A history of Texas and Texans, Part 24

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 24

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Preston Conlee was born in the state of Tennessee in 1798. Little information is obtainable concerning his family and ancestry. His brother John, it should be mentioned, was a captain in the Confederate army, and the last time he was heard from he was living at Little

Rock, Arkansas. Preston Conlee grew up in the state of Tennessee, received an education in the common schools of the times, and when a very young man left that state and moved out to Texas, which was then a province of Mexico. He located in old Bastrop county, and identified himself with the usual industry of the pioneers, farming and cattle raising. When the hostilities broke out be- tween the province and the central government at Mexico, he joined the patriot army, and gave his assistance to the winning of independence. continuing with the army of Houston until the battle of San Jacinto, in April, 1836. After the war he became prominent in public affairs in Bastrop connty, and held the position of sheriff for ten years. The duties of a sheriff in the early days of Texas required much more than today, the best quali- ties of fearless manhood, and a determination which might confront any and every danger. After a long and creditable service as sheriff, Mr. Conlee returned to his farm and was engaged in raising cattle and horses in Bastrop county for a number of years. His home in that county was long known as the "half-way house," being situated midway between Lagrange and Austin. It was known to all the old-timers who traveled the road to the state capital for its hospitality and almost daily travelers enjoyed its comforts and its board and bed. In 1870, in consequence of failing health, Mr. Conlee moved his family to Gainesville, and thereatter lived retired until his death in 1872.

Preston Conlee was married in 1850, to Miss Martha E. Clanton, a native of Louisiana, and a daughter of John and Catherine (Hughes) Clanton. Her father was a brick mason, and was born in Mississippi. Mrs. Conlee is the only survivor of the seven children in her parents' household. The four children born to Preston Conlee and wife are mentioned as follows: Mattie, widow of Charles W. Dobbins of Ardmore, Oklahoma; Sue, widow of Augustus MeKemie; Angeline, wife of W. B. Johnson, a very prominent attorney, and former United States attorney under Roosevelt at Ardmore, Oklahoma: and Preston, of Ardmore, Oklahoma.

HON. WARNER MARION PETICOLAS. A native prodnet of the state of Texas, Hon. Warner Marion Peticolas has passed his life thus far within its borders, and though still a young man, has already gained distinctions in his professional career that has been withheld from many an older aspirant for honors. He is now local attorney for the El Paso & Southwestern Railroad Company, hav- ing accepted that appointment after the expiration of his service as Chief Justice of the Court of Civil Appeals of the Eighth Judicial District, to which he was appointed in 1911 by Governor Colquitt.

Born in Victoria, Texas, on June 19, 1873, Mr. Peti- colas is the son of Alfred Brown and Marion (Goodwin) Peticolas, natives of Virginia and Ohio, respectively. The father came to Texas in the days prior to the Civil war period, in which he served the full four years as the lieutenant of his company under General Sibley. He is still living and is a resident of Victoria. He was a lawyer of prominence and is the author of Peticolas' Civil & Criminal Digest. Although he has never been an aspirant for public office, he has always taken an active part in the Democratic politics of the state and nation, as well as in local affairs. The mother came to Texas from her Ohio home as a young girl and in Victoria she met and married her husband. She still lives and is the mother of three sons, as follows: Sherman Goodwin, living in Omaha, Nebraska; Warner Marion of this review; and Alfred Ralph, a resident of Baltimore, Maryland.

Warner Marion Peticolas was educated in the public schools of Victoria. Texas, and of Ithaca, New York, completing his training in the University of Texas, from which he was graduated in 1893 with the degree of LL.B. He began his professional activities in association with his father in his home town, continuing there for six years, or until 1899, when he moved to El Paso, and here took up independent practice. He was successful from the

1670

TEXAS AND TEXANS

beginning and gained a high place at the bar of El Paso county. In 1911 he was appointed Chief Justice of the Court of Civil Appeals for the Eighth Judicial District, serving in that office until November 1, 1912, since which time his energies have been given to the legal department of the El Paso & Southwestern Railroad Company in El Paso.

Like his father, Mr. Peticolas is a Democrat, and he has always had an active part in the labors of the party, per- forming worthy service in its behalf, and receiving hon- ors at its behest. He is a member of the County and State Law Associations, and fraternally is a member of the Knights of Pythias.

On November 1st, 1894, Mr. Peticolas was married to Miss Lola Givens Davis, the daughter of John A. Davis, a native son of Texas. The marriage took place in Galveston, the home of the Davis family and the birth- place of Mrs. Peticolas. To them have been born six children, as follows: Floyd Davis; Warner Marion, Jr .; Ella Goodman; Alfred Brown; John Davis; and William. The home of the family is at 1407 Montana street.

JOHN H. GLASGOW. To have a statewide reputation when the state in question is as large as the state of Texas, is no small thing for one man to accomplish. John H. Glasgow, of Seymour, Texas, can easily lay claim to this honor, for he is widely known as one of the greatest criminal lawyers Texas has ever claimed. Endowed by nature with a legal mind, through years of study and close application, and through an ability to read men and grasp the significance of their actions, Mr. Glasgow has risen to his present high position in the regard of his fellow lawyers and the people of the state in general. Not only is he a great lawyer, but also he is a man of splendid character, a man of enl- ture and fine intellect, and his personal popularity is widespread. Although he takes an active interest in public affairs yet he has never been prevailed upon to accept a public office save once, preferring to devote his entire time to his profession, his family and his friends.

John H. Glasgow was born in Cape Girardeau county, Missouri, on the 17th of December, 1851. He attended the common schools of Missouri, and after completing the work of the public schools, he became a teacher, his aim being to earn enough money to enable him to go to college. He was eventually able to lay aside the money by which he paid his expenses in the Fruitland Normal Institute at Pleasant Hill, Missouri. After a four year course in this institution, he came to Texas. This was in 1874 when he was twenty-three years of age and he located in Young county, Texas. Here he taught the first public school in the county. The roof was a tarpaulin and the floor was of dirt and condi- tions were primitive indeed. During his years as a student he had been studying law more or less and during his one year as a teacher in Texas he continued his studies. In 1876 he was admitted to the bar and he has practiced law continuously since that time. He first opened an office in Graham county and until 1856 he remained in this county. It was while he was a resident of this county that he accepted his only public office, that of county judge, serving in this office for four years. In 1886 he came to Baylor county and es- tablished himself in practice here. He is now the oldest lawyer in Seymour, having practiced all over this county before a mile of railroad had been built.

Mr. Glasgow has made his reputation as a great lawyer in the practice of criminal law. He has defended as many men as any other lawyer in the state and his sue- cess has not been due to trickery but to a comprehen- sive knowledge of the law and to his eloquence and the force of his personality in the court room. Mr. Glas- gow has been many times urged to accept office but has steadily refused. He has been tendered the district judgeship upon more than one occasion but has pre- ferred the work of an attorney to the work of a judge.

One of the finest things about the success of this man is that he is not the object of the bitter envy that so often assails men in high places. His methods are too fair and his personality too well liked to bring him anything but the friendship and respect of other mien.

In his religious affiliations Mr. Glasgow is a member of the Methodist church. Politically he is a member of the Democratic party and takes a keen interest in na- tional as well as state and local political questions. He has always been very active in fraternal circles, being a member of the Ancient Free and Accepted Masons and of the Knights of Pythias. He has been senior warden in the Masonic lodge in Seymour and is a mem- ber of the Blue Lodge in Seymour and of the Com- mandery and Knights Templar. He has also held offices in the Knights of Pythias. He was one of the men who organized the latter order in Seymour and on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his membership the members of the lodge presented him with a gold button as a token of their friendship and esteem. Mr. Glasgow is keenly interested in baseball, having been at one time a great ball player himself. He enjoys everything in the shape of art, but his especial passion is for poetry. He has a fine memory and poetical quotations add to both his public speeches and his conversation, for he has the gift of speaking poetry that few men have.

Mr. Glasgow was married at Columbus, Texas, in 1891 to Miss Manti Cummins, a daughter ot Mr. and Mrs. Cummins, of Seymour, Mr. Cummins being one of the pioneers of Colorado county. Two children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Glasgow, a son and a daughter, Jack, Jr., and Kitty Gale.

ELIAS P. LESTER. The thriving city of Cameron, the metropolis and judicial center of Milam county, is fa- vored in having as its mayor a citizen of such marked progressiveness and loyalty as Mr. Lester, who is ably administering the affairs of the city government and who holds also the position of assistant cashier of the Cameron State Bank, one of the staunch and popular financial institutions of central Texas. Further interest attaches to the career of Mayor Lester by reason of the fact that he was born and reared in the county that is now his home and is a scion of one of the best known and most honored pioneer families of this favored section of the Lone Star State.

Elias P. Lester was born at Maysfield, Milam county, Texas, on the 30th of October, 1862, and is a son of Elias J. and Elizabeth (Nunn) Lester, both natives of Tennessee, where the former was born in 1823 and the latter in 1825, both having been children at the time of the removal of the respective families to Texas. Elias J. Lester came to Texas in 1834, at which time he was about eleven years of age, and his parents settled in Milam county. He became one of the representative pio- neer farmers of this section of Texas and not only served as a gallant soldier in the revolution through which Texas was separated from Mexico and made an independent re- public, but he also went forth as a representative of the same commonwealth as a soldier in the Civil war, in which he sacrificed his life in the cause of the Con- federacy. His death occurred in 1863, and was the result of disease contracted when serving with his regiment. He was a man whose high principles and genial ways gained to him the respect and esteem of all who knew him, and his name merits an enduring place on the roster of the honored pioneers of the Lone Star State. His wife, who survived him by more than thirty years, was sum- moned to the life eternal in 1898, and thus passed away one of the revered pioneer women of Milam county. In the family were seven children-Sarah E. is the widow of Frank Jones, of Kerrville, Kerr county, Texas, where her husband was a successful farmer, and they have two children; Eliza E. is the widow of S. D. Beasley, who was a farmer and stock-grower of Callahan county, Texas, and they became the parents of seven children: William J., who is married and has two children, is a successful horti-

1671

TEXAS AND TEXANS

eulturist at Durant, Oklahoma; Amanda J. is the wife of J. A. Mayes, a farmer at Gatesville, Coryell county, Texas, and they have five children ; James E., who wedded Miss Ida Martin and has seven children, is a farmer and merchant of Jones Prairie, Milam county; Thomas died in intaney; and Elias P. is the immediate subject of this review.

Elias P. Lester was an infant at the time of his father's death and he was reared to adult age at the old family homestead at Maysfield, Milam county, where he attended the public schools until he had attained to the age of fifteen years. Thereafter he gave his attention to agri- cultural pursuits and stock-growing until he was twenty- four years of age, when he entered the employ of Edward D. Atkinson of Maysfield, in whose service he continued for seventeen years, in the capacity of bookkeeper. At the expiration of this period he removed to Cameron, the county seat, to assume the position of bookkeeper in the First National Bank. After one year he was advanced to the position of assistant cashier, and retained this en- cumbency five years, at the expiration of which he resigned the office to accept that of assistant cashier of the Cameron State Bank, with which he has been identified in this capacity since 1908. Mr. Lester has made an admirable record as an executive officer in connection with banking operations of appreciable scope and importance, and he has at all times been accorded the fullest measure of popular confidence and esteem. He is the owner of his attractive home property in Cameron, besides other city property, and has in his native county a well improved farm of 250 acres. He is also a stockholder in the State Bank of Burlington, Milam county, and one of its direc- tors.

Adhering closely to the Democratic party, Mr. Lester has had no desire to enter the arena of so-called practical politics, though he is essentially liberal and progressive as a citizen. In 1913 he was elected to fill out an unex- pired term as mayor of Cameron, and the best voucher for the efficiency of his service in this important office was that given .in his re-election in 1914. Mr. Lester is a popular factor in the social life of his home city and the fact that he still permits his name to be enrolled on the list of eligible bachelors has in no sense militated against the good will thus manifested toward him by all who know him. He attends and supports the Presbyterian church in Cameron.

LOUIS ROBERT BARRAS. In 1909 Mr. Barras came to Texas from Portland, Oregon, and organized, with Mr. Jones, the Fred A. Jones Building Company, with offices in Dallas and Houston, and this company achieved imme- diate and conspicuous success under the sole manage- ment of Mr. Barras.

Louis R. Barras was born in Philadelphia, Pennsyl- vania, on September 28th, 1871, and is the son of Samuel T. and Isabella (Taylor) Barras, of Philadelphia also, and is directly descended from the old French Provencal family of that name, whose proud boast is "Vivat Bar- rasia Proles, Antiquatate Nobilus, Virtute Nobilior" ("Live the descendants of Barras of the most ancient nobility, but in virtue excelling nobility"). Mr. Barras is the fifth generation in America.

Educated in Philadelphia, his first position was that of Assistant Engineer of Tests at the Pencoyd Iron Works, later becoming Chief Engineer of Tests. In 1892 he resigned to become an inspecting and consulting engi- neer with Messrs. Hildreth & Company, of New York ; while with them he induced that company to enter the construction field and superintended for them several interesting projects, including one of the first high-speed interurban electric roads that from Washington, D. C., to Alexandria, Virginia, and to Arlington; he also built two of the principal buildings for Smith College, North- ampton, Mass.

In 1900 and 1901 he was superintendent of the construc- tion of certain Military Highways in Porto Rico, W. I., running from Arecibo to Utuado and from Manati to

Morovis and Ciales. This work included not only the necessary grading and surfacing, but also some interest- ing bridge work and some of the largest concrete arches constructed up to that time.

Returning from Porto Rico in 1901, Mr. Barras be- came superintendent for the George A. Fuller Company, of New York. This company was the pioneer in the introduction of the steel skyscraper, and is today the largest building organization in the world. While with them he superintended the erection of Saks & Company 's Store, the Spring-Broadway Building, the New Amster- dam Theatre, the Breslin Hotel, the New York Hippo- drome.

Resigning from the Fuller Company, Mr. Barras under- took and carried through successfully some difficult work in the Mississippi River below New Orleans, for the Foundation Company, of New York. This work involved the first use in this country of a floating pneumatic caisson for working men below water, and it excited con- siderable interest in scientific and engineering circles.

In 1896 Mr. Barras went to San Francisco, as General Superintendent for the Thompson-Starrett Company, of New York, and in two years handled the construction of some seventeen buildings, all designed to be fire- and earthquare-proof, and costing from $200,000 to $1,000,- 000 each. From San Francisco he went to Portland, Oregon, as manager for the same company, and erected several of the most prominent buildings there.

· In July, 1909, he came to Texas and since then has built The Rossonian Apartments (which are the largest and most expensive in Texas), the Bender Hotel, the South- western Telephone Main Building, the Sunset Hospital, the First Church of Christ Scientist, and the remodeling and building of addition to Messrs. Levy Brothers' Store, all in Houston. In Dallas he built the Country Club, Sumpter Building, Administration Building of the South- ern Methodist University, the Municipal Building and several smaller structures, in El Paso, the Paso del Norte Hotel, in Corpus Christi, the Nueces Hotel, in Galveston, the American National Insurance Company 's eleven-story steel office building, and in Birmingham, Ala- bama, the twenty-story American Trust & Savings Bank Building.

Mr. Barras is a member of the Dallas Club, the Dallas Country Club, the Dallas Chamber of Commerce and the Dallas Automobile Club, A. A. A., and a non-resident member of the Southern Club and Country Club of Birmingham, Alabama.

In 1895 Mr. Barras married Madeleine Bliss Bennett Duncan, of Alabama, daughter of the Confederate Major Benjamin Duncan and Sue (Kidd) Duncan. Mrs. Barras is a direct descendant of Martha Jefferson, aunt of Thomas Jefferson. They have three children-Madeleine d'Orville, born in New York City, Louis Robert, 2d, born in Northampton, Massachusetts, and Martha Jefferson Virginia, born in Pelham, New York.

LAFAYETTE MURPHY. This name introduces one of the oldest families of Kaufman county, founded by a grand old pioneer, Captain DuBart Murphy, who was the father of the above named Lafayette Murphy, and whose descendants are found numerously both in Kaufman and other counties of the state and in the Southwest. The careers of both Captain Du Bart Murphy and Lafayette Murphy deserve more than ordinary mention among the noted Texans of the past.

Captain DuBart Murphy, who died in 1891, was for nearly half a century a resident of Texas. His was an eventful and adventurous career from his childhood. He came into the unexplored regions of the Southwest when seventeen years of age on a mission of humanity, and for twenty years before taking up his permanent home in Texas was a frequent traveler over the routes leading up and down the country to the west of the Mississippi. He was born at Genevieve, Missouri, May 26, 1806, a son of William Murphy and a grandson of William Murphy. Grandfather Murphy was the youngest of three brothers

1672

TEXAS AND TEXANS

who left Ireland and settled in the Virginia colony just before the outbreak of the Revolution. All were Baptist preachers, and the two older brothers, Joseph and Rich- ard, remained loyal to the Crown, while William gave his support to the cause of independence and saw it succeed. William Murphy was a merchant and importer in Rich- mond when the war broke out, and, thinking that the affair would soon end, donated his coarser goods to the quartermaster for the use of the Colonial troops, and the hner goods he packed away in boxes and stored in a, cellar to await the restoration of peace. When he finally reopened his stock, at the end of eight years of war, he found the boxes so rotten that they fell to pieces and his goods ruined with dampness and decay. During the war grandfather William Murphy was an officer in the Revolutionary army, and for four years served under Generals Nash, Knox and Putnam. After the war he moved to Tennessee, taking all his married children with him, and settling near Knoxville, where among his neigh- bors and associates were Captain Menafee and Governor Blount, the first governor of the state. After some years as a farmer there, he became restless and followed his pioneer desires to acquire a home beyond the Mis- sissippi. All the country west of. the Mississippi was then the territory of Louisiana, under the dominion of Spain and later of France. On horseback grandfather Murphy made a journey to the Spanish post of St. Louis, and arranged for a colony to be established in St. Gene- vieve county. He then returned home to arrange for the removal of his family, but, like Moses of old, he was not permitted to more than look towards the promised land, for he was cut off before the family started on its journey and his ashes still sleep in the Volunteer state. The event caused no change in the plans, and his widow, with the dauntless enterprise of pioneer women, became the practical leader of the family emigration. In 1798 with her married sons she headed the exodus for the Louisiana country. Their goods were loaded on to keel boats, floated down the Tennessee into the Ohio, and from the month of the Ohio up the Mississippi to Cape Girardeau. Five of the sons were then married, and each took a grant of land on the Missouri side of the river and chopped from the vast forest an abiding place and farm. The seven sons of grandmother Murphy were Josiah, David, Richard, DuBart (named in honor of the French merchant with whom his father did an import ing business prior to the Revolutionary war), Isaac, Jesse, and William. The last named was the father of Captain DuBart Murphy of Texas. Settling in the ex- treme southeastern corner of Missouri in what is now St. Francis county, the Murphys were so numerous as to give the community name Murphy Settlement. In a few years the Murphy settlement became a populous one, and strangers passing through began to feel safe in hailing every man as a Mr. Murphy, and it is claimed they sel- dom made a mistake. In that vicinity grandmother Mur- phy, who was a devout Christian, is said to have con- ducted the first Sunday school in the entire state of Missouri. She lived many years, witnessed the political events which transferred the Louisiana territory first to France and later to the United States, followed by the organization of Missouri territory and the admission of the territory as a state, and died in 1843 and is buried at Farmington in St. Francis county. Her maiden name was Rachel Henderson, and she was born in the Shenan- doah Valley of Virginia. William Murphy, the father of Captain DuBart Murphy, was one of the family party which established pioneer homes in the Missouri settle- ment, and continued to live and reared his family in St. Francis county.

The late Captain DuBart Murphy, who was the young- est of his father's children, grew up in Southeastern Missouri near the Mississippi river, had some recollec- tion of the war of 1812, and saw the first steamboat that passed along, a pioneer in the great river traffic that was subsequently developed along that highway. One of his first school teachers was Joshua Barton, a brother of

Judge David Barton, who, with Colonel Benton, was elected first United States senator from Missouri. When seventeen years of age, Captain Murphy was asked!

his unele to make a trip to Jonesboro, 'Texas, to inquire into the death of his son Isaac, who was reported to have been killed by Indians. That was in the year 1823, and all the Arkansas country was practically un- known except to traders and trappers, and only a few trails led across the country and lost themselves in the forest. The hardships of such a journey did not deter the young man, and he was additionally spurred by the prom- ise of one hundred dollars for the desired information. He made the journey on horseback, found the settlement in which his cousin had lived about Jonesboro, learned the particulars of his death by the Indians, and returned as he came after the absence of two months.

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

A history of Texas and Texans, Part 24

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