By Mike Judd
Born into slavery in 1839 in rural Alabama, Anderson Bonner died in North Dallas in 1920 a well-to-do entrepreneur and landowner.
Married in Northern Alabama in 1822, Willis and Mahulda Bonner farmed outside Elkmont where Mahulda gave birth to seven (7) children between 1825 and 1835 – including a son named Anderson in 1829. The Bonners also utilized enslaved persons on their farm and at the time of Willis Bonner’s death in 1849 he owned two brothers (Lewis and Anderson) who became wife Mahulda’s upon the settling of his estate.
After losing 17-year-old daughter Mary in June 1851, Mahulda relocated to Dallas County, Texas that same year bringing youngest son Edmond (age 16) and servants Lewis (age 32) and Anderson (age 12) with her. While living with relatives who were farming the high prairie along White Rock Creek, Mahulda married a local physician Edward H. McCree in 1859. Dr. McCree arrived from Tennessee around 1851 and purchased acreage near where McCree and Audelia Roads now meet. The land was part of the 640 acres first granted to Harrison Hustead by the Peters Colony in 1850 (Survey #597).
Upon emancipation in 1865, Anderson, wife Eliza, and their four children took Bonner (not McCree) as their surname as did brother Lewis. Twenty years her junior, Dr. McCree abandoned Mahulda in November 1869 leaving Lewis and Anderson as her only caretakers. Son Edmond did not return from the Civil War. That same year, Lewis Bonner and Anderson Bonner registered to vote for the first time and in 1870 each acquired twenty-five acres alongside Mahulda Bonner McCree on the high prairie.
Anderson became proficient at brokering crops and trading livestock despite being illiterate. He invested his profits by purchasing additional acreage north and west of Mahulda McCree and in 1874 moved his homestead four miles to property along White Rock Creek north of today’s Forest Lane and west of today’s North Central Expressway. As his holdings grew, Mr. Bonner leased land and equipment to the next generation of sharecroppers and invested profits into land purchases, Anderson Bonner eventually owned nearly 3,000 acres across what is now north-central Dallas.
At the time of his death in 1920, Anderson Bonner and wife Eliza had raised ten (10) children and a rural school he funded on Coit Road near his homestead was named in his honor. In 1976, the City of Dallas dedicated Anderson Bonner Park at 12000 Park Central Drive, Dallas, TX 75251 on 44 acres where Anderson and Eliza Bonner’s homestead once stood. In September 2022, a state historical marker honoring Mr. Bonner was dedicated in the park along with a traditional West African “Sankofa” statue bearing his likeness. Anderson and Eliza Bonner are buried in North Dallas’s White Rock Garden of Memories cemetery and Bonner descendants continue to live throughout Dallas.
(Featured images: From dedication of Anderson Bonner Park on 10 Sep 2022 and the only known portrait image of Mr. Bonner.)
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