A history of Texas and Texans, Part 100

Author: Johnson, Francis White, 1799-1884; Barker, Eugene Campbell, 1874-1956, ed; Winkler, Ernest William, 1875-1960
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 906

USA > Texas > A history of Texas and Texans > Part 100

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Mr. Garner was married at Canyon, Texas, December 24, 1905, to Miss Ethel Cochell, daughter of Theodore Cochell, a well-known citizen of Hereford, Texas, and to this union there have come two children: Vesta Loure, born November 11, 1906, who died at the age of six months, and Weldon M., born June 12, 1908, in Randall county.

THOMAS D. LOVELADY. A business man, rancher, and publie-spirited citizen, Mr. Lovelady has had a varied and interesting career, most of it spent in El Paso, and from a beginning as a salaried workmau has reached a position of independence.

Thomas D. Lovelady was born in Bell county, Texas, August 16, 1870, being the third of ten children horn to Thomas H. B. and Delilah (Brown) Lovelady. His fa- ther located in Texas in the early sixties and was a farmer and stock raiser, and is now a resident of Arizona, being still active in ranching. He served as a Confederate sol-

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dier during the Civil war from the beginning to the end of hostilities. The father was born in Missouri and is now living on his ranch about twenty-six miles out of Douglas, Arizona, at the age of sixty-seven.

Mr. Lovelady attained his early education in the schools of Bell county; his early career was spent on a farm, where he worked regularly from the age of fifteen to twenty-two, and then left home and began life for himself. He learned the barbers' trade, and followed that occupation for eight years. At the same time he con- ducted a grocery business at Rock Springs, Texas. Selling out his interests there in 1900 he came to El Paso, and spent the first three years as clerk in one of the mercan- tile establishments of this city. During the following six years he was a building contractor, and built many of the residences erected during that time in El Paso and vicinity. In February, 1911, Mr. Lovelady became manager of the Houston Ice & Brewing Company and the San Antonio Brewing Association and still holds that position and has succeeded in building up a very large trade in El Paso for those manufacturing concerns. Mr. Lovelady is also proprietor of a ranch of three hundred and twenty acres in Cochise county, Arizona. He has al- ways taken an active part in Democratic politics and during his residence at Rock Springs, in Edwards county, this state, he served as deputy sheriff for five years. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Benevolent and Pro- tective Order of Elks, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Woodmen of the World, the Loyal Order of Moose, the Improved Order of Red Men, is a member of the Cactus Club and belongs to the Christian church.

On June 5, 1892, at Rock Springs, Texas, he married Miss Mary Lee Cargill, a daughter of Thomas Cargill. the family having been among the early settlers of Texas. Four daughters and two sons comprise the house- hold of Mr. and Mrs. Lovelady. The family residence at the present time is at 3304 Hueco St., El Paso.

NATHAN GRANT, long a resident of Deport, and a man honored and esteemed among his fellows, is the last of his race of the pioneer Grants who founded the family in Lamar and Red River counties. His age and his use- fulness to the community well serve to place him among the old patriarchs of his time, and his unalloyed citizen- ship and patriotic performances entitle him to a living distinction beyond the generation in which he has lived. It is therefore but fitting that mention of him and his family of an earlier generation be given space in a work of the nature and purpose of this publication.

Born in Madison county, Tennessee, on January 6, 1832, Nathan Grant is the son of parents who were hon- orable and upright in their lives, although not blessed with an undue share of material wealth. Spencer Grant was his father, and his grandfather was John Grant. The latter was born in Virginia, there reared, and there he passed many years of his life. He married the daugh- ter of a Mr. Martin, and later took up his abode in Hen- derson county, Tennessee, where he died. His children were named Nathan, John, Stephen, Tabbie, Lottie and

Ann. Tabbie became the wife of William Massey, while Lottie married Claihorn Henry, and Ann died as Mrs. Carrington. Spencer, the progenitor of the subject of this review, was the first-born of the family. He mar- ried Polly Stark, a daughter of John Walter Stark of Robertson county, Tennessee, where she was born in 1797, and the children of their union were Susan, who married Oliver Green and died in Red River county, Texas; Eliza, the wife of Stephen Massey, died in Madrid Bend, Missouri; Stephen, who came to Texas in 1842, lived for a time near Clarksville, and died in Lamar county in December, 1889, aged sixty-eight years. He was the first of the family to reach Texas, and he passed his life as a prosperous farmer and ginman. He mar- ried Margaret Dickson for his first wife. James, who was older than Stephen, followed him to Texas in 1845 and settled in Tutus county. He married Ezivair, a

daughter of Joseph Read of Alabama. James was born in 1814 and died in 1866, leaving four sons and three daughters in Lamar and Red River counties. Archibald came to Texas among the later emigrants of the family, and married first Abigail Spain and then Amanda Pen- dergast. John married Jane Day and died in Red River county. Mary A. married Alexander Munns and died in Lime Stone county, Texas. Nathan is the subject of this review. . Spencer, who hecame a doctor, married Mar- garet Mccullough and died in Erath county. Nancy married Esom Dooley and passed her life in Red River county. William was the third of the family to come to Texas, and his advent into the state was marked by the year 1848. He joined the Sims, a surveying party, in that year, and was killed by Indians in Bastrop county. The mother of this goodly family of pioneers came out to Texas next and settled in Red River county, where she died in 1880.

The father of the family, Spencer Grant, had died in Henderson county in 1850. He had been a veteran of the war of 1812, in which he volunteered for service with his father, John Grant, and served in Jackson's army of riflemen. He was in the battle of New Orleans on Jan- uary 8, 1815, and when the war had ended he was still in fighting mood. His fighting spirit was not quenched until he had given service in Florida against the Creeks and Seminoles and under "Old Hickory" did his full share in the matter of breaking up the trouble upon which these warriors were hent. When the war was over, Spencer Grant retired to his farm in Tennessee, and there passed the remainder of his life.

So much for the family of Nathan Grant. The infor- mation concerning these sturdy people is all too meager, but it will suffice as it stands to show something of the fine spirit that characterized the men of this fine old family.

In the country schools of his native community in Ten- nessee Nathan Grant got a smattering of learning, the three R's constituting the main subjects to which the youth of his day were introduced in the pursuit of edu- cation in the country districts. He was twenty-two years old when in 1854 he joined a party of three other young Tennesseeans bent upon a wagon trip to Texas. Young and enthusiastic, with an ambition to see something out- side the border limits of his state, Mr. Grant, with his friends, crossed the Mississippi river at Memphis, took the Military road to Little Rock, Arkansas, and came into Texas at the mouth of the Mill Creek, where they crossed Red River. They were twenty-four days out from the old home before they saw the faces of those who had preceded them and become Texans in earnest, and the first serious act of Nathan Grant's life in Texas brought him into actual contact with a farm. While he devoted himself diligently to his farm, he watched with growing apprehension the gathering of the war clouds as the controversy over the slave question then up for discussion in Congress became more heated and bitter, and when the call to arms came he had long since reached his decision, and was ready to do a soldier's part in the defense of the southland.

Mr. Grant joined the Eleventh Texas Cavalry under Colonel "Bill" Young, rendezvoused two months at Fort Washita, now in Oklahoma, and then prepared for an Ar- kansas campaign. He was a participant in the battle of Elkhorn and followed orders of the army to proceed to the aid of the Confederates on the east side of the Mis- sissippi river. He took part in the engagement at Corinth, became a part of Bragg's army in the invasion of Kentucky and helped to fight the Richman and Perry- ville battles. In the engagement at Murfreesboro, where he was in the thick of the fight, as usual, he was shot through the leg, captured and sent to Camp Morton, In- diana, as a prisoner of war. He was among the ex- changed prisoners at City Point, Virginia, on May 12, 1863, and was furloughed home from the South Carolina hospital. When he recovered sufficiently of his wound

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to take his old place in the line, he rejoined his command at Dalton, Georgia, on the Atlanta Campaign. General Jo Wheeler was in command, and when Atlanta fell he was on the retreat in front of Sherman's army to Savan- nah, back north into North Carolina, where the battle of Bentonville was fought and the surrender of General Johnston's army soon took place.

The final collapse of the Rebellion served to throw many of the Confederate officers into an apparent panic to escape the possible consequences of their attempt to disrupt the Union, and among the number was General Wheeler. He proposed to bring the Texas soldiers home with the band of refugees he expected to muster for flight into Mexico, but the cordon of Federals was so tightly drawn about the troops in the latter part of the activities of the war that escape was impossible, and when the news of the capture of Jeff Davis, Wheeler and Rea- gan spread abroad, no further effort toward an organized expedition was made, and the command dissolved like the mist. Men chose companions for the lonely journey to saddened homes, and the activities of actual war were over.

Mr. Grant fell in with Lieutenant Barry of Red River county, and they faced their difficulties together. They sold their horses in Mississippi, fearing their later loss to the Negro troops patroling the country along the river, and when they struck the big river they boated to the mouth of Red River and reached home by way of Shreveport, on June 2, 1865.

Although soldiering had been the business of Nathan Grant for more than four years, he had by no means formed the habit of war, as one might say, but was rather willing than otherwise to exchange the sword for the more or less prosaic tool, the plowshare, and he lost little or no time in gathering up the threads of his aban- doned vocation. During the war he had purchased a tract of land, and this he proceeded at once to bring under cultivation and to improve to the best of his abil- ity. He was a bankrupt in all but courage when he donned the garb of a citizen, and his financial condition had not improved when he decided in 1866 to marry. His fiancee, he tells, came nobly to the rescue with the necessary five dollars with which to defray the cost of a license and a pair of gloves for her husband, and he actually borrowed the boots and the suit of clothes in which he took the vows of matrimony. These facts, let it be known, had no power to mar their happiness, and neither ever regretted the courage that prompted them to such a step at a time when the man of today would hesitate and then retreat precipitately from a matrimo- niał alliance under such conditions. They went to house- keeping in a Texas cabin with the conventional puncheon floor common to the cabins of the day, and here his young wife carded and spun the wool that entered into the making of his garments as well as her own, and it was her own hand that fashioned and sewed these gar- ments. He added his share to that part of the duties of the home by making the family shoes for two years. He was not a shoemaker by trade, but he recognized when face to face with the old truth that "necessity is the mother of invention, " and the part of a shirker had no place in his make-up, or in that of his faithful wife. In his farm work, he engaged in a systematic campaign of corn and cotton raising, and year by year stretched · his slender credit to acquire more land. His appetite for that commodity, be it said, grew faster than did his abil- ity to purchase, and when he reached the zenith of his career his tax list showed him to be the owner of eight hundred acres of the fertile black soil adjacent to Deport that is the pride of Texas, and in that vicinity is his present home.

While he was building up his modest fortune, Mr. Grant was also bringing up a family, and he has con- sistently shared his material prosperity with those who aided him in the achievement and in the twilight of his life, the strenuous work of earlier years is reflected in

the possession of every comfort, and in the unalloyed friendship of a whole community of citizens.

Mr. Grant has passed through life without a visible effort toward a political career. He has acted with the Democratic party since he cast his first vote, and has ever taken a deep interest in the Veterans' movement, finding a genuine pleasure in attending the national en- campment of the Confederate Veterans. Notwithstand- ing his advanced years, these scenes seem only to reju- veuate him, and his step today shows the spring of early life and his heart beats quick in unison with the martial strains of other days, while his still sturdy lungs gladly return the lusty shout that greets him from comrades who are living over the incidents of the never-to-be-for- gotten conflict. Mr. Grant has taken a considerable in- terest in affairs in the community of Deport, and is a stockholder in the First National Bank of Deport, and in the same institution in Detroit, Texas. Religiously he holds to the doctrines of Presbyterianism, and his life has given expression to a very worthy desire to serve others while his own mission on earth was being fulfilled.

Mr. Grant has been twice married. His first marriage occurred on February 22, 1866, when Mary Dickson, a daughter of James and Abigail Dickson, became his wife. She passed away on March 30, 1894, the mother of six children, concerning whom mention is briefly made as follows: John D., the eldest, died unmarried; Minnie Abigail is the wife of Frank Bell of Deport, Texas; William S. also lives here; Gertrude, now deceased, was the wife of J. C. Mason of Deport; Charles lives in this community; Archie D. died in 1905, leaving one child. On February 4, 1896, Mr. Grant married Mrs. Laura Grant, the widow of his deceased brother, Stephen Grant. She was a daughter of Leander Bell, and her first husband was L. C. Thomas, by whom she was the mother of three sons -- R. G., W. M. and L. C. Thomas. Two children were born to her and Mr. Grant, Ruby and Lee, both of whom died in childhood.

JOHN M. DAVIS. One of the sterling citizens who have been prominently identified with the development of the admirable agricultural resources of Kaufman county, where he has maintained his home for fully forty years, is John Moses Davis, one of the honored pioneer citizens of the village of Forney. He has been one of the extensive and successful agriculturists of this sec- tion of the state. Within the decade following the close of the Civil war Mr. Davis disposed of his farm in the state of Alabama and came to Texas in search of a more inviting and broader field of endeavor in connection with the great basic industry which had previously engrossed his attention. He made a preliminary investigation of Wise, Collin, Denton, and Jack counties, in search of a favorable location, and finally purchased a tract of fine black land on the rich and undulating plains about the present thriving little city of Forney, Kaufman county, his original purchase comprising seven hundred and twenty-five acres and the place being situated four miles northeast of Forney.

After the lapse of more than two score years the wisdom of Mr. Davis' choice of location has been amply justified. He reclaimed the virgin soil to cultivation and in the earlier years of his career as a Texas farmer he utilized his land almost entirely in the raising of grain, which at first yielded most bountifully, but which eventually proved inadequate in results to assure a due financial profit, under which conditions Mr. Davis showed his fertility of expedient and his good judgment by re- sorting to the raising of cotton, of which line of in- dustrial enterprise he has long been one of the foremost exponents in this part of the state. In a retrospective way it may be noted that Mr. Davis plowed the first furrow on the original tract of land which he pro- cured in the pioneer days, and that his modest dwelling was the first building erected on the tract, for which he had paid $4 an aere. His vigorous campaign of industry

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was not denied a gracious fruition, as his progressive and well ordered operations have given him place as one of the substantial capitalists of Kanfman county, be- sides contributing much toward the civic and material development of the county. He now owns a finely im- proved and most valuable landed estate of 1,250 acres, and virtually the entire traet is under effective cultiva- tion, ready to "bring forth its increase" and to ex- emplify annually the marvelous productivity of the soil. Excellent buildings have been erected on the estate by its owner and among these are the several homes of the various tenants who assist in the cultivation and management of the fine rural demesne. The residence of Mr. Davis stands on an eminence and affords a fine view across the valley and to the village of Forney. The homestead is unique, in that it is practically a collec- tion of cottages that are so joined as to afford con- venient accommodations and to give the impression of consistency as well as substantial permanency, be- sides offering a suggestive picture of the picturesque pioneer days.

Mr. Davis came to Texas from Butler county, Ala- bama, where he was born on the 25th of August, 1837. His early educational advantages were those afforded in the common schools of the locality and period and he was a child at the time of the family removal to Loundes county, Alabama, where he was reared on the homestead plantation of his father and early gained experience in the directing of the labor of the few negro slaves. When the Civil war was precipitated on the nation he was loyal to the institutions under the influence of which he had been reared, and his loyalty forthwith found definite expression. On the 4th of June, 1861, he enlisted in Company G, Ninth Alabama Infantry, and with the same went forth in defense of the cause of the Confederacy. His regiment was as- signed to the Army of Northern Virginia and arrived too late to take part in the initial battle, at Manassas, but with this regiment Mr. Davis participated in the engagement at Williamsburg, the Seven Days' battles, Second Bull Run, and Sharpsburg. In September, 1862, he and other members of his regiment were captured by the enemy while they were defending themselves be- hind a stone pile, and all were removed to the military prison at Fort Delaware, in the immediate vicinity of the city of Baltimore, Maryland. There Mr. Davis was held a prisoner of war during the period through which the great conflict between the North and South con- tinued, and he was not paroled until several weeks after the war had closed. He was released on the day mark- ing the fourth anniversary of that on which he had left his home and started forth as a valiant young sol- dier of the Confederacy, and from New York City he was transferred to New Orleans, on the steamship "Mariposa." From the Crescent City he proceeded by. boat to Mobile, and from there by rail to Greenville, Alabama, and upon arriving at his home he girded him- self to meet the requirements and exactions incidental to reviving the prostrate industries of the Sonth and the winning of the noble victories which peace ever has in store. He found conditions at home better than he had anticipated. His father had succeeded in saving his mules from confiscation by the Federal soldiers and had saved sufficient grain for the propagation of a crop. During the few succeeding years in Alabama bountiful harvests were garnered by the Davis family, the finan- eial condition of which improved with each successive year.

To Mr. Davis a definite and distinct appeal was made by the new country of the great Southwest, with its unbroken prairies and fertile soil. The land was to be obtained at a low price and the lure of Texas proved such that Mr. Davis could not resist. Accordingly. in the early spring of 1872, he set forth to number him- self among the pioneers in a thinly settled section of the Lone Star state. Near the headwaters of the Trinity

River he made investment in land, and here he has maintained his home during the long intervening period of forty years, which have brought in their train opulent prosperity and definite independence to the as- piring young soldier-citizen who thus had the courage of his convictions and was ready to endure the vi- cissitudes that ever fall to the lot of the pioneer. His loyalty to Texas is of the most intense and appreci- ative order and he is proud to call the state his home. He has made occasional visits to the place of his na- tivity, has indulged in a brief sojourn at the home of his elder son, in New Mexico, and has attended various reunions of the United Confederate Veterans' Associa- tion, through affiliation with which he perpetuates the more gracious memories of his army career, but at all times his interests have centered in Kaufman county, Texas, where he is known and honored as a representa- tive citizen of progressive and public-spirted attitude.

Mr. Davis was one of the organizers of the Farmers' National Bank of Forney and is a director of this sub- stantial and well conducted institution, besides which he is a stockholder in several cotton-ginning companies and also in the Forney Cotton, Oil and Gin Company. His political allegiance has been given without reservation to the Democratic party, but he has had no desire for the honors or emoluments of public office. Both he and his wife are devoted members of the Christian church and they are held in affectionate regard in the com- munity that has represented their home for many years.

In December, 1866, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Davis to Miss Julia Peagler, who was born and reared in Alabama, where her father, Artemus Peagler, was a representative agriculturist and highly esteemed citizen. Concerning the children of this gracious union the following brief data are given: Bessie is the wife of John Portwood, of Houston, Texas. By a former marriage there is one son, Mose Elder. Jennie is the wife of M. U. Finley and a resident of Roswell, Chaves county, New Mexico, where he is engaged in farming and horticulture, and they have a son, Davis T., and two daughters, Elsa and Tinie. Polly A. remains at the parental home, and James, who is a cashier of the Farmers' National Bank of Forney, wedded Miss Lucy Jones; they have a winsome little daughter, Helen.

He to whom this review is dedicated is a son of James L. and Elizabeth (Patton) Davis, both of whom con- tinued to reside in Alabama until their death, the father having passed away in 1874 and having survived his devoted wife by seven years. James L. Davis was born in Edgefield district, South Carolina, in 1808, and was a scion of a sterling colonial family. He was a man of inflexible integrity and had enlarged his mental ken through effective reading and other self-discipline which supplemented the meager educational advantages of his youth. His entire active career was one of close identification with agricultural pursuits, though he never conducted his plantation operations on an extensive scale. He was a son of John aud Esther (Little) Davis, and their children were: James L., Adam, Moses, Bettie (Mrs. Daniel Smith), Elliott (Mrs. James Perdue), Nar- cissa, and Melissa, twins, the former becoming the wife of a man named Skaines and the latter the wife of George V. Thaggard; and Andrew, Jack, Robert, and Caroline, the last becoming the wife of Peter Roach.

The wife of James L. Davis was a daughter of John Patton, a planter and slaveholder of South Carolina, and concerning their children the following record is perpetnated: Jane, who became the wife of S. B. Earnest, died in Alabama. John M. is the immediate subject of this review. Rebecca, who became the wife of William Garrett, continued a resident of Alabama until her death. Matthew P., who was a gallant sol- dier of the Confederacy, died in Alabama. Frances, who died in the same state, was the wife of George W. Peagler, and Zack, the youngest of the children, was a youthful soldier of the Confederacy in the Civil war,

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A history of Texas and Texans, Part 100

Author: Johnson, Francis White, 1799-1884; Barker, Eugene Campbell, 1874-1956, ed; Winkler, Ernest William, 1875-1960 Publication date: 1914 Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society Number of Pages: 906

Author: Johnson, Francis White, 1799-1884; Barker, Eugene Campbell, 1874-1956, ed; Winkler, Ernest William, 1875-1960
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 906