Farrar was a Texas Ranger who accompanied Major Ripley A. Arnold (founder and commandant of Fort Worth) and Col. M. T. Johnson along with a company of Dragoons and other Fort Worth pioneers to locate an area to establish a fort on the Northern Frontier in 1849. He documented the experience, naming the participants, where they camped the first night and what the area looked like in 1849 where the fort was built that was named Fort Worth. The group originated from Johnson Station in present day Arlington, Texas.