Proud Confederate Soldier-
member of Stonewall Jackson Camp #249, United Confederate Veterans, Holliday, TX
------------------
JOHN NEELY BRYAN, JR., oldest child of the founder of Dallas, returned to the city where he was born after an absence of a quarter of a century, on January 9, 1906, an especially significant date in his life because it marked his sixtieth birthday. The Dallas Morning News learned of his presence in town and sent a reporter around to interview him. "He is hale and hearty, with hardly a gray hair among the black locks of his head," observed the reporter, who added that Bryan had come to town from his West Texas home at Thornberry, Clay County, to spend his birthday with friends and acquaintances.
Bryan talked of various things in his own life as well as in the lives of his father and mother and their establishment of the first home in Dallas. But it was in response to one particular question of the reporter that this 1906 interview, long since forgotten or overlooked by old-timers interested in the history of Dallas, jumps across the years like an electrical charge to compel the attention of today's readers. For the question was "for whom was Dallas named?" "My father named the city and the county for George M. Dallas, vice-president under James K. Polk," the son answered. "He was always a Democrat as I have been. We are Methodists, too."
Neither Bryan nor the reporter could know, of course, that they were touching on what in time to come would turn out to be the most controversial and disputed point in the annals of the city.
Up to and including the first years of the present century it was generally understood among old residents that Bryan's original town, established in 1841, as well as the County of Dallas, created in 1846, had been given the name of Polk's running mate in the presidential campaign of 1845. This was considered fitting tribute to one of the two Democratic stalwarts who had championed the admission of Texas into the Union.
But by the 1920's this belief was being subjected to the higher criticism or mounting skepticism among students and scholars of local history. They were pointing to proof that Bryan's settlement on the east bank of the Trinity had become known as Dallas by 1843—a full year before the Pennsylvania politician, George Mifflin Dallas, was catapulted into national attention as the Democratic nominee for vicepresident.
All available details of John Neely Bryan's life before leaving his native Tennessee, his sojourn in Arkansas, and his entry into northern Texas were studied closely—leading to the conclusion that Bryan could not have known George Mifflin Dallas before his nomination for vice-president in 1845 at the Democratic National Convention. Thus a consensus was reached that Bryan must have named his town for someone other. than George Mifflin Dallas. Unfortunately, Bryan, the founder, left no written record on this point.
There is no record of anyone ever having asked Bryan exactly whom he had in mind in choosing the name for his town, although Frank M. Cockrell, the first serious student of Dallas history, wrote in his memoirs that Bryan told him he had named the town "for my friend Dallas."
Cockrell was a member of the pioneer family of Alexander and Sarah Horton Cockrell, and one who knew Bryan in the last decade or so of Bryan's life. But Cockrell never pressed Bryan to say which man by the name of Dallas was his friend. Setting down his memoirs in later years, Cockrell accepted the idea that Bryan and Dallas had been friends.
The failure to clear up this mystery while Bryan Sr. was still living is remarkable. It is equally remarkable that Bryan's widow and mother of his children, the stouthearted Margaret Beeman who married the town founder about the time he was laying out his townsite, was never asked to help out in this matter.
Margaret Beeman was living at the home of John Neely Bryan, Jr. in Clay County in 1906 when this interview with her eldest son appeared in the Dallas News, This was noted by the reporter, who wrote: "His mother, now eighty-one years of age, lives with him, and one brother and a sister remain from the family that owned much of the property covered [today] by the City of Dallas." Margaret Beeman Bryan continued to live until her ninety-third year. She died in 1919.
The interview, which appeared in the January 11, 1906, issue of the Dallas News, also quoted Bryan Jr. as saying that he was born on the southwest corner of the courthouse square in a log cabin which had long since given way to the wagon yard that was to be found there in 1906.
"We had almost no furniture," John Neely, Jr. continued, and the bedding was what had been brought by my mother's people [from Illinois]. Everything was of the crudest kind. My father came to Texas from Tennessee in 1840. He and my mother were married right here in this place, and I was born in 1846. All of my life was spent in this county until 1872, when I became a rancher [in Burnett County]. I married Miss Sadie Thompson in Dallas in 1867, and have four sons and a daughter. My father owned 640 acres right in this courthouse part of the city, a little of it being west of the river. He gave and sold much of it.
Courtesy Dallas Yesterday by Sam H. Acheson. Dallas Gateway: Pioneers of Dallas County
Contributor: Sherry (47010546) • [email protected]
member of Stonewall Jackson Camp #249, United Confederate Veterans, Holliday, TX
------------------
JOHN NEELY BRYAN, JR., oldest child of the founder of Dallas, returned to the city where he was born after an absence of a quarter of a century, on January 9, 1906, an especially significant date in his life because it marked his sixtieth birthday. The Dallas Morning News learned of his presence in town and sent a reporter around to interview him. "He is hale and hearty, with hardly a gray hair among the black locks of his head," observed the reporter, who added that Bryan had come to town from his West Texas home at Thornberry, Clay County, to spend his birthday with friends and acquaintances.
Bryan talked of various things in his own life as well as in the lives of his father and mother and their establishment of the first home in Dallas. But it was in response to one particular question of the reporter that this 1906 interview, long since forgotten or overlooked by old-timers interested in the history of Dallas, jumps across the years like an electrical charge to compel the attention of today's readers. For the question was "for whom was Dallas named?" "My father named the city and the county for George M. Dallas, vice-president under James K. Polk," the son answered. "He was always a Democrat as I have been. We are Methodists, too."
Neither Bryan nor the reporter could know, of course, that they were touching on what in time to come would turn out to be the most controversial and disputed point in the annals of the city.
Up to and including the first years of the present century it was generally understood among old residents that Bryan's original town, established in 1841, as well as the County of Dallas, created in 1846, had been given the name of Polk's running mate in the presidential campaign of 1845. This was considered fitting tribute to one of the two Democratic stalwarts who had championed the admission of Texas into the Union.
But by the 1920's this belief was being subjected to the higher criticism or mounting skepticism among students and scholars of local history. They were pointing to proof that Bryan's settlement on the east bank of the Trinity had become known as Dallas by 1843—a full year before the Pennsylvania politician, George Mifflin Dallas, was catapulted into national attention as the Democratic nominee for vicepresident.
All available details of John Neely Bryan's life before leaving his native Tennessee, his sojourn in Arkansas, and his entry into northern Texas were studied closely—leading to the conclusion that Bryan could not have known George Mifflin Dallas before his nomination for vice-president in 1845 at the Democratic National Convention. Thus a consensus was reached that Bryan must have named his town for someone other. than George Mifflin Dallas. Unfortunately, Bryan, the founder, left no written record on this point.
There is no record of anyone ever having asked Bryan exactly whom he had in mind in choosing the name for his town, although Frank M. Cockrell, the first serious student of Dallas history, wrote in his memoirs that Bryan told him he had named the town "for my friend Dallas."
Cockrell was a member of the pioneer family of Alexander and Sarah Horton Cockrell, and one who knew Bryan in the last decade or so of Bryan's life. But Cockrell never pressed Bryan to say which man by the name of Dallas was his friend. Setting down his memoirs in later years, Cockrell accepted the idea that Bryan and Dallas had been friends.
The failure to clear up this mystery while Bryan Sr. was still living is remarkable. It is equally remarkable that Bryan's widow and mother of his children, the stouthearted Margaret Beeman who married the town founder about the time he was laying out his townsite, was never asked to help out in this matter.
Margaret Beeman was living at the home of John Neely Bryan, Jr. in Clay County in 1906 when this interview with her eldest son appeared in the Dallas News, This was noted by the reporter, who wrote: "His mother, now eighty-one years of age, lives with him, and one brother and a sister remain from the family that owned much of the property covered [today] by the City of Dallas." Margaret Beeman Bryan continued to live until her ninety-third year. She died in 1919.
The interview, which appeared in the January 11, 1906, issue of the Dallas News, also quoted Bryan Jr. as saying that he was born on the southwest corner of the courthouse square in a log cabin which had long since given way to the wagon yard that was to be found there in 1906.
"We had almost no furniture," John Neely, Jr. continued, and the bedding was what had been brought by my mother's people [from Illinois]. Everything was of the crudest kind. My father came to Texas from Tennessee in 1840. He and my mother were married right here in this place, and I was born in 1846. All of my life was spent in this county until 1872, when I became a rancher [in Burnett County]. I married Miss Sadie Thompson in Dallas in 1867, and have four sons and a daughter. My father owned 640 acres right in this courthouse part of the city, a little of it being west of the river. He gave and sold much of it.
Courtesy Dallas Yesterday by Sam H. Acheson. Dallas Gateway: Pioneers of Dallas County
Contributor: Sherry (47010546) • [email protected]
Proud Confederate Soldier-
member of Stonewall Jackson Camp #249, United Confederate Veterans, Holliday, TX
------------------
JOHN NEELY BRYAN, JR., oldest child of the founder of Dallas, returned to the city where he was born after an absence of a quarter of a century, on January 9, 1906, an especially significant date in his life because it marked his sixtieth birthday. The Dallas Morning News learned of his presence in town and sent a reporter around to interview him. "He is hale and hearty, with hardly a gray hair among the black locks of his head," observed the reporter, who added that Bryan had come to town from his West Texas home at Thornberry, Clay County, to spend his birthday with friends and acquaintances.
Bryan talked of various things in his own life as well as in the lives of his father and mother and their establishment of the first home in Dallas. But it was in response to one particular question of the reporter that this 1906 interview, long since forgotten or overlooked by old-timers interested in the history of Dallas, jumps across the years like an electrical charge to compel the attention of today's readers. For the question was "for whom was Dallas named?" "My father named the city and the county for George M. Dallas, vice-president under James K. Polk," the son answered. "He was always a Democrat as I have been. We are Methodists, too."
Neither Bryan nor the reporter could know, of course, that they were touching on what in time to come would turn out to be the most controversial and disputed point in the annals of the city.
Up to and including the first years of the present century it was generally understood among old residents that Bryan's original town, established in 1841, as well as the County of Dallas, created in 1846, had been given the name of Polk's running mate in the presidential campaign of 1845. This was considered fitting tribute to one of the two Democratic stalwarts who had championed the admission of Texas into the Union.
But by the 1920's this belief was being subjected to the higher criticism or mounting skepticism among students and scholars of local history. They were pointing to proof that Bryan's settlement on the east bank of the Trinity had become known as Dallas by 1843—a full year before the Pennsylvania politician, George Mifflin Dallas, was catapulted into national attention as the Democratic nominee for vicepresident.
All available details of John Neely Bryan's life before leaving his native Tennessee, his sojourn in Arkansas, and his entry into northern Texas were studied closely—leading to the conclusion that Bryan could not have known George Mifflin Dallas before his nomination for vice-president in 1845 at the Democratic National Convention. Thus a consensus was reached that Bryan must have named his town for someone other. than George Mifflin Dallas. Unfortunately, Bryan, the founder, left no written record on this point.
There is no record of anyone ever having asked Bryan exactly whom he had in mind in choosing the name for his town, although Frank M. Cockrell, the first serious student of Dallas history, wrote in his memoirs that Bryan told him he had named the town "for my friend Dallas."
Cockrell was a member of the pioneer family of Alexander and Sarah Horton Cockrell, and one who knew Bryan in the last decade or so of Bryan's life. But Cockrell never pressed Bryan to say which man by the name of Dallas was his friend. Setting down his memoirs in later years, Cockrell accepted the idea that Bryan and Dallas had been friends.
The failure to clear up this mystery while Bryan Sr. was still living is remarkable. It is equally remarkable that Bryan's widow and mother of his children, the stouthearted Margaret Beeman who married the town founder about the time he was laying out his townsite, was never asked to help out in this matter.
Margaret Beeman was living at the home of John Neely Bryan, Jr. in Clay County in 1906 when this interview with her eldest son appeared in the Dallas News, This was noted by the reporter, who wrote: "His mother, now eighty-one years of age, lives with him, and one brother and a sister remain from the family that owned much of the property covered [today] by the City of Dallas." Margaret Beeman Bryan continued to live until her ninety-third year. She died in 1919.
The interview, which appeared in the January 11, 1906, issue of the Dallas News, also quoted Bryan Jr. as saying that he was born on the southwest corner of the courthouse square in a log cabin which had long since given way to the wagon yard that was to be found there in 1906.
"We had almost no furniture," John Neely, Jr. continued, and the bedding was what had been brought by my mother's people [from Illinois]. Everything was of the crudest kind. My father came to Texas from Tennessee in 1840. He and my mother were married right here in this place, and I was born in 1846. All of my life was spent in this county until 1872, when I became a rancher [in Burnett County]. I married Miss Sadie Thompson in Dallas in 1867, and have four sons and a daughter. My father owned 640 acres right in this courthouse part of the city, a little of it being west of the river. He gave and sold much of it.
Courtesy Dallas Yesterday by Sam H. Acheson. Dallas Gateway: Pioneers of Dallas County
Contributor: Sherry (47010546) • [email protected]
member of Stonewall Jackson Camp #249, United Confederate Veterans, Holliday, TX
------------------
JOHN NEELY BRYAN, JR., oldest child of the founder of Dallas, returned to the city where he was born after an absence of a quarter of a century, on January 9, 1906, an especially significant date in his life because it marked his sixtieth birthday. The Dallas Morning News learned of his presence in town and sent a reporter around to interview him. "He is hale and hearty, with hardly a gray hair among the black locks of his head," observed the reporter, who added that Bryan had come to town from his West Texas home at Thornberry, Clay County, to spend his birthday with friends and acquaintances.
Bryan talked of various things in his own life as well as in the lives of his father and mother and their establishment of the first home in Dallas. But it was in response to one particular question of the reporter that this 1906 interview, long since forgotten or overlooked by old-timers interested in the history of Dallas, jumps across the years like an electrical charge to compel the attention of today's readers. For the question was "for whom was Dallas named?" "My father named the city and the county for George M. Dallas, vice-president under James K. Polk," the son answered. "He was always a Democrat as I have been. We are Methodists, too."
Neither Bryan nor the reporter could know, of course, that they were touching on what in time to come would turn out to be the most controversial and disputed point in the annals of the city.
Up to and including the first years of the present century it was generally understood among old residents that Bryan's original town, established in 1841, as well as the County of Dallas, created in 1846, had been given the name of Polk's running mate in the presidential campaign of 1845. This was considered fitting tribute to one of the two Democratic stalwarts who had championed the admission of Texas into the Union.
But by the 1920's this belief was being subjected to the higher criticism or mounting skepticism among students and scholars of local history. They were pointing to proof that Bryan's settlement on the east bank of the Trinity had become known as Dallas by 1843—a full year before the Pennsylvania politician, George Mifflin Dallas, was catapulted into national attention as the Democratic nominee for vicepresident.
All available details of John Neely Bryan's life before leaving his native Tennessee, his sojourn in Arkansas, and his entry into northern Texas were studied closely—leading to the conclusion that Bryan could not have known George Mifflin Dallas before his nomination for vice-president in 1845 at the Democratic National Convention. Thus a consensus was reached that Bryan must have named his town for someone other. than George Mifflin Dallas. Unfortunately, Bryan, the founder, left no written record on this point.
There is no record of anyone ever having asked Bryan exactly whom he had in mind in choosing the name for his town, although Frank M. Cockrell, the first serious student of Dallas history, wrote in his memoirs that Bryan told him he had named the town "for my friend Dallas."
Cockrell was a member of the pioneer family of Alexander and Sarah Horton Cockrell, and one who knew Bryan in the last decade or so of Bryan's life. But Cockrell never pressed Bryan to say which man by the name of Dallas was his friend. Setting down his memoirs in later years, Cockrell accepted the idea that Bryan and Dallas had been friends.
The failure to clear up this mystery while Bryan Sr. was still living is remarkable. It is equally remarkable that Bryan's widow and mother of his children, the stouthearted Margaret Beeman who married the town founder about the time he was laying out his townsite, was never asked to help out in this matter.
Margaret Beeman was living at the home of John Neely Bryan, Jr. in Clay County in 1906 when this interview with her eldest son appeared in the Dallas News, This was noted by the reporter, who wrote: "His mother, now eighty-one years of age, lives with him, and one brother and a sister remain from the family that owned much of the property covered [today] by the City of Dallas." Margaret Beeman Bryan continued to live until her ninety-third year. She died in 1919.
The interview, which appeared in the January 11, 1906, issue of the Dallas News, also quoted Bryan Jr. as saying that he was born on the southwest corner of the courthouse square in a log cabin which had long since given way to the wagon yard that was to be found there in 1906.
"We had almost no furniture," John Neely, Jr. continued, and the bedding was what had been brought by my mother's people [from Illinois]. Everything was of the crudest kind. My father came to Texas from Tennessee in 1840. He and my mother were married right here in this place, and I was born in 1846. All of my life was spent in this county until 1872, when I became a rancher [in Burnett County]. I married Miss Sadie Thompson in Dallas in 1867, and have four sons and a daughter. My father owned 640 acres right in this courthouse part of the city, a little of it being west of the river. He gave and sold much of it.
Courtesy Dallas Yesterday by Sam H. Acheson. Dallas Gateway: Pioneers of Dallas County
Contributor: Sherry (47010546) • [email protected]
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