Dallas Co., TX - Obits: James Madison Bennett, Jr. ***************************************************** This file was contributed for use in the USGenWeb by: Robert Bennett USGenWeb Archives. Copyright. All rights reserved http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm ***************************************************** James Madison Bennett, Jr. (16 Feb 1855- 10 Jun 1939) Dallas Morning News 11 June 1939 Native Who Cleared Roadway for First Railroad in County Dies at 84 in Mesquite Home Special to The News MESQUITE, Texas, June 10.- James M. Bennett, 84, native of Dallas County who cleared the right of way for the county’s first railroad, died at his home here Saturday morning. Mr. Bennett, familiarly known as Uncle Jim to everyone within miles of Mesquite, was the son of the fourth white man ever to push into Dallas County east of Dallas. He had been ill since last January. Funeral services will be held in the Mesquite Baptist Church at 2:30 p.m. Mr. Bennett’s father, Hiram Bennett (note: Hiram Bennett was his grandfather, this should read James M. Bennett, Sr.), goaded a team of oxen hitched to a covered wagon from Arkansas to Texas in 1842. He took up a tract of land at Long Creek community, three miles out of Mesquite. Gets Job with Railroad There Mr. Bennett was born, Feb. 16, 1855, in a one room log cabin with a shanty side room. He grew up in a county still wild and thinly settled. Settlers freighted their household supplies overland from Jefferson, where they were landed by steamboats. Mr. Bennett went to school in a log shanty at Long Creek which his father and other men of the community built. The Texas and Pacific Railroad Company gave him his first important job. At the age of 18 he got a contract to cut timber from the right of way which led inland town of Dallas. Swinging an ax, he and a crew of fifteen men slashed the right of way through the East Fork bottoms and the White Rock region. Shortly afterward, Mr. Bennett married. He bought a farm half a mile and lived there until he retired and moved into town twelve years ago. In those twelve years he had become a familiar figure to the residents of Mesquite, moderately tall man, lean of face, and reticent of his past life. Church Officer Fifty Years Mr. Bennett was a charter member of the First Presbyterian Church of Mesquite. He had served the church more than fifty years as an elder and Sunday school teacher. The Rev. A. O. Rue, pastor of the church, and the Rev. Charles Dickey, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Paris, will conduct the funeral services Sunday. Survivors are three daughters, Mrs. Rosa Grubbs and Mrs. Bessie Moon of Mesquite and Mrs. Elsie Burns of Dallas; a son, Charles Bennett of Georgetown; three sisters, Mrs. Mollie Coats Coates (note: Coats) of Dallas and Mrs. Effie Synder and Mrs. Maggie Yates of Mesquite; sixteen grandchildren and thirteen great-grandchildren.