A history of Texas and Texans, Part 3

Author: Johnson, Francis White, 1799-1884; Barker, Eugene Campbell, 1874-1956, ed; Winkler, Ernest William, 1875-1960
Publication date: 1914
Publisher: Chicago, American Historical Society
Number of Pages: 906

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Richard J. Owen, who has won his various promotions on his individual merit and by actual achievements, was born in Shelbyville, Kentucky, January 13, 1865, a son of David and Matilda Owen. His early educa- tion was in the public schools of Kentucky, and after leaving high school he took four years work in the Kentucky Military Institute at Frankfort, where he was graduated in 1882. From 1882 to 1886 he was as- sistant professor of mathematics in the Kentucky Mil- itary Institute. His proficiency in mathematical and physical sciences had manifested itself early in his school career and it was along the lines of achievements marked out by this faculty that his career has pro- gressed. From Frankfort, after his career as teaeber, he spent two years as a practical civil engineer, and then came to Texas. Between his earlier school days and his college education, he earned money to advance himself by employment in a store in Kentucky. While in col- lege he was a member of the Signa Alpha Epsilom Fraternity Chi Chapter and also an active member of the Philomathean college literary and debating society.

Early in the year 1888 Mr. Owen came to Texas and for two years was teacher of mathematics of Belle Plaine College, in Callahan county. In 1890 he located in El Paso and has practiced his profession there ever since. The only exception to this continued residence in El Paso was four years, during which he was superin- tendent for the Pullman Company at Mexico City. Dur- ing his many years residence in El Paso he has travelled extensively and his services have been called for on numerous projects at a distance, including a number of large irrigations, railroads and other undertakings both in the southwest United States and in Mexico. One of the largest enterprises with which he has been associated was located in Mexico, and was a project for the ir- rigation of a tract of land consisting of one hundred thousand acres or more. He is now engaged in the survey of the disputed river boundary between Texas and New Mexico, being upon the Texas side in the dispute.

Mr. Owen on January 20, 1902, at El Paso married Miss Lita M. Eaton, a daughter of Col. E. W. Eaton, of Socorro, New Mexico. He and his wife attend the Methodist church, which is their preference among the various denominations. In polities Mr. Owen is a Demo- crat, interested as a voter in good government, but not active in party affairs. For recreation he is fond of hunting, and the more aesthetic accomplishment in musie and theatres and the books of his home library. His private reading aside from that in his own pro- fession is directed usually along historical lines, and he has a well selected library to supply him with oppor- tunities for indulging his taste in general literature. Mr. Owen is a loyal citizen of west Texas, a thorough believer in its opportunities and resources, and is one of the local citizens whose judgment is based upon long and thorough experience and whose opinions con- cerning the country in any respect would be thoroughly reliable. Mr. Owen is a member of the Society of American Engineers. At two different times he served

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in the Kentucky State Guards, once with the rank of captain, and once as major.

BROWN BROTHERS. An important acquisition to the financial interests of the state of Texas generally, and of the city of Austin particularly, is exemplified in the enterprise of Brown Brothers, a firm which has been in successful operation here since 1883. The firm has at its command immense sums of money which it is pre- pared to loan to borrowers, simply to earn interest for the corporations which it represents, these latter being: The Scottish American Mortgage Company, Lim- ited, of Edinburgh, Scotland; and the American Mort- gage Company, Limited, of Edinburgh. The concern invests annually a half to one million of dollars in farm loans and has at present over three millions of dollars in mortgages on farms and city real estate.

At the time that this firm was organized, state laws regarding land titles were not well defined, and the firm of Brown Brothers has done more than any other firm iu Texas towards getting the passage of proper leg- islation put through the Legislature in the protection of these titles. This is one of the two distinct services rendered by the company to the state, the other being the bringing here from Scotland and England of im- mense sums of money for the development of wild Lone Star land. R. L. Brown, the former directing head of the firm, died in November, 1910, and since that time R. L. Slaughter has been the executive director of the concern.

R. L. Brown practiced law in Glasgow, Scotland, be- fore coming to the United States, having been educated in private schools and later graduating from Oxendean House, Berwickshire, Scotland. He was married in his native land to a daughter of Colonel Lamb, of the British Army, and his widow is still living in Austin. They had no children.

J. Gordon Brown was born in Scotland, where he was educated in Willfield House, Berwickshire, and on com- ing to the United States located in Galveston, Texas, where he was for some years engaged in the cotton business before he and his brother, R. L. Brown, or- ganized the firm of Brown Brothers, of which he is still a member. Mr. Brown is unmarried.

R. L. Slaughter was born in Travis county, Texas, in 1872, and is a son of Capt. A. B. and Anna (Eanes) Slaughter, natives of Virginia, the latter of whom still survives and is a resident of Travis county, Texas. Dur- ing the war between the South and the North, the father served as a captain in the army, and saw active fighting throughont that struggle. R. L. Slaughter received his early educational training in the public schools of Travis county, Texas, following which he took his academic course in Southwestern University, Georgetown, from which institution he was graduated in 1894. His law studies were pursned in the University of Texas, and his degree was secured in 1907. He has since been con- nected with the firm of Brown Brothers, and is widely known in business, realty and financial circles through- out the state. He was married at Columbus, Ohio, in December, 1912, to Miss Helen Roling, daughter of Charles F. Roling, a civil service official. They are consistent members of the Methodist Episcopal church, South.

THOMAS DUDLEY WOOTEN, M. D. The late Dr. Thomas Dudley Wooten has a remarkably useful and commendable career in his profession, and those years that were passed in devotion to his work in Austin added much to his already wide prominence as a physi- cian and surgeon of unusual skill and accomplishments. His history is one of unusual interest and there attaches to it much of importance because of the position in the medical profession to which his sons have attained in the years they have thus far devoted to their chosen

work, concerning whom some brief mention will appear in later paragraphs.

Thomas Dudley Wooten, M. D., was born in Barren county, Kentucky, March 6, 1829, of Virginia parents, who moved from that state in the early days of Ken- tucky 's settlement in the southern part. Joseph Wooten, his father, acquired extensive land interests in Kentucky after his removal there and established a large planta- tion which made him a wealthy and prominent man in his section of the state. His son, Thomas Dudley, was the youngest but one of a family that included several sons, and when he died, Thomas Dudley Wooten, then fifteen years of age, found himself virtually the master of the farm and the slaves. The boy grappled suc- cessfully with the task he saw before him and he was successful in the work, discharging the duties of pro- prietor of several years, and in the meantime gaining such education as his spare time permitted him to ac- quire in the country schools, and devoting his evenings to diligent study.

Nearing his majority, young Wooten began the study of medicine, and after a year's reading in the office of Dr. George Rogers in the town of Glasgow, he entered the medical department of the University of Louisville, in the fall of 1851. At that time that institution was second to none in the Union in the efficiency of its med- ical faculty, numbering among its professors such men as the elders Flint, Gross, Yandell, Drake, Caldwell, Silliman and Miller. Before completing his medical course he was married to Miss Henriette C. Goodall, a daughter of Dr. Turner Goodall, a successful practi- tioner of Tompkinsville, Monroe county, Kentucky.

In the spring of 1853 he was graduated and entered straightway into active practice at Tompkinsville, Ken- tucky, but removing in 1856 to Springfield, in south- eastern Missouri, where for the first year he was en- gaged in building and improving a home and estab- lishing a farm near the young and growing city. This accomplished, he at once resumed his professional life and he was soon established in a lucrative and con- stantly growing practice. Although then, as afterwards, he pursued the practice of his chosen science in all its branches, and set up no claims as a specialist, from the first his marked success and skill in surgery, gynecology and treatment of diseases of the eye, rendered his repu- tation in those special directions a matter of special com- ment and approval.

When the war began Dr. Wooten had laid the founda- tions of a comfortable fortune and a successful career, which were swept away by the progress of the four years of war. In June, 1861, the Doctor enlisted as a private in the regiment of Col. Richard Campbell. Upon the organization of the Confederate forces in south- western Missouri a little later, he was made surgeon of Foster's Regiment, known as the Second Regiment, Seventh Division, Missouri State Troops, in command of General McBride. After the battle of Oak Hills, Wil- son's Creek, August 10, 1861, he was appointed chief surgeon of MeBride's Division. Following the battle of Pea Ridge he was appointed Surgeon General of all the Missonri forces, vice Dr. Snodgrass, resigned. When the Missouri army was turned over to the Confederacy, and, together with the Arkansas troops, formed into the First Army Corps of the West, he was chosen by the medical staff of the army for the post of Medical Di- rector of the Corps, with staff rank as Major, General Sterling Price commanding.

Upon the transfer of this command to the east of Mississippi river, and after the battle of Farmington, General Price was placed in command of the District of Tennessee, embracing the states of Tennessee, Missis- sippi, Louisiana, and part of Alabama, and Dr. Wooten was made Medical Director of the district. At that time the field and hospital service being consolidated and there being some 15,000 wounded and sick in the hos- pital, and continual engagements in the field, the labor

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of the chief medical officer was immense, and required exercise of the greatest vigilance, firmness and skill, all of which qualities were displayed abundantly and satis- factorily by Dr. Wooten. When General Price was again ordered to the west and placed in command of the dis- triet of Arkansas, Dr. Wooten retained his position on his staff and served as medical director of that district to the end of the war, being for a time on the staff of General Magruder, during the last raid of General Price into Missouri.

Dr. Wooten's rapid rise and sustained success in the army was somewhat remarkable. Only thirty years old at the outbreak of hostilities, with but four years of residence in Missouri, with no previous military experi- ence, no practical prestige or professional affiliations, he enlisted as a private, and after a few months, in competition with some of the most eminent and influ- ential medical men of St. Louis and the west, he arose to the highest medical rank in the service of the state, and to the medical directorship of the western Army Corps, retaining to the close his position on the staff and his place in the confidence and affection of Mis- souri's devoted old warrior and chieftain.

At the end of the war, completely ruined in fortune, he settled in Paris, Texas, though urged by friends to locate in some of the larger cities of the south. He very soon built up a very large practice. Still main- taining his early aptitude and skill in the direction above referred to, and reinforced by a four years' experience in the active and stirring emergencies of the field and hospital, his success in all the more difficult tasks of surgery and general practice fully sustained in-civil life the reputation won in military circles. During the ten years he remained in Paris, besides a large local prac- tice, he drew patients from a large part of northern and eastern Texas, and from Arkansas, Louisiana and Indian Territory.

In January, 1876, Dr. Wooten came to Austin, and here he spent his remaining years of activity, main- taining the same reputation for skill that has made his career a part of the history of the Medical Pro- fession of the state, requiring no detailed mention.

When the University of Texas was finally inaugurated in 1881, Dr. Wooten was appointed by Governor Roberts one of the first regents of that institution, to which position he was reappointed by Governor Ireland. He was from the first a most active and earnest friend of the university, and always labored for its successful and efficient establishment with a zeal and fidelity that never faltered. Being the only member of the regency who was resident at the state capitol, the greater part of the incessant vigilance and labor re- quired to properly administer the affairs of the institu- tion fell on his shoulders during the years of his in- cumbeney on the Board of Regents.

In January, 1885, Dr. Ashbell Smith, President of the Board, having died in the previous autumn, Dr. Wooten was unanimously elected president of the Board of Regents of the University of Texas, and it may be safely said that to him, more than to any other one man, the University of Texas owes its present existence and pros- perity. Dr. Wooten died on August 1, 1906, at Eureka Springs, Arkansas.

The sons of this well known Texas physician and surgeon, Dr. Joe S. and Dr. Goodall H. Wooten, still continue the work of their father under the name of T. D. Wooten's Sons. Another son, Dudley G. Wooten, is at present located in Seattle, Washington, where he is engaged in the practice of law. He is the author of two Histories of Texas, and was a contributor to southern literature to a great extent. He was a repre- sentative in Congress for two terms and likewise was in the Texas State Legislature from Dallas, Texas, for three terms. Mr. Wooten is a man of exceptional edu- cation and has the degrees of M. A. from Princeton

University, Ph. D. from Johns Hopkins, and is a grad- uate in law from the law university of Virginia.

Dr. Goodall H. Wooten took his M. A. degree from the University of Texas and Dr. Joe Wooten was awarded his B. S. degree from the same institution. Both were graduated in the same class from the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbian University, New York, and both took post graduate courses in prominent hospital clinies of New York City. In 1895 the two young men began practice in Austin, in association with their father, and when he passed away they continued the work under the firm style previously recorded.

Dr. Joe Wooten was married on April 21, 1897, to Miss Blossom Greenwood, a daughter of Col. T. B. Greenwoods, of Palestine, Texas. She was a student in the University of Texas and a graduate of that in- stitution. They have two children,-Greenwood and Blossom G. Wooten.

Dr. Goodall Wooten married in 1899, Miss Ella New- some of Mckinney, Texas, becoming his wife. She is a daughter of W. B. Newsome, a banker and wealthy planter. Their children are Thomas Dudley, Jr., and Lucy.

Both brothers are members of the Masonic frater- nity. Dr. Joe has affiliations with Austin Lodge, No. 12, A. F. & A. M., the Knights Templar and Ben Hur Temple A. A. O. N. M. S. He is also a member of the Ancient Order of Red Men and of the Fraternal Order of Eagles, while his brother's Masonic relations are confined to the Austin Lodge, A. F. & A. M. He, too, is a member of the Order of Eagles.

JAMES W. MCCLENDON. The name Mcclendon has as- sociations with two different fields of service in Texas. The mother of the Austin lawyer above named was twenty-two years in the active missionary work, under the anspices of the Woman's Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, among the poor Mexican popu- lation chiefly along the Rio Grande border. Her per- sonality and service are well known by all familiar with this branch of philanthropic effort. In the profession of law her son is one of the ablest men at the state capitol, is still a young man and continued prominence and achievement may be expected of his career for many years to come.

Now a member of the firm Fiset, Mcclendon & Shel- ley, attorneys, in the Littlefield building, James W. MeClendon was born at West Point, Georgia, November 1, 1873, a son of James W. and Annie E. (Thompson) Mcclendon. The MeClendons are of Scotch stock, while the Thompson family was of mingled English and Welsh ancestry. James W. Mcclendon, Sr., was a merchant at West Point, Georgia, served as mayor of the city and lived there until his death in 1882. Owing to the con- dition of his health he was unable to take active service as a soldier during the Civil war, but at his own ex- pense maintained a private commissary for the benefit of the Confederate government.

Mrs. Annie E. MeClendon, whose unselfish devotion to welfare work in southern Texas has been mentioned, is a daughter of Dr. A. C. C. Thompson. He was a phy- sician of high standing and education in Georgia, was a gifted linguist, speaking seven different languages and throughout the Civil war was surgeon with the Third Georgia regiment. His home was at Irwinton, Georgia, on the direct line of Sherman's march to the sea. His daughter Annie, who was at home at the time, endured the hardships and discomforts of those who were forced to be an unwilling witness of Sherman's bummers and their devastating work through the center of the southern states. In 1889, some years after the death of her husband, Mrs. Mcclendon entered mission work under the Woman's Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Until 1911 she was a missionary on the Mexican border, though for two years she was located at Guadalajara, Mexico. At Laredo, Texas, and also

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at New Laredo, across the river in Mexico, a mission school was conducted under her management, and be- sides her work in instructing she devoted herself untir- ingly to looking after the social and economic welfare of the poorer classes of Mexicans in her vicinity. After twenty-two years in this active benevolence, she retired in 1911 on account of age and health, and now in her sixty-ninth year is on the retired list of the Woman's Board of the Methodist Episcopal Church South. While busy with her practical duties, she also found time to write and contribute to the publications of her church many articles descriptive of the social conditions in the districts where her lot was cast.

James W. MeClendon, Jr., who was educated in the common schools of Georgia and lived there until he was sixteen years of age, came to Texas in 1889 and entered the University of Texas, from which he received his Bachelor.'s degree in 1895, and graduated from the law department with the degree of LL. B., in 1897. Taking up practice at Austin, he was associated with the firm of Fiset & Miller from 1897 to 1902. The firm name then because Fiset, Miller & MeClendon, a relationship which continued until 1904, when another change oc- curred and Fiset & Mcclendon continued partnership until 1913. In the latter year George E. Shelley was admitted, making the firm as above stated, Fiset, Me- Clendon & Shelley.

While he has a large private practice, Mr. Mcclendon is also devoted to the broader interests of the legal pro- fession, and served as president of the Travis County Bar Association during 1912-13, is a member of the Judiciary Reform Committee of the Texas State Bar Association, and a member of the Local Council for Texas of the American Bar Association. He is also prominent in Masonry, being affiliated with Hill City Lodge No. 456, A. F. & A. M., at Austin; Philip C. Tucker Chapter No. 1, Rose Croix, Fidelity Lodge of Protection No. 4, and Galveston Consistory No. 1, thirty- second degree, of the Scottish Rite. He belongs to the Texas Rho Chapter of the Sigma Alpha Epsilon College fraternity. His church is the Methodist Episcopal South.

On December 14, 1904, Mr. Mcclendon married Miss Annie Hale Watt, a daughter of W. T. Watt of Waco, Texas. Her father was born in North Carolina, during the war between the states and saw service in the Confed- erate navy, and after the close of the war came to Texas and became a planter and merchant near Hearne, and is now president of the Provident National Bank of Waco. Mr. Mcclendon and wife have two children: Mary Anne and Elizabeth. Their home is at 1600 Pearl street.

JAMES GRAHAM MONARY. Banker, lumber manufac- turer, and director and stockholder in half a dozen of the largest and best known corporations of El Paso, Mr. MeNary is a young man with a remarkable record of business achievements. Thirty-five years of age, he has used his brief active lifetime to exceptional purpose, and is now one of the most influential leaders in El Paso's commercial life.

James Graham MeNary was born at Bloomington, Indiana, August 24, 1877. He was fifth in a family of seven children, four sons and three daughters, whose parents were William P. and Elizabeth (Graham) Me- Nary. His father, who was born in Washington county, Pennsylvania, September 16, 1839, has been throughout the greater portion of his active career a minister of the United Presbyterian church, being still actively iden- tified with his work, although at the age of seventy-four, and now residing on a model farm in Loveland, Colo- rado. Rev. MeNary was reared on a farm and graduated from Jefferson College (now Washington and Jefferson College), in Pennsylvania, in 1861. He had an unusually long and interesting record as a soldier of the Union. Enlisting in the Tenth Pennsylvania Reserve Corps in April, 1861, he arrived at Washington, April 22, 1861,

and his regiment was one of the first three-year troops to report. This Pennsylvania Reserve Corps had been enlisted and drilled in anticipation of the second call for troops, and retained its first name throughout the war. It was a complete army in itself, fifteen thousand strong, composed of one regiment each of cavalry, artillery and sharpshooters or skirmishers, and twelve regiments of infantry. With his regiment, Mr. MeNary was in the Seven Days' Battle in 1862, being in four of the engagements at Mechanicsville, Gaines Mills, Charles City, Cross Roads and Malvern Hill. He was also in the battle of South Mountain and Antietam. In No- vember, 1862, he was transferred to the One Hundred and Twenty-third Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers and commissioned adjutant. In that regiment he was in the Battle of Fredericksburg under Burnside and in Chancellorsville under Hooker. The One Hundred and Twenty-third Regiment was a nine months' regiment, its time expiring in May, 1862, at which date he was mus- tered out. In Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania in the summer of 1863, an army of Pennsylvania militia was organized and mustered into the United States service for the defense of the state. Mr. MeNary helped to recruit the Fifty-eighth Regiment and was commissioned Lieutenant Colonel. That regiment assisted in the cap- ture of General John Morgan in his raid up the Ohio Valley. In the summer of 1864 he helped to recruit the One Hundred and Ninety-third Volunteers, was appointed adjutant, and served under the same colonel who had commanded the One Hundred and Twenty-third. This was a 100 days' regiment, and served only in guard duty in the border states of Maryland and Delaware.

In 1870, several years after the war, Rev. McNary moved out to Indiana, and has since been actively identified with his ministerial duties. His wife, Eliza- beth Graham, was born in Allegheny County, Pennsyl- vania, near Pittsburgh, in 1844, and died at Pittsburgh in 1901 at the age of fifty-seven, a true gentlewoman, endowed with rare beauty of person and charm of man- ner, the influence of her sweet christian character ex- tended far beyond the rich circle of home life over which she presided.

James Graham MeNary received most of his education in Tarkio College at Tarkio, Missouri. His father was for thirteen years president of the Board of Directors of that institution, one of the strongest small colleges in the middle west. After his graduation from Tarkio College in 1898, Mr. MeNary was a student in the Uni- versity of Chicago and later went abroad, completing his education in the University of Leipzig, Germany, where he remained one year. Few men in the learned profes- sion in Texas have received more liberal education than Mr. MeNary, and at the beginning of his career he took up work as an educator. In 1899 he was teacher of modern languages in the New Mexico Normal University at Las Vegas, and spent five years in school work. His next line of endeavor was the newspaper business, and he became manager and editor of the Las Vegas Daily Optic. In polities he is a Republican. During his four years' connection with the Optie he took an active in- terest in politics. He served for three years as Public Printer of New Mexico, to which office he was ap- pointed by Governor Miguel A. Otero.

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A history of Texas and Texans, Part 3

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