36 | SUNRAYS MARCH 2014
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Jack and Dorothy Warner stand next a painting made by Dorothy’s mother, Jimmie Lee Whitley, who first sparked
Dorothy’s interest in Texas history and her roots.
‘Not Heroes or Villains’
In celebration of Texas History Month, meet Dorothy Warner, a former
Texas History teacher with long-standing Lone Star lineage
By Karen Swensson
D
orothy Warner, a Daughter of
the Republic of Texas, can trace
her family’s Texas roots back to
1835, the year her great-great grand-
father William Little moved from .en-
tucky to what is now Leon County at
the beginning of the Texas Revolution.
A ‘LITTLE’ HISTORY
In 1821, when Texas was part of the
newly independent nation of Mexico,
Steven F. Austin received his first land
grant from the Mexican government.
Mexico had closed Spain’s Catholic mis-
sions in Texas, and the remaining popu-
lation was barely 4,000, the majority of
whom lived in San Antonio. Acting as
an empresario, Austin began recruiting
what would eventually total hundreds
of Anglo-American families to settle
in Texas over the next 14 years. Other
empresarios obtained land grants and
Anglo colonization spread rapidly over
Texas.
After Hiram Little certified his brother
William to be “of good moral character”
in a document dated September 11, 1835,
William received numerous land grants,
including at least one signed by Anson
Jones, the fourth and last President of
the Republic of Texas. Little’s land hold-
ings grew to thousands of acres along the
Trinity River, midway between the pres-
ent sites of Dallas and Houston, between
Interstate 45 and Highway 59, where he
developed a cotton plantation.
In the early 1840s, William donated land
and founded the town of Navarro. In
1842, he married his second wife, Nancy
Caroline Cutler, Dorothy’s great-great
grandmother. Little was also a ship’s
captain on the Trinity River, carrying
cotton via flat bottom boat all the way
south to the Texas coastal ports, then
returning with merchandise for homes
and families as far north as Dallas.
CLOSE ENCOUNTER
William, Nancy and their children sur-
vived a Texas cyclone in 1856. They
owned a mercantile store in Cedar Hill
on the south side of Dallas. The front
section of the building was a log cabin,
PHOTOS BY MAGGI JONES
