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Submitted: 6/20/15 • Approved: 6/20/15 • Last Updated: 3/25/18 • R78554-G0-S3
John Tarleton
Born in November 1808. Tarleton lived his early years in many states along the east coast. Eventually, Tarleton made his way to Knoxville, Tennessee where he worked in the Cowan-Dickenson Mercantile for over 40 years. During his employment, he acquired bounty warrants from soldiers of the war of 1812 and as a result accumulated approximately 10,000 acres of ranch land near the border of Erath and Palo Pinto counties. Tarleton arrived in Texas in the early 1870's and resided in the Waco area for the next few years. During that time, he bought interest in the McMullen and Company dry goods store and married Mary Louisa Johnson. By 1880 he had sold his interest in the dry goods store, divorced and moved to Santo. He later moved to his property located in the Patillo area where he lived until his death from Typhoid Fever on September 10, 1895. Tarleton provided a bequest of $85,000 in his will for the founding of John Tarleton College in Stephenville now known as Tarleton State University.
Tarleton was buried in the Mt. Pisgah Cemetery in Patillo in 1895, but in 1896 his attorney, J.C. George, initiated a campaign to move his body to Stephenville. His remains were moved to the Tarleton campus in 1898 and marked by a fifteen-foot granite obelisk. In 1928, in order to accommodate the building of the old auditorium, Tarleton's body and obelisk were moved once again to his final resting place. His grave is now located on a small triangular plat of land at the corner of Washington and Lillian streets in Stephenville.
{This is not listed as a historical marker on the Texas Historical Commission website hence the listing as historic marker.}
Contributed on 6/20/15 by tomannkill
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Record #: 78554