-cut native sandstone, and it survives as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark. The house links one East Texas family to one of the frontier's most storied sagas.

Junction, TX

Born in Leon County in 1841 to pioneer Texan parents, John Sterling Durst served in the Confederate Army before a sermon called him to the ministry of the Church of Christ. When he moved his family to still-frontier Kimble County in 1883, he preached both locally and on summer tours across the state, and he won his neighbors' trust as county judge and school superintendent.

Chappell Hill, TX

First built in 1855 as a simple one-story dog-trot cabin, this Chappell Hill house was bought in 1873 by John Sterling and Claytonia Smith. Their son, a cotton farmer and community leader, transformed it into an elaborate Queen Anne home in 1910, adding an octagonal tower, gables, dormers, and a sweeping curved porch — the last such house left in the town.

Henderson, TX

Georgia natives John (1806–1854) and Mary Ann Strong (1809–1898) came to Texas about 1849 and became pioneer settlers of eastern Rusk County. They helped set aside land for a local Methodist congregation, for the Church Hill Male and Female Academy that operated in the 1850s, and for the community cemetery, while making their home near a nearby spring. Their donations seeded the schools, churches, and burial grounds that gave the settlement its shape.

Edna, TX

John Sutherland Menefee, born in Tennessee in 1813, fought at the Battle of San Jacinto that won Texas its independence, then served in the Congress of the young Republic of Texas from 1837 to 1840. He lived out his years in the new state he had helped create, dying in 1884. The State of Texas honored him with this marker in 1937, the centennial era of Texas independence.

Tilden, TX

Born in North Carolina in 1774, John Swanson Yarbrough came to Texas in 1832 and joined the fight for independence, taking part in the 1835 Siege of Bexar and the decisive Battle of San Jacinto. In 1858 he led a group of settlers to the Frio River, founding the Yarbrough Bend settlement in what became McMullen County. His grave was moved to this site in 1982 when the Choke Canyon Reservoir was built over the original cemetery.

Henderson, TX

John Campbell Patrick came from South Carolina in 1854 with his wife, five children, his brothers, and other families, and in 1855 bought 335 acres on the Shreveport Road. The log house he built became the heart of the Patrick Community, drawing a gin, grist mill, schoolhouse, and church around it. His widowed daughter Mary Bolding later ran a store, post office, and telephone switchboard from the family home until her death just before World War I.

Marshall, TX

Born in Ireland's County Antrim, John T. Mills rose to the highest ranks of law in a young nation still finding its footing: he served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the Republic of Texas in the early 1840s, then as a district judge after Texas joined the Union. His service helped build the legal framework of a frontier republic-turned-state, and a Texas county bears his name in his honor. He rests here alongside his wife Octavia.

Crockett, TX

New York-born John Titus Smith came to Texas from Georgia in 1849 and settled on a cotton plantation at McKenzie's Bend on the Trinity River, where he operated the steamboat Ida Reese. He served as chief justice of Houston County in the 1850s and later in the state legislature, and fought in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He and his wife Elizabeth raised a large family before his death in 1874.

Cuero, TX

John Tyler Wofford, a Confederate veteran and son of DeWitt County's first chief justice, built this house near Lindenau in 1877. About 1883 it was carefully taken apart—its boards numbered—then hauled here and reassembled. Its mansard roof, six original fireplaces, and hand-carved porch railings bearing the Lone Star of Texas still survive, a showcase of the craftsmanship of a prosperous post-war Texas family.

Orange, TX

Born in Ohio in 1821, John T. Stark came to East Texas in 1840 and settled in Newton County, where he read law and kept a mercantile store. He enlisted as a private in the Texas infantry for the Confederacy in 1861 and rose to captain, and after the war moved to Orange to practice law and serve a term as county judge. His three marriages produced eighteen children before his death in 1893.

Tolar, TX

Tennessee-born John W. Bull came to Texas in 1853, preempted land here in 1861 within sight of Comanche Peak, and in 1865 took part in the Dove Creek fight against Kickapoo people migrating through the region. After his land grant was approved, he hired mason Pat Gannon to build this stone house from a nearby quarry, chiseling the date "March 17, 1872" into the chimney. It stands as one of the area's earliest masonry homes on what was then the Texas frontier.

Mount Pleasant, PA · est. 1951

John W. Geary was born in this Westmoreland County town in 1819 and lived one of the most far-flung public careers of his generation. He served as the first mayor of San Francisco in the Gold Rush year of 1850, was appointed territorial governor of a bitterly divided "Bleeding Kansas" in 1856, rose to major general in the Civil War, and finally served as governor of Pennsylvania from 1867 until his death in 1873.

New Cumberland, PA · est. 1995

John W. Geary lived one of the most eventful public lives of 19th-century America. He served as a colonel in the Mexican War, became the first postmaster and first mayor of San Francisco during the Gold Rush, and was appointed governor of the volatile Kansas Territory during the "Bleeding Kansas" crisis over slavery. He then won distinction as a Union major general in the Civil War before serving two terms as governor of Pennsylvania from 1867 to 1873. His home stood just east of here in New Cumberland.

Austin, TX

John W. McHorse, born in Alabama in 1819, marched with Hayden Arnold's company at the Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive 1836 clash that won Texas its independence from Mexico. His grave marker, placed by the state during the 1936 Texas Centennial, honors one of the ordinary soldiers whose eighteen-minute victory reshaped the map of North America.

San Antonio, TX

A North Carolina native who drifted west through Illinois and Missouri, John W. Smith came to Texas with Green DeWitt in 1826 and settled in San Antonio, where he became a leading merchant and political figure. He fought in the opening "affair at Gonzales," the storming of Bexar, and the siege of the Alamo, from which he served as a courier, and later at the Battle of the Salado. Smith became San Antonio's first mayor in 1837, held numerous offices, and served the Republic as a senator until his death in 1845.

Waynesboro, PA · est. 1955

In 1797 John Wallace Jr. platted the streets of a new town in the fertile Cumberland Valley and named it Waynesburg to honor General Anthony Wayne, the fiery Revolutionary War commander known as "Mad Anthony." The name was changed to Waynesboro in 1831 to avoid confusion with other Pennsylvania towns of similar name. The stone portion of Wallace's own house still stands nearby, a survivor of the founding era.

Round Mountain, TX

John Walton Harrington was barely a teenager when he joined the army of the young Republic of Texas in 1836, the year of the Texas Revolution, serving into 1837. For his service he received a bounty land grant of more than a thousand acres — the kind of frontier payment that turned soldiers into stockraisers. He went on to hold land across several Hill Country and East Texas counties and raised a large family, all born in Texas.

Santa Cruz County, AZ

Arizona pioneer Johnny Ward established this ranch in 1858 in the contested borderlands of the far Southwest. In 1861 his stepson Felix was seized in a raid; U.S. Army officers wrongly blamed Cochise's Chiricahua Apaches, touching off the notorious Bascom Affair and years of war, though the Western Apache had in fact taken the boy.

El Paso, TX

Born in Bonham in 1853 and named for the founder of Methodism, John Wesley "Wes" Hardin became one of the most notorious gunmen of the Old West, claiming to have killed more than thirty men while insisting he only killed to save his own life. He served fifteen years in state prison for murder, was pardoned, and in May 1895 opened a law office in El Paso. Three months later he was shot dead by city constable John Selman.

Kenney, TX

John Wesley Kenney was one of the great pioneer Methodist preachers of early Texas. Pennsylvania-born and preaching from age nineteen, he arrived in 1833 when Texas was still Mexican territory where Catholicism was the law, and he helped organize Methodist societies anyway. In 1834 he rode a circuit spanning everything west of the Trinity River, and in 1836 he joined the fight for Texas independence.

Brownwood, TX

Pioneer ranchers Modie and Samuel Coggin began this Brownwood house after 1874, but it took its name from John Wesley Malone, who bought it in 1888 and added a second story in 1904. A hardware merchant, Malone was in business with lifelong friend Will H. Mayes, who went on to serve as Texas' lieutenant governor. The grounds even held Brownwood's first public swimming pool, built by Malone's father-in-law.

Woodville, TX

An Alabama native, John Wheat migrated to Texas in 1835 and claimed his headright and bounty lands here, naming many Tyler County creeks while hunting bear and other game. He served as a soldier in the Texas War for Independence, guarding a captured Mexican officer after the Battle of San Jacinto. Later a county commissioner, he donated the land for this cemetery and left descendants a wealth of frontier legends.

Kyle, TX

Born in Tennessee, John Wheeler Bunton came to Texas in 1833 and threw himself into the fight for independence, signing the Texas Declaration of Independence, helping draft a constitution, and fighting at the Siege of Bexar and the Battle of San Jacinto. A lawyer and rancher, he served in the first and third congresses of the Republic of Texas before settling in Hays County. In 1932 he was reinterred in the State Cemetery in Austin among the republic's honored dead.

Washington, TX

Virginia-born John William Smith fought as a soldier for the Republic of Texas and went on to serve in its Congress and become the first mayor of San Antonio. He died in 1845 at the town of Washington-on-the-Brazos, the very cradle of Texas independence, just as the Republic was folding into the United States. His life traces the short, dramatic arc of an independent Texas from revolution to statehood.

Mullin, TX

A North Carolinian by birth, John Williams came to this stretch of central Texas in 1855 and became one of the first permanent settlers of what are now Brown and Mills counties. He helped establish the region's early cattle industry, and the settlement of Williams Ranch grew up around his homestead while nearby Herd Pen Branch took its name from his roundup pens. With his wife Annie he raised six children who became pioneers of the community in their own right.

Latexo, TX

John Wortham (1804–67) helped shape Houston County from its beginnings, petitioning for its creation in 1837 during the Republic of Texas era. A soldier as well as a settler, he captained an independent ranger company, rose to major in the Republic's army, and served as quartermaster of the Texas Militia. Off the battlefield he was a college trustee and one of the Republic's first land commissioners, running a sawmill and gristmill on the East Texas frontier where he raised twelve children and was buried.

Franklin, PA · est. 1982

John Chapman, the wandering nurseryman remembered as Johnny Appleseed, tended orchards along French Creek near here between 1797 and 1804 before moving on to Ohio. Records show he kept a nursery in this area and another near Warren, planting apple trees ahead of the advancing frontier. Born in Massachusetts in 1774, he died in Indiana in 1845, already a folk legend.

Fort Wayne, IN

John Chapman (1774-1845), known to generations as 'Johnny Appleseed,' wandered the American frontier planting apple nurseries ahead of settlement across Ohio, Indiana, and beyond. A devout man remembered by the marker's words 'He Lived For Others,' he became one of the country's most enduring folk heroes. This Fort Wayne marker honors his life and legacy.

Fort Wayne, IN

This Fort Wayne site marks the grave of John Chapman—better known as Johnny Appleseed—who died in 1845 after decades roaming the frontier. Far from the barefoot eccentric of legend, Chapman was a shrewd nurseryman who planted apple orchards across Ohio, Indiana, and beyond, selling seedlings to arriving settlers. His epitaph, 'He Live For Others,' captures the generous reputation that made him an American folk hero.

Argyle, TX

In 1884 members of the Prairie Mound Methodist Church set aside this ground as a religious campground, its brush arbor sheltering worship during ten-day summer camp meetings. A dependable well—named for former owner Hardin Johns—drew not only campers but settlers and travelers passing through. As nearby communities built their own churches the meetings faded, and the land was sold in 1913, though the well served neighbors until 1963.

Johnson City, TX

In 1892 local Masons bought this land from Julia Ann Moore Johnson, widow of town founder James Polk Johnson, for a lodge cemetery. Its earliest marked graves date from the 1890s and include community leaders and veterans of conflicts from the War of 1812 to Vietnam. Among more than 250 burials is the celebrated Texas Ranger Cicero Rufus Perry, who died in 1898.

Cleburne, TX

Johnson County was created in 1854 and named for Middleton T. Johnson, a South Carolina native and former Alabama legislator who became a leading figure in early Texas, serving in the Texas Rangers and fighting in the Mexican War and the Civil War. The county seat moved twice before settling at Camp Henderson, a Confederate recruiting camp beside noted springs, which in 1867 was renamed Cleburne to honor the Confederate general Patrick Cleburne. The frequent moves reflect the unsettled, fast-changing character of the North Texas frontier.

Alvarado, TX

In 1893, at the prompting of farmer and newspaper correspondent John James, Johnson County residents gathered for a picnic that grew into one of Texas's largest old-settler reunions. The first official reunion drew more than two thousand people to Gathings Park, and after moving among several towns the organization bought this ground for a permanent campground in 1906. Through pavilions lost to tornado and fire and rebuilt again, the reunion swelled into a beloved institution of parades, contests, and concerts drawing ten thousand and more.

Cleburne, TX

Nine men met at the Cleburne auction barn in 1951 to form the Johnson County Sheriff's Posse, a riding group meant to promote goodwill among horsemen and keep Old West traditions alive. They leased and then bought fairgrounds, built an arena, and in 1953 launched an annual PRCA rodeo that continues today. Along the way the Posse added youth programs, scholarships, and a women's auxiliary, weaving itself into the fabric of the community.

Segovia, TX

One of Kimble County's earliest settlements grew up on land once owned by famed Texas cattleman Samuel Maverick, taking its name from the Johnson Fork of the Llano River. The Wiley Joy family put down roots here, building a gravity irrigation system, a rock fence, and a two-room log house whose traces still remain. By the end of the Civil War eight families formed the "Joy settlement," which became a watering place for travelers and troops and, later, a stage stop.

Snyder, TX

W. A. Johnson built this Snyder home in 1910 from cement blocks he cast on site using his own sand and gravel, then finished the interior in oak woodwork crafted by an English carpenter. The self-sufficient construction reflects the resourcefulness of early West Texas builders. It was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1964.

Arlington, TX

Johnson Station began in the 1840s as a ranger station and trading post on the North Texas frontier, and its cemetery remains the clearest reminder of that vanished settlement. The oldest marked grave dates to 1863, though older, unmarked burials likely lie among them; here rest pioneer families, Civil War veterans, and charter members of an early Masonic lodge, in a district long since absorbed into Arlington.

Piqua, OH

In 1808, only five years after Ohio gained statehood, John Johnston set out to build a proper farmstead on the frontier at Upper Piqua, aspiring to the genteel ideal of the "gentleman farmer" that many prosperous settlers carried west with them. Alongside a two-story log cabin, he raised this double-pen log barn—two cribs of hewn logs joined under one roof, a common early-American form—and later wrapped it in outer sheds to shield the vulnerable log walls from Ohio's weather. The surviving structure is a rare window into how the first generation of settlers worked and stored the fruits of newly cleared land.

Stephenville, TX

Settled before 1860 on the main road from Stephenville to Glen Rose, the community of Johnsville took its name from John Z. Martin, its first postmaster in 1901. In its prime it had general stores, a cotton gin, a blacksmith, lodges, a school, and a church, and its cemetery — formally established in 1910 on land near the Christian church — holds pioneers of every trade. School consolidation in 1948 and the slow drift of population left the church and cemetery as the last records of the town.

Jollyville, TX

This pioneer burial ground was formally set aside by John Grey Jolly and his wife Nancy Isabel, for whom the community of Jollyville was named and who both rest here. The earliest marked grave dates to 1872, and among those buried are five citizens of the Republic of Texas from the Strode family, who settled the area in 1841. The last burial, a Confederate veteran, came in 1929, closing nearly a century of the community's history.