Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) gone to Texas/Arkansas; the sign affixed to the door of an absconding businessman.

1839		Georgia Messenger (Macon, GA) 1 Aug. 2/6: G.T.T.—General Nathaniel Smith has fled to Texas, with from $70,000 to $100,000 of Uncle Sam’s money in his pocket .
1840		N.Y. Daily Express 26 Mov. 2/5: On enquiry, her story was found to be correct, and measures were taken to arrest her paramour, but somehow or other he had got wind of the affair and was found ‘G. T. T.’.
1866		C.H. Smith Bill Arp 68: My daddy sold goods on credit about forty years ago, and when a customer run away, he used to codicil his name with ‘G. T. A.,’ gone to Arkansaw.
1872		Schele De Vere Americanisms 634: When the new State of Texas offered a ready asylum to unfortunate speculators, dishonest creditors, and even escaped criminals, [...] the words Gone To Texas (G. T. T.) meant to be gone to the American Alsatia.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.
1944		Chicago Daily News 2 Feb. 8/1: In former times justices of the peace throughout Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, and the ‘border’ generally, had a habit of closing certain dockets with the initials ‘G.T.T.,’ an abbreviation for ‘Gone To Texas’ [DA].