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.









copyrighted by Bobbie Ross Sept.2000