Freestone County, Texas
Biographies 



Biography of Bluford Jordan Hancock
     (Feb. 17, 1833-Nov. 11, 1898, buried at Hancock Cemetery in Limestone Co., Tx.)


[From Biographies from the Lone Star State Containing Biographies of Early Settlers of 
Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon Counties, Texas, 1893, 
pp. 284-85.]

Hancock and Related Families

        B. J. Hancock is the name of an extensive farmer residing one mile west of Mexia 
in Limestone County, and is the senior member in the firm of Hancock & Adamson, 
general hardware merchants and implement dealers of Mexia. He was the son of Lewis R. 
Hancock and Frances Adams; and the farmer was a native of Virginia, who went to what 
now is Cannon County, Tennessee, when a young man, married and settled there, and 
was one of the pioneer farmers.
        The mother of our subject was born in Wilson County, Tennessee, and was a 
descendant of one of the early family of settlers in that region. She moved to Missouri 
after the death of her husband, and then to Texas in 1854, settling in Limestone County 
where she died in 1865. Our subject is one of seven children who grew to maturity, as 
follows: Matilda, who was married to Zach Thomson, came to Texas and died in 
Limestone County; Ben C. came to Texas in 1848, and settled in Limestone County, 
where he lived until 1882, when he moved to Coleman County, where he now lives; 
Hannah, who was married to William Adamson, settled in Freestone County in this State, 
where they both died; Charles J., who is now a citizen in Limestone County; Lewis R. 
also resides in this county; Richard C., who came to Texas in 1850 and resided here a 
number of years, but subsequently moved to Wilson county, where he now lives; and 
Bluford Jordan, who is the subject of this sketch.
        Our subject was born in Cannon County, Tennessee, February 17, 1833, and was 
reared in that county, and then went with his mother to Missouri in 1853, where he spent 
one year in the vicinity of Springfield and came thence to Texas, accompanied by his 
mother and brother Charles, reaching Limestone County and pitching tent a mile and a 
half west of the present town of Mexia on October 26, 1854, and has resided in this 
locality ever since. He, with his mother and brother, was among the early settlers of that 
locality and saw a great deal of the early life on the Texas frontier, and distinctly 
remembers many of the hardships of that time. When they first reached there they 
unloaded their household goods in a field, where they remained until quarters were 
secured in an old log house which had neither chimney, door nor flooring and in which 
they lived during the following winter without any of those necessary appurtances to a 
dwelling place. Their nearest market of any consequence was at Houston.
        For the first few years they devoted themselves to stock-raising mostly, farming 
only on a small scale. The springs and summers were usually spent in looking after their 
cattle which were on the ranges and in tending the “truck patches.” The fall season was 
given over to visiting and attending camp-meeting, sales, hose races and other places of 
amusement for social and religious profit and edification. They would freqently load up 
all of their effects and go from thiry-five to forty miles to meeting and spend several 
weeks at the home of some friend.
        This pleasant life was broken in upon at the opening of the war, and then Mr 
Hancock enlisted in Company I, commanded by Captain Samuel Wright, Nineteenth 
Texas Cavalry, Colonel Nat. M. Burford, and served west of the Mississippi River in 
Parson’s Brigade, and was in most of the engagements of the campaign in Arkansas, 
Mississippi, Missouri, and also Louisana. He bore his part bravely through the war as a 
private, and was never wounded nor captured although he remained until the surrender.
        After the war our subject settled down to farming, and has continued at it ever 
since, and has a fine place of 800 acres lying west of the town of Mexia, and adjoining 
the town site he has 600 more which is under the plow, and he has 200 in pasture. He has 
twelve or fourteen tenants and runs on an extensive scale. He also owns a large gin, 
which he keeps busy during the ginning season. He has a half interest in the hardware 
firm of Hancock & Adamson, in Mexia, which does a large business. He is one of the 
most energetic men in the county, on foot from daylight to dark all the year round, rain or 
shine.
        Our subject married Miss Olivia Adamson in Springfield, Missouri, December 17, 
1855, and she accompanied him to Texas and shared his hardships here until her death in 
1876, when she died, leaving no children. Both of them have been members of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church and Mr. Hancock is a man well known and highly esteemed 
in the neighborhood.