A history of Texas and Texans, Part 136

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 136

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On October 29, 1905, Mr. Mauldin was married in Commerce to Miss Annie Cornelius. Mrs. Mauldin was born in Honey Grove, Texas, May 18, 1889, and to her marriage has been born one daughter, Evelyn Mauldin. Mr. Mauldin has served as president of the Kemp Commercial ('lub, and is now treasurer of that live civic and business organization. He has been a member of the board of stewards of the Methodist church, and fra- ternally is secretary of Lodge No. 528, A. F. & A. M., at Kemp, Texas.

WILLIAM PILLEY. A resident of Texas since December 27, 1869, Mr. William Pilley has been prominent as a business man and public official at Wills Point for more than thirty years, the greater part of which time has been spent in the service of his community in the ca- pacity of postmaster. Mr. Pilley took charge of the local postoffice at a time when its service could be per- formed by one man, the postmaster himself, and has inaugurated there all the important additions to the

postal facilities, including rural free delivery, and had charge of the office when the parcel post went into effect. During the war between the states Mr. Pilley was a Union soldier, and comes of a long line of an- cestors who have been devoted to America and its freedom.

His earliest forefather in America was his grand- father, an Irishman by birth, who deserted from the British army and joined the American troops in time to render some service in the cause of American inde- pendence. One of the sons of this patriot was William Pilley, a soldier in Commodore MacDonough 's fleet dur- ing the war of 1812. He suffered capture by the Eng- lish and was executed.

Mr. William. Pilley was born in Washington county, Arkansas, September 8, 1847, a son of John R. Pilley. The latter, who was born in Massachusetts in 1814, was a man of learning and ability as a teacher, a student of conditions of his day, and a partisan of the Union against all comers. During his earlier career he cast his vote as a Whig, and was afterwards a stanch advocate of Republicanism. Leaving New England when a young man, he spent some time in Tennessee, and enlisted for service in the Mexican war near Joplin, Missouri. He served with the army of General Taylor, and after that war moved to Arkansas. Most of his career was spent as a farmer. In Joplin, Missouri, he married a Miss Parkinson, a daughter of James Parkinson, of Tennes- see, known as "Fighting Parkinson." In 1852, John , R. Pilley moved from Washington to Sebastian county, Arkansas, and died on his farm near Fort Smith in 1866. His widow survived him many years and died in the same locality in 1905. Their children were: J. R., who died in Kaufman county, Texas, and left a family; John K., who died in Sebastian county, Arkansas, with a family; Mrs. Rebecca Collier, of Sebastian county, Arkansas, and Mrs. Malinda Ray, of Crosby county, Texas.

It was in the country about Fort Smith, Arkansas, that William Pilley spent his years from the age of seven, and had a common school education. He was brought up under the influences of his father as regards the questions of secession and slavery, and had all the spirit of his fighting ancestors to urge him to war when war came. He ran away from home, and in April, 1863, joined the Sixth Kansas Cavalry, which was then oper- ating in Indian territory. He witnessed and participated in some of the desultory fighting with that regiment, and was in the engagements at Backbone, Marks' Mill, Jenkins Ferry, and in the second capture of Helena. From there the command was ordered back to Fort Smith to intercept General Price, who was on his way to Missouri from his great raid toward Kansas City. The regiment remained around Fort Gibson, in Indian Territory, where he was mustered out of service in June, 1865. The two years of his army service did not suffice to satisfy Mr. Pilley's love of adventure, and he then joined the government train for the Black Hill regions, making the trip as a wagon driver. His em- ployer was a man named John Boyle, government wagon- master. He reached Fort Crook without any special incident, and the two years spent about there were un- eventful except for the drawing of his pay. His return to civilization was made over the new Union Pacific Railroad, and on reaching Leavenworth he concluded his connection with the government in 1868. The next few months were spent in adding needed repairs to his mother's farm in Arkansas, and in December of 1869 he started for Texas. Shortly before he had married in Topeka, Kansas, and it was with his young wife that he began life in the Lone Star state. Settling near Rockwall, he was engaged in farming and stock raising until 1880, and then moved to Wills Point and estab- lished his home and turned to the vocation of mer- chandising. As a clerk for nine years he sold goods, under John T. Reed. In July, 1889, he was appointed

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during the Harrison administration as postmaster. The office was then in the fourth class and his predecessor had been W. F. Weaver. After four and a half years, Mr. Cleveland replaced himself with R. E. Yantis, whom Mr. Pilley succeeded soon after the beginning of the MeKinley administration. President Roosevelt and President Taft gave him reappointment, and his pres- ent term expires in May, 1914. Since the time when he did all the work of the office himself the force has been increased, until there are now two regular assistants and six rural delivery routes have been established.

In his political activity, Mr. Pilley has been a Re- publican since he became a voter, casting his first vote for U. S. Grant. He is one of the old guards who car- ried on Republican work in the state of Texas for many years, and was a frequent delegate to congres- sional and state conventions. He has also served as precinct chairman and county chairman of the Repub- lican party. As to religion, Mr. Pilley was reared under the doctrines of the Universalist faith, his father having held such belief and taught same to his children.

Mr. Pilley in 1869 married Miss Mildred Hart, a daughter of James H. Hart, of Fort Smith, Arkansas .. This wife died in Kaufman county in 1878. Her one child was John R., of Wills Point, who married a Miss Sayre, now deceased, and they had five children. Mr. Pilley for his second wife married Miss Belle Jones, a daughter of Anson D. Jones. At her death she left one son, Anson D., now of Wills Point. The third wife of Mr. Pilley was Mrs. Mellissa Dixon, who died without children. His next marriage was with Mrs. Sadie Barker, who died without issue. The present Mrs. Pilley was formerly a Mrs. Payne.

CAPT. THOMAS G. THOMPSON. The pioneer merchant of Wills Point is now living retired, after thirty-five years of successful merchandising. Capt. Thomas Thompson has been a vigorous and aggressive business man, and at the same time has performed his part of commercial and social service with a fine dignity, which is still evident in his distinctive bearing and manner. Early in life he did his part as a soldier of the Con- federacy, and received his first experience in trade soon after the close of the war.

Captain Thompson, who represents an old family in dif- ferent southern states, was born in Monroe county, Mis- sissippi, March 28, 1845. The grandfather was John A. Thompson, a native of Scotland, from which country, with two brothers, one of whom was William, he emi- grated to the United States, and after a brief resi- dence in North Carolina moved to Murry county, Ten- nessee, and from there into Mississippi, which state con- tinued to be his home until late in life, and his death occurred in Smith county, Texas, shortly before the Civil war. The birth of John A. Thompson occurred about the time of the close of the American Revolution. On coming to America he took up with the established custom of the south in owning slave property, and was a substantial and fairly prosperous man. He married Elizabeth Edwards, who died in Smith county, Texas, at the age of ninety-eight. Her children were: Stephen, who died near Ardmore, Oklahoma; William, who died in Smith county, Texas; Allen, who died in Van Zandt county; Anderson and Samuel, who remained in Mis- sissippi; Bettie, who married Lee Mckinley; Mrs. Nancy Bickerstaff ; Harvey, who died in Grayson county, Texas; Elizabeth, who married Mr MeLemurry and died in Missouri; Burrell W., father of Captain Thomp- son ; James, who died in Cherokee county, Texas; Tolli- ver G., who died in Van Zandt county. The sons James and Tolliver were soldiers in the Confederate army. Burrell W. Thompson, father of Captain Thompson, was a Mississippian, acquired an ordinary education, was a Democrat in politics, and belonged to no church. In 1848 he brought his family to Texas, settling in the lo- cality of Bullard, in Smith county. There he lived as a

farmer, had a small number of slaves before the war, and for several years served his county as a member of its board of commissioners. His death occurred in 1880 at the age of seventy-one. Burrell W. Thompson married Cyrena Flint, daughter of Jesse Flint, who died in Monroe county, Mississippi. Their children were: William F., who died in Cherokee county, Texas; Samuel, a resident of Jacksonville, Texas; Thomas G., Burrell, of Ellis county, Texas; Mrs. A. M. Freeman, of Fort Worth; Mrs. Cassie Blankenship, who died in Van Zandt county; William F., who was captain of Company C., in the Seventeenth Texas Consolidated Regiment, in Polignac's Brigade; Samuel, who was a member of Douglas's Battery and took part in all the historie engagements east of the Mississippi River from Corinth to the end of the Atlanta campaign.

Thomas G. Thompson was reared from the age of three years in Smith county, Texas, and was about sixteen years old when the war came on. In 1862 he enlisted in the Confederate service in Company L, commanded by Captain Johnson, in the regiment of Partisan Rangers, under Col. W. P. Lane. This regiment was attached to the Trans-Mississippi Department, and he served in several skirmishes, and was in the last battle of the Mansfield campaign, that of Yellow Bayou. His service was in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Texas, and he was with his command near Austin in expectation of a Federal raid from the Rio Grande, at the time the news of the surrender of General Lee reached that place. The whole command was then disbanded and the privates all returned to their homes.

For six months after the war Captain Thompson at- tended school and made up for some of the deficiencies of his early training. During the season of 1866 he put in and cultivated a crop, and then turned his attention to merchandising, which proved his lifelong business. At Old Mount Vernon he worked as a clerk for Alf Lofton, and from there went to Larissa to take employ- ment under his brother, who was managing a business for Clapp & Brown. In 1872 Captain Thompson moved to Jacksonville, becoming manager of a branch house for the same firm. In 1878 occurred his final removal to Wills Point, where he engaged in business for himself. Wills Point, when Mr. Thompson first became a resident, had only a few stores, and was a hamlet of no consid- erable importance in the trade of the county. Its de- velopment from this small village stage to an incor- porated city of nearly two thousand people has all been witnessed and participated in by Mr. Thompson, and he has himself contributed something substantial toward the improvement, not only through his activity as a mer- chant, but also as the builder of a brick business house and a substantial home. He began trade as one of the firm of Thompson, Mckinney & Company. The name was later changed to Thompson & Mckinney, which existed and prospered until December, 1912, when Cap- tain Thompson wrapped up his final package, waited upon his last customer, and then turned the business over to his son, who is now proprietor of this flourishing establishment.

During the passage of his many years of residence at Wills Point, Captain Thompson acquired some interest in farming, and has added in the improvement of the virgin soil of Van Zandt county. The old firm now owns a farm near Wills Point and is cultivating three hundred and fifty acres in the staple crops of this vicinity. The place is operated by tenants, and the improvements are fairly substantial and increasing with tenant farming.

While always a busy man with his private affairs, Captain Thompson has never failed in responding to his civie duties. Since the organization of the town of Wills Point he served as city treasurer up to May. 1913, when he resigned. Formerly he attended conventions of the Democratic party, but as a rule has observed the propriety of a business man and exhibited no special partisanship in politics. He has been one of the promi-

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nent laymen of the Presbyterian church, is an elder of the Wills Point congregation, has attended Presbyteries and Synods, and was a member of the general assembly at Decatur, Illinois, which brought about the consolida- tion of the divisions of the Presbyterian church, himself voting and supporting the move for such a union. This consolidation was effected in 1906.

On August 18, 1878, Captain Thompson was married at Jacksonville, Texas, to Miss Allie C. Doherty. Her death occurred in August, 1912, at the age of fifty-four. Mrs. Thompson was a daughter of Moore Doherty, who came from Alabama, and was a farmer of Cherokee county, Texas. Moore Doherty was a native of Ireland, and being a millwright by trade was exempt from mil- itary duty during the war. He married a Miss Shoe- maker, and the Doherty children were: Sallie C .; Torbett of Cameron, Texas; Mrs. Thompson; Mrs. Susan Love of Jacksonville; Mrs. Elsie MeKinney of Wills Point, and Calvin M. at Lubbock, Texas. The children of Cap- tain and Mrs. Thompson are: Edgar, who is now pro- prietor of the business of Thompson & Mckinney at Wills Point; Mrs. W. L. Pitts of Marshall, Texas; Dr. J. Dellis, a graduate of the Cincinnati Dental Col- lege, now practicing dentistry at Wills Point, and mar- ried Miss Grace McGee of Dodd City, Texas; Miss Clyde, the youngest, is her father's companion at the old home. Fraternally Captain Thompson is a master Mason, has passed all the chairs in his local lodge, and has served as a delegate to the Grand Lodge. He is also affiliated with the Knights and Ladies of Honor.

JACAMIAH SEAMAN DAUGHERTY. The following sketch of the career of a well known Houston citizen, who, however, deserves to be called a Texan rather than to be identified with any one city or locality, is an abstract of an individual history which might well comprise one of the most important chapters covering the develop- ment of this state during the past forty years. From the time he arrived in Texas in 1872 until the present, Mr. Daugherty has been intimately connected with land de- velopments, with railroad building, with city planning, with the larger affairs of municipal and state politics, so that through his career may be read much of the real history of the state.

Jacamiah Seaman Daugherty was born in Sullivan county, Missouri, August 25, 1849. His great-grand- father, John Daugherty, belonged to the Ineshowen Valley Daugherty Clan of whom it was said: "A coward nor traitor was ever known. " Grandfather James Daugherty immigrated to the United States before 1824, settling in Harper's Ferry, Virginia, and was a con- tractor and builder of canals and other works. Cap- tain Robert W. Daugherty, the father, moved from Vir- ginia to Missouri in pioneer days and was a farmer and stock raiser. He introduced Kentucky blue grass into Sullivan county, was the owner of the first corn-plant- ing machine, and the first reaping machine in that local- ity, and was also the first to introduce blooded live stock there. He was the first man to volunteer from Sullivan county at the outbreak of the Civil war on the Confed- erate side, joined a company in Chariton county, and afterwards became captain of another company and served in Price's army. He was twice wounded in the battle of Pea Ridge.

Captain Daugherty married Lydia E. Seaman. The Seaman family settled in the Valley of Virginia, before the American Revolution, and many of its members were prominent during the Revolution and afterwards. While Captain Daugherty was away from his home in Sullivan county, the Federal troops confiscated all the horses and grain and other property about the home, and towards the close of 1861 the only live stock left were a few milch cows and a blind mule, and a few colts.

At that time .Jacamiah S. Daugherty was entering his thirteenth year, the oldest of five children. He used his youthful strength to cut down wood, and hauled it to

the house with the blind mule in order to keep the family warm during the following winter. At the same time he attended country school. He cultivated a crop of corn with the blind mule during the summer of 1862, and afterwards broke to work a pair of two-year-old steers. In 1863 the Federal troops took away one of these steers and it became necessary for him to yoke a cow by the side of the other steer, and with this ill- assorted team he put in a small crop of corn and wheat and oats, during 1863. He threshed out this grain with a wooden flail, and thus provided enough flour for the family use during the winter. In 1864 the father of whom nothing had been heard for nearly two years, sent a messenger with teams and wagon to aid the family, and from that time on till the close of the war, condi- tions were better about the Daugherty farm. But the homestead had been in the meantime sold to satisfy se- curity debts, and it was a hard struggle to keep the family alive and to devise means for paying off the obli- gations resting upon the household. After the surrender of the Confederate army, Captain Daugherty was unable to return home since Sullivan county was a rabidly Union community. He engaged in buying and selling the outfits offered for sale by the government, and also engaged in freighting. In 1866 when he began cotton planting in the Red River Valley of Louisiana. Thus by 1869 he was able to pay off the debts hanging over the homestead and the family once more breathed freely.

After this arduous experience of the Civil war period the son Jacamiah began planning his own future, and sought to remedy the deficiencies in his early education. At country school he had proved himself a very apt pupil and was one of the leading contestants in all the spell- ing and debating occasions as also in the athletic games played among the boys. When moderate prosperity had once more come to the family, he attained permission from his father to begin a collegiate course of educa- tion, and in December, 1869, entered the Kentucky Uni- versity at Lexington, where he remained until October, 1872, graduating with first honors in the business de- partment, and also completing the English course and taking courses in mathematics, the languages, science, and political philosophy. In the University he was again prominent in the student and social life, was editor of the college paper, and orator for the Secropian Lit- erary Society. Owing to a misunderstanding with his father he left college before he had completed all the prescribed courses, and landed in Galveston on November 21, 1872, with just two and a half dollars in cash. Un- able to secure any work there, he pawned his watch, and went to Houston, where again he was unsuccessful in securing an opening and then traveled north to Waco and finally to Dallas. Unable to get the business open- ing which he desired, he finally accepted an offer to take the Cedar Hill district school in Dallas county, at one hundred dollars a month. A Republican administration had recently burdened the district with a heavy public school tax, and there was much hostility to the school which manifested itself in the burning of the school house a few days after the session had begun. Mr. Daugherty was not a man then or now to quit in the face of difficulties, and at once opened school in a private residence, and applied himself with such industry and tact to the management of his school that at its close its enrollment had increased from six pupils to eighty, and the patrons were so highly pleased that they asked him to continue the teaching for another year. However, the Democratic party in the meantime had come into power, had repealed the school laws, enacted by the pre- vious administration, and at the end of the school year Mr. Daugherty had vouchers amounting to over five bun- dred dollars, upon which he could not realize from the hoard management, who refused to pay the vouchers. He also owed a board bill of about one hundred dollars, but his landlord, who was a bighearted man refused to be concerned about the settlement of this bill, and al-

J.S. Daugherty

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lowed the young teacher all the time he required to pay it. He finally discounted his vouchers at sixty-eight cents on the dollar, and with the proceeds bought a horse and buggy and furnished a small office as a real estate center in Dallas. During the following years he made enough money to meet expenses, to pay off his board bill and to redeem his watch, which he still wears.

Mr. Daugherty was one of the men who looked ahead and foresaw a great possibility for the land business, especially what was then west Texas. He induced an old college friend C. U. Connellee to become his partner, and in September, 1874, they established their headquar- ters in Dallas, and engaged in the land locating busi- ness, Mr. Connellee making his headquarters in Brown- wood in Brown county. Buying three hundred and twenty acres of land in Eastland county, they surveyed in December, 1874, the site upon which the town of Eastland is now located. The choice of a county seat was decided about the middle of the following year, and their townsite was chosen by nineteen more votes than all the other three places combined. The firm had agreed to erect a two-story store building at Eastland, the upper floor of which was to be used for county purposes, and in order to get the necessary funds to carry out this agree- ment, the two partners induced Mr. J. B. Ammerman of Kentucky, an another college mate to come into the firm thus making the firm Daugherty, Connellee & Ammer- man, in 1876. From that time they were engaged in lo- cating many of the lands in Floyd, Hale, Crosby, and Lubbock counties, and in various other parts of the state. They sold a large tract of land to a Quaker col- ony, from Indiana, and in October, 1878, the firm in preparation for this colony sunk at Estacado in Crosby county, the first well ever put down on the staked plains of Texas. At a depth of ninety-eight feet the diggers struck an abundant supply of good water in sheet form, thus opening up a resource which subsequently has proved the greatest boon of the west Texas plains coun- try. Another large sale which the firm carried out was in the center of Hale county, of a tract comprising more than sixty thousand acres for a Methodist colony, and the town of Hale Center now occupies the center of that ground.

In 1880, Mr. Daugherty indicated to the chief engineer of the Texas & Pacific Railroad how a better line could be obtained for the route of the railroad through the town of Eastland than along the survey as first made, and it was as a result of this demonstration that the Texas & Pacific Railroad was built to the town of East- land. In 1880, Mr. Connellee retired from the firm and in the following spring Mr. Daugherty bought out the other partner, and since that time has been engaged in general real estate and land business on his own account. In connection with a Boston Syndicate, he located many thousands of acres in the extreme southwestern portions of the state fronting on the Rio Grande and the Pecos Rivers, and also a large tract in Howard county within a short distance of the present town of Big Springs. Even to one who is familiar with the vast extent of Texas, some of the purchases made by Mr. Daugherty and associates in the early days is surprising, and several of his deals ran well up to half a million acres, while that of the Boston Syndicate just noted included lands of more than a million and a quarter acres. While these various purchases and transactions cannot be re- viewed in detail, there is much interest attaching to his individual purchase in 1879, of about eleven hundred acres, situated in Kaufman county, twenty eight miles southeast of Dallas. He improved this land and in- creased it in following years to more than thirty-three hundred acres, twenty-three hundred acres of which he put under the plow. The Texas Trunk Railroad was built through the land, and a depot established called Daugherty. At this station he had erected a store, a gin and ten first-class tenant houses. He constructed a large water tank, and supplied water to every house and

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A history of Texas and Texans, Part 136

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