- Source: the book " Bravo of Los Brazos: John Larn of Fort Griffin Texas" by Robert K DeArment
Larn was a shadowy figure in his time and mystery still surrounds his memory. Even his name has been confounded many. It has been recorded as "Larne, Lorn, Laren, Lauren, Laurence and Lawrence". Little is known of his early life prior to 1870 whwn, at the age of twenty-one, he seems to have settled permanently in Cleark Fork country. He told his wife he was born March 1, 1849 in Alabama and christened John M. Larn. That is the way his signature, written in clear and firm hand, appears on many documents in Shackelford and Throckmorton County court records.
It appears from federal census records that the man known as John Larn in Texaswas born in Georgia, raised in Alabama, and that his name was actually "Laren". A federal census taken in Calhoun County, Alabamam on 5 June 1860, enumerated the family of George A. Laren, a farmer from Missouri, and his wife, Elizabeth, from Georgia. The Larens had eight children, ranging in the age from three to eighteen. The sixth oldest children, including John, the fifth, were born in Georgia, the youngest two in Alabama. John Laren's age was listed as twelve, a discrepancy of a year from the March 1, 1849, birth date provided by Larn, but sensus records, especially early ones, are notorious for minor errors of this kind.
Some Shackelford County residents recalled Larn saying he had been raised in Atlanta, Alabama, but there is no Atlanta in Alabama. The town he mentioned was probably Anniston, the county seat of Calhoun County. He told others he ran away from home as a boy, went to Mobile, and worked as a "butcher boy", peddling newspapers on trains.
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