John Myers McKinney

The pioneer's son left the longer record. A Collin County history page names Elder John M. McKinney, born in Greene County, Missouri, in 1832, as the son of John Meyers McKinney. He grew up in the Forest Grove community and lived with the neighbor he called Uncle Billy Snider after his parents died. After the First Christian Church was organized at McKinney on April 1, 1848, he asked to be baptized in Wilson Creek and preached for fifty-two years without taking money. He served several terms as county tax assessor and collector and died on January 1, 1913.

What the plaque says

John Myers McKinney (1781-1847) Born in Surry county, North Carolina, J.M. McKinney was the son of James and Mary (Ballard) McKinney. In 1809 he married Peggy Margot Lee. They lived in Tennessee, Missouri, and Arkansas before coming to Texas in 1846. After settling his family on this land in Collin county, McKinney left to enlist in the Mexican War. He died a year later while in the service of Captain William Fitzhugh's Company of Bell's mounted volunteers. Recorded - 1983

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heard Natural Science Museum & Wildlife Sanctuary — 3.3 mi
  A 289-acre sanctuary in McKinney that Bessie Heard founded at the age of 80, with five habitats, a 50-acre wetland and 6.5 miles of trails.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 15 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.
• Fair Park — 26 mi
  The State Fair of Texas grounds since 1886, where the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition left one of the country's greatest concentrations of Art Deco exposition buildings.
• African American Museum, Dallas — 26 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.

More markers nearby

• Forest Grove Christian Church — 1.8 mi
• Lovejoy School — 2.1 mi
• Pecan Grove Memorial Park — 4.6 mi
• Governor James Webb Throckmorton — 4.6 mi