This collection contains two sheets of paper.  One is the court order for the survey of the land intended for the Palo Pinto school.  The other is the survey conducted by D. L. Cunningham.

Daniel Lewis Cunningham was born in Alabama in 1849 to Lewis Cunningham and Charlotte Temple Campbell Cunningham.  He moved to Palo Pinto County, Texas in 1872.  On June 7, 1876, he married Jennie Hunter.  She was the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. Frank Hunter.  Mr. Cunningham participated in surveying the line for the Texas and Pacific Railroad.  At the end of this work Mr. Cunningham was made the head of a survey team by Judge J. J. Metcalf so that he could survey the Palo Pinto Land District.  Cunningham would work with Judge Metcalf until the judge’s death in 1875.  At that time the Commissioners Court of Palo Pinto County appointed him chief surveyor of the land district to fill the unexpired term.  He was then elected to the office, which he held for seven years.  He then entered into a mercantile business with F. J. White in the towns of Palo Pinto and Cresco.  White and Cunningham operated from 1872 to 1878 when the business was sold to McQuerry and Lewis. He started a real estate business with his brother, John Littleton Cunningham, in Palo Pinto under the name of Cunningham Brothers.  Daniel Cunningham also owned a ranch outside of the town of Palo Pinto.  In 1889 the Cunningham Brothers founded a bank in Palo Pinto.  Daniel Cunningham was elected president of the bank at the time it opened and held that position until his death on November 7, 1894.

Information for this entry was gathered from Historical and Biographical Record of the Cattle Industry and the Cattlemen of Texas and Adjacent Territory by James Cox and rootsweb.ancestry.com on the page “Lewis Cunningham and Wife Came to County in 1868.” http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~txpalopi/oddsnends/1857-1957news/lcunningham.htm