A veteran of the War of 1812, James Taylor White, born in 1789, migrated from Louisiana to this area in 1828 and as a rancher developed one of the largest herds of Longhorn cattle in southeast Texas. On his ranch in June 1832, area colonists signed the Turtle Bayou Resolutions to protest the actions of Captain Juan Davis Bradburn, commander of Mexican troops at Anahuac, nine miles southwest, in an early sign of growing dissatisfaction with Mexican governmental policies that limited colonists' rights. Four years later, during the Texas Revolution, White provided aid and shelter for settlers fleeing the advancing Mexican forces under General Santa Anna and also supplied cattle for the Texas army. Following the revolution, he began driving his cattle overland to markets in New Orleans, and his early cattle drives, using sections of the Opelousas Trail, preceded development of post-Civil War routes including the Dodge City and Chisholm Trails. White died in 1852 and was buried near his home, two hundred yards south, and his cattle brand, the crossed W, inherited from his father in 1806, is still used by members of the White family.