John and Cara Wilson McLennan
See picture of Cara and John from "Our Land, Our Lives: a Pictorial History of McLennan County, Texas"
John McLennan was born about 1814 in Walton County, Florida. He was the son of Neil McLennan and Christian A. Campbell.
Read more about Neil McLennan.
At the age of 21, he traveled to Texas with his family (including his grandmother, his uncles John and Laughlin, and their families) in a ship they had built. Between Pensacola and the Texas coast, they were captured by pirates, who chained the ship to their own. At night, a storm nearly capsized both ships, and the pirates loosed the chains. By morning, they had drifted out of sight of the pirate ship, and continued sailing to Texas. They reached the mouth of the Brazos River in early 1835, and continued up the river to Pond Creek in Robertson's Colony.
John McLennan married Cara Wilson about 1844, probably in Milam County, Texas. She was the daughter of William B. Wilson and Margaret Tollett. They were two of the first settlers in Cameron, Milam County, Texas, which was founded in 1846 as a permanent county seat for Milam County.
John and Cara's first son, William Bernard Erath McLennan, was the first white child born in Cameron. They had three other children: Eula C. McLennan, John Calhoun McLennan, and Emma McLennan.
John became Sherriff of Milam County in 1846, and was later Sherriff of McLennan County.
John helped Major Erath survey and lay out the town of Waco. He bought the first town lot for $5, and moved the family there. He also owned the first piano in Waco, brought by ox wagon from Galveston. The McLennan's piano was for several years in the Log House in Harrington Park, Waco, owned by the Daughters of the Confederacy; its current location is unknown.
Cara died on October 30, 1866 in Waco, McLennan County, Texas. John died twenty years later. Both were buried in the Wilson family Cemetery near Cameron.
See USGS GNIS map information for Wilson Cemetery (ID# 2041902)
