“Memorial and Biographical History of Dallas County,” published:  
Chicago;  The Lewis Publishing Company, 1892.

ALEXANDER COCKRELL,  deceased, was born in Kentucky, June 8, 
1820, a son of Joseph Cockrell, a native of Russell county, Virginia.  When 
a young man the father moved to Kentucky, and when our subject was four 
years old, he moved to Johnson county, Missouri, where Alexander was 
reared and where his mother died when he was yet a child.  His father died 
in the same county, in 1838, after which he went to the Indian Nation and 
engaged in the stock business for a contractor of that country.  He remained 
there until entering the Mexican war, under Colonel McCullough, and 
served until its close.  Mr. Cockrell was at Monterey with dispatches during 
that battle, where he was kept for three weeks, after which he came to Dallas 
and engaged in the stock business.  After his marriage he took a claim of 640 
acres of the Peters Colony, situated ten miles west of Dallas, where he 
engaged extensively in the stock business, and also freighted from Houston, 
Jefferson, Shreveport and other points with ox teams.  He followed this from 
the spring of 1848 to the winter of 1852, and in the latter year he sold his 
stock and purchased John Neely Bryan’s headright of the city of Dallas, and 
in 1853 moved to this city and engaged in the brick business and various 
other occupations.  Mr. Cockrell gave employment to all the young men who 
came to the country at that time, was a benevolent and enterprising man, and 
respected by all who knew him.  He also built the first bridge across the 
Trinity river, and in an early day ran a ferry boat.

He was married September 9, 1847, to Miss Sarah Horton, and they had five 
children:  Morgan, who died an infant; Aurelia E., the wife of Mitchell Gray, 
who died February 28, 1872; Robert B., who died May 21, 1886; Frank M. 
and Alexander.  Mr. Cockrell departed this life April 3, 1858, and his widow 
April 26, 1892.  He left a large estate, which was managed and successfully 
handled by his widow.  At her death she was seventy-three years of age and 
has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church since her childhood.

Submitted by: L. Pingel