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First In County
Pioneers' School Site To Be Scene of Rites
FARMERS BRANCH, Texas - The Dallas Philogical Society will dedicate a
marker of Texas granite Sunday at 3 p.m. at the site of the first school
house in Dallas County. Site of the ceremony is on Valley View Road west of
Webb Chapel Road.
School children of Farmers Branch will sing and provide a color guard.
Taking part on the program will be: Lourania Miller, Society President; the
Rev. Richart T. Perry, Webb Chapel Methodist Church; Frances E. Thomas,
secretary, and Robert T. Gill, vice-president of the Society; Farmers Branch
Mayor Lawson Lewis; Mrs. John Donaho, who will speak for the West family,
and Due and Vicki West, youngest descendants of the West family pioneers.
The pioneer school house was built by Robert Jentry West in 1845 for his
wife, the former Mary Ann Ryland, who had been a teacher in Tennessee. The
Wests had come to the Peters Colony in a carriage, Conestoga wagons
following with their household goods and servants. They brought with them an
excellent library of classics and the best magazines of the day, all of
which circulated among their new neighbors.
The school house, a one-room log building with split logs for seats, housed
all grades.
Robert Jentry West laid out the street plan for the town of Dallas and was
county treasurer from 1854 to 1858.
A son, John, was a surveyor, and a grandson, John R., was the County
Surveyor. Another son, Robert H., was the first county judge, 1876-1878. Bob
West, present Dallas County surveyor, is one of the descendants.
A daughter of the pioneers, Ann West, married William Winn and many of their
descendants will be present.
The Dallas Morning News - October 16, 1958
Submitted by Barbara
Judkins
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