My previous post was about Sarah Horton Cockrell, capitalist. What type of man attracts a powerful woman’s eye? It is said that Sarah’s head was turned by a man slightly younger, much wilder, and wholly uneducated: Alexander Cockrell. Alex was said to have lived with Comanches because he liked their way of life, learned their language, but ultimately followed freed slaves to Dallas. He held a series of dangerous jobs like running shipments of goods between Dallas and Shreveport in a time before there was any type of law to keep him safe.
Alex and his sassy pants got in a lot of trouble in Dallas – he was party to 55 different court cases in his lifetime, which was a mere 38 years. He died as he lived, rather violently. Cockrell got a lethal belly full of buck shot when a deputy came to arrest him on possibly trumped up charges. Alex had taken this deputy, Marshall More, to civil court for owing him $100. Because of this dispute (and 54 other ones), the crowd in the courthouse cheered when the deputy was acquitted of Alex’s murder
Alex could not read nor write, so Sarah was the accountant. They first opened the Trinity River concession and then a brick business. They also ended up owning a saw mill, grist mill, lumberyard, shipping business and toll bridge. To protect his investments, Cockrell bought up all kinds of land on the river. Sarah would ultimately run all of these businesses, plus plenty that she funded herself, while outliving him by more than three decades.
I do not have a photo of Alex Cockrell, so you will have to be satisfied with an historical marker that mentions him.
