RABB, JOHN (1798-1861). John Rabb, early settler, son of Mary (Smalley) and William Rabb, was born in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, on January 1, 1798. The family moved successively to Ohio, Illinois, and then Jonesboro (i.e. Jonesborough), Arkansas, where John married Mary Crownover (see RABB, MARY CROWNOVER) on October 2, 1821. He came to Texas in 1822 as one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists and lived for a time near San Felipe de Austin. He was given title to a sitio of land now part of Fort Bend and Austin counties on July 8, 1824. He finally settled on Rabb's Prairie in what is now Fayette County, where he and his father received a bonus of land for building a grist and saw mill. Rabb went on an Indian campaign under John Henry Moore to Fort Tenoxtitlán in 1835 and in 1840 was again in military service when he joined a company under his brother, Thomas J. Rabb. After joining the Methodist Church in 1834, Rabb gave land to the missionary society of the church and to Rutersville College, for which he was treasurer in 1840. He also contributed the lumber for building the first Methodist church in San Antonio. In 1845 he was vice president of the Fayette County Temperance Society. Rabb later moved to Hill County and, in 1860, to Travis County, where he helped to settle Barton Springs. He died there on June 5, 1861, and was buried at Oakwood Cemetery.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mary Crownover Rabb, Travels and Adventures in Texas in the 1820's (Waco: Morrison, 1962).