Tarrant County's Early History Recalled by Death of Pioneer

Jarrett Foster, who died at Grapevine recently, is said to have been the oldest survivor of the first settlers of Tarrant county. He lived here 68 years.

Some interesting facts in connection with the early days when the settlers were constantly harassed and some of them killed by Indians, is contained in the communication from Judge C. C. Cummings, which is as follows:

Bird's Fort Built

"In 1841 Bird's Fort, for which Birdville was named, was built at what is Calloway lake, fifteen miles east of Fort Worth and just north of Trinity river, by Major Jonathan Bird, a native Alabaman, who came down from what is now Collin county with a number of settlers, women and children, but after losing a number from disease and Indians that winter they had to abandon the fort and move back.

"The first man killed by Indians of Bird's force Wade Hampton Rattan, and as far as known, was the second man to fall in the county at the hands of the Indians, the first being John B. Denton, in 1840, fighting the Indians at Village creek nearby, for whom Denton county was named.

"The first plot of graves in the county is located a few hundred feet northeast of the site of Bird's Fort, of which I and J. J. Goodfellow, for many years county surveyor, made a diagram, which I have, and from it can be traced this first graveyard of the county, which contains the dust of Rattan and others.

Can Be Located

"This county should rescue it from oblivion and Goodfellow, who lives at San Angelo, can locate the fort and cemetery site. Last summer I addressed an audience at McKinney, and seeing a statue of ex-Governor J. W. Throckmorton erected by the citizens on the public square to his memory, I called attention to the fact that Throckmorton had left a sketch of Bird's Fort and said it was the very first settlement of the upper Trinity and that John Neely Bryan was about that date bivouacing at the crossing of the Trinity where Dallas is now located. Throckmorton married a sister of [Wade Hampton] Rattan and Tom Rattan of Lee camp here, is a nephew of Wade Hampton Rattan.

"The next settler in the county was Ed Terrell, who built a cabin at Live Oak grove in September, 1843, one and one-half miles southwest of where our court house is now located.

"Then in 1845 came what is known as the Missouri colony following the lead of Stephen Austin, the father of Texas, who came from Missouri. This colony was led by Rev. John A. Freeman. With him came the Fosters, the Leonards, Crowleys and others, and I had it from Jarrett Foster that they were the first permanent settlers in the county, except a man named Bennett on Bear creek, south of them, and one named Nathan Hust, supposed relics of the Bird's Fort people.

Grandson of Hust

"John Morrow, now living near Calloway lake, is a grandson of Hust, who was, with Bennett, among thefirst officers in the organization of Tarrant county in 1850.

"In 1857 Rev. John A. Freeman left Grapevine overland for California, by ox cart. In 1907 he was living at Norwalk, near Los Angeles, Cal., and at that date returned by invitation of the Dove church congregation near Grapevine, and preached to them on the site of the first church ever organized in the county in 1845.

"Jarrett Foster was present at this sermon preached in 1907, 61 years after the church's organization, and was the sole survivor of the first congregation, except a woman living in South Texas. I had Mr. Freeman write out a sketch of his life while here.

"He was then 68 years old. He was born in South Carolina, moved with his father's family when a youth, to east Tennessee by ox cart, thence by same mode of locomotion to Missouri where he was ordained a Baptist minister, thence by ox cart in 1845, first to Denton county, then over the line in Tarrant, where he organized the first church at Lonesome Dove." —Fort Worth Record