Amon McCommas, Sr.
Amon McCommas, Sr., and wife Mary ‘Polly’ Brumfield, were one of the first six families who came to settle in the Peters Colony, a community where, although scattered, a few hostile Indians remained. Amon and Mary had been married in 1826 in Lawrence County, Ohio, where Mary was born in 1805.
Amon (1804-1877) was a dedicated follower of the Rev. Alexander Campbell, founder of the Christian Church, and is credited with preaching the first sermon about Jesus Christ ever delivered in the tiny “hamlet of Dallas”, immediately after his arrival in December 1844 from Wright County, Missouri. He was the first minister of the Christian faith to reside in the community, and baptized many in the nearby Trinity River and performed many of the earliest marriages here.
He officially founded the Christian Church in Dallas County in 1845 with twelve members. In 1873 this church was divided: one group became the Pearl and Main Street Church of Christ and the other, in time, developed to be the Central Christian Church.
The McCommases, prosperous farmers in Missouri, were able to bring several teams of oxen, a number of fine horses, and “blooded” cattle and sheep to the 640 acres they patented with their land certificate in 1850. In 1836 Amon had served as Justice of the Peace in Missouri and previously as a community leader in Illinois and Ohio, as they migrated to the promising west. Nine of their children, mostly grown, came along or soon followed (see McCommas families in Vol. I and Vol. II, Proud Heritage). Many of them also became leaders in early Dallas history.
In Texas, Amon continued in a leadership role: he was chairman of the meeting called in 1875 to organize the Dallas County Pioneer Association, and was elected Chief Justice (County Judge) of the Commissioners Court. The written agreement on the deed to the site of the Dallas County courthouse ‘Old Red’, which stated that the site could not be changed, was between John Neely Bryan and Amon McCommas, president of the Board of Commissioners.
In 1859, in this village of about two hundred people, McCommas was elected president of “The Fair”, which lasted three whole days and was later chartered by the eighth Texas Legislature and became the only Texas fair authorized during the Confederacy. That fair was the forerunner of the great State Fair of Texas.
Amon was a charter member of the DCPA when it was organized in 1875 and served as its first chaplain. His service and memory were honored by the reorganized Association when he was elected to their prestigious Roll of Honor.
Two of Amon’s brothers, Stephen B. and John C., along with their widowed sister-in-law, Lavinnia McCommas, followed Amon and his family, and all lived here in 1845 in the Republic of Texas. Later, several served in the war between the United States and Mexico and Burke, son of Stephen B., died in that war while fighting in Mexico City in 1849.
Elder Amon’s father, Stephen M. McCommas, probably preceded his sons to Peters Colony: he appears in present-day Ellis County history in 1843, just outside Dallas County on Red Oak Creek at the village of Ovilla, where he died in 1844. An interesting description of his early pioneer burial, as witnessed by Ellis County pioneer and historian, John Billingsly, as a child, is recorded in the WPA Dallas Guide and History, belatedly published by the Dallas Public Library and the University of North Texas Press in 1992.
Many descendants of these McCommases still reside in the Dallas area. In October 2001 several of them participated in the dedication of the Texas State Historical marker for the pioneer Cox Cemetery overlooking White Rock Lake. Those participating in the unveiling of the Marker were Cecil R. McCommas, Jr., Luther McCommas, Bill McCommas Vilbig, Doris McCommas Myers, Mrs. M.B. Seales, Doris Barnes, Sam V. Akins, Melissa Akins Rossa, and Christina Rossa.
Both Amon and Mary and over forty of their family and related families are buried in Cox Cemetery
By Sam V. Akins
From Proud Heritage, Vol III by DCPA, available online.
