GANT, ABSALOM BOBO, JR. (1832–1897). Absalom Bobo Gant Jr., educator, businessman, Confederate officer, and state representative, was born in Martin, Weakley County, Tennessee, on October 30, 1832, the son of Absalom Bobo and Mary (Boone) Gant. Gant was raised in Tennessee, and attended local schools as well as a boys' academy. He served as a justice of the peace in Wayne County in 1853. In 1859 he graduated with honors from Cumberland University at Lebanon, Tennessee. The following year Gant immigrated to Texas, settled in Tarrant County, and found employment as a schoolteacher.
During the
Civil War Gant enlisted in the Confederate Army as third lieutenant for Company A of the Ninth Texas Cavalry Regiment. He received promotion to captain in June 1862 after his participation in the siege of Corinth. Before the conclusion of the war Gant resigned his commission because of a medical disability.
Gant returned to North Texas where he initially engaged in a pharmaceutical business with a local doctor in Weatherford, Parker County. Later he established himself as the largest real estate dealer and landowner in that county. On December 18, 1867, Gant married Minerva Raines in Rusk County. This couple had one son and three daughters. At the end of the 1860s he relocated to Graham, Young County. Here he became one of the leading promoters and developers of the area. In 1871 he established a salt mine and later in the year won election as representative for the county to the Twelfth Texas Legislature to finish the term of
William Edgar Hughes. During the late 1880s Gant helped establish Young County Camp, United Confederate Veterans No. 127. Gant died on May 2, 1897.
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