A history of Texas and Texans, Part 78

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 78

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).

Mr. Nicholson was married June 15, 1904, to Hattie

ar nicholson

1845

TEXAS AND TEXANS

Castleberry, of Greenville, daughter of James W. Castle- berry and Johanna Castleberry of this city. They have three children: Ethel Mae, Martha Virginia and Ralph Castleberry.

From the foregoing statements it may readily be understood that Mr. Nicholson is numbered among the most loyal and progressive young men of the county and state that have ever represented his home and of whose varied advantages and attractions he is deeply appreci- ative. In his personal popularity he sets at naught any application of the Scriptural aphorism that "a prophet is not without honor save in his own country, " and he is not only an able lawyer but also a veritable "captain of industry" in northern Texas.

ROBERT C. GRAVES. Since the closing year of the Civil war Robert C. Graves has been a resident of Red River county, and of Clarksville since 1880. After twenty years spent as a cotton grower, he took his place in the county as a candidate for public office, and since 1881 he has held various offices in the admin- istration of the business of the county. He served the public well in the years of his activity as an office holder, and of late years after devoting himself to farm- ing for a time, he disposed of his country interests and took up his abode in Clarksville, here devoting himself to surveying and the study of the subject in its more recent phases.

Born at Perryville, Tennessee, on September 4, 1845, Robert C. Graves is a son of Wiley Graves and his wife, Sarah (Graham) Graves. Wiley Graves left Tennessee, his native state in 1847, settling in Cass county, Texas, and there passed the remainder of his life. He was born at Perryville, Tennessee, in 1811, where he obtained what slight education he came to possess, and passed his life as a plain citizen of the rural type. He died in 1868. He manifested some skepticism toward orthodox Christianity in early and middle life, but later drifted away from Universalism toward the doctrine of immersion and other tenets of the Baptist faith prior to his death. He was the son of George Graves, who was born in Scotland, and who spent his later years in Tennessee. He had sons named Benjamin, John, Archibald, Hiram and Wiley. The latter married Sarah Graham, as has been mentioned previously, she being the daughter of a Tennessee farmer of Irish birth. She was born in 1809 and died in 1875. To them were born four children. George W. died in Red River county, leaving a family; Sarah married W. H. H. Story and died in Franklin county, Texas; Tennessee became the wife of Medford Story and died in Red River county; and Robert C., the subject of this review, who is older than the sisters.

Robert C. Graves attended school in Linden, Texas, and finished his education after the war. He was en- thusiastic in his support of the southern cause, and joined the army of the Confederate States of America in June, 1861, enlisting in the Lone Star Company, at Jefferson, Texas. Captain Cameron and his company served the first sixteen months of the war with the Ninth Kentucky Infantry under Col. Hunt, and was in Breckenridge's old brigade. For twelve months be- fore the Ninth Kentucky was reorganized Mr. Graves commanded his company as orderly sergeant. When the reorganization took place at Tupelo, Tennessee, the "Lone Star" company was assigned to the Thirty- second Texas commanded by Col. Andrews and placed in General Ector's brigade. Mr. Graves took part in the engagements at Shiloh, Murfreesboro, the first battle before Vicksburg, Hartsville, Baton Rouge, the Battle of Jackson, Mississippi, and at Chickamauga, where, on the 19th of September, 1863, a shot tore away his right arm, which was amputated on the battlefield at Chicka- manga Springs; he was then sent to the hospital at Noonan, Georgia. His part of the war was over then,

and the young man returned home and gave his atten- tion to the strengthening of his unfinished education.

He was still under age when he came to Red River county, and here took up work as a school-teacher, or, it might be said, as a student, who by that means en- deavored to gather up the loose ends of the neglected threads of a common school education. Whatever his object, he applied himself vigorously to the task in hand, and it may well be imagined that the future of the yonng soldier, mutilated in body and unfitted for the business of life by an insufficient school training, was anything but a bright one when he established him- self in the vicinity of Clarksville. Notwithstanding the discouraging elements with which he seemed to be environed, he still had within him the possibilities of success, for he had lost neither faith nor hope in him- self. He had been schooled to the work of the farm in the days when the land was at peace, and when the alarm of war no longer sounded, he quite naturally turned his attention to farm life once more. So it was that he gave himself to the business of cotton growing in Red River county, and for practically twenty years continued prosperously in the work. Those years had been sufficient to establish him in the confidence of his fellows, and when he offered his services for the office of tax assessor of the county in 1881, his candi- dacy was favorably received and he was elected to the office. He filled the berth for four years and acquitted himself so creditably that he found himself well estab- lished in the good will of the people, so that when he aspired to further public service as tax collector of the county at the hands of the Democratic party, he was again elected, and he administered the affairs of the office for six years, when he relinquished all claims to further recognition in the realm of public service.

Unlike many a good man who has filled office and given admirable service, the fascination for it failed to absorb Mr. Graves so as to unfit him for further effective work on his farm, and he resumed his old place in the farming industry in 1891, continuing there until 1910, when he sold his place and took up his residence in Clarksville. Here he has found opportunity to apply the principles of surveying which had lain dormant within him almost entirely since the war, and to give expression in tangible form of the knowledge of land surveys and ownerships gained while he assessed and collected taxes in the county twenty years ago.

On February 14, 1867, Mr. Graves married Miss Amelia Fleming, a daughter of Perry Fleming, early settlers in Texas from the state of Georgia. The other Fleming children were Mrs. Mary Stone, now deceased; Thomas, of Red River county; Major, a sobriquet, but was never known by his Christian name, who died in the Confederate service; and James, who passed away in later years. The issue of Mr. and Mrs. Graves are: Morgan, who is cashier of the Red River National Bank, and who married Miss Hallie Dick; Clovis, who is a member of the Marable Hardware Company, of Clarksville, who married Miss Vada Sivly; Patrick, a merchant of Clarksville, who married Miss Jim John- son; Stella, the wife of Elmo MeClinton, a member of Marable Hardware Company, at Clarksville; Delia, who married Brit Dickson, who is iu the grocery business at Clarksville; and Cleveland, who is Mrs. Ollie Doak, of Clarksville, Texas, and her husband is in the dry goods business, with The Doak Dry Goods Store. All the various members of this family have come to occupy. places of prominence in their various com- munities, and they constitute a group of which their parents may well be proud. Mr. and Mrs. Graves them- selves take a high place in the best circles of Clarks- ville, where they are esteemed for their many splendid qualities of heart and mind by many who have known them through long years of intimacy.

1846

TEXAS AND TEXANS

W. D. WAGNER. Dalhart is not least among those centers of trade and population which typify the splendid prosperity of the Panhandle, and its developments in many ways to the efforts of one man, W. D. Wagner. He started out in life with no money and with no pros- pects, nothing but energy and a tremendous determina- tion to succeed. For what he has done, and for what he is, he is now admired and respected and has a solid position in his community.

W. D. Wagner was born May 28, 1864, in Houston county, Texas, and is therefore a Texan by birth as well as by inclination. His parents were Francis Henry Wagner and Cynthia M. (Pritchard) Wagner. The former was born in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1820, · and grew up in that old aristocratic center of southern culture. When he came of age he became a large slave holder and planter in his native state, but seeing the opportunities in the new country in the southwest, came to Texas and settled in Houston county in 1857. In the struggle between the north and south he was one of the first to offer his services to the Confederate government and throughout the four long years of the war he took an active part. The privations and dangers of those years proved too much for him, and he returned to his home at the end of the war with his health im- paired so seriously that he never fully recovered his strength. After freeing his slaves and selling his planta- tion in Houston county, he removed to Crockett and lived there until his death in 1878. He married Cynthia M. Pritchard. Without a murmur at the sacrifices which she had to make and the dangerous and lonely existence which she would have to live on the Texas frontier, this courageous young woman came with her husband to his new home in Texas, and proved herself of the same metal as her pioneer ancestors, who had helped their husbands build their log cabins east of the Alleghanies. She died in Crockett at the age of forty in 1870. Six children were born of this union, five boys and one girl, and of these W. D. Wagner was the fourth.

The education of Mr. Wagner was secured in the public and later in the private schools of Houston county. He was just six years old when his mother died and the death of his father left him an orphan at the age of fourteen. Two years later, in December, 1880, he set out to make his own way in the world. Reach- ing El Paso, with the courage and hope of youth, he applied for a position on the El Paso Times, then the leading newspaper of the southwest. Work was given him in the mailing department. Other positions came to him on that paper, each change being in the nature of a promotion, until after three years, having a thorough knowledge of many phases of newspaper work, he returned home. In Crockett he was in the newspaper business, and later established and conducted for several years a paper at Groveton. In January, 1890, Mr. Wagner moved to Hardeman county, and from that section in 1901 came to the Dalhart in search of better pasturage. There he took charge of the townsite of Dalhart, succeeded in getting people to buy lots and interested them in locating in Dalhart and the surrounding country. Since this start he has gone into the real estate business in earnest, making a study of conditions in various sections of the country, and visiting a number of farming communities in Iowa, Missouri, Kansas and other states, from which he has drawn of the best to build up this section. He has not only brought farmers, but also business men, with money to invest. From the small beginning with which Mr. Wagner started, he has seen Dalhart grow to a town of almost metropolitan proportions. With two railroads intersecting at this point, and with the prosperous farming and cattle-raising country tributary to it, the town bids fair to become one of the large cities of Texas, when the country reaches its normal development. The two railroads, the Rock Island and the Fort Worth and Denver City, both have direct con-

nections with all trans-continental and northern and southern lines. Dalhart also has the business that always centers in a county seat, for. it holds that relation to Dallam county.

Mr. Wagner has naturally held many important posi- tions in Dalhart business life. He was one of the or- ganizers of the County Fair Association at Dalhart, and was instrumental in securing the establishment of the government experimental farm located near Dalhart. He was elected mayor. in 1906, serving until 1910, and during his administration great strides in the improv- ing and modernizing of the city were taken. One of the best sewer systems of the state was constructed, sidewalks and streets were made, and many other im- provements were added. He was the universal choice for mayor in 1913, but declined the nomination. Mr. Wagner is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and was the first exalted ruler of the lodge in Dalhart.

In Quitman, Texas, on November 12, 1896, Mr. Wag- ner married Mrs. Ida L. Setzer, a daughter of D. T. and Mary Lipscomb. Her father is now deceased, but her mother is still living with her son in Quitman at the age of eighty. Mr. and Mrs. Wagner have one child, Julia Wagner, born in 1898 in Quanah and who died at the age of three and a half years at Kirksville, Missouri, in 1902.

Though a man of accomplishment, Mr. Wagner is as unassuming and as lacking in conceit as the simplest farmer .. Of a genial and kindly disposition he is always ready to do a favor for any one, and the energy and perseverance with which he has built a town out of the wilderness make him a power for good in this section. He can probably number more sincere friends than some of those men whose names may so often be found on the front pages or in the political columns of the newspapers, for his friends are the kind that last through every success or failure.

JUDGE HARVIN W. MOORE. No kindlier or more benign spirit ever found place in mortal tenement than that which represented the noble personality of Judge Harvin W. Moore, who labored with all of zeal and devotion in aiding and uplifting his fellow men. He was a clergyman of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, and after retiring from regular pastoral work he continued to labor with utmost consecration and earnestness as a local preacher. He had a high sense of personal steward- ship, was tolerant and kindly in his judgment, as he well understood the well-springs of human thought and motive, and though he was a man of high intellectual attainments and broad views he was entirely free from bigotry and selfish conceptions concerning his fellow men and his general relations with a workaday world. He endeared himself to all who came within the sphere of his gracious influence and when, at his home in the city of Crockett, Houston county, Texas, he was sum- moned to eternal life, on the 7th of February, 1912, there were thousands to mourn his loss with a deep sense of personal bereavement. Virile and independent, industrious and possessed of excellent business acumen, stern in his ideas of personal rectitude, and yet en- dowed with the rarest sweetness of soul, he was a man among men and the world was made better through his having lived.

Judge Moore was a scion of sturdy Scotch-Irish and Pennsylvania Dutch stock and a representative of a family that was early founded in the southern part of our great national domain, so that he was essentially a product of the fine old south, even as he ever exemplified the courtly and gracious charm that typified the old regime. His paternal grandmother bore the maiden name of Jackson and was a representative of the same family that produced the gallant and honored Confed- erate officer and martyr, General "Stonewall" Jackson. Judge Moore was born at Athens, the judicial center of

1847

TEXAS AND TEXANS

Limestone county, Alabama, on the 2d of May, 1832, and was reared in a Christian home whose environment and associations were most refined and benignant, the while he was afforded excellent educational advantages, as gauged by the standards of the locality and period. At the early age of sixteen years he united with the Methodist Episcopal church, South, and his entire life thereafter was one of deep consecration to the faith which he professed and to good works.

At the age of seventeen years Judge Moore severed the ties that bound him to the parental home and set forth to make his own way in the world. For some time he was employed on a ferry-boat on the Mississippi river, and he continued to be identified with navigation interests on the "Father of Waters" for several years. In 1854 he came to Texas and made Burnet county his destination. A young man of excellent education, he there found ready demand for his services as a repre- sentative of the pedagogic profession, to which he devoted his attention for two years, as a successful and popular teacher in the pioneer schools. He also per- formed other duties demanding high mental equipment. In 1859, moved by an earnest desire to serve his fel- lowmen and forward the work in the harvest of the Divine Master, he entered the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, and he continued his active and fruitful labors as a pastor for nine years, within which he held charges in turn at Paris, Liberty, San Augustine, Palestine and Crockett, in which last men- tioned city he continues to serve as a local preacher until the close of his life, his interposition being in demand in the hours of joy and sorrow-at baptisms, weddings and funerals, and also in temporarily supply- ing vacant pastorates.

With a mind of exceptional virility and rare powers of absorption and assimilation, Judge Moore showed the versatility of his genius by preparing himself, with characteristic thoroughness, for the legal profession. He studied under the able preceptorship of Judge L. W. Cooper, at that time one of the leading members of the Houston county bar, and later he married the daughter of his honored instructor. He was admitted to the bar in 1865 and soon gained secure prestige as one of the leading members of the bar of this section of the state, with great ability and resourcefulness as a trial lawyer. He continued in the active and successful prac- tice of law for many years and a few years prior to his death he retired from his profession to give his attention to the supervision of his various real-estate and capitalistic interests, which represented the con- crete results of his earnest and honorable endeavors. While ever generous and charitable, he was thrifty and circumspect in business affairs, and he thus amassed an appreciable fortune in Texas lands and other properties. At the time of his death he owned several thousand acres of land, in Houston, Haskell, Robertson and other Texas counties, besides one of the largest and finest residence properties in Crockett, where he maintained his home until the close of his life.

At the time of the Civil war Judge Moore went to the front as an independent soldier, and he served as chaplain of his company in a Texas regiment of the Confederate service during virtually the entire period of the war, his command having been on duty prin- cipally in Texas and Arkansas. He was affiliated with the Masonic fraternity for many years prior to his demise, and, like all other close observers of the teach- ings of the time-honored fraternity, he believed that a good Mason must necessarily be a good Christian. He was well fortified in his opinions concerning matters of economic and governmental policy and was an efficient and zealous exponent of the principles of the Repub- lican party, to which he ever gave unfaltering alle- giance.

In 1867 was solemnized the marriage of Judge Moore to Miss Georgia Cooper, who was born in Georgia and

who was a daughter of Judge L. W. Cooper. Her father came to Texas in an early day and was for many years a power in the courts of Houston and other counties of the eastern part of the state, besides which he attained to bigh reputation as a jurist. Of the five children of this union three are living.

LEROY L. MOORE, the fifth in order of birth of the five children of the honored subject of this memoir, was born in the fine old homestead in Crockett, on the 26th of November, 1884, and in his character and achieve- ment as a representative young man of his native county, he has fully upheld the prestige of the name which he bears. He availed himself fully of the advantages of the public schools of his native city and thereafter com- pleted a three years' course in each of the following named institutions-Alexander Collegiate Institute, at Jacksonville, Texas; the Southwestern University, at Georgetown, this state, and the law department of the University of Texas, at Austin. He was graduated in each of these institutions and received his degrees of B. A. from the S. W. U. in 1907 and Bachelor of Laws from the state university in 1910. Upon his graduation in the law department he was honored by being elected to the position of quiz-master in that de- partment, but the impaired health of his father neces- sitated his returning home after retaining this office one month. Since the death of his father he has given the major part of his time and attention to supervising the affairs of the large family estate and has also been identified with several private enterprises. His inten- tion is to enter actively upon the practice of law in the near future, and to fortify himself more fully for his chosen profession he will complete a post-graduate course in the law department of historie old Harvard University.

Like his father, Mr. Moore is a most zealous church- man and he is a valued and influential worker in the local parish of the Methodist Episcopal church, South. Besides being a member of the board of church con- nections he has entered upon his fourth term of service as superintendent of this Sunday school, in which de- partment of church activity he has accomplished a most fruitful work. He is an uncompromising adherent of the Democratic party and is identified with repre- sentative social organizations in his native city, where his circle of friends is coincident with that of his acquaintances and where he still permits his name to remain engrossed on the roster of eligible bachelors. His only sister, Mrs. Ruby DeCuir, is the wife of Mr. A. M. DeCuir, a prominent druggist and representative business man of Crockett; and his brother, Dr. Harvin C. Moore, is engaged in the practice of his profession in the city of Houston, as a specialist in the treatment of genito-urninary diseases, besides which he has the dis- tinetion of being at the present time president of the Harris County Medical Society. Mr. L. L. Moore is a zealous member of the local chapter of I. O. O. F., No. 901, of Crockett, Texas.

DR. FRANK CHARLES FLOECKINGER. When Dr. Frank Charles Floeckinger came from his native Germany to America in 1896, he made his first location in Galveston, where he established himself in general practice and continued for four years. In 1900, however, he moved to Taylor, Texas, and here he has since continued to be professionally engaged, although he has withdrawn largely from general practice and confines himself almost exclusively to surgery and gynecology. In the years of his practice here he has become distinguished for his accomplishments which are of an especially praiseworthy nature and the profession has honored hin in various ways. He conducts a ten-room private hospital or sani- tarium in Taylor, which, though small, is excellently equipped and most modern in its appointments.

The doctor was born at Innsbruch, Austria, in 1870,

1848

TEXAS AND TEXANS

and received his education in the excellent schools of his native land. Five years in the public schools were fol- lowed by eight years of rigorous training in the German Gymnasium, comparing creditably with our best high schools, and when he had here prepared himself for higher studies he entered the Medical University of Innsbruch, later attending the University of Garaz and being graduated from the latter named place in 1895, when he received his medical degree. He then became assistant surgeon for the Italian Lloyd Steamship Com- pany at Trieste, and the following year came to Amer- ica, locating at Galveston in 1896, as has been stated in a previous paragraph.

Dr. Floeckinger's advancement has been rapid and justified for he has given his best energies and talents to his work at all times. In 1903 he was appointed assistant surgeon of the Second Infantry, Texas National Guard, with the rank of First Lieutenant, and on June 24, 1904, was appointed to his present post of Captain and Assistant Surgeon, Medical Corps of the National Gnard of Texas. In 1909 Dr. Floeckinger represented San Antonio as a delegate to the Conference of Naval and Military Surgeons of the United States, before which body he read a brilliant paper on "Compound Fractures." He is a member of the County, State and American Medical Associations, and active in all three organizations.

Dr. Floeckinger married Miss Hilda von Roggen- brneke, who was born and reared at Comfort, Texas. Mrs. Floeckinger is a graduate nurse and in her position as matron of her husband's hospital conducts the train- ing school for nurses at the hospital.

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 78

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