John McAdams Jr.

John McAdams Jr. was born on July 8, 1815, in Tennessee, son of Rev. John McAdams Sr. — a Methodist minister who had emigrated from Scotland — and Martha Rodgers, who had emigrated from Ireland. Both parents had arrived in America as children, settling in the Abbeville District of South Carolina before moving to Tennessee.¹

Texas

In February 1830, the McAdams family came to Texas by ox wagon, settling in Shelby Municipality (present Panola County) in the Department of Nacogdoches. John Jr. was about fourteen years old. He returned briefly to Tennessee in 1833 before coming back to Texas in 1836.¹

The Revolution

On April 30, 1836, John enrolled in the Texian Army from Shelby Municipality. He served in Captain John M. Bradley’s Company of San Augustine Volunteers, then under Captain William Scurlock as a private in the Army of the Republic through October 1836. He arrived at the San Jacinto Battleground too late for the April 21 engagement itself, but served thirteen campaigns — four years and four months — with Houston’s Army of Reinforcements. For his service he was issued one pair of brogans and twenty-four dollars.¹

He later received land grants totaling 1,600 acres — 320 acres in Smith County in 1838, and 1,280 acres in Angelina County in 1881.¹

Tragedy and Migration

Late one night in 1838, outlaws from the “neutral ground” across the Sabine raided the McAdams-White settlement in Shelby Municipality, killing two of John’s brothers — Joseph and James — and taking nearly all the family’s possessions. After the raid, the two families packed their remaining goods into ox wagons and headed for Huntsville, seeking their old friend Sam Houston. They settled about fourteen miles west of Huntsville on Roark Prairie.¹

First Marriage

In 1838, John married Hester White, daughter of a neighboring family. They had five children: Jane, Bill, John, Jim, and Hiram. In 1844, the couple purchased 1,042 acres of land from Daniel Boone Guerrant and Green Spillers.¹

One Sunday afternoon, walking in the woods near their home, Hester told John: “When I die, I want to be buried under this hickory tree.” She died on January 16, 1849, from exposure during a bitter winter, and John fulfilled her wish. Her lone grave became the beginning of the McAdams Cemetery, which still stands today. The grave is marked with a handmade rock vault inscribed with her words.¹

Second Marriage and the McAdams Community

On November 14, 1849, John married Mary Frances Bankhead (“Frankie”), daughter of Richard Bankhead and Sarah Nobles Bankhead. She was fifteen years old. They had eight children, including Margaret (“Tommie”), who would become the mother of Ethel Arrine Thompson.¹

John became patriarch of a vast family and community. At one time he owned 10,000 acres of land and 2,000 head of cattle. He gave land for a church and two schools, furnished a home to twenty-nine orphan children, donated lumber to build schoolhouses, and personally paid a teacher’s salary for a year. He served as the first postmaster of McAdams, Texas, from 1887 to 1889.¹

Sam Houston

John McAdams and Sam Houston maintained a lifelong friendship dating back to Tennessee. When Houston visited Texas in 1832 bearing secret messages from President Andrew Jackson, he sought out the McAdams home and spent the night. After the McAdams family settled in Walker County and Houston built his home about sixteen miles away in Huntsville, Houston made frequent weekend visits to the McAdams place.¹

Death

John McAdams Jr. died on September 11, 1892, at the age of seventy-seven. He is buried in McAdams Cemetery, Walker County, beside his second wife Mary Frances. At a McAdams family reunion on September 8, 1935 — nearly a century after San Jacinto — a checkup counted 439 living and 94 deceased direct descendants. More than 250 McAdamses signed the register.¹