Farmland sold to developer, legacy ends

Ryan and Bryant Harrington settled in present-day Colleyville after the Civil War. Both married women of area pioneer families and established roots that endure nearly 150 years later.

But like other pioneer families, the Harringtons' long legacy of farming in this area has come to an end with the recent sale of 97 acres near the corner of Glade Road and Heritage Avenue for the construction of a $160 million housing development.

The Harrington heirs, among the last holdouts, sold the Cheek estate, which became part of the Harringtons' holdings through marriage, because it was no longer operating as a farm, said Sam Harrington, 89, of Euless.

The family sold a separate piece of land, the 120-acre Harrington family tract, for development a couple of years ago, Sam Harrington said.

"I'm too old; I just can't farm it anymore," Sam Harrington said. "There's no one else to take care of it."

Generations of the Harrington family grew up in the community known as Pleasant Glade. The family homestead was built in 1906 near the present-day intersection of Glade Road and Cheek-Sparger Road, according to the Colleyville history book, "Colleyville: Then and Now," produced by the Colleyville Historical Preservation Committee.

The Harrington farm yielded abundant fruit and vegetables and was also an operating dairy farm for a long time, Sam said.

"We were known for our cantaloupes," Sam said, who worked the farm most of his life and ran a produce company at the Dallas Farmers Market, selling fruit and vegetables raised on the family farm.

Farming was a Harrington family tradition that extended back before Byrant and Ryan settled in Colleyville. The two were born in 1829 in Hardin County, Kentucky and had moved between Missouri and Kentucky, several times during their childhood, according to "Colleyville: Then and Now."

At age 20 they went to California to seek a fortune in gold mining. Unsuccessful, they traveled to Central America and then returned to farm in Kentucky.

In 1855 the brothers moved to Dallas, where they started taking tintype photos. After that short-lived venture, they sold the business and moved to Palo Pinto County, west of Fort Worth, where a couple of siblings were already ranching.

They found work guarding and driving stagecoaches to raise money to buy land nearby. In 1860 they set off on foot with one pack pony to buy stock in Mexico for land near their siblings.

Both served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, fighting Union soldiers and Native Americans on the frontier. Native American raids continued to be troublesome after the war, so the brothers sold the Palo Pinto land and moved east to Colleyville.

Ryan married the daughter of Samuel Witten, one of Colleyville's first settlers, and served as justice of the peace for several years before his death in 1884. The couple had seven children.

Bryant settled in the Colleyville area in 1871, according to "Colleyville: Then and Now." He married Lucetta Woods and had four children.

Sam recalled that his father, Bryant Jr., bought the first Model T truck in the area.

Sam was stationed in Europe in World War II and fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

After the war, he returned home and bought some smaller tracts of land on his own.

"Land was cheap then–you could buy it for $2–$3 an acre," he said.