Notes for: Jonathan A ANDERSON
Early stories of him say he crossed the Sabine River at Logansport, LA. He settled about 4 1/2 miles southeast of Carthage in Shelby County long before there was either a Panola County or Carthage. Anderson owed the pine forest where Carthage now stands. In the Texas Revolution he served at the seige of Bexar (Dec 1835) and at the Battle of San Jacinto (April1836). Though he had made his claim in pre-Texas Republic days when the area was still under Mexican rule, the Head-Right Survey was not completed by Texas Republic until after Texas became a state, June,1848. Panola County Census records for 1850 show that Jonathan Anderson was born in Kentucky in 1800. The Census also shows that he married Hannah, a native of Tennessee; and their first child, Mahala, was born in Texas in1825, His home was in the neighborhood of the Anderson-English-McFadden families. Hannah was an English before her marriage. It was at that time an uninhabited forest. Anderson was a veteran of the Texas revolution. At the age of 89, he applied for and got a donation land certificate under the Texas Revolutionary Veteran Act of 1881. When Panola County was formed from Shelby and Harrison Counties, Anderson's land was near the very center of the new county. A temporary County Seat was first established at Pulaski, one of the two major villages in the county at that time. The Texas Legislature required that the people choose a place near the center of the county. Anderson offered to donate one hundred acres of land for the use of the County, if the people selected the center for the County Seat. In keeping with his promise, he appeared at the County Clerk's office, November 14, 1848, and deeded one hundred acres to Thomas C. Davenport, County Judge in 1848. This patriot died at the age of 91, and he was buried at Anderson Cemetery. When the old Panola County Courthouse was removed from this town square in 1956, the plot was landscaped and named Anderson's Park in his memory. It is there in the center of the city of Carthage that Panola County Historical Commission placed his Texas Revolution Marker.