A history of Texas and Texans, Part 127

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 127

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).

While a resident of Erie, Pennsylvania, Dr. Palmer was married to Miss Mary Lewis, who died in Palestine, Texas, leaving a son, Charles W., of Oklahoma City, a jeweler, and married. Dr. Palmer was married at Navasota, July 16, 1898, to Miss Minnie Meinike, and a son, Albert Whitworth, has been born to this union.

GENERAL WEBSTER FLANAGAN. Of the surviving "elder statesmen" of Texas, none is better known and entitled to more distinction for his past services than General Webster Flanagan, of Henderson, Texas. He is one of the few remaining publie men of the old regime of republicans in the Lone Star state, and a character among the active and forceful participants in state affairs from and after the Civil war until his recent re- tirement from a federal office. He is the only brigadier general now living appointed by Sam Houston. General Flanagan belongs to the era of pioneer settlement during the republic, was a participant in the events that filled Texas history during the Confederacy, espoused Repub- lican policies when the war ended because of the prin- ciple of protection, entered actively into reconstruction politics, sat in the law-making bodies of the state as a representative from his section during the military and republic rule following the war, has been the recip- ient of favors from the various Republican national ad- ministrations in federal offices and has been a delegate to more national conventions of his party than any other man in the United States. As one still living from the old times, General Flanagan merits special recognition in these pages, but at the same time the memorial of history should be extended to include his father, who was in his time hardly less prominent as a factor in larger politics.

Webster Flanagan was born in Breckenridge county, Kentucky, January 9, 1832, and was eleven years old when he came to Texas with his father, Major James W. Flanagan in 1843. In 1844, the family home was estab- lished at Henderson. Grandfather Charles Flanagan made a record of which later generations are proud, as a soldier of the Revolutionary war, and was at one time in charge of a supply train for the colonists. In Kentucky after the war, he was a blacksmith at Clover- port, and a flatboat man, and on the return home on one trip down the Mississippi River he contracted cholera, and died in 1840.

Major James W. Flanagan was born in Albermarle county, Virginia, September 7, 1805, and in 1815 ac- companied his father, Charles to Kentucky, settling nc Boonesboro. A few months of his boyhood was spent in attendance at the "Old Field Schools," but after that his education was of a practical business nature and self-acquired. For a few years after reaching man- hood, he was a horse dealer along the line of Virginia and Kentucky, subsequently opened a stock of mer- chandise at Cloverport, doing a successful business, and finally engaged in the river transportation industry which in that era before railroads was one of the most important undertakings to which men of enterprise directed their energies. Eventually he acquired proprie- torship of a flotilla of flatboats on the Ohio River, and each year sent these boats ladened with hoop-poles, staves, bacon, beeswax, and other common products of the country adjacent, down the currents of the Ohio, and into the Mississippi, as far as New Orleans, where the flatboats were sold for the lumber contained in them, and the proprietor and his men usually found their way back home on foot, the entire distance of six hun- dred miles or more. That was his steady vocation, until the battle of San Jacinto had been fought on Texas soil and had brought liberty to the patriot Texans, and then his heart became set on Texas, and he sold out, making arrangements to transfer his residence to the new republic.

Major Flanagan went by boat as far as Shreveport, and then to Slabtown, on the seventeenth meridian, sep- arating Louisiana and Texas, where he established him- self as a farmer and merchant. The following year in 1844, and on the ninth day of August, he reached Henderson, which was then a pioneer community. While in Kentucky, Major Flanagan served as justice of the peace and that office gave him a fair knowledge of the law, so that when he located in Henderson, his prac- tice of the law went along with storekeeping and farm- ing, and dealing in land. As a lawyer he acquired a reputation especially as a successful defender of causes. His investment in lands extended widely, and his hold- ings included several thousand acres about Henderson.

During the war Major Flanagan submitted reluctantly to the part Texas took, and the state went out of the Union in opposition to his advice and counsel. Before the war he had become a factor in politics, and was elected to the lower house, and later to the Senate. Among his varied services as a legislator, should be mentioned the introduction and work in securing the passage of the bill that gave Texas its first insane asy- lum, and secured an appropriation for the organization and maintenance of that institution. He also secured the passage of a bill chartering the Galveston, Houston & Henderson Railroad, which was never completed. As to his early political affiliation, he possessed the old Whig doctrine of internal improvement by the central government, favored a national bank and a protective tariff, and during the fifties, and in the early sixties, stood with Sam Houston, with whom he was on inti- mate terms of friendship in opposition to secession. With the outbreak of the war he retired to his farm, established a tanyard, and furnished under contract large quantities of leather to the quartermaster 's depart- ment of the Confederate government. When the war

2004

TEXAS AND TEXANS

ended with the result that he had forecast, be gave every evidence of his love for his home people, and with his son saw that they were properly treated, and in the neighborhood over which his influence was most potent during the years following the war, no one can now be found who suffered as others claimed they did suffer from the acts of the federal soldiers. And as an evidence of the esteem for bim among his fellow citizens, and an acknowledgment of his. con- duet and efforts in their behalf, Major Flanagan and J. H. Parsons, a prominent lawyer, and a partisan se- cessionist, were both elected from Rusk county, to the reconstruction constitutional convention of 1866. The acts of that constitutional convention were not recog- nized by the United States Government, and the State of Texas was accordingly placed under a provisional governor, A. M. Pease, dominated by General Reynolds, and Governor Throckmorton was deposed from office. Under that military rule another constitutional con- vention was held in 1868. and both Major Flanagan and his son were chosen as delegates to that convention. At the election following the ratification of the Consti- tution of 1868, and its acceptance by the federal gov- ernment, E. J. Davis was elected governor, James W. Flanagan lieutenant governor, and Webster Flanagan was elected to the state senate. Such was Major Flanagan's standing in bis state, that the legislature of 1869 elected him and Morgan C. Hamilton to the United States Senate, where Senator Flanagan served until March 4, 1875, when succeeded by John Bell Maxey of Paris. In his service in the United States Congress, Major Flanagan was chairman of the committee on post offices and post roads, and was always a friend to Texas people.

Following his retirement from the United States Senate, Major Flanagan left active politics and was not again in political life. His personal affairs, which were extensive, required bis attention, while be yet lived, and his death occurred in Longview, September 19, 1887. He is buried beside his first wife in Henderson, in the family plot which was established in 1844 when he lost his first wife. Major Flanagan was in religion a Mis- sionary Baptist, and fraternally affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. Major James W. Flanagan was three times married. His first wife was Polly Miller Moorman, a daughter of Rev. James T. L. Moorman, a Baptist preacher in Kentucky, and a niece of Bishop Jobn Early of Virginia. The children of that marriage were: Laura, who married Ben Smith and died at Henderson; Webster; Charles, who died as a child in Harrison county, Texas; Marian, who married Dr. A. Gates and died in Henderson; Frances, who is Mrs. S. G. Swan of Henderson, and she and General Flanagan are the two oldest residents of that city. The second wife of Major Flanagan was Mrs. Ware.

General Webster Flanagan grew up in Henderson, was educated there in the public schools, read law under his father, and in 1851 at the age of nineteen was ad- mitted to the bar under special act of the legislature permitting Roger Q. Mills and Webster Flanagan to practice law. His entrance into the practical work of bis profession was immediate, and was continued with- out interruption until the beginning of the Civil war. General Flanagan served in the Confederate army, though be was opposed to the dissolution of the Union, and when the final surrender occurred, be accepted its result as a foregone conclusion, and entered into the reconstruc- tion movement in the hope of being able to render some aid in ameliorating the afflictions from which the former Confederate soldiers of the state were almost inevitably bound to suffer.

His election to the constitutional convention of 1868, marked his active entry into polities as a Republican, and the beginning of bis long career in public life. In that election he ran twenty-five votes ahead of his father, and when a member at Austin reproved bim for some

evidence of forwardness, tending to place himself ahead of his ancestor, he replied to the criticism, with a re- mark that he was the senior member of the delegation from Rusk county, having polled twenty-five more votes than his colleague, his father. The nomination which came to bim as associate of his father, gave him great pleasure, and it is one of the rare occurrences in political life that a family should have both father and son participating in the same body where a constitution for the Commonwealth was being made. His election to the state senate enabled him to add bis vote to the majority given to his father as candidate for the United States senatorship, and that likewise is an bonor seldom given to a legislator. The Twelfth legislature in which he served was called the "Reconstruction legislature." and he was chosen by the senate as lieutenant governor as the successor of Don Campbell. Before his election to the lieutenant governorship, he was chairman of the committee on internal improvements, and it is a matter of record that he reported from the committee more rail- road legislation than ever came from that committee in any other legislature before or since. After a service of a year as presiding officer of the senate he was returned to the senate from his county in 1874, and when the election for the constitutional convention of 1875 was called he was elected a delegate to that body, and thus like his father, participated in the deliberations of two constitutional couventions of Texas. When his term ex- pired in the senate be was not again a candidate and retired to take up a business career. General Flanagan became prominent in promoting the Henderson & Overton Railroad, in 1876 was elected president of the railroad company, and so continued until the line was sold to the International and Great Northern in 1882. In the latter year came his appointment as collector of internal revenue for the Fourth Texas district, with headquarters at Henderson, In 1885 President Cleveland declared him an "Offensive Partisan," and retired him from office. In the four years interim, his attention was given to private business affairs, and soon after bis inauguration, President Harrison appointed him col- lector of customs at El Paso, an office he held until the second coming of Cleveland. The President seemed dis- posed to leave the General in undisturbed possession of his office, but the latter resigned and again resumed private life.

In the campaign of 1896, General Flanagan was very energetic in supporting the candidacy of William Me- Kinley for the presidency, and secured a delegation of Republicans to the national convention at St. Louis in perfect harmony with the MeKinley aspirations. A number of years before General Flanagan had made the acquaintance of the great tariff legislator, had sat in several national conventions with him, and knew and sympathized with his political convictions and principles perhaps as closely as any other man in the party. After Major MeKinley's election, it was well understood that General Flanagan might select any federal place in Texas, within the gift of the president. Thus the office of internal revenue collector of the Third District came to General Flanagan, that selection having been made because its headquarters were at Austin, where a resident had particular advantages for bis fam- ily, in the good public and private schools, and the State University. General Flanagan has always been one of the warmest friends and supporters of the State University. When the entire state of Texas was made into one revenue district, the General was retained as collector, and was reappointed by President Roosevelt, and by President Taft, and filled the office until Septem- ber 1, 1913, a period of almost sixteen years.

There is perhaps one exception to the statement that General Flanagan bas attended more national conven- tions than any other man in the United States, but even so, his experience in this respect is one of the note- worthy facts of political history. His first service as a

2005

TEXAS AND TEXANS

Republican delegate was in the national convention of 1868, when General Grant was the nominee of his party; however, at that time the delegation from Texas was not seated because the government had not accepted the state constitution of 1866. In 1872 General Flanagan was a delegate to the convention at Philadelphia, and supported General Grant for his second nomination. In 1880 he was one of "306" who voted thirty-six times for the nomination of the great soldier, and an appro- priate medal is among his heirlooms for his loyalty to the Union commander. In this convention, General Flanagan made his noted speech-"What are we here for?" A speech that has been referred to by public speakers and politicians in public assemblages ever since. In 1884, General Flanagan was a friend and champion of John Sherman for the presidency, as he was also at the Chicago convention of I888, and when it was seen that the Mansfield statesman could not be named, he voted with the Texas delegation for General Har- rison. In 1892 the national convention was held at Minneapolis, and there General Flanagan aided in bring- ing about the renomination of Harrison. In this con- vention an element of the party manifested itself for William McKinley, and thus indicated the rising of a star which was to reach its zenith four years later. In 1904 General Flanagan did his final convention work at Chicago when he supported Theodore Roosevelt for the presidency, and witnessed his nomination. During all this long service of national convention work, and can- didate-making General Flanagan was a constant attend- ant upon state conventions and a member of the state committee and an adviser in the conduct of national and state campaigns.

General Flanagan is a lover of live stock, and has owned some of the hest horse blood ever introduced into Texas. In his stable at one time was the celebrated racer "Jack Gamble," and "Highlander," and he brought to the state the first cow from the Island of Jersey, the results of which are still visible on the dairy farms about Henderson and over East Texas.

There are many interesting phases to such a career and character as that of General Flanagan. He is a sportsman in the best sense of the term. His achieve- ments in that direction began early, when as a lad of thirteen years, and within two hundred yards of where his Henderson residence is now located, he killed his first deer. In passing it should be noted that that resi- dence was built in 1848 and is still good for another similar period of existence. The number of deer killed by General Flanagan since his first could not easily be reckoned. He has every year gone to the wilds of southwest Texas on deer, wild hog, catamount and other game hunts, and his home is filled with trophies of the chase, including many heads and horns of the antlers tribe. General Flanagan affiliates with the Masonic order, and has been a member of the Oddfellows since 1953, Shawnee Lodge, No. 15, at Henderson, and is the oldest in membership of the order in the state. He belongs to Bonita Lodge, Knights of Pythias, and his membership with the Knights of Honor began in 1875. As a church man he has been a Baptist since 1858.

On December 20, 1853, General Flanagan married Miss Lizzie Graham, a daughter of Major John E. Graham of Nacogdoches. Her death occurred November 20, 1872. Her children were: Webster, of Austin; Charles, who died in Henderson and left a family; Dr. Emmet of DeBerry, Texas; Marian, who died as Mrs. William Elliott, and left four children; Horace B., who married John Ware, and resides in Longview; and Bonnie May, who died the wife of Herbert Vinson, and left a daughter, now Mrs. Thomas of Dallas.

In May, 1878, General Flanagan married Miss Sallie Ware, a daughter of Dr. Levi Ware, whose widow was the third wife of Major James W. Flanagan, as already stated above. The Ware family came from South Caro- lina, but Mrs. Flanagan was born in Texas. To the

second marriage of General Flanagan are the follow- ing children: Clarence, a farmer at Flanagan in Rusk county; Bessie V., who died in Austin, May 3, 1908; John Conklin, a farmer and ranchman of Zavalla county, Texas; and Irma, living at home. The family returned to the old home in 1913 and the General says he is fixing it up for his heirs, trusting they may take better care of it than he has and to love it as he has always.

ALFRED WARREN. While his home in San Antonio and Texas has been of only brief duration, Alfred Warren sustains a distinctive relationship to the metropolis of the state as the founder and builder of what is known as the Henry Warren Memorial Art Gallery, and through this institution the career of both himself and his hon- ored father becomes a subject of interest to a state and community far removed from the original scenes of their active careers.

Henry Warren, who was a distinguished American artist, was born in Bath, England, in 1793, came to America in 1806 with his brother William, lived for many years in Philadelphia, and died at the home of his son Alfred in Cincinnati in 1877. When a child he de- veloped talent for drawing and painting, and, though without formal instruction in art, he studied the designs made by others, first using the old wood-cut illustrations in a book on mythology. His excellence in the domain of art extended to all its branches except sculpture. It is said that wherever he went he carried pencil and drawing paper, and sketched many objects which he later painted.

Henry Warren's first oil painting was "Sir Walter Scott's Cottage Door," after Gainsborough, painted in 1815, and is now found in the collection contained in the Henry Warren Memorial Art Gallery at San An- tonio. His first regular work as an artist, and the chief source of his livelihood, was as scene painter for the old Chestnut Street Theater in Philadelphia. His brother William was lessee and manager of that playhouse. During many long tramps through the states of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio, Henry War- ren made almost countless sketches and pictures of land- scapes. Many of these were drawn in sepia or India ink and are so perfect as to resemble steel or wood en- gravings. Some of the most interesting of these pic- tures are of cities such as Trenton, New Jersey, Pitts- burgh, Glens Falls, New York, Marietta, Ohio, portray- ing those localities as they appeared in the early '50s, and the pictures now have great historical value as local material in comparison with the present appearance of the cities. His range of work embraced many subjects and kinds of art. He painted in oil and water colors, made sepia, pen and ink and pencil sketches, and did a great deal of portraiture, and the few portraits which he sold were the only examples of his art which he did not preserve and which are not to be found in the me- morial gallery at San Antonio. Many of his subjects were scriptural and others were taken from characters and scenes in Scotch poetry, particularly Walter Scott and Robert Burns, and from classical subjects. What the artist himself considered his masterpiece, and one upon which he worked for several years, is the painting called "Hymen's Bower," an idyllic scene of great charm and beauty. One of the interesting small pie- tures is a drawing of the residence of Nicholas Biddle in Philadelphia, the ancestral home of the famous Bid- dle family of that city.

Henry Warren married Elizabeth Hamilton, who was born in Philadelphia and died in that city iu 1861. After the death of his wife, Henry Warren retired in 1862 and thereafter lived in Cincinnati with his son Alfred until his death in 1877. He had six children, as follows: William, Henry, Charles, Archibald, Mary Ann, and Alfred, of whom Alfred Warren of San Antonio, now eighty-three years of age, is the only survivor.

2006

TEXAS AND TEXANS

Alfred Warren was born in Philadelphia, Pennsyl- vania, in 1831. For more than half a century, from 1854 to 1906, he was a bookseller and merchant in Cin- cinnati. His bookstore was a famous place, quaint and interesting, lined throughout with book-filled shelves, and besides was a veritable curiosity shop, abounding not only with everything in the book and stationery line, but in art objects, curios, and the like. When he sold out his store and retired in 1906, the local newspapers called attention to the fact that the children had lost an old friend. From its founding it was a great center for school children, who bought their school books, tab- lets, slates, pencils, and other supplies, and many men now distinguished in the professions or in business had in their childhood patronized the Warren store, a place which was associated with many happy memories. Dur- ing all the years of his business career Alfred Warren was in the same location, although it was enlarged and improved several times. The place was originally 235 Western Row, the name of which was later changed to Central avenue and the number changed to 219. It was a three-story building and in later years he ex- tended his store space and had, besides the entrance at 219 Central avenue, two other entrances around the corner on West Sixth street, the two latter entrances being 271 and 273.

Alfred Warren married Mary Jane Pinkerton, who died February 19, 1881. Of the three surviving daugh- ters Mrs. Elizabeth Warren Ziegler lives in Cincinnati, while Mrs. Martha Warren Grothaus and Mrs. Alpha Warren Hunsdon are residents of San Antonio.

When Henry Warren moved from Philadelphia to Cincinnati he boxed all his collection of art works and had them stored in his son's establishment. There they remained for a long period of years, and neither Alfred Warren nor any of the artist's descendants had any accurate idea of what the boxes contained. The col- lection became the property of Alfred Warren by mat- ter of inheritance, and when the latter moved to Texas after retiring from business, in Cincinnati, he had the many boxes opened and their contents examined. Thus it was discovered that practically the life work of Henry Warren, excepting some of his portrait paintings and his routine work as a scene painter, was contained in the collection stored in those boxes. Mr. Warren called in several competent critics to inspect the pictures, and on the basis of their judgment as to their high indi- vidual and average merit he determined not to sell one specimen, and brought them all to Texas. After two years of residence in Austin he followed his daughter to San Antonio, and in the meantime had determined to build a memorial to his father in the form of an art gallery. The Henry Warren Memorial Art Gallery, the result of that determinatiou, was begun in 1912 and finished in 1914. It is located on a beautiful elevation at Alamo Heights in the north section of San Antonio, being situated at the corner of Verbena Road and Ter- rell Road or Via Madre, and fronting on the last named street. This memorial has perhaps the peculiar distinc- tion of being the only art gallery in the world that has ever been built for the purpose of displaying the paint- ings and drawings of a single artist. The building is of brick trimmed with stone, and above its main entrance is an art memorial window with the name Warren and the corner-stone has a bronze tablet on which is in- scribed, "Erected to the memory of Henry Warren, artist, by Alfred Warren."

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.

A history of Texas and Texans, Part 127

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