Compliments of “Frontier Times”
Volume 4 --- Number 11
August 1927

Captain James Callan

   One of the prominent figures in Menard County in days gone by was Captain James Callan, who spent the best years of a noble vigorous manhood for Texas and the welfare and advancement of her people. Captain Callan was born at Georgetown, District of Columbia, May 6, 1833, and on Christmas Day, 1857, landed in Texas, he being at the date of his arrival twenty-four years of age. He located in Coleman County, which was then on the extreme frontier, and married in 1859. At the breaking out of the War Between the States he was in the State ranger service and was stationed at Camp Colorado. At one time he held the commission as Captain in the Texas frontier cavalry regiment, Bankhead’s Brigade, Captain Callan joined General Hood’s army in Virginia and from that date, marched and fought under Lee and Hood until the fortunes of the Confederacy went down at Appomattox. At the close of the war, Mr. Callan returned to Coleman County and on the re-occupation of the frontier by the Federal forces, he accepted the position as scout and guide for the troops, first at Fort Chadbourne and later at Fort McKavett, where he remained until there was no further use for post guide or troops for protection in that quarter.

   Upon the organization of Menard County, Captain Callan was chosen Chief Justice, or county judge, in which capacity he discharged the duties pertaining to his office wisely, faithfully and efficiently. In 1882, he moved to Coleman and established the Coleman Voice and remained as its editor and proprietor for the period of ten years. Later he returned to Menardville, and there in the sacred precincts of a modest, well ordered home, surrounded by his books, admiring friends, devoted sons and daughter, children and grandchildren, Captain Callan, the scholarly type of the true, old-time Southern gentleman, spent his declining years, and there some years ago he passed away at a ripe old age.