John Tarleton

Who was John Tarleton?

John Tarleton was an American settler and rancher. He is best known for endowing John Tarleton Agricultural College, which eventually became Tarleton State University.

He was born in either White Mountain, Vermont or in New Hampshire, probably in November 1808, although one source claims 1811. He was orphaned when he was seven, and went to live with his widowed aunt in Vermont. His brother was sent to another relative in Virginia.

When Tarleton was 13, he left and wandered from place to place all over the country. In Knoxville, Tennessee, he worked as a schoolteacher for a while, before getting a job as a store clerk with the Cowan-Dickerson mercantile. Here he toiled for the next 40 years, living frugally and buying up bounty certificates issued to veterans of the War of 1812, which authorized them "to settle on any unsurveyed or unappropriated public land." He also purchased 10,000 acres of land in Erath and Palo Pinto Counties in west Texas at 12.5 cents an acre.

In 1860 or 1861, he set out to look over his property. He found Native Americans living on the land, so he set up a mercantile store in Waco.

In September 1876, he married wealthy widow Mary Louisa Johnson.