USA > Texas > A Twentieth century history of southwest Texas, Volume I > Part 41
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Gravel Roads.
In 1900, at the beginning of Robert Green's administration as county judge. Mr. Nelson was appointed by him to his present position as super- intendent of the county roads-an office that had been created to carry out the construction of public highways under a bond issue of half a million dollars voted for that purpose and under which there have been built about nineteen splendid gravel roads in Bexar county, one of these being the "loop" road from San Antonio to the San Jose and San Juan missions. This public spirited policy has resulted in Bexar county hav- ing some of the best public highways in Texas, if not in the entire coun- try. The roads have been carefully and skillfully constructed of the best materials and in addition to offering splendid highways for driving they greatly facilitate business between the city and the agricultural dis- tricts.
Soon after his return from the west in 1882, Mr. Nelson was mar- ried in San Antonio to Miss Gregoria Villareal, a beautiful young lady and a member of one of the old Spanish families. She was born in this city and died in 1883 while with her husband on the third trip that he was making to the west. Mr. Nelson was married in 1885 to Miss Celia Villareal, a sister of his first wife. They have eight children: Genevieve, Thomas C .. George, Stella, Gertrude. Edna, Robert E., and Ethel, Mr. Nelson belongs to the Knights of Columbus and other Catholic societies. His life has largely been devoted to public service either of an official or semi-official nature and his work has been of direct and permanent gcod in the development of the state and city. As a business man and
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citizen he has contributed in large measure to the growth and progress of Western Texas and of San Antonio and the results that he has at- tained in this direction leave no room for question of his ability. He al- ways deserves and is given classification with the representative residents of Texas.
EDWARD MARTIN RABB, M. D., who has won a foremost place in the ranks of the leading physicians of San Antonio, was born in Fayette county, Texas, June 25, 1855, and is a representative of one of the most honored pioneer families of the state, the name of Rabb being in- separably interwoven with events constituting the early history of Texas as well as with its later day development and improvement. His great- grandfather, William Rabb, came from Tennessee to Texas before the Austins arrived here and in fact was one of the first Americans that came to the Lone Star state, which at that time was a part of the terri- tory belonging to Mexico. William Rabb arrived before either Moses
A Pioneer.
or Stephen F. Austin and located on Caney Creek in Wharton county. He had lived in the same locality in Tennessee in which Davy Crockett was reared. William Rabb became one of the sturdy band of pioneers who blazed the way for civilization in the southwest. He and his son, Andrew Rabb, faced with fortitude the hardships and struggles that ul- timately resulted in the upbuilding of the great state and it was Andrew Rabb who wrote the first constitution of Texas. He was intimately as- sociated with Sam Houston in his efforts to withstand Mexican intoler- ance and oppression and establish the republic. Houston chose thirteen
First Texas Constitution.
of his co-adjutors to write constitutions and that which was prepared by Andrew Rabb was the one chosen and adopted as the original constitu- tion of the Republic of Texas. An interesting event is related by his son, Thomas Rabb, uncle of Dr. Rabb, and now a resident of Deming, New Mexico, in connection with the choosing of the seal of Texas. Houston and his associates had met for the adoption of the constitution and some one among the delegation suggested that the documents should bear a seal. Thereupon General Houston cut from his coat one of the brass buttons, saying, "I have the very thing for a seal." He then placed the imprint of this brass button upon the sealing wax of the document. The device was that of a five pointed or "lone star." This emblem which was considered and afterward proved to be the most appropriate was then and there chosen and designated as the emblem and seal of Texas. Shortly after the addition of the letters T-E-X-A-S, one letter being placed at each of the five points of the star were added, together with a wreath and through all the days of the republic and the state of Texas this device has remained as the seal. As is well understood by any one familiar with the early history of Texas, the members of the Rabb family had to do their share of Indian fighting in planting the seeds of civiliza- tion upon the southwestern frontier.
Thomas Rabb, uncle of Dr. Rabb, relates many interesting incidents of those pioneer times. When this country was still under the dominion
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of Mexico the family removed to La Grange, where he lived until twenty- one years of age and later he resided in Karnes countv, but in 1885 re- moved to New Mexico. He began Indian fighting when only fifteen years of age and at the age of eighteen was chosen captain of a company or- ganized to protect settlers and pursue a band of Indians after they had committed depredations on the whites. He was a young man of power- ful physique, over six feet tall and weighing over one hundred and sev- enty-five pounds when, at the age of fifteen years, he had his first hostile encounter with the Indians. He and a companion had been trading with the Lipan Indians and were two days upon the return trip when they were overtaken by a runner and told that the same band had murdered the wife and children of a frontier settler. A party was being organized for the pursuit and after traveling about forty miles they came up with the Indians, who were hidden in a thicket. " At the first charge nine In- dians were killed. The squaws fought as fiercely as the men. The In- dians then retreated to the thicket and on a second advance three of their number were killed. The captain of the company then ordered his men to proceed down the river and around to the other side of the thicket and there to charge upon the Indians, but a great mistake was made in this, for in the midst of the thicket the white men could not handle their arms and manage their horses at the same time and lost five of their number. Later a hand to hand fight occurred, which Thomas Rabb says was the greatest scene of slaughter which he ever saw. He himself killed a number of Indians and the white men carried off forty-two scalps. It is possible, however, that they killed a good many more, for the Indians always availed themselves of every opportunity to carry off their dead and wounded.
William Rabb, father of our subject, was born in what is now Fay- ette county, Texas, about three miles above La Grange, in December, 1822. He was reared there and in Wharton county, where he lived until 1868, when he removed to Cedar Bayou in Chambers county, Texas, on Galveston Bay. There he resided for a long period and died at Laporte, Texas, in 1905. He married Miss Prudence Smalley, a native of Illinois, whose first husband was a Mr. Risinger. Her death occurred at Cedar Bayou.
Dr. Rabb acquired his primary education in Fayette county and in Cedar Bayou, to which place the family removed when he was thirteen years of age. He was also a student in the academy in Houston. When still quite a youth he located at Hallettsville, Lavaca county, where he took up the study of medicine under a private preceptor for two years. Later he pursued a course in the medical department of the University of Louisiana at New Orleans, now Tulane University, where he was grad- uated in the class of 1878. He then returned to Hallettsville and was in the general practice of medicine and surgery there until 1899, when he removed to San Antonio, which has since been his home. He came here for the purpose of making a specialty of electrical therapeutics and has been highly successful as a practitioner in this branch of the profes- sion. In 1892 he completed a post-graduate course in a number of dif- ferent branches of medicine and surgery at the New York Polyclinic and in the later 'gos he took special courses at the following institutions :
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the Eastern College of Electrical Therapeutics at Philadelphia; the Na- tional College of Electro-Therapeutics at Lima, Ohio; and the Chicago School of Psychology. His practice has principally been in connection with the conduct of the Dr. Rabb Electrical Sanatorium, which he found- ed and which has the facilities and equipments for the most advanced work known to electrical therapeutics and the results of which are an object of interest and benefit both to the profession and to the laity. Dr. Rabb is a member of the Bexar County, the Texas State and the American Medical associations and his proficiency has gained him high rank in practice and secured for him a liberal and growing business. His strong personal characteristics, his professional skill and his connection with one of the distinguished pioneer families of Texas all entitle him to repre- sentation in this volume.
FRANK PASCHAL, M. D. San Antonio has long been noted for the distinguished members of its medical fraternity and among those who have gained distinction and success in the practice of medicine and sur- gery in this city Dr. Frank Paschal is numbered. He is a native son of San Antonio, his parents being Hon. Franklin L. and Frances (Roach) Paschal, who took up their abode here in an early day. The paternal grandfather, George W. Paschal, was a resident of Georgia and the great-grandfather, William Paschal, of North Carolina. The ancestry of the family, however, can be traced still farther back. At an early period in the colonization of the new world, Louis XIV of France, displaying a most tyrannical and despotic power, revoked the edict of Nantes in 1685. Then followed a reign of terror, in which the Huguenots were horribly persecuted and tens of thousands of the best and most pious people of that land fled to other countries that they might have religious freedom. Many sought homes in the new world and with the refugees from France came representatives of the Paschal family, who were also Huguenots and who became the founders of the family in the new world.
William Paschal, the great-grandfather of Dr. Paschal, was born in North Carolina, where he spent his entire life. He espoused the cause of the Americans in the Revolutionary war and his son, George Paschal, grandfather of Dr. Paschal, was also one of the heroes who fought for American independence. The latter was born in Granville, North Caro- lina, in 1760 and died in Augusta, Georgia, in 1832. His wife bore the maiden name of Agnes Brewer and passed away in Big Savannah. Georgia, in 1869 at the extreme old age of ninety-four years. She was of Scotch-Irish lineage. Among the sons of George and Agnes Paschal was Judge George W. Paschal, who was a member of the supreme court of Arkansas and in 1846 removed to Texas, where he gained distinction as a lawyer and author, crowning his career by the compilation of a vol- uminous digest of the laws of Texas called Paschal's Annotated Digest of Our Supreme Court Decisions. He died in Washington, D. C., about 1877, while extending his labors in legal literature. Another son, Isaialı Addison Paschal, was born in Auravia, Georgia, in 1807, and for many years was a distinguished member of the bar at Alexandria, Louisiana, and also state senator and probate judge. Leaving Louisiana, he came to San Antonio, where he resided from 1846 until his death in 1869, being recognized as a distinguished attorney of this city.
schoss
3II
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
Hon. Franklin L. Paschal, still another son of the family of George and Agnes Paschal, was born in Athens, Georgia, and came to Texas soon after the fall of the Alamo in 1836. For nearly a half century he was a distinguished resident of this city. In the warfare incident to the separation of Texas from Mexico, which was continued intermittently for a number of years after the fall of the Alamo, Franklin L. Paschal served in Captain Jack Hayes' noted company of spies and scouts. He was one of the first sheriffs of Bexar county and later was an alderman of San Antonio. He was also a successful and prosperous merchant of the city for many years, conducting one of the leading business enterprises here, and his death occurred in 1881. He married Miss Frances Roach, who was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and died in San Antonio. Their son, the Hon. George Paschal, who died in 1894, was district at- torney and the mayor of San Antonio.
Dr. Frank Paschal was reared and educated in his native city and supplemented his literary education by preparation for the practice of medicine and surgery as a student in Louisville Medical College at Louis- ville, Kentucky, from which he was graduated with the highest honors of the class of 1874. He won prizes for the best thesis, also the highest prizes for essays on the principles and practice of medicine, materia medica and therapeutics. As a result of these honors and his superior standing in the competitive examination he was appointed resident physi- cian of the Louisville City Hospital in which capacity he served for a vear following his graduation and thus added to his theoretical knowl- edge the broad practical experience of hospital practice.
In 1875, Dr. Paschal went to the republic of Mexico, locating at Chihuahua, where he lived for nineteen years, actively engaged in medi- cal practice. He passed the rigid examination before the board of ex- amining physicians at Chihuahua, in the Spanish language, without an interpreter. Upon the building of the Mexican Central Railway in 1881 he organized the medical department of that road and for several years was chief surgeon of the Mexican Central system. He resigned that po- sition in 1892 and returned to his old home in San Antonio, where he has since practiced his profession with growing success, having now a very large patronage. Within six months after his return to this city he was made president of the West Texas Medical Association and sub- sequently was chosen medical examiner and a member of the first state board of medical examiners under the present law, which on account of the stringent examination for license to practice has been the means of placing the medical profession of Texas in the highest rank of efficiency. After holding that position for two years he relinquished it to accept the presidency of the Texas State Medical Association. During the year's administration in that position the membership of the Texas State Medical Association increased from three hundred to twenty-five hundred. Dr. Paschal was also city health officer of San An- tonio for four years. His attention is now given to the general private practice of medicine and surgery and his business is of an ex- tensive and important character. He is one of the best posted men in the state on the history of the medical profession in Texas, which since the organization of the first state medical association in the early '50s has
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had among its representatives, physicians of superior excellence with high ideals and maintaining a high standard of professional ethics. They have often been men of great learning, many of the early physicians, es- pecially in Southwestern Texas, having come here from the noted Ger- man universities and have thus been thoroughly equipped for their chosen work.
Dr. Paschal was married in San Antonio to Miss Ladie Napier, a na- tive of this city, and they have five children: Edwin G., Nellie, Bettie, Frank L. and George Paschal. The eldest son is passenger agent for the Frisco System at Fort Worth and is said to be the youngest passen- ger agent in the United States. The Paschal family has been a most prominent and honored one in the history of Texas through many years and in other parts of the south as well, and in person and talents Dr. Paschal is a worthy scion of his race. His laudable ambition and desire for proficiency in his chosen calling has gained him a distinguished place as a representative of the medical fraternity, while his strong personal traits of character have made him popular socially and he is accounted today one of the leading and representative citizens of San Antonio.
JULIUS C. A. PIPER, now practically living retired in San Antonio, was throughout a long period actively identified with the commercial in- terests of this city and is therefore well known in business circles. He was born in Waldeck, now Prussia, Germany, July 23, 1843, a son of Frederick and Johanna (Waldeck) Piper, and a brother of F. A. Piper, whose sketch appears elsewhere in this work. The family emigrated to America in 1853, locating in Indianola, Texas, where they made their home for a brief period, after which they made a permanent location in San Antonio.
Mr. Piper of this review was but a small boy when he accompanied his parents to the new world, and he had been in San Antonio but a few months when he secured employment with the well known pioneer mer- chant and philanthropist, Julius Berends, who then conducted a book store in San Antonio, being the predecessor of Nic Tengg in that busi- ness. Mr. Piper received his education through the aid of Mr. Berends, who was the founder of the old German-English school, which was first
German-English School.
conducted as a night school, of which Mr. Piper was a student. This school was located on Commerce street where the Staacke mercantile enterprise now stands (near Navarro street), and from a small beginning the school later developed into the famous German-English school which was built on South Alamo street, which was supported principally by members of the German colonies that had located here at an early day. Later Mr. Piper pursued his studies in the day school and as the years passed he became a fast friend of Mr. Berends, who was in his day a very prominent citizen of this section of the state, being elected to Con- gress. His death occurred in Switzerland.
In 1855 Mr. Piper entered the mercantile enterprise of Norton & Brothers, a pioneer firm of San Antonio, and he remained in that em- ploy until the outbreak of the Civil war, when, his patriotic spirit being aroused, he enlisted in the Confederacy as a member of Company H.
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Third Volunteer Infantry, of which he was made orderly sergeant under Captain S. G. Newton. With this command Mr. Piper served in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas, and during the latter part of the war, on account of an affliction of one of his eyes, he went into the quarter- master's department with headquarters at San Antonio. When the war ended he was located at Brownsville, his company taking part in the last battle fought after hostilities had ceased, this being on the Rio Grande above Brownsville.
Returning from the war, Mr. Piper resumed business pursuits, en- tering the employ of Charles Elmendorf, father of Henry Elmendorf, a prominent citizen of San Antonio, and became manager of his large mercantile establishment, continuing in that connection until 1867, during which time he displayed excellent business ability and sound judgment. In the latter year, wishing that his labors might more directly benefit himself, and having saved a sum sufficient to justify his entrance into business life upon an independent basis, he opened a general store on South Alamo street, at the corner of Commerce street, where the mer- cantile establishment of Mr. Joske now stands. Mr. Piper remained at that location for about three years, when, having become a sufferer from rheumatism, he disposed of his business interests and went to Hot Springs, Ark., in the hope that he might recover his health, which proved a beneficial move. Returning to San Antonio, he again engaged in business, conducting a store for three years, subsequent to which time he went to Monterey, Mexico, where he conducted a similar enterprise for twelve years, meeting with very desirable success. Returning again to San Antonio, he then opened a hardware store in company with a partner, the firm being conducted under the style of Piper & Schulthess. Their store was first located at the corner of Yturri and Market streets. but later was removed to Commerce street, having a large building where the present store of Mr. Staacke now stands. After a successful period thus passed the hardware business was discontinued and Mr. Piper, in 1892, became secretary and treasurer of the Merchants' Transfer Com- pany, of which his brother, F. A. Piper, was president. He continued his connection with the latter company until 1906, when he disposed of his interests therein, that he might be relieved of the more arduous duties of a business career. Not being content, however, to abandon all busi- ness pursuits, he now has charge of the office for the firm of Krakauer & Piper, who handle plumbing fixtures, etc., his son, O. J. Piper, being a member of this firm. During his long connection with mercantile pur- suits Mr. Piper gained a knowledge of the needs and demands of the general public, and owing to the honorable business methods which he ever followed, he won the trust and confidence of all with whom he came in contact, either in business or social circles, and is today num- bered among the well known pioneer citizens of San Antonio.
In this city, in 1870, occurred the marriage of Mr. Piper and Miss Amelie Move, a daughter of Albert Move, one of the well known pioneers of this citv. To our subject and his wife have been born seven children : Otto J., Fred A., Minna, Max M., Juanita. Tillie and Tulius S.
MAJOR M. C. HARRIS. Among the citizens who have wrought along lines of measured good in San Antonio is numbered Major M. C. Harris,
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HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
now deputy collector of internal revenue. He is a man of careful spirit vet without narrow or bigoted partisanship. Standing firm in support of his honest convictions he is. nevertheless, amenable to reason and argu- ment ; but, when once his mind is made up concerning the worthiness of a cause, neither fear nor favor can swerve him from his devotion thereto. These strong and salient characteristics have made his a notable career in many respects. his life being closely interwoven with some of the most exciting periods in the state's history, yet he bears no outward signs of approaching age and apparently is now as active and full of vigor as he was in years gone by. During the greater part of his busi- ness career he has been identified with newspaper publications, and his initial business experience was that of selling papers on the streets of Louisville, Kentucky, in his early boyhood days.
When he was but nine years of age, Major Harris accompanied his parents on their removal from Louisville, the city of his birth, to Hawes- ville, Kentucky, and while there he formed the acquaintance and friend- ship of Colonel William G. Sterrett, at that time a youth of Hawesville, butt who has since become one of the notable representatives of journal- ism of the South. In 1857 Major Harris entered a printing office at Uniontown, Ky .. and after two years spent in that town he returned to Louisville, Kentucky, and became an apprentice on the Louisville Journal. the predecessor of the Courier-Journal, then under the editorship of George D. Prentice. He was engaged in various capacities as newspaper and job printer until 1862, when he enlisted for service in the Confed- erate army with a company of Independent Rangers under command of Captain Clark Christian. He was in active service through Kentucky and Tennessee with that organization until December, 1864, when he was captured in southern Kentucky and taken to Louisville, where he was placed in a military prison. On the 3Ist of that month he took the oath of allegiance to the United States and went north of the Ohio river.
For some time thereafter Major Harris worked as a typesetter in offices and various leading newspapers in New York, Philadelphia, Provi- (lence, Boston and Washington. In the last named city he was proof- reader on the Chronicle, the morning paper there, owned by John W. Forney. He was acting in that capacity at the time of the assassination of President Lincoln, and in this way was brought into closer touch with events of that period and the excitement into which the country was thrown by the act of Booth. Major Harris' service in Washington was during the momentous closing days of the war and he was there at the time of the grand review of the Union troops, which was the most cele- brated military pageant ever seen on the western hemisphere. From Washington he went to Chicago, Illinois, where he became typesetter on the old Chicago Republican and later "makeup" on the Tribune. Again making his way to the capital city he was, in 1866, appointed private sec- retary to Colonel Kellian V. Whaley. congressman from West Virginia. in which position he was brought into acquaintance with many of the prominent men of that time and into close touch with the stirring affairs of the reconstruction period. Upon the adjournment of Congress. Major Harris accompanied Col. Whaley to his home at Point Pleasant, W. Va .. where he began a campaign weekly paper in the interest of Col. Whaley's
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