T. J. Ragland
The Jackson Democrat

from "Southeast Corner of Tarrant County Before the Civil War"
by Sallie Hodges McKnight


Perhaps one of the most lovable characters who came to this section before Fort Worth was a town and when knives and forks could not be bought at the small settlement of Dallas, was T. J. Ragland, whose father was a soldier of the Revolution under Washington.

Mr. Ragland was originally from Virginia, and having pioneered on both sides of the Mississippi, his mind was a store-house of memories antedating the birth of most men living then. He was not a churchman, but was a "Jackson Democrat," and often late at night he might be heard making Jackson speeches as he rode home alone across the bald prairie.

It was said of him that "a stranger seeing for the first time this tall, lean, old man sitting on his front porch, with his fine head crowned with the gathering whiteness of almost a hundred years, and his strong, intelligent face as full of strength and purpose as in his prime, would think him some old statesman in philosophic retirement."

He served on the first grand jury ever convened in Tarrant County, and until his death lived on his original headright of 320 acres. Mrs. J. H. Ragland, wife of his son and grand-niece of Col. M. T. Johnson, still lives with her son and his family on land including the original headright.

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