A history of Texas and Texans, Part 165

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 165

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Temple D. Smith was fourteen years of age when the family moved to Marion county, Indiana. Later he ac- cepted a business position in Indianapolis. The early part of his education was secured mostly in the public schools, then under the tutelage of his father, who was educated at Randolph-Macon College and the University of Virginia, he continued his studies. In the Indiana capital, Mr. Smith received his introduction to the mer- cantile business, and for some years was connected with a wholesale iron and steel concern, filling positions in both the office and on the road and becoming thoroughly familiar with every detail of the trade; later he was as- sociated with the once noted heavy hardware firm, Fowler & Sons, of Buffalo, N. Y.

In 1884 he made his advent in Texas, going into the banking and mercantile business in Jones county, in the western part of the state. He came to Fredericksburg, Texas, in 1887, and here established the Bank of Fred- ericksburg, of which he has remained the president and principal owner to the present time. This is a pri- vate institution, and enjoys a place of the highest stand- ing, not only at home but in the financial centers of the East. Mr. Smith is also president of the First Na- tional Bank of Carthage, Texas, and of the Cotton Belt State Bank, of Timpson, Texas, which institutions he organized in 1894 and 1897 respectively. He has di- rected the policies of the three banks in a safe and con- servative manner, thoroughly gaining and holding the full confidence of the public. A fact worthy of most creditable mention in connection with Mr. Smitht's career as a banker, is that all three of his banks, during the financial panie of 1907, placed no limit whatever on withdrawal of deposits; the banks carried on their busi- ness during the crisis, paying all valid checks when pre- sented.

Mr. Smith was married to Miss Mary Alice Francis, who was born at Lawrenceburg, Indiana, and one daughter has been born to this union, Miss Estelle Francis Smith, who, after receiving preparatory training in Mulholland's School in San Antonio, Texas, was sent to Wellesley (Massachusetts) College, where she took a B. A. degree, and now resides with her parents. In public matters, Mr. Smith has always cvineed a commendable spirit of willingness to assist in all matters making for progress. Thus he rendered especially valuable services and dis- played his publie spirit, in 1913, when he contributed liberally and helped to raise the bonus for securing a railroad line to Fredericksburg. For himself he has never desired public office, but his support and influence

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are much sought by those running for positions of preference, and he is known as a man who will loyally adhere to and courageously fight for the principles which he deems just. Essentially a financier, he has found his chief pleasure in his business ventures, but he has not been indifferent to the social amenities, and in a wide acquaintance is able to boast of a number of sincere friends. For the past fifteen years Mr. Smith and family have divided their time between their home in the south and New York city.

JOHN SMITH SAUNDERS, M. D. As already stated, Dr. Bacon Saunders is the son of an eminent pioneer Texas physician, and some notice of his career is appropriate in this connection. John Smith Saunders, who was one of the best of old-school physicians, was born at Glas- gow, Kentucky, and in 1857 came to Dallas, which was then situated almost on the frontier. As a pioneer doc- tor in that city, in the years immediately preceding the war he became known over a wide surrounding territory. His visits across the sparsely settled country, bearing cheer and healing to the isolated families, often pene- trated into Tarrant county. To the easy-circumstanced dweller of city or town of the present day, imagination alone must picture the hardships which the good doctor encountered on these horseback journeys with his medi- cine packed in his saddle-bags, or the joy with which he was hailed by the suffering who had perhaps awaited his coming for days, whereas in this age the same number of hours would seem long, and who would not see him again on his rounds for several weeks. Filling the place of friend, counselor, and helper, his part in the life of that historical epoch is none the less important because it was unostentatiously performed. He thus continued to practice at Dallas until the war came on. A Ken- tuckian, it is not strange that his admiration for his fel- low citizen, Henry Clay, made him an adherent of old- line principles, and when the question of secession came up for settlement, though a firm believer in state rights, he opposed the separation from the Union. But, like Lewis T. Wigfall, whom he so admired, and like hundreds of conspicuous and eminent southerners, his loyalty to Dixie, when the issue came to settlement, aligned him without hesitation with the Confederacy. Enlisting in 1862, he was appointed brigade surgeon on the staff of General R. M. Cano, and as such served until the close of the war. On his return to Dallas he decided to give up the practice of medicine, and for sev- eral years during that period of industrial prostration took a prominent part in business affairs. He built and operated the first steam mill at Dallas, and was also in the mercantile business until the failure of his health obliged him to retire. His children were then at the age when they needed better educational facilities than were afforded at Dallas, and this was the prime consid- eration that induced him to move to Bonham in 1869. There he built up a large general practice and lived until his death in 1891. His wife was Sarah Jane Clay- pool, who was born at Bowling Green, Kentucky.

At one time Dr. John S. Saunders served as president of the North Texas Medical Association, following his son in that position. Noteworthy and successful though he was as a physician, his character was such that men were more interested in the man than in his work. Of firm and positive conviction, he commanded respect and wielded influence among men as a leader, although he never used the qualities for any kind of political prefer- ment, and the most important position he held was as brigade surgeon during the war. In the Christian church he took a very active part, and was a devoted member until his death. Though his energies were almost con- stantly directed to serious affairs, yet he possessed the social qualities which attached men to him through af- fection as well as respect. He was an engaging story- teller, and was especially fond of pointing a serious prin-

ciple with an illustrative anecdote. Schools of a primi- tive time supplied him with only the barest fundamentals upon which later study and observation reared a most intimate knowledge of literature, men and events. His love for the classics in literature never deserted him, and even in camp, when surrounded by all the stern realities of military life, he was wont to read his Shakespeare aloud to his fellow officers, and such was his sympathetic acquaintance with that author that it is said he knew half the plays by memory.

DR. W. NEAL WATT. No family in Texas today, per- haps, has a wider family record for military activity through several generations than has the Watt family, of which Dr. W. Neal Watt, of Austin, is a representative member. Dr. Watt first came to Texas in 1882, and in the year 1894 he identified himself with this city in his professional capacity, since which time he has been active and prominent in his work. Dr. Watt was born on December 31, 1856, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is a son of Rev. J. B. and Louisa A. (Neal) Watt.

The ancestry of Dr. Watt is a most interesting one, and though lack of space will not permit any great detail- ing of the family, it may be said that members of the Neal and Watt families have played important parts in the making of American history, from Colonial days down to the present time.

Rev. J. B. Watt was for a number of years pastor of the Steele Creek Old School Presbyterian church, and he was a son of James Watt, who lived at Winnsboro, South Carolina, for years, and was a very successful farmer there. He was of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and a direct descendant of James Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, the family having emigrated from Scotland in the sixteenth century. Members of the families from which Dr. Watt, of this review, comes, namely,-the Neals, Watts, Griers and McDowells, figured prominently in the Revolutionary war as participants, and Dr. Watt is especially proud of the fact that he is a native son of Mecklenberg county, where the Declaration of Inde- pendence was first voiced on May 20, 1775.

General W. H. Neal, the maternal grandfather of the subject, owned and operated a number of cotton and grist mills in the vicinity of Charlotte, North Carolina, and in his day was reckoned a big man. The family was especially active in Civil war times, and eight mem- bers of the Neal-Watt-Grier family who met death on battlefields of the Civil war in the service of the Con- federacy, lie buried in Steele Creek cemetery. Larkin Neal, another of the family lies in an unknown grave on the field of Antietam. Captain Mathew Peeples, an uncle of Dr. Watt by marriage, was killed in the seven days battle at Richmond. After being wounded and carried off the field, he was killed by the explosion of a shell. A half brother of Dr. Watt, Frank Watt, and another named Charles, were very active in the service of the Confederacy. Frank Watt was a gallant lieuten- ant in the First South Carolina Cavalry, attached to General J. E. B. Stuart's command. Just before the battle of Antietam he was shot above the right ear, the bullet passing directly through his head, and carrying with it particles of the brain. He fell from his horse and was reported dead. When Stuart was beaten back by a division of Federal infantry, the body of Frank Watt was captured. When it was discovered that he was still alive he was lodged in prison, and after six months there he was exchanged and returned home, sound and well. He returned to the service in a short while and took an active part in the second battle of Manassas. A few weeks after that battle he fell ill of typhoid fever, and died in a Confederate hospital. Charles Watt passed through the entire war period with- out being wounded, and he is still living. It is a notable fact that the First North Carolina Regiment, of which he was a member, was in thirty-two pitched battles, be- sides numerous skirmishes, Mr. Watt participating in

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them all. He was captured at Petersburg in D. H. Hill's division, and for several months after the close of the war he was a captive in a northern prison. The mother of Dr. Watt was Louisa Angeline Neal, a daugh- ter of Gen. William H. Neal, of the Confederate army.

Dr. Watt had his early education in the schools of Charlotte and Shelby, North Carolina, attending the D. McNeill Turner high school of the latter place, after which he entered the medical department of the Univer- sity of New York, and on March 10, 1877, was gradu- ated. Soon after that event the young doctor began practice with Dr. Thomas Kell at Pineville, North Caro- olina, and for a year he remained there. He came to Burton, Texas, in February, 1882, and he continued there in practice until 1894, when he came to Austin. Since that time he has been definitely and worthily engaged iu medical practice in this city.

Dr. Watt has kept up his professional studies during the year and in 1907 he took post graduate courses in medicine and surgery in the Chicago Post Graduate Medical School and Hospital. In addition to his private practice, he was engaged as Division Surgeon of the Austin & Northwestern Railroad from 1894 to 1902, and prior to his coming to Texas he was surgeon of the North Carolina State Militia for one year. At the present time he is Chief Medical Examiner & Nominator of the Equi- table Life Assurance Company of the United States, medical examiner of the Provident Life Assurance So- ciety of New York, medical examiner of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen and of the Order of Railroad Trainmen and also medical examiner for the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers, and of the Woodmen of the World. He is the medical representative of the Aus- tin Aerie of the Fraternal Order of Eagles; Surgeon of the Union Casualty and Insurance Company of St. Louis, Missouri; of the Michigan Commercial Travelers' As- sociation ; of the Mutual Accident Association of Utica, New York, and of Maryland Casualty Company of Bal- timore, Maryland. He is a member of Travis County, Austin District and the State and American Medical Associations, and is an active member and worker in each of them.

His private practice in the city is an extensive one, which, coupled with his many professional activities, combine to make him one of the busiest men of the city.

On September 27, 1882, in Burton, Texas, Dr. Watt was married to Olivia Jordan Elliott, a daughter of B. F. Elliott, of that place, and five children were born to them. William Elliott Watt is now twenty-two years of age and is a student in the medical department of the University of Tennessee in his third year. Maude Wini- fred, aged nineteen, a graduate of the Austin high school, will attend a girl's college, where she will fit herself for the teaching profession. Stuart, aged seven- teen, is an apprentice in an automobile shop. Terence Neal Watt, eight years old, is a pupil in Bickler's school, in East Austin. Walter Slade Watt, the youngest, is now three and a half years old.

The family residence is maintained at No. 309 East Eighth street, while the offices of the doctor are in the Littlefield Building.

JAMES J. PADGETT. The ups and downs of life have about equally alternated in the business career of James J. Padgett, who has been identified with business in one form or another in Texas since his earliest advent into the state in the year 1872. Since then he has been active in agriculture, mercantile ventures and in public service. Success has attended some of his enterprises and on numer- ous occasions he has been unfortunate, but he is, in the main, a fairly successful man, and takes his place among the foremost men of Waco, where he has been a resident since 1897.

James J. Padgett was born in Calhoun county, Geor- gia, on September 27, 1850, and is a son of Elijah Padgett and Lydia (Davis) Padgett. The father was

born in Fayette county, Georgia, in 1821, and was a prominent man in Calhoun county for a good many years. He was sheriff of the county for thirteen years and judge of the superior court of the county for six years, as well as being otherwise prominent in that district. He died in 1885. The mother, who was born in 1831. died in 1865, leaving one son,-James J. Padgett, of this review.

James J. Padgett attended the common schools of Cal- houn county to the age of nineteen years, after which he was employed in the farming communities near his home until he was twenty-two, when he left the work aud with his father opened a general store in Whitney. They continued until 1872 and sold out the business and came to MeLennan county, Texas, where they took up a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres. They lived on the place for six years, then sold it and invested the proceeds in a farm implement business at Perry, asso- ciating themselves with a Mr. Henchman in the enter- prise. After two years they withdrew and, going south to Bosque, McLennan county, bought another farm of one hundred and sixty acres, for which they paid $3.50 the acre. After three years James J. Padgett, attracted by the opening of the town of McGregor, moved to that place and built the third house that was erected there. He put in a line of furniture and stoves, also a full line of farm implements, and continued successfully in busi- ness until 1885, when he burned out, and the business was a total loss. While in business there Mr. Padgett had been appointed postmaster under the first Cleveland administration, and he served for three and a half years, when he resigned. After the disastrous fire, crippled in his resources and almost ruined, Mr. Padgett again en- gaged in the implement business and continued for two years, when he sold out, and again bought land at South Bosque, where he lived for two years. In 1897 he came to Waco and for a year was occupied in the feed business, but his next venture was in carpentering and contract- ing, in which he continued for three years. For the next years he was in the employ of the city in various capacities, and in 1912 he was elected justice of the peace from the First Precinct, which office he still re- tains.

It will be seen that Mr. Padgett has known ill fortune, as well as good, but he has always taken his losses philo- sophically, and after each misfortune has come up smil- ing, ready to begin over again, and today, after forty- two years of residence in Texas, he may be said to be one of the reasonably successful men of the place.

Mr. Padgett, in addition to his service as justice of the peace, served as deputy sheriff of MeLennan county for ten years, and he was constable of Moody precinct for one term. He is a member of the Young Men's Business League of Waco, and attends the Baptist church.

On February 7, 1887, Mr. Padgett was married to Mar- tha L. Davis, daughter of John Davis, a real estate man of Calhoun county, Georgia, and to them have been born nine children. Lydia, the eldest, is a widow; Lenora is the wife of J. C. McKathan; John married Lula Mil- ler, and is a farmer; James, Jr., an expressman at Waco, married Jennie Raysdale; Alice M. is the wife of William Elliott, of Oklahoma; Lollie married D. T. Pierce, a minister and teacher of Kingsville, Texas. Tommie, Roger and an infant are deceased.

DR. JAMES EDWARD SNEED has been a resident of Teague and a practicing physician here since the town started on its way to the dignity of the name of city, coming here as a young physician fresh from his alma mater at New Orleans. He is a Texas product, born in Fairfield, on December 17, 1881, and he was reared for the most part in the community of his birth. He is a son of Dr. Wm. N. Sneed, who still practices medicine in Fairfield, and concerning whom it is eminently fit-

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ting and proper that some mention be made at this point.

Dr. William N. Sneed came to Texas from Thomas- ville, Georgia, where he was born in 1844. He had his education in Tulane University, in New Orleans, and from Texas, where he came as a youth, he entered the Confederate army from Freestone county, in the regi- ment of Colonel Bradley. He served in General Pem- berton's army iu Mississippi and was captured and paroled at Vicksburg. He then returned to the service in Texas and served in and about Galveston during the remainder of the war. He was never wounded, and when the long struggle was ended he turned at once to his professional studies, and was a graduate from the medical department of Tulane University. His service in a publie capacity has been confined to membership on examining boards and other work pertaining to -the making of fledgling doctors. He has attended the clinics and done post graduate work from time to time, keeping himself as fresh and up-to-date in the knowledge of his profession as he felt himself on the day he left college. Dr. Sneed has taken no active part in polities. He is a Democrat, and though prominent and popular with his fellow men, he has never shown any desire to hold office. He is a man of striking appearance, weighing about 190 pounds, and with a figure as erect as that of an early North American Indian. He is a man of pleasing personality, and is a natural leader, so that had he permitted himself to deviate from his chosen career, he would have undoubtedly won high honors in the po- litical field. Dr. Sneed has given some time to agricul- ture, and he is the owner of a vast tract of land in Freestone county. He has brought much of his land under cultivation and has introduced blooded horses and cattle iuto the section where he carries on farm- ing activities. He is also interested in banks in both Fairfield and Teague, and his investments have extended to other fields as well. He never makes publie speeches, but among a company of friends, Dr. Sneed is an in- teresting and instructive conversationalist.

Dr. Sneed came to Texas with his father, Kit W. Sneed, who died in Fairfield, as a farmer. He became a large planter there and owned many slaves, and the colored Sneeds of the present day are, for the most part, descendants of his former holdings of blacks. He was a strong Secessionist, and a Yankee in his vicinity was shown no quarter. Kit W. Sneed married a Miss Davis, and their children were seven in number. They were Dr. W. N., Dr. J. A., Walter E. and Dr. Kit W., of Wortham, Texas; Mrs. J. B. McInnis, of Teague; Mrs. J. H. Oliver, of Buffalo, Texas; and Mrs. Ella Johnson, of Fairfield, now deceased.

Dr. William N. Sneed married Miss Alice Johnson, a daughter of Col. J. B. Johnson, a Confederate Colonel, and an ante-bellum settler of Freestone county. He was an extensive planter aud slave owner and the famous old "rock house" of the Fairfield community was his home, and was of his own construction. His children were Edgar, of Waco; William P., a large planter near Fair- field; Mrs. W. F. Moore, who died in Mexia, Texas, and Mrs. Sneed. The issue of Dr. Sneed and his wife were Berta, wife of G. P. Davis, of Fairfield; Dr. Wm. N. Jr .; Dr. James Edward of this review; Mrs. John F. Fryer of Fairfield and Miss Alice Sneed, also of Fair- field.

Dr. James Edward Sneed spent his boyhood acquir- ing his common school training, and when he was a high school senior he entered the A. & M. College at Bryan. There he did the work of the Junior year in the engineering course, and when he left that institution he set about his preparation for a medical career. He had his medical training in Tulane University at New Or- leans, and came fresh from his studies there to take up his professional duties at Teague, and here he has since continued successfully in his work.

Dr. Sneed is a member of the local medical societies,

and he is also a member of the State and National Associations.

On November 6, 1906, Dr. Sneed was married in Camden, Alabama, to Miss Sallie Belle Bonner, a daugh- ter of Irvin H. Bonner of Fairfield, Texas, and an old Confederate soldier and comrade of Dr. Sneed's father. Mr. Bonner came to Texas before the war and married Miss Jane Robinson, the daughter of a pioneer family of Freestone county. Mrs. Sneed is one of the two daughters of her parents, the other being the wife of Dr. Ernest Bonner of Camden, Alabama. Dr. and Mrs. Sneed are without issue.

Dr. Sneed is a Mason of the Blue Lodge and Chap- ter, and is also fraternally affiliated with the Elks and the Knights of Pythias. He and his wife are members of the Presbyterian church of Teague, and take an ac- tive part in its work.

JOSEPH T. LARUE. A native son of the Lone Star state who has attained to distinctive success and pres- tige as one of the representative business men and influ- ential citizens of Henderson county is Joseph Thomas LaRue, the popular president of the Athens National Bank, at Athens, the attractive and thriving judicial center of the county, where he has also other important capitalistic interests. His status in the community sets at naught any application of the scriptural aphorism that "a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, " for he claims as his native heath the county that is now his home.

Mr. LaRue was born on a farm near Murchison, Hen- derson county, Texas, on the 18th of November, 1864, aud is a representative of the honored pioneer families of this favored section of the state, besides which the name has been worthily lined with the annals of Ameri- can history since 1685, when three brothers came fro.L France and settled in Virginia. The lineage is thus traced back to stanch French origin and representa- tives of the family having aided in blazing the path of civilization on the "dark and bloody ground" of Vir- ginia and Kentucky, when that commonwealth was still on the frontier. Joseph M. LaRue came from Bedford county, Tennessee, to Texas in 1852, and first settled near Lovelady, Houston county, but in the following year he removed to Henderson county, where he acquired a tract of wild land and instituted the reclamation and im- provement of the same, this county continuing to be his home until his death, and his having been secure pres- tige as one of the honored pioneers and progressive citi- zens of the county, to the development and upbuilding of which he contributed his full quota.

Joseph M. LaRue was born in Bedford county, Ten- nessee, in the year 1825, and there his father, John C. LaRue, died very shortly after the close of the Civil war, at the age of seventy-seven years. John C. LaRue was born in Kentucky, whence he removed to Tennessee in the early pioneer epoch of the history of that state, and he became one of the extensive planters and slaveholders of Tennessee, where he well upheld the prestige of the family name, which is perpetuated in the title of LaRue county, Kentucky, a county named in honor of one of the distinguished members of the family who was promi- nent in the early history of the fine old Bluegrass state. John C. LaRue was a soldier in the war of 1812 and the maiden name of his wife was Hardin. Of their several children, Joseph M., father of the subject of this review, was the youngest. Joseph M. LaRue was reared under the somewhat patrician regime in the old south and was afforded the advantages of the schools of his native state. Upon leaving the parental home and instituting independent operations as a planter in Tennessee, his father presented him with a few slaves, whom he em- ployed on his plantation, which was one of modest order, and whom he brought with him to Texas, where they continued in his service until the Emancipation Proc- lamation led to their freedom. Mr. LaRue continued.

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A history of Texas and Texans, Part 165

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