Abram McCoy Horne, deceased, one of the earliest settlers of Dallas county, had the distinction of being the first white person born in Lexington, Missouri, the date of his birth being July 31, 1819. He was a son of the Reverend William Horne, a native of East Tennessee, and a minister of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, who removed to Missouri in 1817 and was among the pioneer settlers there; he died while on a journey to California 1857. He married Elizabeth McCoy, a native of east Tennessee and a member of one of the oldest families of that section. She died in Texas, in her eighty-fifth year.
Abram McCoy received a fair education for those early days, and was trained to the occupation of farming. He followed the plow for thirty-five years in his own State, and then went to Kansas, where he engaged in freighting goods across the plains for two years. He then returned to agricultural pursuits, and in 1866 he came to Texas, settling in Dallas county.
The county was then thinly settled, and business in Dallas city was confined to the public square. He embarked in the dry-goods and grocery trade, the firm being Horne & Blake, and conducted a very successful business. It was too confining to suit his naturally rural tastes, and he accordingly sold out and invested in a plantation. This land he never occupied himself, but bought eleven acres from Judge N. M. Burford in the heart of the present site of Dallas, and built a residence there. He bad to cut the timber to clear a spot for the house, and thus has witnessed a wonderful transformation in the surroundings of his early home.
Mr. Horne was married in 1842, to Miss Elizabeth J. Johnson, and six children were born to them, one of whom survives, Mrs. Ernest, a resident of Dallas. The mother died in 1874 and her remains were buried in the old cemetery. In 1875 Mr. Horne was married a second time, to Ruth Ann Ross, a native of Tennessee. She died March 2, 1891.
Three grandchildren until recently made their home with our subject: Annie L. Kelley, John M. Ernest and Arthur M. White.
On December 3, 1891, in Dallas, Mr. Horne married Miss Clara O. Ramsey, of Norwood, Louisiana. January 29, 1892, his horse ran away, throwing him from his buggy and so injuring him that he died two days afterward, January 31, 1892, at 6:30 p.m.
Mr. Horne was a faithful member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church for forty-eight years, and politically was, an old Jackson Democrat. While he was a resident of Kansas he was County Judge for a time, and while on the plains held a Captain’s commission from the United States Government, having charge of fifty men. He was the old Missourian in Dallas county and took precedence on Missouri day at the State Fair. Mrs. Ruth Ann Ross Horne was a charter member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Dallas, and Mrs. Elizabeth J. Horne belonged to the same society.
From: Memorial and Biographical History of Dallas County
Lewis Publishing, 1892
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