Most of the NE Texas area was settled by Tenneseans from 1835 through 1870. My great grandfather Joshua David Coffee and his brother, John James Coffee came to Fannin County in NE Texas, in 1855. They settled in the Orangeville Community. The area was part of the Damron Survey which was a 640 acre land grant to Colonel John Henry Damron from the Republic of Texas. Most of the settlers in that area of Fannin County came from the area of Tennessee around Nashville. I have never determined the route the Texas Trace made that came from Tennessee to NE Texas. The entry point of Texas at the time was at Fulton, Arkansas. It was located on the Red River near present day Texarkana. I assume it was through central Arkansas. Could it possibly up the Red River frome the Mississippi, I doubt it. My great grandfather, my great great grandfather were from Gordonsville, Tennessee on the Cumberland River. My great grandfather married Mary Lou Blanton in June, 1960. Mary Lou Blanton's sister, Nancy, married Colonel John Henry Damron, circa 1850. The Blantons were one of two separate Blanton families in Fannin County Texas. Both those families were from South Carolina. The community of Orangeville in Fannin County was named for Orangeville SC and settled by the Methodist Blantons. My Blanton family were the Methodists and the "other" Blanton Family were the Babtists. A short time ago, I talked to an older gentleman named Ed Blanton in Fannin County from the Babtist family that married a Blanton from the Methodist family. The religious denomination was the only way people could tell the Blanton families apart. The Blanton families from S. Carolina passed through Tennessee on their way to Texas and thus both families became Tenneseans. Jerry Coffee