Freestone County, Texas
Biographies 



Biography of William Bonner, Jr.
      (5 Jul 1820-10 Oct 1909, buried Bonner Cemetery in Freestone Co., TX.)
      
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Freestone Co. TX - Bio for William Bonner, Jr.

Book - Biographical Sketches from Limestone, Freestone, and Leon Counties, Texas.  
Lewis Publishing Company, Chicago, 1893.  p. 549.

"WILLIAM BONNER, one of the pioneer setters of Freestone County, was born in 
Alabama in 1820, son of WILLIAM and ANN (JOEL) BONNER, natives of South 
Carolina, who had married there before moving to Alabama. JAMES BONNER, father of 
WILLIAM, was a native of Ireland who came to the colonies before the Revolutionary 
War and took part of it on the American side.  JAMES BONNER married MARY 
LAIRD, also from Ireland, and they reared a family of nine children:  WILLIAM, JOHN, 
ANDREW, SAMUEL, JAMES, MARGARET (married ROBERT JONES); MARY 
(married JOSEPH JONES); ELIZABETH (married SAMUEL YOUNG) and SARAH 
who died unmarried.  William and John came to Texas; James moved to Indiana in 1836, 
where he settled eighty miles south of Indianapolis, and no other member of the family 
went any further west than Alabama.
    In 1818 WILLIAM BONNER moved to Alabama, bringing his family there the next 
year.  He lived in Monroe, then in Wilcox counties, and in 1852, came to Texas, first to 
William County and to Freestone County in 1854.  He was a farmer; served in the War of 
1812, (was a Captain), was in the Battle of New Orleans, and died July 1, 1877, in this 
county at the age of ninety-five years.  His wife died in 1842 at the age of forty-four.  
Both were members of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.  They reared a 
family of twelve children, two dying before maturity.  These were:  ELIZA, widow of 
JAMES ROBINSON; MARY, widow of Rev. JOSEPH McCREARY; our subject; Rev. 
THOMAS J., of Palestine; MARGARET, deceased, wife of Rev. PRESSLY 
ROBINSON; SALLY, deceased, wife of ROBERT HYNES; JAMES, a resident of 
Alabama; MARTHA, wife of Dr. JAMES I. BONNER of Fairfield; SUSAN, widow of 
ANDREW BONNER; KEZIAH, widow of ARCHIBALD HUCKABY, and SAMUEL, 
died while small.
   Our subject received a common-school education and commenced life for himself at 
the age of twenty-one, although he remained with his father attending to his business for 
two or three years longer.  He accompanied his father to this State, and in 1854 settled 
within 300 yards of where he now resides.  Mr. Bonner was reared to farm life, and has 
always followed that occupation.  He was a extensive stock raiser for some years, and at 
the beginning of the war was well fixed financially.  He did not enter the army during the 
war, but continued running a mill for the war widows, as the solider widows were called.  
The first land purchased by Mr. Bonner in this county was timber, for which 

[pg 550]
he paid $2 per acre.  He now owns 260 acres, and has given his children each a farm.
    He was married, in 1842, to Miss Mary McArthur, a daughter of John and Christina 
(Gordon) McArthur, natives of South Carolina.  Her death occurred in 1874, and she had 
been a member of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church.  Mr. and Mrs. Bonner 
had been the parents of ten children, as follows:  Thomas O., of this county; William 
McArthur, deceased; John E., of this county; James G., of Navarro county; Charles A., of 
this county; Ervin B., of Navarro county; Carrie, wife of Thomas Robinson; and three 
others who died in infancy.  Mr. Bonner for many years has been a member of the 
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, and is well known and much respected 
throughout the county, having been connected with many of the features of its growth."