The Farrar family has centuries of history in England before coming to America.
Several generations stayed in Virginia, then began the westward movement.
First to NC, then to Pontotoc MS where they were neighbors with the Ross and
Thornton families. Jorial (or Josial) Farrar was a prisoner of the North in the Civil War.
At the end of the war, after his release he returned to Pontotoc and married his
neighbor's daughter, Mary Elizabeth Thornton. The Farrar and Thornton families
came to TX about 1872 with a wagon train that included families from Pontotoc,
Panola and Lafayette counties in MS. Upon reaching TX, the wagon train entered
Bell County, where some of the families stayed, including the Thornton family who
settled below Temple in the Wilson Valley, Little River area. Part of the Thornton
family and part of the Ross family went on to the Indian Territory of Oklahoma into
the Chickasaw nation. The Farrar family continued on to Coryell county where they
chose land near Leon Junction. The Farrar family was blessed with eight children
before Jorial died in a flu epidemic in 1880. These children were:
1. Henry (1867-1943) married in 1895 to Martha A. Green;
2. Mary Elizabeth (1869-1945) married 1st to Dave Ross and 2nd to Alonzo Shirley;
3. Francis Marion (1870-1945) never married.
He was blinded in childhood and broke horses for the public;
4. Margaret Artemisa (Mag)(1871-1956) married 1886 to Thomas Duncan Ross.
5. William Washington (1873-1936) married Sallie Dutton;
6. Emma Virginia (1876-1925) married Anderson Green;
7. Mamie Louella (1878-1880) and
8. Josephine W. (1880-1880) the last two dying of the same flu that killed their father.
This family is buried in Seaton Cemetery in Coryell County. By James Ross,
great-grandson of Josial Farrar and Mary Elizabeth Thornton Farrar,
taken from the book "Ross Record" by Bobbie Ross, 1989.