John H. Reagan

John Henninger Reagan was born in 1818 in Sevier County, Tennessee, to Timothy Richard and Elizabeth Reagan. He worked at his father's tannery and on the family farm and attended school sporadically until leaving the state in 1838. In 1839 he came to Nacogdoches, Texas, where he met Martin Lacy, Indian agent for the Cherokee Tribe in present-day Cherokee and Smith Counties. He helped deliver a message from Texas President Mirabeau Lamar to the Cherokees threatening force if the tribe did not move north of the Red River. Reagan was assigned to Gen. Thomas J. Rusk's regiment of the Texas militia, which engaged the Cherokees in July 1839. The last skirmish was the Battle of the Neches, fought in today's Van Zandt County, resulting in the deaths of Chiefs Bowles and Big Mush and the removal of the Cherokees to Indian Territory. After his militia service, Reagan studied surveying and worked in the Nacogdoches Land District. As part of that work, he petitioned for the creation of Henderson, Van Zandt, and Kaufman Counties, suggesting the names for each. He also studied law and became a state representative and then a district judge in East Texas, presiding over the court in Canton from 1853 to 1857, after which he was elected to Congress. During the Civil War, Reagan served as Postmaster General for the Confederacy. He was captured and imprisoned in 1865, as was Pres. Jefferson Davis. After returning to Palestine, Reagan was reelected to Congress in 1875 and helped frame the 1876 Texas constitution. He served as U.S. Senator from 1887 to 1891, then became the first Texas Railroad Commissioner, a position he held until 1903. He died in 1905 and was buried in Palestine.

Canton, Texas · United States