Born in Tennessee, John Bunyan or Bunard Denton was orphaned at the age of eight. He and his older brother William were taken in (apprenticed or adopted) by Jacob Wells a preacher and blacksmith. The Wells family migrated to Clark County in Arkansas. Four years later, John Denton ran away to work as a deckhand on an Arkansas River flatboat. When he was 18, he returned to Clark County and married 16 year old Louisiana born Mary Greenlee Stewart. It is widely accepted that his wife taught him to read and write.

In 1826 he entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, and for ten years served in Arkansas and southern Missouri as an itinerant minister. The pay of a minister was too low to support Denton's growing family, so in early 1836, Denton crossed the Red River into Texas. Here he began the study of law. Six months later he was licensed to practice and entered into partnership with John B. Craig who was also a part-time Methodist minister in Clarksville TX. His family joined him in Clarksville in 1838. Rev. Denton was an eloquent speaker and following the court circuit allowed him to also preach in various locations in Texas. He was an active member of the Masonic Lodge at De Kalb in Bowie County and helped establish the Constantine Lodge No. 13 at Fort Warren. He ran for the Texas Senate in 1840. It is said that he had the best library in Clarksville, Texas, at that time

When the State of Texas called for volunteers to patrol the area, Denton answered the call. In 1839 he was commissioned captain of a company in Brig. Gen. Edward H. Tarrant's Fourth Brigade, Texas Militia. It is possible that Denton also served as informal chaplain for his company. In April of 1841 the Ripley family was killed by Indians. A group of scouts was sent out to find the Indians who had killed them. On May 22, 1841, the unit attacked the Indians of Keechi Village at Village Creek, about six miles east of the site of Fort Worth and Denton was killed. His body was brought back by horseback and he was buried in an unmarked grave on the east bank of Oliver Creek, near where it met a stream now called Denton Creek. He left behind a widow and six children.

Twenty years later when some of Denton's bones were uncovered, John S. Chisum, a local rancher, collected the remains and buried them in a wooden box in the corner of the yard of his home on Clear Creek, near Bolivar. In 1901 the Pioneer Association of Denton County, removed the remains and buried them with appropriate ceremonies in the southeast corner of the Denton County Courthouse lawn.