John Calvin Deaton, I

John Deaton's family were the first Deatons in Texas. They joined a wagon train heading for Texas, and on the 25th day of March, 1843, they crossed the Red River at Brumit's Ferry and entered the Republic of Texas.

Texas granted John 320 Acres on December 15, 1845. Per the deed, the land was located "on the waters of the Lake Fork of the Sabine River, 8 miles north of Emory, Texas", in Rains County.

Farmer all his life, John Deaton devoted his last years chiefly to the work of the ministry, and was known and welcomed as one of the leading Baptist preachers of the frontier.

Although "Calvin" is inscribed on his tombstone in the Deaton Cemetery in Rains County -- his purported middle name was placed on the tombstone by an unknown man from Missouri in the late 1970's -- it is doubtful that John even had a middle name.