A history of Texas and Texans, Part 13

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

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of San Francisco; Niagara Fire Insurance Company, New York; and the Providence-Washington Insurance Company, Providence, Rhode Island.

Mr. Hicks married, in 1907, Miss Goldye Irwin, of Columbus, Ohio. Mr. Hieks is a member of the Chamber of Commerce; of the Country Club; and of the Benevo- lent and Protective Order of Elks.

ROBERT MARION PRATHER, M. D. As a physician and surgeon, Dr. Prather has for five years been one of the leaders of his profession in Bee county, and has acquired a large practice and general recognition for his ability and standing, both as a physician and a citizen. In 1913 he completed a private hospital located on North St. Mary street in Beeville, a fifteen room structure, which is modern in all its appointments, and affords the best hospital facilities in this part of the state. The plan of the hospital received the indorsement of several of the leading physicians and surgeons of San Antonio, and the entire equipment and organization of the hos- pital are on a high plane of efficiency. Both as pro- prietor of this institution, and in his private practice, Dr. Pratber has acquired all the marks of worthy success. Dr. A. B. Wright, a prominent surgeon formerly of Cin- cinnati, is associated with Dr. Prather in the operation of the hospital.

A native of Manchester, Ohio, where he was born in 1871, Dr. Robert Marion Prather was reared and re- ceived his early education at Cincinnati, Ohio. He has been a resident of Texas since 1898, moving to Beeville from Vernon, Wilbarger county, Texas. He later took post graduate work in medicine in the medical depart- ment of the University of Fort Worth, where he was graduated in 1908, and in the same year located perma- nently at Beeville.

Dr. Prather is one of the live and progressive members of bis profession and by study and observation is con- stantly keeping pace with the improvement and new knowledge of medicine and surgery. He is a member of the State Medical Association and is ex-president of the Bee County Medical Society. Besides his private practice he is serving as local surgeon for the S. A. & A. P. Ry. Co. and is examining physician for several life insurance companies.

R. W. FENNER. As a surveyor and engineer, Robert W. Fenner has a record of active service and accom- plishments extending over forty years, all of which has been passed in southwest Texas, and most of it in Bee county. He was county surveyor of Bee county during the early days, and himself and son have continuously held that office now for more than thirty years. Mr. Fenner represents one of the families which located in southwest Texas during the early fifties, and for sixty years the name has been identified with public spirited citizenship, and worthy activity and honorable position in private life.

Robert W. Fenner was born in Ouachita Parish, Lou- isiana, in 1848, a son of Sherrod and Louise (Phiol) Fenner. Both families were early established in the state of Louisiana, and that was particularly true of the maternal branch of the family, as the Phiols were of French stock, and had lived in Louisiana since the Span- ish reign. In 1852, the Fenner family moved from Louisiana to Texas, locating first in Guadaloupe county, and subsequently in 1857 removing to Victoria county, where Robert W. spent his early youth, and grew to manhood. Some of his early schooling was obtained in the old common schools, such as were maintained in this vicinity during the early days, but he was chiefly educated in the old Bastrop Military College, one of the excellent schools of its time, and in its halls he prepared for his preparation of surveyor and civil engineer. He has fol- lowed this professional career throughout his life with the exception of a few years, during which he was en- gaged in teaching school. In 1879 Mr. Fenner located

at Beeville in Bee county, where he has since resided. At that date, 1879, the county was very sparsely set- tled, and Beeville itself was a mere village on the prairie. In 1880, the year following his settlement here, Mr. Fen- ner was elected to the office of County Surveyor, and each successive election was chosen for that office, until he had given 30 successive years of efficient and faithful service to the office. On his retiring, he was succeeded by his son John S. Fenner, who is also an engineer and surveyor. Thus father and son together have given more than thirty five years of continuous service in one county office, a record which is probably equaled in only a few instances in the annals of public office in this state. The father and son, under the firm name of Fenner & Fenner, have offices at Beeville. and conduct a general business in surveying and engineering. Their services have been called to numerous commissions throughout southwestern Texas, and through their long standing and known capabilities have always enjoyed a very prosper- ous patronage.

Mr. Robert W. Fenner married Miss Kate Fenner, who stood in the relation of cousin to him, and who is also a native of Louisiana, where the family have been estab- lished for so many years. Mr. and Mrs. Fenner are the parents of nine children, six sons and three daugh- ters, whose names are as follows: Henry, John S., Roy, Rolla, Goodrich, Power, Mrs. Mabel Whaley, Miss Ella Fenner, and Miss Anna Fenner.

VICTOR E. STAMPFLI. The substantial position the subject of this sketch holds in the business life of Wich- ita Falls, Texas, is the result of his own enterprising efforts. The fact that he made his start without any capital whatever and today ranks with the representative business men of his city entitles him to specific mention in this biographical record.

Victor E. Stampfli was born in the canton of Solodorn, Switzerland, September 28, 1874, son of George and Mary (Kauffman) Stampfli, both natives of Switzerland, but he has no memory of any other home than an American one, he having been brought to America when a babe in arms. George Stampfli was born in 1849. In No- vember, 1874, with his wife and three little ones, he emigrated to America and made settlement at St. Louis, Missouri. He lived in the vicinity of St. Louis until 1887, when he came to Texas and took up his residence at Gainesville, subsequently removing from there to Wichita Falls. He died at Florence, Colorado, October 6, 1905. His wife had died in Kansas, August 10, 1880. They were the parents of eleven children, of whom Victor E. was the third born.

In the schools of Kansas, near Kansas City, Missouri, Victor E. Stampfli received his education up to the time he was thirteen years of age. Then he came to Texas. Here he entered upon an apprenticeship to the trade of baker and confectioner with Evans & Cole of Dallas, and remained with them for three years, at first receiv- ing no pay. From the time he completed his apprentice- ship until 1894 he worked as a journeyman baker, and as soon as he had accumulated a little capital he started in business for himself. That was at Ardmore, Okla- homa, and his original capital was $150. There he was getting a nice little business established when the big fire swept it all away and left him penniless. Undaunted, he went to work again at his trade and made various shifts in order to get another start. At Cripple Creek, Colorado, he worked at his trade two years, and while there had several losses through gold mining operations. Returning to Texas, with a small capital, he took up his residence at Wichita Falls. That was in 1898. April 25th of that year he formed a partnership with I. H. Robinson for the purchase and erection of a mod- ern two-story building at 713 Indiana street, which was erected at a cost of $40,000. Now they also have several other modern buildings. Immediately on coming to Wichita Falls he opened up a bakery and confectionery

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business, and he has kept pace with the times. Wichita Falls then had a population of only about 2,000; its inhabitants now number 12,000. Mr. Stampfli began in a small way and did all his own work, even to the driving of his delivery wagon, a one-horse, canvas-top wagon; today his bakery is far ahead of the average up-to-date bakery in cities of many times the size of Wichita Falls. A made-to-order auto delivery truck has taken the place of his horses and wagons, and in a modern way handles the modern product of this thoroughly equipped establishment.

At Wichita Falls, December 27, 1900, Vietor E. Stamp- fli and Miss May Hales were united in marriage, and to them have been given two children, both born in this city : Victor Carroll, June 6, 1902, and Roseline May, October 25, 1904. Mrs. Stampfli is a native of Texas and a daughter of Robert A. Hales, an ex-Confederate soldier and an early settler of Texas.

Mr. Stampfli 's energies have not been confined strictly to his own business. He has always taken an active part in politics and eivie affairs, affiliating with the Demo- erats. He served five years as fire chief of Wichita Falls, and ten years as a member of the fire department of this city. He is a member of both the Retail Mer- chants' Association and the Wichita Falls Chamber of Commerce. He has membership in the fraternal orders of Knights and Ladies of Honor, Elks and Masons, in the last named having advanced to the Knights Templar rank and thirty-second degree. Religiously he and his wife are Baptists.

JUDGE THOMAS M. Cox. In the election in 1910 and again in 1912 to the office of county judge of Bee county of Thomas M. Cox, the citizens of this community gave preferment to one of the ablest lawyers and most public spirited citizen, a man who has shown a high degree of efficiency in administering the fiscal and public works of the county. During his administration the beautiful new court house at Beeville, costing $77,000, was com- pleted in 1912, and a number of other valuable public improvements have been wisely made, especially in good roads. Judge Cox represents one of the oldest and most prominent families of this part of Texas. He himself is a native son, and has given additional honors to a name which for many years has been well known and esteemed.

Thomas M. Cox was born at Rockport, Texas, in 1872. His parents were Rev. A. F. and Amelia V. (Atlee) Cox. The late Rev. A. F. Cox was one of the early Methodist missionaries into Southwestern Texas, and his name has a permanent place in the history of Methodism in this state. A native of Tennessee, he early entered the min- istry, and devoted his entire active life to its work and needs. His death occurred at Beeville in 1897, and he had come to Texas during the early fifties. As a pioneer preacher, he became known throughout the south and southwest portions of the state. One of his early charges was Goliad. In addition to his minister work, he also tanght school, and also founded and published the first newspaper, the Goliad Messenger. He thus came into close touch with the various sides of life. and the people in this section and his services were always unselfish and directed to the best welfare of the community. During the later years of his life, he retired from the ministry, and spent his last days at Beeville, in the home of his son Judge Cox. He was a man of the highest character, and well fitted on all points for the arduous and self-saeri- ficing labors of a pioneer minister. He knew and could sympathize with the people in their endurance of the hardships and obstacles during that early period, before railroads and other improvements of civilization had come into Texas, and having won the confidence of his people, was always more than a spiritual leader, and was in every sense a guide and adviser to his friends in all the trials and experiences of life.

The mother of Judge Cox, who was born at Gettys- burg, Pennsylvania, in 1828, and is now living at the

home of Judge Cox in Beeville, is as remarkable a pio- neer woman as her late husband was a pioneer minister. She was reared at Athens, Tennessee, where she married her husband, and then accompanied him on his journey into the new missionary fields of Texas. Coming from the refinement and comfort of the older state, she not only accepted cheerfully the primitive conditions which then existed in her new home, but she also devoted herself with the kindliness of her character to the best interests of the women and children who were included within the bounds of her husband's parish. Her many friends, including both those who knew her in the earlier days and those of the youngest generation, pay her a high regard, which is due to the noble pioneer woman of this state.

Judge Cox, as a boy, was reared in several places due to the itinerary character of his father's ministry, and attended publie schools in the towns which were the seenes of his father's pastorage. Subsequently, he en- tered Poronas Institute at San Marcos, Texas, in which he was graduated in 1888. Judge Cox earned his own way through college, and has always depended upon his own resources and ability for promotion to the higher grades of responsibility and success. His law studies were pursued in San Antonio in the office of Lane and Mayfield, prominent attorneys of that city, and in 1896 he was admitted to the bar. Since that time he has enjoyed a large and successful practice in the various courts, and his offices have been in Beeville. For eight years he served as County Attorney for Bee county. In the year 1910 eame his first election to the office of County Judge, and in 1912 he was re-elected. Judge Cox is asso- ciated in the practice of law with his brother, Robert L. Cox, under the firm name of Cox and Cox, and the firm, besides their large general law practice, have depart- ments in abstract and real estate, and in these lines of business have built up a large patronage. Judge Cox is a member of the Methodist Church, and fraternally is affiliated with the Masonic Order, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, the Knights of Pythias, the Woodmen of the World, the Maccabees and the Loyal Order of Moose.

PATRICK BURKE. A remarkable career was that of the late Patrick Burke, at whose death on the twenty-third of August, 1912, at his home near Beeville in Bee county, there passed away the last link connecting the modern era of southwestern Texas with that distant date when the Irish colonies were first planted on the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. The history of the planting of the Irish colony in old Refugio and San Patricia counties possesses a romantie interest which is hardly excelled by any of the noted colony enterprises during the early years of the nineteenth century.

It was a peculiar place which the late Patrick Burke occupied in this old colony on Aransas Bay. He had the distinction of being the first ebild born among the band of Irish colonists who landed on the shores of Texas in 1834. It was with difficulty that his own life was maintained. as a child in the arms of his mother, he must have been a witness to many of those remarka= ble scenes during the Mexican Invasion and the Texas Revolution of 1836, and during the many subsequent tiring periods which characterized the history of this portion of Texas during the Civil War. In all the best sense of the word, he was a pioneer, a man who knew the old times, and old activities of southwestern Texas, and who contributed in no small degree to the industry and upbuilding of this section of the state. He was the father of a fine family, and these children, who in turn have become honored men and women, and through their own lives pay another high tribute to the character and career of this notable old pioneer.

Patrick Burke was born in Refugio county, Texas, in 1834. The name of his father was not remembered, but his mother's maiden name was Anna Keough. The colony with which his mother and father had en barked

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their fortunes came across the ocean on a small sailing vessel, and buffeted by adverse winds, the boat was three months in making the journey from the old country, across the ocean and the Gulf of Mexico to its destina- tion on the low lying shores of Texas. Cholera broke out on board during this long voyage, and more than deci- mated the passengers. Among those who died of this plague was the father of Patrick Burke. Both parents were natives of County Tipperary, Ireland. The landing place of the colony was at Copano, sixteen miles beyond the present town of Refugio. Copano in the early days was a noted place of embarkation, and shipping, but is hardly known to modern Texas geography. At that time it was a mere natural harbor on the wild shores of Aransas Bay, and the surrounding country had here and there a few Mexican habitations, but the chief population was Indians and wild beasts. An hour after the colonists landed on Texas shore, and before the mother had gone a mile toward the point selected by the colony for its settlement, Patrick Burke was born- under circumstances which alone would have given him a place of peculiar interest in the history of this Irish colony. The illness of his mother was such that she was unable to nurse the infant, and as there were no cows from which a milk supply could be obtained, the future of the baby looked dark, until an Indian squaw appeared with a young baby of her own, and was persuaded to serve as wet-nurse to the little Irishman.

Most of the readers of this work are familiar with the conditions which existed in Texas during the infancy and childhood of the late Patrick Burke. He was a child between one and two years of age when the hostili- ties between the Texan colonists and Mexico broke into its final fury, and which resulted in the final independence of the Texans and the Declaration of the Republic, in 1836. All of the old territory granted to the Irish colo- nists was particularly subject to the raids of the Mexi- can army, principally on the regular routes traveled by the corsairs as they came across the Rio Grande into the central points of the Texas settlement. The Indians were likewise a constant menace, and during the revolu- tion the humble cot of the Irish colonists were practically destroyed and little remains of the industry and home life of those early settlers. For a number of years follow- ing, Indian raids stopped progress, and the people in that vicinity eked a bare existence from the fruits of the soil. It was not until after the Civil war that the settled peace came upon this side of the country. It was in such scenes that the early character of Patrick Burke was formed, and from his early boyhood he had to con- tend against the hardships and dangers of frontier life. His childhood days were spent in the old town of San Patricio, where the colonists had gathered in IS34 and had set up a local government of their own. The grant of land assigned to Mr. Burke's mother was located on the Paeste, at a point which is not the geographical center of the county. On that land was built what is known as the original town of Beeville, embracing the business center of the city, and this tract now valued at many thousand dollars was a gift from Mrs. Burke, the mother of Patrick, to the new county at its forma- tion at the winning of independence.

With the return of comparative peace, after the days of the revolution, and the passing of Indian hostilities, Patrick Burke and his mother occupied the land which had been assigned to her, and became identified with the regular industry of this region, the cattle business. With the exception of the years spent in the Civil War, Patrick Burke remained a resident of the country, and closely associated with the future and progress up to the time of his death. His passage was the removal of a land- mark in more than a figurative sense, for he had been a personality of influence and a successful man of affairs, and now that he has gone, the memory of the old times has become dependent upon written records, rather than upon the personal records of one who had lived through it all.

Patrick Burke, during the war, entered the Confed- erate Service in Company F of Colonel Buchel's regi- ment, and made a fine record as a faithful soldier. Dur- ing the war all of his cattle were given away, and lost, but on returning he gradually acquired the nucleus of a new herd, and in time became one of the most prosperous cattlemen on the shores of the county. He became the owner of the largest part of his mother's headright grant, and accumulated a substantial fortune. His later days were spent in peace and happiness, and in an opti- mistic old age, and he retained his kindly personality and generous attitude throughout life, up to his seventy- eighth year, at which time his life closed.

He enjoyed a wide circle of friends and acquaintances, and there was nothing that gave them greater pleasure than to hear him relate the stories of his own life, and the experiences of other settlers who were contemporaries of his. Mr. Burke during his many years spent in south- western Texas had had his share of adventures with the Indians, in the hunting of wild horses, in long and arduous trips with cattle, and in coping with the many difficulties that beset pioneer existence.

The late Patrick Burke was a man of noble and gen- erous impulses and bore the enviable reputation of hav- ing been always honest, true and loyal to his friends and his community, and especially devoted to his family.

His wife, whose death occurred in 1896, had formerly been Miss Nancy Jane Ryan who was born in what is now Bee county. Their children in number, four sons and four daughters, were all born and reared at the Burke home, two miles below Beeville, and their names are as follows: Edward L., Joseph F., John J., Peter J., Mrs. P. S. Clare, Mrs. Mollie Thurston, Mrs. J. E. Wil- son, and Mrs. S. H. Smith.

Mr. Joseph F. Burke, the son of the late Patrick Burke, is Cashier of the Beeville Bank and Trust Company, and one of the most prominent business men in this county. The company with which he is so prominently connected was established September 8, 1906, and is a flourishing institution. Mr. Burke married Miss Nannie Amelia Teal, who is a native of MeMullen county, Texas. Their two children are Beryl Jane and Joseph Francis.

JAMES F. RAY. On the 20th of August, 1907, at his home, in Pettus, Texas, passed away one of the promi- nent stockmen who had given all of his active career to the management of large business affairs in Southwest Texas and was known among his associations as one of the most esteemed cattle raisers and citizens in this part of the state. The late James F. Ray, both through his own career and through his family relations, represented some of the oldest and most substantial characters and elements of citizenship in Southwest Texas. His father had been prominent in this state, and Mrs. Ray, his widow, is also representative of one of the old and thor- oughly esteemed families of the state.

James F. Ray was born in what is now Karnes (then Goliad) county, Texas, on the 4th of October, 1851, and was nearly sixty years of age at the time of his death. His parents were James and Julia (Berry) Ray. The grandfather was born in 1801, both grandparents having died within a short time of each other in the year 1843. Of their family of three sons and four daughters, Elijah was the second son. In 1835 James Ray moved his fam- ily from Alabama to Choctaw county, Mississippi, where he was engaged in farming for a number of years. The eldest of his sons, Hezekiah, after reaching early man- hood, moved to Texas, where he died about the year 1852.

The late Elijah Ray, the father of the Bee county stockman mentioned in the first paragraph, was one of the early settlers of southwest Texas. At the age of twenty-one, in 1847, he came on a prospecting trip, land- ing at Galveston, thence going to Houston, a little town, which was then built in the pine and magnolia woods, with only a frame hotel and a few business shops scat-

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tered along the main street and chiefly important as a headquarters for Government supply shipments. At Houston he bought a horse and saddle and started off across the country, stopping first at Kingsland, near the present site of Yorktown, and then continuing through the Cibola valley to Sutherland Springs, and thence to San Antonio. After this varied tour of inspection, through the most important settled portions of the state, he returned to his home, in Mississippi. There, in 1849, he married Mary Wallace Davis, and in the year 1850 the young couple came to Texas for the purpose of finding a permanent home in the Lone Star state. Ac- companying them was Mrs. Ray's widowed mother and other members of the Davis family, comprising four daughters and two sons. Mrs. Davis, the mother, brought a number of slaves with her into Texas, and while aboard the steamer crossing the Gulf some of them contracted cholera, and died a few days after reaching Port Lavaca. The journey, with its fatigue and excitement, was also too strenuous for Mrs. Davis, and she passed away after an illness of ten days and after having been in Texas but a short time.

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A history of Texas and Texans, Part 13

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