Bailey Anderson, born in Stafford County, Virginia about 1760, moved with his parents, John and Sarah Carney Anderson, to the Newberry district of South Carolina at age 21. He served in the Revolutionary Army and over the next 11 years saw service in Georgia, Virginia, and the Carolinas, fighting Indians and British and scouting and patrolling, while his father and two brothers were killed in the conflict. About 1795 he moved to Kentucky, where he served in the state legislature from 1800 to 1802, and in 1810 he moved to Indiana to try life on another frontier. About 1818 he migrated to East Texas, which Americans then considered part of the Louisiana Purchase although it was disputed. In 1820, when Spanish soldiers came from Mexico to evict East Texas filibusters, Anderson and his family went to Arkansas Territory, but they returned about 1821 as permanent settlers. The surrounding land was in a grant from the Republic of Texas to Bailey Anderson, Jr., a soldier in the Texas War for Independence, and Bailey Anderson was buried nearby in the family cemetery as a veteran of the American Revolution.