John Myers McKinney

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. The name on the stone is John Myers McKinney, born 1781 in Surry County, North Carolina, the son of James and Mary Ballard McKinney. Now, that's a man who came into the world before the United States was even the United States, and by the time his story ends, he'll have crossed half the continent to die for a country he'd barely finished movin' into.

In 1809, he married Peggy Margot Lee, and together they set out to find their place in the world. Tennessee. Then Missouri.

Then Arkansas. You get the sense these two were always looking just a little further west, a little further toward something they hadn't found yet. And in 1846, they finally landed in Texas; Collin County, to be exact; and McKinney settled his family on this very land.

You'd think after all that wandering, a man might take a breath. Sit on the porch. Watch the sun go down over his own ground for a spell.

But John Myers McKinney was not quite done moving. He left. Left the family he'd just settled.

Left the land he'd just claimed. And he went and enlisted in the Mexican War, riding with Captain William Fitzhugh's Company of Bell's mounted volunteers. A year later, he was gone; died while still in service.

Born 1781. Died 1847. He traveled through four states, across decades, across a continent, just to plant his family in Texas soil, and then gave everything before he ever got to rest in it.

What the marker says

(1781-1847) Born in Surry county, North Carolina, J.M. McKinney was the son of James and Mary (Ballard) McKinney. In 1809 he married Peggy Margot Lee. They lived in Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas before coming to Texas in 1846. After settling his family on this land in Collin county, McKinney left to enlist in the Mexican War. He died a year later while in the service of Captain William Fitzhugh's Company of Bell's mounted volunteers. Recorded - 1983