Pioneers of Ellis County W. J. Stokes   "....I came to Texas in October 1839 with my mother and uncle Col. Thomas I. Smith, first to Yellow Prairie in Milam Co.... later settled in what is now Ellis County on Chambers Creek where Forrest's store is now located....the first settlements in Ellis County were made by Howe, Stokes, Smith, Tarrant and C. M. Winkler....the second settlements was in the Shiloh neighborhood once called Red Oak.  Col. James E. Patton came in 1845, also E. C. Newton, Finis E. King, Newton and William Laughlin, Josiah P. Woolsey, James Samuel and Robert M. Billingsley, and Isaac and Henderson Hurst were among the first settlers. Those coming in 1846 were Silas M. Durrett, Sutherland Mayfield, David P. Fearis, Peter Stout, William Fipps, William Balch and Elias Pulse. Settlers in the present neighborhood of Bristol were Smith Gibbs, Carleton and Joshua Brock, Mrs. Vaughn, John C. Dodd and Louis Goddard.  Another early settlement in the northeast part of the county was made by Captain Ephraim Andrews, John M. Andrews, Major Hamilton, N. L. Douglass, Col. Crum and Allen Lemmons. George Bolware and R. M. Walker settled in the southeast part of the county in 1847. [Source: A Memorial and Biographical History of Ellis County, Texas, Lewis Pub. Co. Chicago, 1892]   Copyright © 2004-2016, Ellis County TXGenWeb. All Rights Reserved. This page was last modified: Thursday, 01-Jul-2021 13:30:14 MDT