James J. Ross

Born in South Carolina about 1787, James Jeffres Ross was a member of the Old Three Hundred who arrived in Stephen F. Austin's colony in late 1822 or early 1823 and settled on the league granted him near Eagle Lake in Colorado County. In 1828 he moved to the S. A. Anderson League and built a home about one mile southwest of this site. Known as Col. Ross, he became a leader as captain of the militia of the Colorado District, served as a delegate to the second convention at San Felipe in 1833, and was among those appointed in 1834 to help obtain Austin's release from imprisonment in Mexico. He helped establish a stage line and a stop that became the town of Fayetteville. An important figure in the early settlement of this part of the state, he was a successful farmer, rancher, trader, and merchant, and Ross Prairie and Ross Creek in the vicinity bear his name. He was killed by angry neighbors in January 1835 for sheltering Indians at his home and was buried in nearby Ross Cemetery. His home, later known as the Ross/Martinek House, was owned by Czech immigrant Joseph Martinek and his descendants for nearly seventy years.

Texas · United States