A history of Texas and Texans, Part 122

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 122

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In 1901 Mr. Higgins organized the Higgins Oil and Fuel Company, operating at Beaumont, and in 1911 he organized the Gulf Coast Oil Company of Houston, of which he is president and general manager. This com- pany is now developing new fields in Texas aud con- trols lands that have hitherto been unsuspected of hidden wealth of this nature but which will, if Mr. Higgins' prophecy does not fail, produce many more millions to the people of Texas. In the light of past and present successes, it would seem that there is no great danger that his promises of profitable development of these lands should not materialize.

Mr. Higgins is an undoubted authority on the subject of oil, and in his History of Oil a number of pages are devoted to an intensely interesting article entitled "The Great Basin, and How Oil Was Formed in the Gulf Coast Country of Texas and Louisiana." In this article he has combined a knowledge of what he terms "text-book science" with the observations of a natu- rally scientific mind after years of close and careful study of surface and other indications, and the result is most interesting and convincing. Certain it is that he has employed his knowledge to excellent purpose and to the undying good of the state in the last decade, with promise of much more to follow along similar lines.

Concerning the birth and parentage of Mr. Higgins, it may be said that he was born in Beaumont, Texas, in 1863, and he is the son of Richard J. and Sarah ( Ray) Higgins. His father was a mechanic by trade, who came to Texas from Georgia in the year 1858 and settled at Sabine Pass. Later he moved to Beaumont, and there he died in 1891. The mother of Mr. Higgins lived until 1905, and witnessed the first years of her son's phenom- enal success.

As a boy Mr. Higgins enjoyed but a meagre season of schooling and when a mere youth went to work for a sawmill company. In 1884 he engaged independ- ently in the timber business, and it was while thus en- gaged that he began to develop an interest in geology as applied to conditions in his district. For some years he devoted his every spare moment to the study of petroleum, oil and gas and all surface indications there- of, so that when he entered definitely into the oil enter- prise he did so well equipped as a result of his study of the subject, bringing to bear the wisdom of a scientist with the skill of a mechanic upon his activities in devel- opment work.

The development work now under way by Mr. Higgins and his company is highly endorsed by men of unim- peachable standing in Beaumont and Houston, and he has in his possession a number of letters bearing testi- mony to his standing and responsibility as an oil expert by men who are of most excellent standing in financial and industrial circles in the south. Among them might be mentioned J. S. Rice, president Union National Bank of Houston; S. F. Carter, president Lumberman's Na- tional Bank of Houston; Sam Park, president American Lumber Company of Houston; H. P. Attwater, indus- trial agent, the Sunset Route, of Houston; Daniel E.

Garrett, Congressman at large for Texas, of Houston; B. B. Gilmer, president of the Chamber of Commerce of Houston; W. G. Van Vleck, vice president and gen- eral manager Sunset-Central Lines, of Houston; W. S. Davidson, president First National Bank of Beaumont; B. R. Norvell, president American National Bank of Beaumont ; and E. A. Fletcher, mayor of Beaumont.

The press of Texas has not withheld its meed of recognition and appreciation of the activities of Mr. Higgins in the oil fields and he is everywhere accredited by the press as the originator and founder of the present enterprise in oil.

Mr. Higgins has compiled an interesting little assort- ment of press clippings relative to the oil enterprise in Texas and Louisiana, with dates under which they ap- peared in the various publications of Houston, Beaumont and other representative cities and many of them are of especial interest in their mention of him and his work. One of them appears under the heading of "Pattillo Higgins Views" in the February 2nd issue of the Beaumont Daily Journal, and is here offered in part as a comprehensive and pertinent commentary upon the standing of the man in oil circles of the state: "Pattillo Higgins, the well known oil man of Houston, spent yesterday in the city. Mr. Higgins states that his drilling operations in the Hockley field are progress- ing satisfactorily, and he is arranging to sink two new wells in the field. Mr. Higgins has the utmost confi- dence in his ability to bring in a good field at Hockley and he proposes to stay with the drilling until he has accomplished this result.

"Mr. Higgins differs from the opinion of Mr. C. H. Markham, general manager of the J. M. Guffey Petro- leum . Company, contained in an interview recently given out by Mr. Markham at San Antonio, that the oil fields of Texas were gradually playing out, and that a durable production was no longer expected. In combating this opinion Mr. Higgius said: 'Texas is only in its infancy in the oil business. Many large gushers will be devel- oped in the coast country of Texas, and some of the new fields will surpass any that have so far been devel- oped, and will surprise the world. In my opinion, other sections of the state will be developed into great paying oil fields at some future day.

" 'There is no reason for consumers of crude oil to fear the fuel problem. Nature has put great quantities of fuel right at our doors and the supply will not be exhausted. This will insure a perennial supply of oil at much lower prices than are now being paid.'

."Mr. Higgins, it will be remembered, was the first to forecast the existence of the great oil pools in the coast country of Texas, and his predictions were ridiculed at the time by wise men and oil experts, the latter making positive statements that oil could not exist in the deposits and formation of the coast country of Texas. Mr. Higgins has devoted his life to the quest of oil fields and in the face of conditions and obstacles which would have discouraged the average man, he has continued to test his theories. He says that Texas is peculiarly favored and that enormous wealth exists in the bowels of the earth in the form of oil fields, which time and enterprise will bring to light."

It is worthy of mention, in the light of the foregoing statements appearing in the press as long ago as the year 1907, that since the appearance of this article five enormously rich and productive oil fields have been brought in, four of them being iu Texas and one in Louisiana, and most of which Mr. Higgins foretold the existence of and aided in their development. In the face of such a record, it is small wonder that Mr. Higgins enjoys so solid a reputation in reputable circles of his native state, and the state is distinctly to be congratulated on the possession of a man who had the foresight and knowledge of nature to bring into being the present industrial conditions that have resulted from his activities in his chosen field.

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Mr. Higgins, who resides at 2208 Crawford street, was married in 1906 to Miss Annie Higgins, of Houston, and to them have been born two children-Gladys Hig- gins and Pattillo Higgins, Jr. He and his wife are members of the Baptist church.

DAVID R. GASS. The men who give of their energy, skill, ambitious vigor and enthusiasm to the building up of a community are the benefactors of humanity, and their names cannot be held in too high esteem. In every undertaking which is to prove successful there must be a logical beginning, and the man who lays the foundations of what afterwards may become a large and flourishing city, must have the courage of his convictions, and an uulimited faith in the future of the location which he selects as the scene of his en- deavors. David R. Gass, on first coming to Northwest- ern Texas, was a man whose keen mind and boundless enthusiasm allowed him to look far beyond the narrow horizon of his day and to easily read the signs of a dawning tomorrow. To him belongs the honor of being one of the founders of the city of Hereford, for some years known also as Blue Water, and the results of his planning, his sacrifices and his work of development live today and will as long as civilization lasts, for be built upon the solid foundation of merit, honesty and faith in humanity. He is still engaged in business here, and oc- cupies the first store built in the city.

Mr. Gass is a Texan and was born in Collin county, September 15, 1848, a son of John M. and Sarah Jane Gass. His father, a native of Tennessee, came to Texas in 1844 and settled on a ranch in Collin county, where be became a leading stockman. Subsequently he opened the first store at Millwood, but sold his interests in that enterprise about 1851 and erected the first meal tread- mill in the state of Texas, continuing to operate this until 1856. Shortly thereafter, in his forty-first year, he passed away. Mr. Gass was the first commissioner of Collin county, and was a man widely and favorably known. He was married in Collin county, his wife hav- ing come to Texas with her parents, and she survived him until 1906, when she died in her seventy-fifth year. They became the parents of two children, of whom David R. was the elder.

David R. Gass received his preliminary education in the little primitive log schoolhouse in the vicinity of his birthplace in Collin county, and later supplemented this by attendance at the high school. He remained with his mother until he attained his majority. He then mar- ried and farmed on his own account for fourteen years in Rockwall county. In 1882 he entered the mercantile business and conducted a store there until September, 1885, then going to Haskell, Texas, where he con- tinued in the same line for the following seven years. December, 1892, found him established in business at Hale Center, Texas, but one year later he went to Tulia, and in 1898 he came to Hereford and erected the first store at this place, being engaged in general merchandise, but afterwards he split up the business and sold the hardware department, also the grocery department, con- tinuing the dry goods, in which business he took his son into partnership. During the fifteen years that he has resided at Hereford, Mr. Gass has seen the little hamlet grow and develop into a flourishing, prosperous city, the center of large commercial interests, an enlightened, educated community, and the home of good citizenship. He has devoted himself energetically to advancing its interests along every line, and has erected many of the buildings here, a number of which be owns. No move- ment for progress has been complete until it has had his name on its list of supporters, and he has withheld his co-operation from no beneficial enterprise. His success in life may be accredited to his own efforts, for when he embarked upon his career he was a poor boy, without influential friends or monetary influence.

On July 1, 1869, Mr. Gass was married to Miss Emma

MeReynolds, a native of Collin county, Texas, daughter of J. M. McReynolds, a pioneer of the Lone Star state. Nine children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Gass, namely: Charles, born July 21, 1870, in Rockwall county, a business man and banker at St. Joe, Texas, and the father of three children; Claude L., born Oc- tober 25, 1873, in Rockwall county, cashier of the First State Bank of Ringgold, Texas, and the father of one child; Nester E., born February 9, 1877, in Rockwall, now associated in business with his father at Hereford; Mrs. Beulah Hutchinson, born June 15, 1881, at Tulia, Texas, wife of a prominent stockman and the mother of three children, still living at Tulia; Mrs. Brissy Me- Intyre, twin of Beulah, born June 15, 1881, at Tulia, now the wife of a well-known druggist of Canyon, and the mother of one child; Mrs. Ima Anthony, born Sep- tember 1, 1886, at Haskell, Texas, the wife of a drug- gist of Canyon and the mother of one child; Miss Dipple, born July 29, 1892, at Haskell; and Miss Mabel, born February 1. 1895. Mr. Gass is a Democrat in his political views, but has had no aspirations for public office.

RICHARD COKE HOPPING. The career of Richard Coke Hopping, sheriff of Parmer county, Texas, has been one replete with experiences of an interesting, and some- times hazardous, nature, with obstacles overcome and barriers of discouragement surmounted. He was left an orphan at a tender age, and his boyhood struggles were hard and unceasing, but he never lost courage and his persistent efforts have finally brought him a well- merited success. Richard Coke Hopping was born Au- gust 20, 1875, at Granbury, Texas, and is a son of Wray and Susan (Nutt) Hopping, natives of Alabama. His father, a well-known Southern planter, came to Texas at an early period and engaged in farming, especially cotton raising. He later left home and has not been heard from for fifteen years, but if still alive would be in the vicinity of seventy-five years of age. His wife' died at Granbury, in 1878, aged thirty-eight years. Of their three children, Richard C. was the youngest.

Richard Coke Hopping was but three years of age when his mother died, and at that time he became a ward of an unele, Jacob Nutt, with whom he made his home at Granbury. There he spent his school days, his vacations and all spare time being passed in the hard work of the farm from the time he was large enough to reach the plow-handles. When his education was completed he began farming and cattle raising for Mr. Nutt, but in 1901 went to Portales, New Mexico, and for five years was engaged in the cattle business on his own account, but in 1906 disposed of his interests there and came to Parmer county. Here he has since been the owner of a fine ranch and is known as one of the leading stockmen of his district. He is a member of the Panhandle Stock Raisers Association, of which he has been inspector during the past two years, and has de- voted himself assiduously to furthering the interests of this influential and progressive body. A Democrat in politics, Mr. Hopping has ever labored faithfully in the ranks of his party, and in 1910, when a strong man was needed to make the race for the office of sheriff, Mr. Hopping was the choice of his party and his sub- sequent election left no doubt as to his popularity. He received the re-election in 1912, and has continued to discharge the duties of his office in an able and efficient manner. He has been called upon at times to officiate in his official capacity on occasions when he was forced to display a high order of courage, tact and disere- tion, and at no time has he failed to vindicate the con- fidence placed in him. He belongs to the Masonic Blue Lodge at Farwell, and is also a member of the Baptist Church.

On January 15, 1892, Mr. Hopping was married in Hood county, Texas, to Miss Lelia Jones, daughter of the late Luke Jones, but reared in the family of

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John R. Jones, a well-known pioneer of Hood county. Seven children were born to this union: La Verna, born in December, 1894, at Granbury, Texas; Flora Best, born in 1897, at Granbury, and now attending school at Milford, Texas; Jacob, born in 1900, at Granbury, and now attending school at Farwell; Earl, born in 1903, at Portales, New Mexico, and now attending school at Farwell; Sidney, born in 1906, at Texico, New Mexico, also a student in the Farwell public schools; Lillian, born in 1908, at Farwell; and Pattie, the baby, born at this place in 1911.

B. E. NOBLES. Among the commercial houses of Parmer county which have added to the business pres- tige of this section of the Lone Star state, that of B. E. Nobles & Son Grocery Company, of Farwell aud Texico, holds prominent place. The founder of this business, B. E. Nobles, is widely known in Texas, belonging to that class of self-made men who value their success all the more because it has been self-gained. His business operations extend over a wide area, and have brought him into contact with a great number of people, repre- senting all spheres and conditions of Western pioneer life. Fertile in resources, the reverses with which he has met from time to time have proved but temporary embarrassments, and every new undertaking has been prosecuted with a zeal and energy which has merited, and usually attained, success.

Mr. Nobles was born in Henderson county, Tennes- see, January 20, 1859, and is a son of W. A. and Eliza- beth P. (Mann) Nobles. His parents, natives of Ten- nessee, were married in that state, and prior to the Civil war Mr. Nobles was one of the well-known plauters of Henderson county. When the struggle between the North and the South broke out, he enlisted in the Con- federate service and met a soldier's death at the battle of Perryville, Kentucky, in 1864, being but thirty-seven years of age. His widow survived him for a long period, passing away in 1904, when eighty-four years of age, having been the mother of five sons and one daughter, B. E. being the fifth child in order of birth.

B. E. Nobles attended college at Spring Creek, Ten- nessee, but left that institution prior to his graduation and returned to his mother's home, where he remained until his nineteenth year. At that time, in 1878, he came to Texas and first settled in Kaufman county, where he was engaged in farming for three years. He then made removal to Lamar county, and there estab- lished himself in the mercantile business, remaining there until 1907. At that time he came to Farwell and established the firm of B. E. Nohles & Son Grocery Com- pany, which has continued to carry on business under the same firm style to the present time. Starting in a small way, it has been gradually developed into the largest business of its kind in Farwell and Texico, and the management of this enterprise has left Mr. Nobles with little time for other pursuits. He has given his thought and attention to his business, but has found leisure to discharge the duties of citizenship, being at this time a member of the board of county commission- ers, and under this administration numerous improve- ments have been made, including the building of roads from the Mexico line to the end of Parmer county. He has found time, also, to indulge in the social intercourse and charitable work of the Masonic order, in which he has passed all the chairs in the Blue Lodge and is now a member of the Chapter and also holds membership in the Woodmen of the World in Lamar county. He has also been active in the work of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Farwell, where he has served for some time as superintendent of the Sunday school.

Mr. Nobles was married first in Kaufman county, Texas, October 20, 1881, to Miss Mattie E. Daniel, who was born in that county, daughter of Dr. T. J. Daniel, and she died in October, 1885, having been the mother of two children-Lola E., who was born in 1882 in

Kaufman county, and now resides at Deport, Lamar county, and J. O., born in 1884, in Kaufman county, now a member of the wholesale house of Nobles Broth- ers, at Dalhart, Texas. In May, 1887, Mr. Nobles was married in Lamar county, to Mary Josephine Baught, daughter of G. C. Baught, of Tennessee, now a well- known resident of Deport, Texas, and two children have been born to this union-Mack D., born August 1, 1889, in Lamar county, in business with his father, and Miss Estelle, born in 1894, in Lamar county, and now a resident of Farwell.

JOHN M. DORRANCE. There are few men in the country who have had a longer and more diversified experience as cotton buyers than John M. Dorrance, head of the firm of Dorrance & Company, cotton exporters at Houston. Mr. Dorrance got his first experience as a cotton buyer nearly fifty years ago, when a boy of about fourteen. There have been very few interruptions to his continuous identification with that line of business since 1866. During a residence at Houston of more than twenty years Mr. Dorrance has extended his activities and influence beyond the strict lines of his private busi- ness, and has associated himself influentially with many concerns and movements which are of a public or semi- public nature.

A New Englander by birth, John M. Dorrance was born at Webster, Massachusetts, in 1852, a son of George W. and Eliza (Bartello) Dorrance. His father held the rank of chaplain in the United States Navy and saw service throughout the Civil war. His death occurred in 1887. The mother was a native of Washington, D. C. After a common school education, John M. Dorrance started to work at the age of fourteen in the cotton business with the firm of R. T. Wilson & Company of New York City. Later Murchison & Company of New York City sent him as their representative to Raleigh, North Carolina, and he later located for the same com- pany at Greenville, South Carolina. His work continued in South Carolina up to 1880, when he was compelled to resign on account of ill health, and since then his home has been in the middle west and southwest. He lived at St. Louis until 1884 and in that year first came to Houston, Texas. After a short time he went to Bryan and had his headquarters as a cotton buyer in that city until 1890. Since the latter year his home has been in Houston, and most of his business activi- ties are centered in this city. In 1897 was established the cotton firm of Dorrance, Neville & Cairnes, which later became Dorrance, Cairnes & Company, and finally took its present form of Dorrance & Company. Mr. Dorrance was one of the vice presidents of the Commer- cial National Bank of Houston until 1908. He then took a similar position with the South Texas National Bank, of Houston, and in 1912, with the consolidation of the South Texas National and the Commercial National as the South Commercial National Bank, he became one of the vice presidents of the new institution and still continues in that office. There are numerous other con- cerns and organizations which might be mentioned as having profited by the relations of Mr. Dorrance with them. Mr. Dorrance has also served as president of the Standard Compress Company from 1898 to 1912, until the plant was burned in the latter year. In 1913 he organized the Shippers Compress of Houston, and is president of this company. He is also president of the Brazos Tile & Brick Company, of Rosenberg, and his financial interests extend to some of the important dis- trict dredging undertakings in this section of the state.

Mr. Dorrance has membership in the Houston Cotton Exchange, of which he was at one time vice president; also a member of the New Orleans Cotton Exchange, and an associate member of the Liverpool Cotton Ex- change. Socially, he belongs to the Houston Club, the Houston Country Club, and the Thalian Club of Houston. Mr. Dorrance and family reside in Courtland place,

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Houston. In 1886 occurred his marriage with Miss Ada Knapp. Her father, Col. John Knapp, of St. Louis, was one of the founders of the great newspaper, the St. Louis Republic. To the marriage of Mr. Dorrance and wife have been born four children, the first two at Bryan, Texas, and the second two at Watch Hill, in Rhode Island. Their names are: Virginia E., John Knapp, Margery, and George W.

HON. JAMES O. LUBY. San Diego, Texas, has no more highly esteemed citizen than the Hon. James O. Luby, ex-county judge of Duval county, who first came to Texas as a soldier in the Confederate ranks. To the great struggle between the south and the north the state of Texas is indebted for some of its foremost men in all ranks of life-men who in all probability would have rounded out their careers in other sections of the country, but whom the fortunes of war caused to seek new fields in which to recuperate their losses and to begin again lives that had been all but shattered in the support of the "lost cause." Here in the new and developing southwest they gathered together the broken threads of life and gallantly fought the battles of peace, eventually forgetting the misfortunes of the past in the successes of the present. Judge Luby identified himself with one of the counties of Texas which at the time was in the isolated borderland of south Texas, and performed a valuable individual share in the development which has since brought Duval material wealth and substantial civil and industrial order.

Judge Luby is an Irishman born in the city of Lon- don, of Irish parentage, in 1846. He lost his father when he was a baby and in 1854 accompanied his mother to the United States, the family first settling in New York, where he received a public school education. From an early age his fortunes became varied and brought him into interesting parts of the western world and into the dangers of military life. In 1861 he was on the Island of Cuba and in April of the same year went to New Orleans, and enlisted in the Confederate army, be- ing mustered into Col. A. H. Gladden's First Louisiana Infantry on April 8th. His regiment was sent to Pen- sacola, Florida, next into Tennessee, and participated in many of the more important engagements in the middle west. Following the battle of Shiloh in 1862 Mr. Luby received his honorable discharge, but re-enlisted as a member of the Fourteenth Louisiana Infantry. His service with this command was soon afterwards inter- rupted by capture, and after getting his parole in September, 1862, he went to the Mexican border at Brownsville. There he joined Col. J. S. (Rip) Ford's famous command, and continued with that frontier branch of the Confederate army until the last battle of . the war, fought at Palmetto ranch in Texas, close to the scene of the first battle of the Mexican war. This engagement took place May 13, 1865, and resulted in a victory for the Confederate army.

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A history of Texas and Texans, Part 122

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