Mr. McElroy Is one of the old settlers of Fort Bend County who still survives those days of pioneer life, fraught with so much danger and hardships, danger from Indian raids and Mexican invasion, and hardships incident to a new and undeveloped country, where the wilderness had to be subdued, far removed from the necessaries of life, except as they could carve them out in their new homes with the ax and, rude agricultural implements. Sometimes the sole dependence for food was the ripe as the long months went by, waiting for the maturity of some primitive crop, which was watched with zealous care to keep the wild animals of the woods from destroying it until the time of gathering came.
Mr. McElroy was born in 1827, and came to Texas with his father, Phillip, in 1832, from Connecticut. They first settled on the Colorado River, eight miles below the present city of Austin, which was then not in existence. The headright league of the elder McElroy was located here, as were several others at that day and time. They had nat long remained in their new home, and began to accumulate some of the comforts of life, when the few settlers in that region were greatly alarmed and disturbed by an Indian attack, in which two settlers, Harris and Christian, lost their lives, and another one, Josiah Wilbarger, was scalped alive, after being badly wounded. Reuben Hornsby, who was with them, barely escaped with his life. Soon after this distressing episode of frontier life, the McElroys left that country and came dawn on the Brazos and settled at San Felipe, where the father died in 1835.
In 1836, when the country was being swept by the invasion of Santa Anna, Mrs. McElroy and her children retreated to the banks of the Sabine River and remained there until after the battle of San Jacinto, and then came to Harrisburg, and from there to Houston in 1837, living in the first house built there. This house was double log cabins, situated at the foot of what is now Main Street, on Buffalo Bayou, and if still standing would be in the middle of the street.
Mr. McElroy has one sister, Mrs. J. W. Bell, living in Houston, and who has been living there continually since 1837. He himself came to Fort Bend County in 1840, returned to Houston for a short time, and again coming to Fort Bend, made It his permanent home for the last fifty-three years.