A history of Texas and Texans, Part 120

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 120

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).

The youngest of six children, Dr. Childers attended school in Cooke and Denton counties. He then en- tered Vanderbilt University at Nashville, Tennessee, where he was graduated M. D. in 1899. His first ac- tivities of a practical kind in the profession were at Abilene, where during four years' residence he built up au excellent practice. Then in 1903 he moved to Floydada and since locating there has been more than successful. He owns his own home, which is one of the best residences in town, and has other valuable city property. During his residence at Abilene he was elected county physician of Taylor county, serving four years. Since coming to Floydada he has served two terms as county physician of Floyd county, his second term ex- piring in November, 1912, at which time he refused the nomination for further service in that position. He has also served as alderman in Floydada from 1910 to 1912.

Dr. Childers is connected with the county and state and Panhandle medical societies. In politics he is a Democrat. He has taken the Knights Templar degrees of Masonry, and belongs to the Knights of Pythias. His church is the Christian. In December, 1900, at Gurdon, Arkansas, the doctor married Miss Katie Burt, a daughter of Willie Burt. Her father is now deceased, and her mother is living. Their one child is named Honerhea Childers, born at Floydada, April 13, 1906, and now attending school.

WILLIAM EDWARD PICKARD, a retired farmer of Kauf- man, Texas, has by his life in this state proved what can be accomplished here by an energetic and persever- ing man who started out with a determination to win success.

Born in Maury county, Tennessee, William Edward Pickard grew up in the Mount Joy neighborhood, four miles west of Mount Pleasant. His birth occurred October 25, 1859, and his educational advantages were limited to the schools close by. He merely tasted grammar, geography and history and in arithmetic he went little beyond its elementary parts. The period of the Civil war militated against him in this matter. He reached manhood, however, with a spelndid physique. good judgment aud an inordinate ambition to succeed at something.

Mr. Pickard's grandparents, William and Millie Pickard, went to Tennessee from North Carolina, where they passed their lives on a plantation which was con- ducted without slave labor. Of their children, three sons and two daughters, we record that Nancy was the wife of Rev. David Jones, a Baptist preacher, and Emily, wife of Harvey Cloyce, lives in Arkansas. One son was named Alexander and another John Sidney. William Pickard died in Maury county, Tennessee. The father of the subject of this sketch was born there in 1831 and passed away in 1901, in Kaufman, Texas. In early life he operated a sawmill and was thus occupied during the Civil war and so missed service in the Con- federate army with his two brothers. After the war he engaged in agricultural pursuits and reared his family on a farm. His widow, Sallie E. (Cooper) Pickard, lives with her son, W. Ed Pickard, in Kaufman, Texas.

Me. Pickard

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She is a daughter of Robert Cooper, of Lewis connty, Tennessee, a public officer and farmer. Her children are E. Josephine, widow of Rev. John King, of Kauf- man, Texas; Laura, deceased, was the wife of Monroe Wyrick; William Edward, whose name introduces this sketch; Mrs. Mary E. King, deceased; and Cora Lee, who died unmarried.

Ed Pickard, as he is familiarly known, seems to have made little progress financially back in the old state of Tennessee when he married, and he chose to start his career with a wife among strangers in Texas. When he reached Dallas, December 19, 1885, he found his cash resources amounting to $9.75. He fell in with "Par- son " Hughes at Dallas, who rented him land and "furnished him" entirely the first year. While he made a crop of thirty-five bales of cotton, fifteen hun- dred bushels of corn and some other grain, he had domestic misfortune. Death entered his home and claimed his wife, leaving him with an infant daughter. He began the second year with his widowed sister and family as his companions and had two teams and ample provision to carry himself through the season. Misfor- tune in the way of sickness now attacked him and kept him out of the field until nearly fall, but when the year's business was footed up he found himself master of the situation, and he remained on that farm another year.

In 1888, Mr. Hughes came to Kaufman county and purchased a farm of twenty-five hundred acres, of which he placed Mr. Pickard in charge. By this time Mr. Pickard had become able to carry himself easily and he experienced a fair degree of independence. A few years Jater Mr. Hughes offered to sell out to Mr. Pickard, seeing that he was in a position to buy; but Mr. Pickard declined to pay the price, $15,000, for the two thousand five hundred acres, and continued to remain a tenant. He did a large amount of substantial improvement, paid $500 a year rent and the taxes on the farm and bought the premises after fourteen years for $40,000.

During the progress of the years of independence Mr' Pickard improved his opportunity to speculate in land in Texas. He owns a ranch of thirty-five hundred acres in Toyah Valley and is interested with Spikes Brothers and W. A. Nash in a cattle ranch in King county. He cultivates eight hundred acres on his farm in Kaufman connty, personally overseeing the work by telephone and automobile. He is a director of the First National Bank of Kaufman and of the same institution in Crandall, in both of which he owns stock, and he is a stockholder of several ice plants. His home in Kauf- man is the old M. H. Cossett property which occupies an eminence north of the city proper and overlooks a vast stretch of country to the north.

Mr. Pickard has membership in the fraternal orders of Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias, and his religious creed is that of the Methodist church.

His first marriage, which was in 1885, was to Miss Belle Beckum, a daughter of Robert Beckum. Mand, the little daughter she left, is now the wife of William Youngblook and resides on a Kaufman county farm. In January, 1907, Mr. Pickard married Miss Dixte Pickard, a daughter of G. N. Pickard, of Tennessee, and a distant relative of his. To them have been given two children, Polly and James E., of whom the latter died in May, 1913.

HALBERT C. RANDOLPH. A successful legist of Plain- view, Halbert C. Randolph has been engaged in practice at this place since 1901, and is recognized as one of the leading members of his profession in Hale county, having attained high distinction in the line of his chosen calling. With strong intellectual endowments, laudable ambition and resolute purpose, he has achieved enviable success and has won the favorable criticism of his professional brethren as well as the confidence of the public. Halbert C. Randolph is a Texan, born

in the city of Anstin, September 22, 1861, a son of Cyrus H. and Susan (Nowlin) Randolph. On the pa- ternal side he is descended from English ancestors, the progenitor of the family in America being Peyton Ran- dolph, of Virginia, a Revolutionary soldier and presi- dent of the first Colonial Congress organized after the declaration of separation. On the maternal side Mr. Randolph's forebears were early South Carolinians of Irish descent.

Cyrus H. Randolph was born in the southern part of Illinois, but when a child of three years was brought to Alabama by his parents, Jesse and Susanna (Halbert) Randolph. In that state he received his education and was reared to manhood, in 1838 coming to Texas. Five years later he joined the famous Snively Expedition, which crossed the plains on a secret journey for the Texas Government. Later Mr. Randolph, who was a lawyer by profession, hecame very active in political affairs. He served as sheriff of Houston county, was later elected county judge, and after serving four terms as representative of his district in the State Legislature, was elected state treasurer, an office he held during the Civil War period. His death occurred at Austin in September, 1889, when he was seventy-two years of age. He was married in Texas, in 1848, to Miss Susan Nowlin, daughter of P. W. Nowlin, born and reared in Missouri, who came to Texas in 1848. She passed away at Austin in September, 1911, when eighty-two years of age. Mr. and Mrs. Randolph were the parents of five children: P. D., who died in 1883; Judge J. C., whose death occurred in 1910; Miss Anna, a resident of Alvin, Texas; Halbert C .; and Miss Lulu, who also sur- vives and makes her home at Alvin.

Halbert C. Randolph received his early education in Prof. Jacob Biekler's private academy at Austin, Texas, and graduated from the law department of the Uni- versity of Texas in 1885. During this same year he was admitted to the bar, and at once entered upon the practice of his profession at Coleman, Texas, where he resided until 1901. In that year he came to Plainview, and here he has continned to pursue his profession, limiting himself to a civil practice. He devotes his entire attention to his profession and has no outside connections, and although long considered one of the leading lights of his vocation, and a man of scholarly ability and learning, he is, withal, one signally free from ostentation, and has never desired nor accepted publie office. He has shown an interest in fraternal matters, being a member of the Blue Lodge of Masons, high priest and past high chief of the Royal Arch Chap- ter, and a member of the Knights Templar, and also stands high in Oddfellowship, being a past grand of that order. He belongs to the Chamber of Commerce and assists its members in forwarding movements for the benefit of his adopted community. His religious connection is with the Christian church, where he is a member of the board of directors and of the finance committee.

On August 23, 1887, Mr. Randolph was married first to Miss Lucille Beaumont, who was born in Washington county, Texas, daughter of G. H. Beaumont, an old settler of that county and highly esteemed citizen. Mrs. Randolph died in April, 1893, at Coleman, Texas, when but twenty-eight years of age, having been the mother of one son, Peyton B., born at Coleman, May 24, 1888, who is now associated with his father in the practice of law, the firm style being Randolph & Randolph. He was admitted to the bar in 1909, and is considered an attorney of promise. On June 5, 1895, Mr. Randolph was married at Coleman, to Miss Anna Blackburn, who was born in Texas, daughter of W. P. Black- burn, a pioneer of this state. One son has been born to this union, Leslie N., born May 15, 1902, at Plainview.

ELWIN H. HUMPHREYS. The career of Elwin H. Humphreys illustrates most forcibly the possibilities

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that are open to a young man who possesses sterling business qualifications. It proves that neither wealth nor social position, nor the assistance of influential friends at the outset of his career, are at all necessary to place a young man upon the road to success. It also proves that ambitious perseverance, steadfastness of pur- pose and indefatigable industry, combined with sound business principles, will be rewarded, and that true success follows individual efforts only. Mr. Humphreys was born at Gilmer, Upshur county, Texas, June 17, 1872, and is a son of Benjamin T. and Elizabeth (Rogers) Humphreys.

Benjamin T. Humphreys was born in Alabama, and there was engaged in farming until the outbreak of the war between the states, when he eulisted for service in the Confederate army, in the ranks of which he fought valiantly throughout that struggle. He participated in numerous hard fought engagements, but succeeded in going through the eutire war without being wounded or captured. When peace was declared, he sought a new home in the growing Southwest, choosing Upshur county, Texas, as his field of endeavor, and being one of the organizers of that county. He engaged in stock raising and became fairly successful, and was well and favorably known among his fellow-citizens who elected him sheriff of his county for two terms. His polities were those of the Democratic party, and his religious faith that of the Baptist church. His death occurred when he was seventy years of age, in 1896, at Dallas. Mr. Humphreys married Elizabeth Rogers, who was born in Mississippi and came to Texas during the early sixties with her parents. She still survives her hus- band and is a resident of Dallas, being the mother of six children, of whom Elwin H .. is the next to the oldest.

Elwin H. Humphreys was given but meager educa- tional advantages, the greater part of his education hav- ing been obtained in the schools of hard work and ex- perience, as he was but seven years of age when he commenced to make his own way in the world. At that tender age he secured a position as cash boy in the store of Sanger Brothers, at Dallas, Texas, his salary being at that time $2.50 per week. At the start he showed himself ambitious, faithful and quick to learn, and as his services were recognized and appreciated, he was promoted and given a larger salary. During the years that followed he went from position to position and from one establishment to another, always better- ing himself, and applying himself conscientiously to his work, thus perfecting himself in every detail of the mercantile business, which he had chosen for his life work. Mr. Humphreys had ever been careful with his earnings, knowing well from personal experience the value of a dollar, and by the time he was twenty years of age he was able to realize his ambition of being the proprietor of an establishment of his own, opening a grocery at Colorado City, Texas. The young merchant met with success from the start, the excel- lence of his goods, his evident desire to please, and the progressive and original manner in which he placed his goods before the public, all combining to attract a large and paying trade. He continued to carry on this business at Colorado City for ten years, and then, receiv- ing an advantageous offer, disposed of his interests there and came to Plainview. Here he became finan- cially interested in the Donohoo-Ware Hardware Com- pany, where he was influential in increasing the capi- tal from $20,000 to $100,000, and two and one-half years later this business was incorporated. Since 1906 he has been secretary and treasurer of the firm, of which W. H. Fuqua, of Amarillo, is president. This is the largest business of its kind in this section of the state, employing eight salesman, and occupying a new and modern building, 75x120 feet, built especially for this enterprise. Mr. Humphreys' close attention to and sagacious management of this business, has insured its success, and he has become widely known and regarded

with confidence as a man fair and honorable in his dealings and true to all obligations; a safe man, whose operations are reasonably sure to succeed. He has con- nections with a number of commercial enterprises and has invested heavily in land. Mr. Humphreys is a meni- ber of the Plainview Commercial Club, and his fraternal connections are with the Elks, the Woodmen of the World aud the Pretorians.

In 1895 Mr. Humphreys was married at Colorado City, Texas, to Miss Jennie Rix, who was born in Wis- consin, daughter of J. L. Rix. Two children have come to them: Jennie Rix, born September 6, 1897, at Colo- rado City; and Elwin H., Jr., born June 18, 1910, at Plainview.

PIERCE P. LANGFORD. One of the men who has done a big part in the building up of Wichita Falls from a small and inconspicuous village to one of the leading commercial centers of the state is Pierce P. Langford, who has speut nearly thirty years in this locality, and from a clerk in a wholesale house has become promi- nent as an executive and official in half a dozen or more financial and business institutions.

Boru at Newberry, South Carolina, October 24, 1861, he was twenty-four years old when he came to Wichita Falls in 1885. His first position was as bookkeeper in the wholesale grocery house of Kemp, Stinnett & Mall. After four years with that firm his services were trans- ferred to public office, when he was elected county treas- urer of Wichita county. He was kept in that place by re-election for four successive terms of two years each. Then in 1898 he became identified with the City Na- tional Bank as cashier. From that time to the present he has been one of the best known bankers of North Texas. He acted as cashier of the City National from 1898 to 1911, and was then chosen vice president and director, an office which he still holds. Mr. Langford is a director in the First National Bank at Burkbur- nett, of the First State Bank of Electra, of the First State Bank at Newcastle, and also a stock holder and director in nine other banking institutions in Texas and Oklahoma. He is president of the Wichita Ice Company, which is one of the important local manufacturing in- stitutions of Wichita Falls. He is a director in the Wichita Southern Life Insurance Company, in the Wich- ita Falls Investment Company, the Wichita Falls Bot- tle Manufacturing Company, and his name is connected in some capacity or other with many other important enterprises in this city.

The parents of this well known Wichita Falls busi- ness man were Asa and Sarah (Sawyer) Langford. The father was born in South Carolina, and before the war was a large land owner and possessed many slaves and was accounted one of the prosperous stockmen and planters of the vicinity. He was greatly impoverished by the war, and gave his life for the cause of the Con- federacy. He enlisted and fought in many of the bat- tles of Virginia, and died during the siege of Richmond at the age of forty-eight years. The mother was also born in South Carolina, was reared, educated and mar- ried in that state, and belonged to an old and dis- tinguished southern family. Her death occurred in South Carolina in 1898 at the age of seventy-one years. There were four sons and three daughters and Pierce P. was the youngest of the family. He never saw his father, who died away from home a year or two after the birth of this son. As a boy he attended the public schools of South Carolina, and also graduated from the Newberry College. Owing to the unsettled condition of the war times and the years following, and the losses it inflicted upon his family, he had to begin work when a very young boy, in order to help support the household, and has been a hard worker all his life. From such be- ginnings he has finally reached a position where he may be properly regarded as one of the leading men in influ- ence and wealth in his section of the state.

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Mr. Langford is affiliated with the Masonic Order, having attained the various degrees of the York Rite and being a member of the Mystic Shrine, and is affili- ated with the Knights of Pythias, the Improved Order of Red Men, and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. In politics he is a Democrat, and his church is the Methodist, in which his wife is a very active member. At Huntsville, Texas, October 17, 1907, Mr. Langford married Miss Lula Hyatt, a daughter of Major Ben and Elizabeth Hyatt. Her father was one of the well known early settlers of this section of Texas, en- listed and made a gallant record in the Confederate army, and is now deceased, while his widow lives in Wichita Falls. The three children born to Mr. and Mrs. Langford are: Pierce P. Langford, Jr., born at Wichita Falls, August, 1908; Ben Langford, born in September, 1909; and Sarah Elizabeth, born in No- vember, 1912.

CHARLES HOUSTON VEALE. The Veale family has been prominent in the Texas bar for many years. Judge Veale is one of the leading lawyers of Amarillo, and his son named at the beginning of this paragraph is now identified with the Floyd county bar, and one of its ablest junior members.

Charles Houston Veale was born in Breckenridge, Texas, October 3, 1888, a son of John W. Veale, for a number of years has been one of the leading members of the Potter county bar. Judge Veale represented his district in the forty-first and forty-second state legis- latures, and has been one of the leaders in Democratie politics and civic affairs. He also served on the district bench. The maiden name of the mother was Lucy Lee Crutcher, who was born in Texas, a daughter of Rev. Crutcher, an old settler of Stephens county, and long a Baptist minister. The mother died in 1891 at Brecken- ridge. There were three children in the family, namely: Lottie May, wife of Joe A. Wheat of Seymour; Charles H .; and Lucile, wife of H. J. Houser of Amarillo.

Charles Houston Veale was reared in Amarillo, where he attended the grade and high schools, graduating from the latter in 1905. He then entered the University of Texas, where he spent two years as a student, and com- pleted his law studies in his father's office. He was ad- mitted to practice July 5, 1910, and was at once taken into partnership in his fathers firm, known as Veale, Davidson & Veale. In September, 1911, he left to take up his residence and begin independent practice in Floydada. Mr. Veale is a Democrat and a worker in party and civic affairs. He is affiliated with the Ma- sonic Order and the Modern Order of Pretorians, and belongs to the Potter county bar association, and the state and American Bar Association. His church is the Baptist. On December 18, 1912, Mr. Veale was married in Kansas City, Missouri, to Miss Pattie Irene Easling, a native of Bonaparte, Iowa, a daughter of H. L. Easling. During his residence in Amarillo, Mr. Veale served in the Texas National Guards, holding the place of sergeant in his company.

GEORGE A. WEBSTER, born at Lime, New Hampshire, January 11, 1845, was the second son of Daniel Noble Webster and a direct descendant of Hon. John Webster, who came to Hartford, Connecticut, with the first set- tlers, a member of the General Court in 1637, a Magis- trate in 1639, Deputy Governor in 1655 and Governor of Connecticut in 1656. His father was a prominent merchant and banker of Conneaut, Ohio, and his boy- hood days were spent there and at other points on Lake Erie until he enlisted at Greenfield, Huron county, Ohio, August 15, 1862, as a boy soldier in the war between the north and the south. During the war he took part in nine hard fought battles and numerous skirmishes. He was taken prisoner at Winchester in June at the time of Milroy's defeat, and was placed in Libby prison but was later transferred to Belle Island. In July of

the same year he was paroled. At Berryville, Shenan- doah Valley, Virginia, September 3, 1864, he was again taken prisoner and was held until February or March of the following year, was at Lynchburg and Salsbury, North Carolina. He was sergeant of Company C, 123rd Ohio Volunteer Infantry, and at one time was given charge of his company, but his youth prevented hin from being commissioned as captain. He was mustered out at Camp Chase, Ohio, June 12, 1865. He was a member of the Richard J. Oglesby Post, No. 6, G. A. R., of Dallas, Texas. His mother, Lois (Swain) Web- ster, was his father's second wife; she afterwards be- came the wife of G. C. Wright, and the last years of her life were spent at Norwalk, Ohio.

After the close of the Civil war Mr. Webster engaged in the insurance business at Alliance, Ohio, where he met Miss Mary Frances Garrison, a native of Ohio and the daughter of James W. and Amanda (Rhodes) Gar- rison, and in July, 1869, they were married at Pitts- burgh, Pennsylvania. Her father was an able writer and editor and for many years was a prominent pub- lisher and well known and an active worker in the ranks of the republican party in Ohio, being a close friend of President Mckinley and enjoying the distinction and honor of having nominated him for his first public office.

Mr. Webster's identification with Dallas and the Loan Star state began in 1875. He had sold his insurance business, and was then representing a very prominent company who were the large manufacturers of fire- arms and sewing machines in the east, when they sent him to Texas from St. Louis to represent them in this large territory where every one was supposed to own a six-shooter or some other kind of gun. The state soon afterwards passed laws prohibiting the carrying of pistols and as the merchants then stopped buying very large bills of such goods, Mr. Webster devoted his entire time to the sewing machine business for a number of years, having Texas and north Louisiana as his terri- tory, with his headquarters at Dallas. Afterwards he embarked in the musical merchandise business together with sewing machine supplies, etc., but soon returned to the road, representing a St. Louis firm of manufac. turers of jail cages or cells, with whom he was con- nected for fourteen years prior to his death. He died at Robert Lee, the county seat of Coke county, Texas, while on an important trip in the interest of that com- pany, June 10, 1907, and was laid to rest in Oakland cemetery in Dallas, Texas, with Masonic houors, June 13, 1907.

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A history of Texas and Texans, Part 120

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