USA > Texas > A Twentieth century history of southwest Texas, Volume II > Part 8
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71
Mr. Scott is widely recognized as an enterprising, alert and ener- ·getic business man. He has ever been faithful and prompt in the execu- tion of the contracts entrusted to his care and thoroughly understands his business, knowing how to get the best results with materials and opportunities at hand. His success is well merited and has made him one of the substantial residents of the city.
Mr. Scott was married to Miss Georgia Kirkwood, a daughter of David Kirkwood, who is best known for his enterprise in opening up and developing the lignite coal mines at Kirk, Texas. Mr. and Mrs. Scott have five children: Margaret, Richard Goldie, Jr., Elizabeth J., Georgina and Ethel Hicks Scott.
WILLIAM S. LYNCH. Although Mr. Lynch has been a resident of San Antonio for but a few years, he has already become prominent among the representatives of stock-raising interests in the southwest. He is a native of Jamaica, and brought up at Rugby, Warwickshire, England. In 1887 he went to South America, locating in the Argentine Republic, where he was engaged in the great live-stock interests of that country for nine years. In 1895 he went to the state of Coahuila, Mexico, where he acted as manager of a large ranch until 1903, in which year he came to San Antonio, where he has since been engaged in shipping fine live stock to Mexico. He is a prominent exporter of fine cattle and horses to Mexico from the United States, and he is also an importer of fine stallions from England for breeding purposes in Mexico. This state has long been known as a prominent center for the live stock industry, and Mr. Lynch's experience in this connection well fits him for this business, in which he is meeting with gratifying success.
WILLIAM A. SHAFER, the efficient station master at the Sunset depot in San Antonio, holds and merits a place among its representative citizens. He was born at Camden, Preble county, Ohio, in 1860, a son of John W. and Sarah (Brown) Shafer. The mother died dur- ing the early childhood of her son William, but the father, who was born in Pennsylvania, lived for many years in Preble county, Ohio, and about 1867 removed to Noble, Richland county, Illinois, where he became a merchant. He still resides in that city, an active factor in its business life.
When but a youth William A. Shafer left his father's home in Noble, Illinois, and came to western Texas, where, at Big Springs, a division point of the Texas & Pacific Railroad, he became an employe of that company, and he has ever since been identified with the railroad interests in the Lone Star state. After a few years spent in the western part of the state with the Texas & Pacific Company he severed his rela- tions therewith and became connected with the Southern Pacific. Com- pany, remaining in the train service of that corporation for over twenty years, his last run being as passenger conductor between San Antonio and Sanderson. In 1903, in recognition of his long and efficient service in the passenger department, the Southern Pacific Company appointed
52
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
him station master of the beautiful new passenger station at San An- tonio, which was completed in February, 1905. This position has brought Mr. Shafer not only into close contact with the people of San Antonio, but with the general traveling public as well, adding to the city's reputation as a genial resort for tourists, and his administration of the affairs of the office has made it notable for well ordered regularity, efficiency of service and comfort and convenience to the people.
In Richland county, Illinois, Mr. Shafer was married to Miss Ida McMurtry, and they have one little daughter, Marie. Mr. Shafer is prominent in Masonic circles, being a Knight Templar, a Thirty-second degree Mason in the Scottish Rite and a Shriner.
J. EDWIN BECK is a farmer and stockman living at Adkins in Bexar county. His birth occurred in Jackson county, Texas, July 4, 1843, his parents being Joseph H. and Sarah Jane (Sledge) Beck. The father was born in South Carolina but was partially reared in Alabama, where he lived for several years, coming to Texas in 1837. He was a slave owner and a prosperous planter and stockman. He lived for several years in Jackson county and in 1846 removed to San Antonio, Bexar county, where he died in 1862. On coming to this city he purchased considerable real estate, securing most of it from the father of Augusta Evans, the author, whose family lived in San Antonio in those days. For his home place he had a forty acre tract of land in South Alamo street in what is now a most thickly settled district of the city. He also established a large stock ranch about eight miles east of San Antonio and there in connection with his cattle interests opened up one of the first farms east of the Salado creek.
He was a representative citizen of the best class, active and energetic in business and closely connected with an industry which has been the chief source of wealth to Texas. His wife, whom he had married in Alabama, died in San Antonio in 1877.
J. Edwin Beck was only three years of age when the family removed to San Antonio, so that he was practically reared in this city, where he received such educational advantages as could be obtained in the schools here at that time. Closely following the secession of Texas from the Union and prior to the outbreak of the Civil war he enlisted at San Antonio when only seventeen years of age. This was early in April, 1861, and on the 21st of that month he was mustered in as a member of the First Regiment of Texas Mounted Cavalry, state troops, com- manded by Colonel Henry E. McCulloch, the noted Mexican war veteran and Indian fighter. Mr. Beck was a member of the state troops until they were disbanded as such, at which time he joined the regular Con- federate army as a member of the cavalry. With most of the others of his company he enlisted in Wood's regiment, which was being organ- ized at that time. He served for about twelve months on the Texas frontier, fighting Indians and protecting the frontier settlers, principally in the Concho country and vicinity. About this time his father died and for a brief period he was not connected with the regular service. Later, however, he assisted Hiram A. Mitchell in raising a troop of cavalry, of which Mitchell was elected captain and Mr. Beck lieutenant. He was assigned to Benavides' regiment on the Rio Grande with head- quarters at Eagle Pass, scouting along the Mexican border and meeting
D.S. Combs
53
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
the exigencies of war which arose in that section of the country. He was in service until after the surrender of the Confederate army in 1865 and earned the reputation of being one of the most fearless soldiers in that part of the country.
Following the close of the war he returned to San Antonio and went upon his father's old ranch east of the city, where he commenced raising stock. He devoted his attention exclusively to that business until the country began to be divided and fenced as it became more thickly settled. He then commenced farming in connection with his stock-raising inter- ests and in 1876 removed to his present place at the junction of the Gonzales and Pirie roads about seventeen miles east of San Antonio and two miles south of Adkins. This farm and stock ranch of about one thousand acres is beautifully situated and is one of the best in Bexar county and Southwestern Texas.
Mr. Beck was married in Bexar county in January, 1869, to Miss Lee R. Irvin, who was born in Mississippi but was reared in Bexar county. They have ten children : Jeff D., Mrs. Ella M. Cooksey, Wade Hampton, Harvey Edwin, Russell, Jesse Lee,' Joe, Frank, Zelia and Emma.
In his political views Mr. Beck is a stalwart Democrat of the old school but votes independently, and during all of his life has taken an active interest and somewhat prominent part in politics and public affairs of San Antonio and Bexar county, where he is numbered as an influen- tial citizen ; though he has never sought nor held public office. He is a thinker and student, a man of broad mind, thoroughly posted not only on his business interests but on the general affairs of his country and of the world.
DAVID S. COMBS. Texas derives its greatest wealth from its gi- gantic stock-raising interests and there are in the state many men who in connection with this industry have displayed marked business ability and executive force and have realized through the careful conduct of their business interests a most gratifying measure of prosperity. Among this number in San Antonio is David S. Combs, who owns extensive stock- raising interests in Southwestern Texas and who owes his success en- tirely to his own labors, so that he may justly be called a self-made man. He was born in Johnson county, Missouri, in 1839, the son of David B. and Rebecca (Burruss) Combs. His parents were natives of Kentucky and at an early day settled in Johnson county, Missouri. The father died in that state and with his mother and stepfather Mr. Combs of this review went to Hempstead county, Arkansas, when seven years of age. The fam- ily lived there for eight years and in 1854 came to Texas, locating in Hayes county near San Marcos. That was on the frontier in those days and they had many encounters with the Indians. They were farming people, but, like many of the young men of the country in the early days, Mr. Combs drifted into the cattle business, in which he has since been engaged.
He was a young man of twenty-two years at the time of the out- break of the Civil war. True to his loved Southland, he enlisted in 1861 in the Confederate army, becoming a member of the famous Terry Rangers, cavalrymen, who did such splendid fighting and heroic service throughout the war and in whose honor the beautiful Terry Ranger
54
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
monument is now in course of erection at Austin. Mr. Combs joined this organization at La Grange in Fayette county, the command being mustered into service as the Eighth Texas Cavalry, Mr. Combs belonging to Company D. He was with the Terry Rangers in all their service in Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, and among the most noted battles in which he engaged were those ot Shiloh, Murtrees- boro, Perryville and Chickamauga. He also participated in a number of others of lesser importance and was constantly on active duty. About a year before the war closed he came home on a short furlough and on again entering service he was assigned to duty in the Trans-Mississippi department in Texas and spent the remainder of the time with the Con- federate army on the lower Rio Grande in the vicinity of Brownsville. He was in the last battle of the war about two weeks after the surrender at Appomattox, on the Rio Grande between Brownsville and Santiago de Brazos. He was ever a brave and loyal soldier and met the usual hardships and experiences meted out to those in military service.
When the war was over Mr. Combs returned to San Marcos and began handling cattle. For several years he was engaged in the exciting life of the trail driver, taking great herds of cattle from Texas over the trails to Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Montana and other markets. In 1880 he established a ranch of his own on the South Concho river in Tom Green county near San Angelo, and in 1882 he moved his outfit still further west to Brewster county, which has ever since remained his ranching headquarters. There he has a large and valuable place, con- sisting of about one hundred thousand acres. Mr. Combs is one of the representatives of the old-time cattlemen who have experienced all the ups and downs of the business and he is now enjoying life in prosperity.
Mr. Combs was married in Missouri to Miss Eleanora Browning, and they have three children, namely: Nora Burruss, Lila Alice and Guy St. Clair Combs. In 1898 he established his residence at San Antonio and has one of the most beautiful and commodious homes on Laurel Heights at No. 325 West French Place.
ERICH MENGER, who is living retired from active business and is now serving as one of San Antonio's aldermen, was born in Prussia in 1843. His parents, Simon and Augusta (Schoeniger) Menger, were both natives of Prussia but are now deceased. They came to America and located at New Braunfels, Texas, in 1846, residing there for two years, after which they removed to San Antonio. The father, who was born June 6, 1807, passed away in this city May 1, 1892. In his native country he was a school teacher and professor of music and he continued to devote his time to instruction in music after locating in San Antonio. His son, Dr. Rudolph Menger, is a well known and capable physician of this county, who formerly served as city physician. The eldest son of the family, Oscar Menger, was a Confederate soldier connected with the army of Virginia. He participated in the battle of Gettysburg and died as a result of wounds sustained on that sanguinary field.
Erich Menger was reared in San Antonio, where he acquired a good education, devoting his attention to business pursuits. For a number of years he was a successful soap manufacturer, the Menger soap factory being located at the corner of North Laredo street and Lake View
55
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
avenue. The conduct of this enterprise and his growing trade brought him a large and profitable patronage and with a handsome competence thus won he retired from active business life and is now living in well earned ease.
Mr. Menger was married in San Antonio to Miss Emilie Phillippe, a daughter of Eugene Phillippe. She was born in this city and died April 25, 1901, at the age of forty-seven years. In their family were four children, three are yet living: Mrs. Emilie Bihl; Rudolph and Erich Menger, Jr. Emil W. died at the age of twenty-one. Mr. Menger has been actively connected with public life in San Antonio and his efforts in behalf of the general welfare have been a tangible force in advancing public progress. He was a member of the first city council under the Mayor Paschal administration and is now serving as alderman from the third ward. He is chairman of the committee on streets and bridges, is a member of the finance committee, the committee on parks and plazas and the committee on fire limits. In his public service he has an eye to practical results rather than to glittering generalities. Strong and posi- tive in his democracy, his party fealty is not grounded on partisan prejudice and he enjoys the confidence and respect of all his associates irrespective of party. Opposed to misrule in public affairs, he labors for the welfare of the city along lines of good government, of clean politics and steady progress.
WILLIAM SAENGER, proprietor of pottery works and a cotton gin at Elmendorf, Texas, in which connection he is well known as a repre- sentative of the industrial life of his city, was born at Trenton, New Jersey, in 1875. A spirit of enterprise and determination and ability to recognize and improve opportunities has led him from a region of limited endeavor into a field of broad and successful accomplishment.
His father, Frederick William Saenger, was a native of Rothenburg, Schlesien, Germany, and came to the United States in 1874. Having learned the business of pottery manufacture in his native country, he located at Trenton, New Jersey, where he followed his chosen vocation, Trenton at that time being the center of the whiteware industry in the United States. Still continuing in the pottery business, he resided for a time in Missouri, afterward in Kansas and subsequently at Lavernia, Texas. In 1882 he established the Saenger pottery at St. Hedwig, Bexar county, Texas, the plant being several miles from the railroad, so that the output was shipped in the old Mexican carretas or Chihuahua wagons. In 1885, when the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway, then being constructed from San Antonio to the gulf, was completed as far as Elmendorf, the Saenger pottery was removed to that town, which is situated in Bexar county, sixteen miles southeast of San Antonio. Here the business has remained, gradually increasing in output and im- portance, until now it is one of the prominent industries of Southwestern Texas. In 1882, at the time the pottery was established at St. Hedwig, the output was about ten cars a year, and the growth of the business is indicated by the fact that the annual output is now one hundred cars. The Saenger Pottery Works manufacture jugs, flower pots and various kinds of stoneware and earthenware utensils, and these goods are, by long years of actual test and established trade in the general market,
56
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
equal to any made outside of the state. Fire brick is also manufactured at this plant and the business has grown to large and profitable propor- tions, the excellence of the output securing a ready sale on the market.
Frederick William Saenger, the founder of the enterprise and its manager for many years, sold the business to his son William in 1905. The purchaser, foreseeing the possibilities of the business, immediately organized a stock company, retaining for himself the controlling interest, and built and improved the plant to its present proportions.
William Saenger was reared and educated in Bexar county, acquir- ing a good education in San Antonio, where for several years he was a student in the old German-English school, and in St. Mary's College. At the age of seventeen he left school and afterward engaged in teach- ing for three years at Yorktown in Dewitt county. At a later date he entered into partnership with his father in the pottery and other busi- ness interests at Elmendorf, the firm name of Saenger & Son being assumed and so continuing until William Saenger took entire charge of the business as sole proprietor and his father's successor. In addi- tion to the pottery interests he owns and operates the cotton gin at Elmendorf and handles a surprising amount of cotton at this little town each year, his business furnishing a market to a large number of heavy producers throughout the surrounding district. Mr. Saenger deserves much credit for establishing and building up such a large and important industry in Bexar county, for it is proving of immense value and benefit to the citizens of the locality as well as a source of individual profit to the owners.
Mr. Saenger occupies a pretty home in Elmendorf. He was mar- ried in 1906 to Miss Amelia Wahrmund, a daughter of Colonel Otto Wahrmund, of San Antonio, who is mentioned on another page of this work.
WILLIAM SCHERTZ, the leading merchant of Schertz, Guadalupe county, is a native son of that village and a representative of a family that is widely known as one of the most prominent in the early German settlement of Southwestern Texas. His father, Sebastian Schertz, was born in the province of Alsace, Germany, and came to Texas in 1843, preceding the arrival of the Castro and Prince Solms-Braunfels colonists, which he joined, however, upon their arrival in 1845. During the first two years of his residence in this state Mr. Schertz resided in San Antonio, and then in 1845 he went with the colonists to New Braunfels, where he lived for some time, then locating on a farm on the Cibolo river in the southern part of Comal county. Later, however, he removed to a farm on the Guadalupe river, also in Comal county, about twenty- five miles from New Braunfels. In 1866 with his family he made a long overland trip, in wagons, to Missouri, returning in the fall of the same year, and he then settled in the southwestern corner of Guadalupe county, where it joins Bexar and Comal, there resuming his farming operations, in which he had always met with success. This being a rich
Town of Schertz.
agricultural country, other farmers came in and settled, and after the Southern Pacific Railroad was completed in 1876 a little settlement
57
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
gradually grew up around Mr. Schertz's place, a station and postoffice were established, and it grew into the present prosperous little town of Schertz. Sebastian Schertz passed to his final reward in 1889, but his widow, nee Elizabeth Rittimann, is still living. She, too, is a native of Alsace, having come to this country with the Castro colony. They became the parents of five sons and one daughter, the brothers of Wil- liam being Adolph, Martin, Henry, and Ferdinand, and the sister, Augusta.
William Schertz was born in 1870, and since his early youth has been successfully engaged in the mercantile business. He established his present store at Schertz in 1892, at first on a small scale, but by his well directed efforts the business soon developed into the present large estab- lishment, housed in substantial new brick buildings and carrying large stocks of all lines of general merchandise and farm machinery, repre- senting the best brands of goods and all handled and displayed in a man- ner that makes it the equal of the most modern metropolitan establish- ments. The surrounding country being rich and settled with thrifty and prosperous German farmers makes this business a particularly valuable one, and this young man deserves credit for building up such a success- ful establishment. The Schertz family own practically the entire busi- ness interests of the town, as two of his brothers own and operate the large cotton gin at this place, and they are likewise large owners of land in this vicinity, in Guadalupe and Bexar counties, while William Schertz owns large land interests in Runnels county, and is the present postmaster of his town. The cotton gin was originally established by Sebastian Schertz in 1870, being first operated by mule power and having a capacity of two bales of cotton a day, but it is now a modern, steam- operated plant, with the best equipment of machinery and has a capacity of one hundred bales a day, while during the busy season it frequently turns out that much ginned cotton. Adolph and Martin Schertz are the proprietors of the gin.
John Rittimann, an uncle of William Schertz, is also a well- known pioneer in Southwestern Texas, now making his home at Schertz. He was born in Alsace, came over with Castro's colony in 1845, and with his parents located at D'Hanis, Medina county, Texas, one of the Castro colonies. Here they underwent the most severe hardships of pioneer life, often going for days without proper food, and sometimes without any food at all, but were frequently supplied with deer meat by the Indians, who by kind treatment were friendly and continued to be so until later settlers came in and by their hard manner changed the red- skins into foes and brought on all the subsequent Indian troubles of the sixties and seventies. From D'Hanis the Rittimanns moved to the Cibolo river in Guadalupe county. In 1861 John Rittimann joined the Third Regiment of Texas Infantry of the Confederate army, in which he served for about four years, mostly in Texas, and after the close of the war he settled in Comal county, twenty-two miles from New Braun- fels, where he lived for forty years, coming thence in 1903 to his present home in Schertz.
DR. WILLIAM L. BARKER, superintendent of the Southwestern Asylum for the Insane at San Antonio, was born in Upshur county,
58
HISTORY OF SOUTHWEST TEXAS
Texas, on the 2d of July, 1852, a son of Dr. William O. and Julia A. (Crane) Barker. The father was a native of South Carolina, but came to Texas in 1845, and became one of the best known pioneer physicians in the eastern part of the state. His early educational training was received in the country schools near his home, but later he became a student in Morgan H. Looney's school at Gilmer, Texas, the principal of which ranked at that time with the foremost educators of the south. Mrs. Barker was a native of Mississippi, and both she and her husband died in Upshur county, Texas.
Having decided to make the practice of medicine his life work, Dr. William L. Barker spent two years in preparatory study in the office of his father, after which he entered the medical department of the University of Louisiana, where he graduated on the 17th of March, 1874. In the same year he began the practice of his chosen profession in his native county of Upshur, but in 1879 he left that city for Longview, where he established a drug business in connection with his practice. In 1882 he became a resident of Waco, where he enjoyed a lucrative prac- tice, and in 1885 was elected city health physician, and during the six years in which he filled that position he was influential in having a thor- ough sanitary system established, which resulted in greatly reducing the death rate, the last being only 8.41 per thousand. During that time he also held the position of division surgeon for the Cotton Belt Railroad. Dr. Barker retired from these positions to accept the superintendency of the Southwestern Insane Asylum by appointment of Governor James S. Hogg on the 14th of October, 1891, this appointment following a long and intimate association between the two gentlemen, Dr. Barker having accompanied the governor on his speech-making tour of the north and east near the close of his administration. After retiring from this posi- tion in January, 1895, the Doctor located in San Antonio in the general practice of medicine, where he has been frequently called as an expert witness in insanity cases, as he is generally recognized by the medical profession as an expert in insanity cases. He is also the author of a number of papers on sanitary and public hygiene. In January, 1907, he was returned to the superintendency of the Southwestern Asylum for the Insane by appointment of Governor T. M. Campbell.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.