John C. McCoy (1819 – 1887) was the first president of the Dallas County Pioneer Association. He lived a long and interesting life. He practiced law in Kentucky before coming to Texas in 1845. Was agent for Peters’ Colony located in Dallas and adjacent counties. He was the first attorney to practice law in Dallas County. He is considered to having founded the Dallas Bar Association; fought in the Mexican War; was outstanding civic leader. Col. McCoy is interred at Oakland Cemetery with his wife and baby daughter.
The article below was transcribed from “Biographical Souvenir of the State of Texas,” published in Chicago by F. A. Battey & Co, 1889.
Colonel John C. McCoy
Among the early settlers of northern Texas, and the first lawyer to locate in the city of Dallas, appears the name of John C. McCoy, a gentleman commanding in appearance and venerable in the magnificent character he has built up for himself as a true man and efficient citizen.
John C. McCoy was born in Clark county, Indiana, on the 28th day of September, 1819. His early life was passed in the country, and from the time he was able to render any service in the administration of his father’s farm until he was fifteen years of age, he remained with his parents, an in his own words, was always equal to an average hand in the part he performed as a laborer. In 1834 his father moved to Charlestown, the county seat, where John C. was entered as a student in the Clark County Seminary, then presided over by Byram Lawrence, one of the first instructors of that day in our country. He continued his studies here for one year, making rapid progress, and the year following was matriculated in the Wilmington Seminary, where the services of his brother, Isaac McCoy had been secured as president. In the year following his brother was called to preside over the Clark County Seminary, which institution he also entered and prosecuted his course for a year, and with its close ended his career as a student, and he at once began the erection of his own fortune as an independent actor in the scenes of busv Iife. His first employment was as a deputy under Henry Harrod, circuit clerk of Clark county. He remained here for two years engaged in his clerical duties, and making every leisure hour profitable to himself by prosecuting the study of the law. Closing his engagement with Mr. Harrod in the spring of 1839, he went on a visit to a relative, Rev. Isaac McCoy, at that time a missionary of great celebrity among the Indian tribes along the Missouri frontier, and remained with him for one year at West Port, in Jackson county, Missouri; during the time, however, he was engaged in tl1e re·survey of the western boundary line of the State from the Missouri river, south of the Osage. The party of engineers that established this line were under the command of Captain Hood, who had been deputed by the topographical bureau at Washington, under an act of congress, to do this work. Having completed his engagements with this corps, he was next employed as an enrolling agent, and assisted in making the payments for the government to various tribes of Indians living in western Missouri. In this capacity he was acting under the orders of Anthony L. Davis. Mr. McCoy was present at the first sale of lots that was made in Kansas City, long before a single house had been erected on the land where that large and flourishing city now stands, and with his own hands wrote out the title deeds to the property then and there conveyed. Messrs. Ewing & Clymer, a firm then doing an extensive business West Port, attracted by the fine business capacity of the young man who had already rendered valuable and important services both to the general government and to the little community into which he had come, offered him a situation as book-keeper, under a remunerative salary, which he accepted, and the duties of which he discharged to the entire satisfaction of his employers. While engaged with this firm he superintended the erection of the first large warehouse constructed in that section of the country, situated two and one half miles below Kansas City at Chouteau’s Landing, a point on the Missouri river. Early in the year 1840 he was present and assisted in drafting a treaty between the Shawnee and Delaware tribes of Indians and the government, for a portion of their lands on which to locate the Wyandott tribe. Within the territory thus acquired Wyandott City has been built, and the remnants of that tribe are still to be found just where the commissioner, Colonel R. M. T. Hunter, planted them. In the spring of 1840 Mr. McCoy returned to Indiana and engaged in mercantile pursuits for a year in the city of Jeffersonville. The next year, when Mr. Gutgsell, the lessee of the Jeffersonville Mineral Springs went into an assignment, he was appointed the assignee of his effects. During this time he resumed the study of law under the Hon. A. Lovering, and in May, 1842, was licensed by the Hons. J. H. Thompson and David Kilgore to practice in his native State. In the same year he obtained his diploma as an attorney in Louisville, Kentucky, and was then regularly enrolled as a counselor and advocate in the Federal courts of that State and Indiana. He was appointed commissioner in bankruptcy, master in chancery and notary public for Clark county, and until the expiration of the bankrupt act enjoyed the largest practice in that court of any lawyer in his native county. He continued in the general practice of his profession until the summer of 1844 with marked success. His friend, Captain Charles Hensley, having been appointed the agent of Peters’ Colony, in Texas, offered him the position of sub-agent and surveyor for the colony, which he readily accepted and on the 12th day of December, 1844, he embarked for New Orleans. Of the passengers who bore him company on this journey were General Albert Sidney Johnston, who had left his family in Louisville, E. F. Springer, M. J. Owen, Mr. William Keigwin, late proprietor of Bremond, in this State, and his friend, Captain Hensley. On New Year’s day, 1845. the party disembarked from the steamship New York at Galveston, and at once began to prepare for their journey to the interior country. In March, 1845, the party of engineers, of which Mr. McCoy was a member, started from Mr. Keenan’s house on the survey for which they had been engaged by the Peters’ Colony proprietors. In the month of May Captain Hensley and Mr. McCoy were called to Fort Inglish (now Bonham) on business connected with the colony, and from thence they proceeded to Paris, where the acts of congress passed in the interests of annexation were found in the hands of Mr. J. S. Gillet. The election for deputies to the constitutional convention, provided for under the an annexation resolutions of congress, having been ordered, and the citizens of this colony being exceedingly desirous of having a voice in its deliberations, but being too far off to return the result of their ballots in time to have them counted, a mass meeting of all the inhabitants of this section was called by Mr. McCoy, who took a leading stand against annexation, and having prepared his memorable preamble of whereases, supported by strong resolutions, in favor of the absolute independence of Texas, it proceeded to the election of a delegate to this convention, which resulted in the selection of Mr. H. Burnham, who at once proceeded to Austin and applied for admission as a delegate fro this district to the convention. His demand was rejected but himself returned to his constituency at the expense of the republic, and in the enjoyment of all the honors that important body, in its great wisdom, saw proper to confer upon him. This was an exciting as well as important epoch in the history of the republic. The Federal government had passed, through its congress, resolutions looking to the annexation of the republic of Texas, and had duly authorized their submission to that congress. General Sam Houston and many other leading spirits of that day were anxious to see the lone star of Texas nestled with those of the Federal Union. Anson Jones, president of the republic, had called a special congress at Washington, on the Brazos, to which was submitted the great question then agitating the popular mind, for such disposition as it might deem proper and right. Mr. McCoy opposed this movement, and ridiculed it as a vain attempt on the part of his pioneer friends to shorten the roads and bridge the streams that intervened between them and the old homes they had left in the older States. He was at Bonham when the election was held, and believing that no necessity for a change existed, that Texas was self-sustaining and should be free from the conventionalism and burdens of a Federal Stare, he voted against the movement, and for the same reason in 1861 he co-operated with the secessionists, believing that it was the only hope that would ever be presented of righting the wrongs that had been perpetrated sixteen years before. He was present at the convention, convened on the 4th day of July, 1845, in the city of Austin, and there formed the acquaintance of all the leading spirits and prominent men of the republic, among whom the following names are given a place in this sketch, inasmuch as thev wet·e each, severally and collectively, the patron of every true Texan, and because their names have comedown to the present time, smTounded by glories such as few men in this life ever inherit: Henderson, Wood, Rush, Yan Zandt, Ochiltree, Evans, Mayfield, Volney E. Howard, Horton, Judge Love, Everts, Tarrant, the two Latimers, Bagby, Wright, Young, Dr. Peters, and indeed, with nearly every member of the convention. After the adjournment of the convention he returned to Dallas, in company with General Tarrant, Judge Evans, the two Latimers, Dr. Peters, Messrs. Bagby, Wright and Colonel Young. Captain Hensley being called to Kentucky, Mr. McCoy had absolute control and management of the Peters Colony during his absence, which position he filled until the following winter, when his old friend returned with another party of young men. In 1846 Dallas county was organized by Colonel John Neely Bryan, in which Mr. McCoy contributed his full share of brain work and physical labor. As a slight appreciation in which his services were held by those whom he had most faithfully served, he was elected the first district clerk of Dallas county.
The Mexican war breaking out at this time, Mr. McCoy took an active part in forwarding troops to the front, and in Navarro county was the prime mover in organizing the company that was commanded bv Captain W. B. Dagley, with his old friend Charles Hensley as first lieutenant. In December, 1846, after the court in Dallas county had been successfully organized, and after its first session had been held, he resigned his office as district clerk and entered regularly and largely into the practice of his profession, which he has followed with remarkable and unvarying success up to the present time.
At Bonham, in 1848, he was made a Mason in the Constantine lodge and in the same year assisted in the organization of Tannehill lodge, in Dallas, in which he has been a prominent and zealous member from its formation to the present time, and intimately connected with every advancement and development that has occurred in its mysterious workings. He was made a Royal Arch Mason in Paris in 1849. In the year 1850 he received the council degrees at Austin, and in 1855 he was created Knight Templar in Palestine Commandery No 3. He has at various times filled all of the important offices in each of the Masonic departments in Dallas; has been D. D. G. master of Masons in Texas, also Grand Visitor for the Grand Chapter for the eastern district of Texas. He has also filled the office of Deputy Thrice Illustrious Grand Master of the Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters of Texas, and Grand Generalissimo of the Grand Commandery of Texas. He ts a devoted Mason, and a regular attendant of the annual conclave of the Grand Commandery.
In 1851 Colonel McCoy was married to Miss Cora M. McDermot, daughter of Colonel J. B. McDermot. of Pennsylvania, a brother-in-law of Governor David R. Porter of that State.
Miss McDermot emigrated to Texas with her father in 1845, when she was quite a child. On the 16th of July, 1853, he laid his wife and child to sleep in the same grave, over which his tears have watered the daisies that grow perennially there, and from which he has never ceased to draw whatever consolation their fragrance can afford him in his “childless and voiceless woe.” In the meantime his father-in law, Colonel J. B. McDermot, died and left to him the responsibilities of maintaining and providing for his helpless family, consisting of a maiden sister, two unmarried daughters and four little boys. He returned to Dallas in the fall of this year, and at once entered upon “his labor of love” that had been bequeathed to him by the poor but pure old man whose daughter he had led to the hymeneal altar but a few years previously. For two years his youngest sister in-law, now the widow of Mr. John Tennyson, who was a most highly respected citizen. was kept at a fine seminary of learning at Sherman, in this State. His other sister-in-law became the wife of Mr. Joseph R. Parker, a worthy citizen, now deceased. In 1857 he sent the two youngest boys to South Hanover College, in Indiana. The next year he placed hill youngest brother-in-law at the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland, where he remained until the outbreak of the late war, when he entered the Confederate Navy, where he deported himself gallantly in many engagements, and finally, just as the “bright St. Andrews cross” was about to go down in the black night of gloom and defeat, he gave his life a sacrifice to the Confederate cause. The elder brothers were all soldiers in the Southern Army, and by their daring and devotion to their country’s cause, elicited the highest commendations from the protector and provider of their youthful days.
In February, 1856, Colonel McCoy was elected to be district attorney of the sixteenth judicial circuit of the State, then composed of sixteen counties and extending from Grayson, Collin, Ellis and Dallas counties on the east, to the far off boundaries of Young county on the west. In 1861, when Civil War, with all of its untold horrors, burst upon the country, Governor Clark, recognizing administrative abilities of the highest order in the systematic and determined character and will of Colonel McCoy, appointed him to be quarter-master of the regiments commanded by Colonels Young, Simms, Locke and Parsons. When these commands were mustered into the Confederate service, Colonel McCoy was retained by Governor Clark in the military of the State, and assigned to duty as mustering officer for the regiments that were subsequently carried into the Confederate army by Colonels Nat. M. Burford and T. C. Hawpe. His further service as a military officer was devoted to the enrollment of soldiers from Dallas county, and as provost marshal of the same. He was elected to the legislature in 1862, and re-elected in 1854; and at the close of the war was accredited representative of that body, and as such, assisted in the inauguration of the district officers appointed by Governor Hamilton, under the measures of reconstruction adopted by President Andrew Johnson.
At the district convention held at Fort Worth in 1874, and which nominated ex-Governor J. W. Throckmorton for congressman, he was chosen president, and contributed no little by l1is clear judgment and calm but impressive counsel, in securing the universal success and satisfaction that resulted from its labors.
It remains to be seen that Colonel McCoy is of Scotch-Irish descent. His great-grandfather, James McCoy, a native of Scotland, when quite young. worked his passage to the colony of Pennsylvania, where he settled, reared a family and died. His son William, a Baptist minister, descended the Ohio river in a fiat boat and settled near Bardstown. Kentucky, but afterward removed to Clark county, Indiana, where his ashes rest in Silver Creek cemetery. Three of his sons became Baptist ministers, Isaac being celebrated as a missionary among the Indians, a field of labor subsequently occupied by Miss Eliza, a sister of Colonel John C. McCoy, now a member of his household in Dallas. John, another son born in Pennsylvania, and the father of John C., married in Kentucky, Jane Collins, whose family also hailed from Pennsylvania, and then located in Clark county, Indiana, reared a family of ten children, of whom John C. is the youngest. He died in 1859, in his seventy-eighth year. John M. McCoy, his grandson, and nephew of John C., is the law partner of the latter in Dallas, and an estimable Christian gentleman. Encyclopedia of the New West.
