McLeary

Information provided by Sally Grey Weeks

Gideon B. McLeary (1834 - 1860)

Gideon Blackburn McLeary was named for a Presbyterian clergyman who was active in the early 1800s in Tennessee and Kentucky, where he established schools and churches in pioneer communities. Gideon was only 26, and about to become licensed to practice law, when he died of a fever, leaving a widow (Jeannette Willis) and two young daughters. He came to Texas from western Tennessee with his father, brother, and other family members, in 1855.

James McLeary (1788 - 1873)

James Allen McLeary is buried beside his youngest son, Gideon Blackburn. Although his wife, Eliza Allen Moore, died only a short time before the journey, James Allen came to Colorado County with some of his extended family from Tipton County, western Tennessee, in 1855. His farm homeplace was up Harveys Creek just two or three miles west of Osage community. James Allen´s son, Dr. Samuel Davies McLeary, was post master at Osage during the Civil War, and his wife, Sarah Ann Weller, was an early school teacher in the Osage community. Dr. Sam Davies and Sarah Ann are buried, along with an infant granddaughter, on the old McLeary place.