A history of Texas and Texans, Part 139

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 139

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Mr. Nash so displayed his ability as a financier that his services were called for by public institutions need- ing a strong and able guiding hand. When the old Texas Trunk railway became embarrassed and went into the hands of the court, he was appointed receiver of the road and rehabilitated its affairs, and when Gov- ernor Ross made up his board of managers for the North Texas Insane Asylum he chose Mr. Nash one of its members and he gave that institution four years of wise administration in harmony with his colleagues on that body. His activity in politics carried him into

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convention work of the state and made him well known for his Democratic adherence. Mr. Nash was a large holder of the original stock of the Kaufman Oil Mill, crected the first residence in the county to cost twenty thousand dollars, and in the construction of the home of the First National Bank built the first brick business house in the county to cost thirty-four thousand dollars. After his children were all grown and some of his grand- children had passed through the Kaufman schools, he urged the raising of the school tax materially to aid the schools to do more efficient work, demonstrating his willingness that the public school should enjoy any bene- fits which his capital could reasonably provide. He exemplified his fraternal side as a Knights Templar Mason and as a Knight of Pythias. For thirty years he was a consistent member of the Baptist church. He was of fine physique, standing six feet one inch in height, and weighing 265 pounds.

On January 5, 1870, Herbert Temple Nash was mar- ried to Miss Louisa Jane Shannon, a member of a pioneer family of San Angustine, Texas, and to this union there have been born the following children : Allie, the wife of Congressman James Young, was edu- cated in Nash College, Sherman, and in Hollins In- stitute, Virginia, married Mr. Young in 1892, and is the mother of Herbert R., a Bachelor of Arts graduate of the University of Texas, class of 1913, when under nineteen years of age, Imogene and James; William Temple, of this notice; and Jack A.

Jack A. Nash was born in 1878, attending Bingham Military Institute, North Carolina, after the public schools, and then took a course in Bethel College, Rus- sellville, Kentucky. He began life with the affairs of his father as assistant cashier of the First National Bank at Kaufman, subsequently built the old mill at Athens, Texas, and has since been associated with his brother in the conduct of their vast agricultural interests, in the development of farms and in the multitudinous matters in the management of possessions equal to a baronial estate. He is one of the directors of the First National Bank of Kaufman. Mr. Nash was married at Athens, Texas, to Miss May Richardson, a daughter of Ed Rich- ardson, a lawyer of Henderson county, and they have been the parents of three children: Jack, Jr., Janie Catherine and Franklin.

William Temple Nash was born while the family were still farmers, June 22, 1873. The public schools of Kauf- man educated him liberally as he grew to manhood, and he subsequently attended the Bingham Military In- stitute, North Carolina, the University of Texas, and the Poughkeepsie Business College, New York. When he left school, he spent a few years in the First Na- tional Bank, and then turned his attention to farming, aiding actively in the overseeing of the development work going on upon the family estate. Four-room bungalows with fourteen feet-square rooms on every 150 acres, with good barns, mark the character of their improvements, and their clearing of the "green briar" lands of the Elm Flats of Kaufman county marks an epoch in farm- making in that region. They have under cultivation in Kaufman county twelve hundred acres and seven hundred acres in Navarro county. The brothers carry on the largest mule business in the county, at Kaufman, and William T. is a director of the Kaufman Compress Com- pany and one of its promoters, as well as a director in the First National Bank. During the eight years Mr. Nash was a member of the Kaufman City Council nu- merous improvements were made in the city, these in- eluding the installation of the city water works and the filtration system. The father and brothers have ever been firm believers in the church as a great factor in civilization and have contributed liberally to all de- nominations and creeds.

On December 8, 1898, William Temple Nash was united in marriage with Miss Bettie B. Erwin, a daugh- ter of Henry and Naney (Spikes) Erwin. Two chil-

dren have been born to this union, namely: Nancy Jane and Belle Temple.

TEMPLE S. PYLE, president of the First National Bank of Kaufman, is a son of Dr. William H. Pyle, who es- tablished the family in Texas a few years before the outbreak of the Civil war, and who thereafter hecame conspicuously identified with the professional, business and political affairs of Kaufman county. For a brief period after his advent into the state Dr. Pyle main- tained his residence in Rush county, but he came to the vicinity of Kaufman in its infancy and spent the re- mainder of his life in its midst. Dr. Pyle was easily one of the foremost men of his time in Kaufman county, and in a work of the character of which this publication partakes, omission of a fairly complete account of his life and work would render the publication most in- complete.

William H. Pyle was born at Richmond, Ohio, June 9, 1833, and died February 9, 1891. He was a son of Dr. Eli M. Pyle and his wife, Mary McMurray (Shields) Pyle. The mother was a daughter of William and Eliza- beth Shields, of Jefferson county, Ohio, and she was born January 7, 1807, her death occurring at Richmond, Ohio, on August 1, 1895. They became the parents of the following children: William Hamilton, father of the subject; Roxana; Elizabeth; Mary; Margaretta; Thomas H .; Samnel M .; Sheridan B .; Annie E .; Pau- lina, and Emma M.

Dr. Eli M. Pyle moved to Ohio and in 1831 located in Richmond, and there, save for a year spent at Mount Pleasant, Iowa, he lived out his remaining years. He was an intimate friend of Secretary Stanton, Mr. Lincoln's War Secretary, and at the age of sixty years he tendered his service as a volunteer surgeon of the Union Army. Mr. Stanton acknowledged this patriotic offer in a letter stating that his age would probably preclude him from the opportunity of serving in the field, but that as soon as he found an opening in a local ca- pacity he would be pleased to recognize the offer of his old friend. He was a strong supporter of the Union cause, and lent his moral support to the overthrow of the Confederacy, for whose support his son, William H., was ardently striving. Another son, Thomas H., served in the Eightieth Ohio Volunteer Infantry, while his oldest son was Brigadier Surgeon of General Carter's Cavalry.

Dr. William H. Pyle was graduated from Richmond College in 1850 and in 1851 was graduated from Wash- ington College, in Washington, Pennsylvania. He com- pleted his medical studies in the old Miami Medical College of Cincinnati, Ohio, and came west with a mental training and endowment that augured well for his future success. At the inception of the Civil War, though of Northern birth and education, he espoused the cause of his adopted country, and in 1862 joined a Texas regiment, heing commissioned surgeon of his command. His regiment formed a part of General Walker's Di- vision of the Trans-Mississippi Department and he took part in the prominent field operations around Mansfield, Pleasant Hill, Yellow Bayou, Jenkins' Ferry and others, where he ministered to the sick and wounded so long as hostilities continued. With the fall of the Confed- eracy he dropped back into civil life, accepting there his share of responsibility in local affairs.

In the year 1869 Dr. Pyle was elected to the senate of Texas, representing the counties Kaufman, Ellis and Navarro, and he was a member of the never-to-be- forgotten Twelfth and Thirteenth legislatures, which have their prominent place in history, though few live today who actually participated in them. Included in his committee work of the senate, Dr. Pyle was chair- man of the committee on Contingent Expense and re- ported out the bills carrying a recommendation for appropriations for the senate contingent fund. He allied himself with the influences at work for the development

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of the state by railroad and other corporation interests, and the legislation of those years helped to prepare the political soil for the germination and growth of interests which are today being strenuously opposed as monopolies, and as inimical to the healthy condition of commonwealth affairs. Thus is apparent the change in sentiment wrought by a few decades in these first days of fast developing enterprises.

Dr. Pyle was a personality of rare mould in his com- munity. He was large of mind as he was of fame, and he loomed high above the average citizen of his period in every phase of life. He possessed a generous fund of information upon all live topics, was a brilliant and ready conversationalist, and ever an entertaining speaker. In the later years of his life be became affiliated with the Baptist church, though he was never a man to make much of a profession with regard to matters pertain- ing to the church. In the later years of his life Dr. Pyle was engaged with his sons in the drug business in Kaufman, and he was for some years one of the directors of the First National Bank of Kaufman of which his son, the subject of this review, is president.

On January 26, 1860, Dr. Pyle was married to Miss Mary Nash, a daughter of William Nash, one of the pioneers of Texas and one whose family is now one of the most numerous and prominent of Kaufman county. Mrs. Pyle survives her husband, at the age of seventy- one, and is the mother of six children, briefly mentioned as follows: Laura, who died unmarried; Sallie, who died here as the wife of E. J. Haddock; Temple S., of this review; Charles B., of Kaufman; Fannie, the wife of W. A. Boggs, of Okema, Oklahoma; and Anna Pauline, the wife of Dr. H. W. Hoffer, of Kaufman, Texas.

Temple S. Pyle was born in Kaufman, on February 27, 1866. He was educated in the public schools of this place and began life as au associate of his brother in the drug business. After some twenty years of success- fnl activity in that enterprise they sold the business and Temple Pyle engaged in farming and stock rais- ing, carrying on a gradual development work that tended toward perfection in improvement and cultiva- tion, and introducing into their community registered Jersey cattle and handling it to the highest advantage of the dairy interests of the county.

For many years prior to his official connection in his present capacity, Mr. Pyle was a member of the Board of Directors of the First National Bank of Kaufman, and his worthy achievements in business commended him favorably to the directorate of the bank as one in every way fitting and appropriate to fill the post of presi- dent, when a vacancy occurred in that office. He was elected president of the bank in May, 1912, as the suc- cessor of H. T. Nash, deceased, and his record thus far is one of the highest order.

Save as a consistent voter of the Democratic ticket, Mr. Pyle has no political record, for he has devoted himself rather to business than to politics of the county, and his accomplishments have been as heavily fraught with good to the community in the field he has occu- pied as they could have been in any other quarter.

In March, 1888, Mr. Pyle married Miss Lee Echols, a daughter of J. D. Echols, a farmer who came to Texas from Tennessee after the war. Mr. and Mrs. Pyle have three children : Mary, the wife of R. H. Carlisle, of Kaufman; Adeline and Richard.

Mr. Pyle has a membership in the Knights of Pythias, but has no other fraternal affiliations.

JUDGE EPHRAIM C. HEATH. Probably no other family has more distinctive associations with the early history of what is now Rockwall county than the Heaths. A prominent representative of the name is Judge Ephraim C. Heath, who was born in what is now Rockwall county, was at one time county judge, made a record in the state legislature, and was one of the pioneers in the

temperance movement in Texas, and has done as much as any other leader in furthering the cause since it received its first practical expression through the people nearly forty years ago. Judge Heath was also one of the organizers of Rockwall county. Although a very young man at the time, he circulated a petition during the winter of 1872-73 for the creation of the new county. The organization took place in 1873, and he was one of the board of registrars of voters.

Judge Ephraim C. Heath was born November 4, 1850, at what is now the town of Heath in the southern part of Rockwall county, then a portion of Kaufman county. His parents were John O. and Martha Ann (Jones) Heath, both now deceased. The Heath family was es- tablished in New England in the early colonial days, and among the earlier members who gained distinction was General William Heath, who was born in Massa- chusetts and died in that state in 1814 and who served with gallantry as an officer in the Continental army dur- ing the American Revolution. The Heaths are a family of pioneers, and almost every generation has seen its removal into new territories of settlement, or its men- bers have taken part as advance couriers in social and civic movements identified with the welfare of humanity. In the earlier days their strong and courageous men helped to conquer the wilderness and blazed the way for the coming generations. Ephraim Heath, the grand- father of Judge Heath, was born in Prince George county, Virginia, March 13, 1790. In 1816 he crossed the mountains and found a home in Kentucky, locat- ing in Simpson county. From there he moved to Calla- way county in the latter part of 1818. About that time he went back to his old home in Virginia, a dis- tance of six hundred miles, accompanied by his young wife, who carried her baby, John O. Heath, in her arms. The entire distance was accomplished on horseback. When the family located in Callaway county, Kentucky, twelve families, including the Heaths, comprised the en- tire citizenship of that vicinity.

John O. Heath, father of Judge Heath, who was born in Simpson, Kentucky, January 30, 1818, in his turn became a pioneer in Texas. He made the journey in a wagon, with his wife and one child, a daughter, in 1846, and instead of locating in the older portions of the state, established his home near the present town of Heath, which was named in his honor, on the east fork of the Trinity river in what is now Rockwall county. The country was then in the jurisdiction of Nacogdoches county, afterwards Henderson and then Kaufman and now Rockwall county. It was all a wilderness, and was practically on the border of the frontier line of civilization in northern Texas. About half a dozen other families settled in the same vicinity in the same year. John O. Heath's settlement and the survey of his land preceded all others. The first postoffice ever established in what is now Rockwall county was kept in his cabin home. He was the first postmaster, receiving his com- mission to that office in 1849. At that time the postoffice was known as Black Hill, and it retained that name until the office was transferred to Rockwall in 1855. During the administration of Gov. J. Pinckney Hen- derson, 1846-47, John O. Heath was commissioned by the governor as captain of militia for Henderson and Kaufman counties. Beginning in 1862 John O. Heath served until the close of the war as first lieutenant of Company K. B. Warren Stone's Second regiment in the Trans-Mississippi department. He went all through the Red River campaign, and his record as a soldier is one that will always be prized by his descendants. In 1856 he moved with his family to the town of Rockwall. and there spent the remainder of his life. He was the first person to join the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. in that town. His death occurred in 1897. John O. Heath was a fine, strong, upright character, a man of power and influence, and possessed the bone and sinew and intellect of which nations are made. His wife

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was born in Callaway county, Kentucky, and married December 24, 1844. She died in 1854.

Judge E. C. Heath received a good education in local private schools, notwithstanding the fact that his home was in a new country and the entire south was dis- tracted by the events of the war during his youth. From early manhood until 1890 he was engaged in the mercantile business in Rockwall. From that time until January, 1914, he did a large business in the abstract and title work at Rockwall. Judge Heath has a beau- tiful home and a fine farm of eighty acres about a mile north of Rockwall, where he and his family enjoy all the comforts of good living.

It is in his public career that the life of Judge Heath has been particularly noteworthy. In 1882 he was elected county judge of Rockwall county, was re- elected in 1884, and held the office until 1886. It was an able, efficient and economical administration of pub- lic affairs in his county. In 1886 he was elected flo- torial representative to the state legislature for the district embracing Rockwall, Dallas and Tarrant coun- ties. He was a member of the session of 1887, and during that time was a leader in causing the submis- sion of the state-wide prohibition amendment. Also in the same session he was chairman of the committee on roads and bridges. Judge Heath since early youth has been an ardent advocate and a courageous and energetic supporter of all temperance and prohibition movements. Following the adoption of the constitution of 1876, which contained the local option provision, Judge Heath circulated what is understood to have been the first local option petition in Texas. He was a delegate to the great temperance convention held in New York City in 1890, at which addresses were made by Gen. Neal Dow and other prominent figures in the temperance cause. Also in 1890 Judge Heath undertook the leadership of a forlorn hope as candidate of the Prohibition party for the office of Governor. He made a speaking campaign over the entire state, and though he failed of election his campaign had some valuable results. The campaign, it will be remembered. followed the depression of pro- hibition sentiment caused by the defeat in 1887, and students of the fluctuating movements of state politics give credit to Judge Heath's vigorous conduct of his campaign for keeping alive the prohibition sentiment and paving the way for the present era of almost uni- versal prohibition in this state. It was in 1869 or 1870 that Judge Heath became identified with the first tem- perance movement organized in the south, and for many years he was an active member of the Good Templars organization. He is a member of the Methodist Episco- pal Church, South, as all his ancestors have been. He is also a member of the A. F. & A. M., and has taken all the degrees of the Chapter of Royal Arch Masons.

In 1881 at Rockwall Judge Heath married Mrs. Ida A. (Collins) Carter. She was born at Paulding, Jasper county, Mississippi. By her first marriage she has a son, Ernest C. Carter, of Henrietta, Texas. Judge Heath and wife have three children: John O. Heath, who is living in Kansas City and is married and has one child; Mrs. Katherine Neville and Miss Mary Heath.

JOHN A. HOLMES. A career that has been marked by rapid advancement and brilliant achievement is that of John A. Holmes, county attorney of Roberts county, Texas, and one of the leading members of the younger generation of legal practitioners of this part of the Lone Star State. Although he has been engaged in practice for something less than five years, Mr. Holmes has ably demonstrated his ability, his thorough knowledge of law and jurisprudence and his inherent inclination for his profession, and since his advent in Miami, his present field of endeavor, has not only won a recognized position in the ranks of his calling, but has thoroughly estab- lished himself in the confidence of the people. Mr. Holmes is a Mississippian, and was born at Sallis, At-

tala county, January 20, 1886. His father, Thomas S. Holmes, was born in Holmes county, Mississippi, a mem- ber of an old and honored family of that section, and for many years has been well known in commercial cir- cles as a prominent and wealthy merchant. He has also taken an active participation in affairs of a public na- ture, and at this time is mayor of Sallis. He is now sixty-two years of age. He married Miss Mary E. Sal- lis, who was born in Attala county, Mississippi, and edu- cated in Woodworth College, and she died in 1895, aged thirty-five years, having been the mother of four chil- dren, namely: T. W., who is now a resident of Stark- ville, Mississippi; John A., of this review; W. E., whose home is in Laurel, Mississippi; and Miss Bessie S., of Sallis, Mississippi.

John A. Holmes was given the advantages of an ex- cellent educational training, his preliminary studies being pursued in the public schools of his native place, follow- ing which he attended the Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College for four years. After his graduation from that institution, in 1906, he came to Texas and en- tered the State University, where he received his degree in law in 1909. In June of that year he entered upon the practice of his profession at Bonham, Fannin county, but in the following September changed his headquarters to Miami, and here he has since continued in the enjoy- ment of a constantly increasing professional business. He has been connected in one capacity or another with a number of important cases where his talents and abilities have been proven, and the prominence thus gained has brought to him some of the most profitable business that can fall to the lot of a young lawyer. In November, 1909, he became the candidate of the democratic party for the office of county attorney of Roberts county, was subsequently elected thereto, and since that time has been twice re-elected, and his entire administration has been of such a nature as to justify the confidence and faith placed in him by his fellow-citizens.

Mr. Holmes's only social connection is with the col- lege fraternity of the University of Texas, he being a member of the Delta Sigma Phi, although he is very popular with the younger set in Miami and the adjacent country where he has a wide acquaintance. He has achieved success through constant application and per- severing ambition, for his only assistance from home came in the form of an education. Whatever else he has accomplished has come through his own efforts. He is a "booster" of the most enthusiastic order for this sec- tion of the state, and has an interest in several enter- prises here, among them the Miami Bank, in which he is a stockholder. Personally, Mr. Holmes is a man of good habits, studious and euergetic, and extremely fond of hunting and fishing when the duties of his office and his extensive practice allow him a vacation. He has never married.

JUDGE HENRY M. WADE. The Rockwall county bar includes among its leading members the native Texan whose name introduces this sketch.

Henry M. Wade was born in Hunt county, Texas, June 21, 1864, son of Henry W. and Elizabeth J. ( Kuykendall) Wade, the former a native of Kentucky and the latter of Mississippi. Henry Wade was born in Callaway county, Kentucky, of Kentucky parents, and made that place his home until 1850, when he came to Texas and settled in Upshur county. In 1859 he moved to Rockwall county, where he remained until 1866. Meanwhile he had sent his family to Hunt county and in 1866 he joined them there and they settled on a farm, twelve miles southeast of Greenville, where he spent the rest of his life, and where he died, January 7, 1912. Throughout the Civil war he served in the Confederate army, as a member of Company B, Sixth Texas Cavalry, Ross's Brigade. He was also a member of the Constitu- tional Convention in 1876 from Hunt county. His widow, Mrs. Elizabeth J. Wade, was a representative of one of

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the earliest pioneer families of Hunt county-the Kuy- kendalls-whose settlement there dates back in 1843.

Henry M. Wade was educated at Sam Houston Normal School, Huntsville, where he graduated in 1888. Until he was twenty-five years of age he lived on his father's farm, dividing his time between farming and school teaching. He taught school several years in Kaufman county. In the meantime he took up the study of law and was in due time admitted to the bar. In 1896 he moved to Royse City, Rockwall county, and from there, in 1900, he came to Rockwall, having that year been elected County Attorney. Rockwall has ever since been his home. In 1906 he was elected County Judge, a position he filled six years, up to 1912, when he was again elected County Attorney, the office he is now filling.

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A history of Texas and Texans, Part 139

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