James J. Ross came to Texas from Arkansas in 1822. Not much is certain about his early life. He may have been born in South Carolina in the 1780s and orphaned at a young age.
The first official record of James Ross is found in a divorce petition filed in Clark County Arkansas in June 1822 where Sinthia Ross stated that she and Ross were married in June 1816.
They had at least one son, James Talbot Ross, born in 1820 in Arkansas.
Ross married Mariah, the eldest daughter of Judge James Cummins, on June 1, 1821. This being before his divorce was granted, he was charged with committing bigamy. Ross was tried before a jury and acquitted.
The Ross and Cummins families soon moved to Texas, arriving in 1822 as members of Stephen F. Austin’s “Old Three Hundred" colony. The first of - ficial record of James J. Ross in Texas is August 1823 when he cast his vote for his father-in-law in an election for Alcalde (Judge) of the Colorado District. In 1824 he received title to a league of land (4,428 acres) in what is now Colorado County.
Indian depredations against the new colonists were intensifying and in order to mount a defense against them Colonel James J. Ross was appointed as captain of the militia of the Colorado district. Where, how and why Ross acquired the rank of Colonel is not known. Said to be more than six feet, three inches tall, very handsome and afraid of nothing, no one questioned his right to the title.
The census of March 1826 lists Ross as a farmer and stock rais- er, aged between twenty-five and forty. His household included his wife Mariah, a son, a daughter, and five slaves. James and Ma riah divorced and in 1828 Ross married her sister Nancy Cum- mins and they had five children.
On February 16, 1828, Ross purchased a league and a half of land along the Colorado River in present-day Fayette County. He moved there with his family and by 1830 they were residing in a one-and-a-half-story “dogtrot” log cabin built high on a prairie overlooking the river bottom. The area is known as Ross Prairie.
Colonel James J. Ross represented the Austin District at the Convention of 1833 held in San Felipe. He signed the resolution that sent Stephen F. Austin to Mexico City to petition the Mexican authorities for tax relief, immigration reform and to grant full statehood to Texas separate from Coahuila.
By the summer of 1834 Indian depredations were so frequent that the settlers of the upper Colorado River issued a call to arms. They felt they were getting no assistance from the authorities and would have to take matters into their own hands.
Colonel Ross kept close company with a group of Tonkawa Indians who lived in the vicinity. He used them to pick cotton and other crops as well as encouraging them to steal horses from the Comanche Indians. As payment for the horses, Ross gave the Tonkawa’s whiskey. This practice often led the vengeful Comanche tribes to raid the local farms in search of their horses. And when the “Tonks” were not able to steal horses from other Indians they would steal from the white settlers. On several occasions, branded stock was found in Ross’s possession. Ross was ordered to put an end to his less than honorable business practices. When he refused to do so, his frustrated neighbors decided to take action and gathered together in order to drive the Indians out of the area by force. Their intent was not to harm Ross.
On January 14, 1835, as the men were passing Ross’s home, he called out to them, saying “Halt, you have gone far enough”, raised a weapon and fired. Colo nel John Henry Moore, James Seaton Lester and John Rabb all returned fire and Ross fell dead.
The men went on to the Indian camp and found that the Tonkawa had heard them coming and fled across the Colorado. They did not return.
