John E. Hamlett was born around 1815 in Tennessee. He married a woman named Nancy, and they had at least seven children: Elizabeth, born around 1840; Mary, born around 1844; Fanny, born around 1846; John, born around 1849; Susan, born around 1852; Nancy, born around 1855; and Frank, born around 1857. They lived in Mississippi until the mid-1840s, when they moved to Arkansas. They settled in Marshall, Texas, in the late 1840s. He worked as a merchant, and the 1860 census described him as a “gentleman.” By 1860, he owned $2,000 of real estate and $300 of personal property. He died sometime after 1860.