A history of Texas and Texans, Part 79

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 79

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COL. ANDREW TODD MCKINNEY. The state of Texas has reason for grateful remembrance to the name of MeKinney, which has been identified with pioneer educa- tional work, the institution and promulgation of re- ligion and morality, and with public life in many direc- tions. Andrew Todd MeKinney is the veteran repre- sentative of the family, and has lived at Huntsville, and claims that place as his home since 1850, with the exception of some nine years spent in Mississippi, and other brief intervals while he was away at college or away at war.

Andrew Todd McKinney was born in Illinois, March 18, 1838. His grandfather Sammuel MeKinney was born in County Antrim, Ireland, and soon after his marriage to Margaret Findley came to the United States and settled in Hawkins county, Tennessee, a state which also honored the name. There was a large family born to the grandparents. One of them was Judge MeKinney of the Tennessee Supreme Court. Another was Dr. MeKinney, a prominent physician of Tennessee. One of the daughters Elizabeth, married a Wilson, another married a Rafter, and still another married a Murphy. Grandfather MeKinney came to the United States about the year 1800, and died in Rogersville, Tennessee.

Dr. Samuel McKinney, father of the Huntsville law- yer, was born in Hawkins county, Tennessee, in 1807, was educated in the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1832, and spent all his active career in educational and religious work. For a time he was a temporary resident as a missionary in the state of Illi- nois. His church was the Presbyterian, and after being licensed to preach he went out west and did a great deal of missionizing along the frontier. In 1836 he was married in Illinois to Miss Nancy W. Todd, whose father, Dr. Andrew Todd came from Chester county, South Carolina, and practiced medicine at St. Louis until his death. Dr. Samuel Mckinney will always have a prominent place in educational history in Texas as the founder of Austin College at Huntsville which insti- tution was subsequently moved to Sherman. Dr. McKin- ney did his last educational work in Huntsville at Austin College and died in that city in 1879. Along with his teaching he was active in the Presbyterian

ministry, and had charge at one time of the Huntsville church, and did more or less pastoral work in outside churches. He took a decided stand in opposition to secret societies. His wife died September 10, 1878, leaving the following children: Andrew T .; Mrs. Mar- garet Davis, who died at San Augustine, Texas; Eleanor, who married Judge Benton Randolph of Huntsville, and died there; Mrs. Cornelia Smedes, a widow, living at Boulder, Colorado; and Dr. R. A. Mckinney of LaGrange, Texas. Dr. Samuel MeKinney after the death of his first wife married Mrs. E. L. Copes, who soon after- wards died.

Andrew Todd McKinney was twelve years old when his father came to Texas, and he grew up in this state, was educated in Austin College at Huntsville, and was subsequently sent east and graduated from Princeton University in 1858. His studies for the law were pur- sued at Knoxville, Tennessee, where he was under the supervision of Judge Robert J. MeKinney, previously referred to. Mr. MeKinney was admitted to the bar at Knoxville, and began practice at Huntsville, in January, 1866. Previously he had read law at New Orleans, had taught schools at Centerville, and assisted his father in educational work in Ascension Parish in Lousiana. During the war he served a short time with a Lousiana regiment. During his law practice at Huntsville, Col. MeKinney was a member of the firm of MeKinney & Hume, then Randolph & MeKinney, MeKinney & Leigh, and finally MeKinney & Hill. He was one of the counsel in the famous Gaiza Eleven-League Grant litigation. That is one of the most famous land cases in Texas legal annals, and was in the courts for seven years. Colonel MeKinney represented Mr. MeMannus, the de- fendant in the case, and the MeMannus contention was sustained.

Colonel Mckinney comes of an old Democratic family and for many years was a factor in campaign work in Texas. He was a member of the Hogg-Clark car-shed convention at Houston in 1892, and one of the able sup- porters of Governor Hogg. His public career, began with his service in the constitutional convention of 1875. He was a member of the eighteenth, nineteenth, twenty- second and twenty-fourth, the twenty-ninth, thirtieth, thirty-first, and thirty-second legislatures. While in the legislature he was chairman of the International and Great Northern Investigating Company, one of the committee appointed to investigate the pentitentiary, a member of the committee of education in the eighteenth session, when a bill was passed for the partial endow- ment of the university, by a grant of one million acres of the public domain. For some time he was a mem- ber of the board of regents of the University. He was president of the local board of directors of the Sam Houston Normal school before the merging of the various boards. Colonel MeKinney in 1875 was Grand Master of the Texas Odd Fellows, and belongs to the several bodies of Masonry, having membership in the Ben Hur Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Austin. He is an active Presbyterian, and has served his church in various official capacities.

On September 6, 1882, Colonel Mckinney married Miss Mary L. Hill, a daughter of Col, John Hill of San Jacinto county a pioneer Texas family, coming here from Alabama. Mrs. MeKinney died July 2, 1912. Their children are: Miss Mary Cornelia, Samuel, John Hill, and Andrew T., Jr.

HON. WILLIAM OWEN MURRAY. Many years of con- seientious public service have made the name of Senator William Owen Murray one of the most familiar in public life of Texas. Mr. Murray is now chairman of the state prison commission, having been appointed and taking office in September, 1913. This is an office involving the most taxing and onerous duties, and their performance in an intelligence and disinterested manner is one of the highest contributions which any citizen

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can render to his home state. Senator Murray suc- ceeded Chairman Cabbell. Mr. Murray has been identi- fied with public affairs in Texas for many years, and came to Huntsville from Floresville, Wilson county, where his home has been since October 20, 1850.

William Owen Murray was born in Morgan county, Missouri, October 22, 1857, and was two years of age when the family moved to Texas in 1859. He grew up in Wilson county, received a common school education and continued the traditions of the family as a farming class. He began his business career as a clerk in LaVernia in Wilson county, then entered the county clerk's office in Floresville, and after three years went into business as a merchant there aud continued therein until 1907. In the meantime he had branched out and established a general mercantile house in Fairview, and another business in Runge, Carnes County, Texas. As his interests expanded he invested in farms, ranches and banks, and among other affairs is a stockholder and director in the First National Bank of Floresville, and president of the Floresville Oil and Manufacturing Company.

However, it is with his political career that this sketch is most concerned, and his public service has been one of much eventfulness and prominence. Soon after acquiring the franchise, he became interested in prac- tical politics, and the first state convention he attended enrolled bim as one of its youngest delegates. He helped to nominate Governors Sayres, Lanham, and Colquitt. His first official place was as alderman at Floresville, and in 1898 he represented his district in the Twenty-Sixth Legislature, and was vice chairman and then chairman of the appropriation committee of the house. He continued to sit in the lower house of the legislature during the twenty-sixth, twenty-seventh, twenty-eight, twenty-ninth, and he was then elected to the senate and served in the thirtieth, thirty-first, thirty- second, and thirty-third senates, until he resigned in August, 1913. His purpose in going to the legislature was to see that the school land legislation was properly enacted. He secured the passage of the Murray bill through the house in the twenty-eighth session, but the bill did not become a law until the twenty-ninth legisla- ture. In the senate he represented the twenty-second district, embracing thirteen counties. His special work in the senate was to defeat iniquituous and trivial legis- lation, and he made a record in that capacity. He served as chairman of the committee on land and land office and in many ways made himself a leader of Austin and as one of the ablest of the states' legis- lators. Senator Murray left the senate with the expecta- tion of being entirely rid of politics, but consented to serve on the state prison commission solely from a conscientious sense of public duty and as a compliment to his friend Governor Colquitt.

Senator Murray is a son of Asa W. Murray. The father, who was born in 1832 in Wilmington, North Carolina, was the son of Owen Murray, a planter. The Murrays in South Carolina were of the slave-holding class, were of Scotch stock, and some of the colonial ancestors were identified with the famous Mecklenburg declaration of independence. Asa W. Murray began his career as a merchant in Morgan county, Missouri, and on moving to Texas engaged in farming in Wilson county. Later he went into the Confederate army as a private, and was in the Trans-Mississippi Department throughout the war, and escaped without wounds or capture. Fol- lowing his return from the army he took up farming, and was elected and served as sheriff and collector of his county, and on leaving office established a furniture store at Floresville, where he spent the remaining years of his active life. Mr. Asa W. Murray married Miss Annie Mobley, a daughter of William Mobley, who was an early settler in Morgan county, and a Baptist min- ister. Mrs. Murray, who died in Floresville in 1890, had children as follows: Senator W. O .; James S., of Wilson Vol. IV-17

county ; Mrs. Annie Boehmer of Eagle Pass; Mrs. Sue Ezell of Floresville; Albert C. of Lordburg, New Mexico; Nettie, wife of O. A. MeCracken of Floresville; Asa B., of Floresville.

The Murray family have always been identified with the Presbyterian church. Senator Murray is affiliated with the Lodge and Chapter of the Masonic Order and with the Knights of Pythias. He was married in Floresville, October 10, 1883, to Miss Ella Peacock, one of four daughters of Thomas and Salima (Steele) Peacock, who came from Shelby county, Tenuessee. The children of Senator Murray are: Mattie S., Ida May, William O., Jr., and DeWitt. Mattie and Ida May graduating from the University two and three years ago, Wm. O., Jr., graduates in June of this year and DeWitt will graduate June, 1915.

JAMES GOREE ASHFORD. For twenty-five years a mer- chant, banker, prominent business man and leader in public affairs, James Goree Ashford has probably been as closely identified with Huntsville and vicinity, as any other individual, and has been an important factor in commercial and civic life of that vicinity.

James Goree Ashford, who came to Huntsville as a young man from Grimes county, where he grew up, was born in Madison county, Texas, October 11, 1858. His father was Dr. James Goree Ashford, who died in Huntsville, during the sixties, and his wife, whose maiden name was Cornelia Spivey died about the same time. Dr. Ashford was a native of Alabama, and was a practicing physician until his death at a comparatively early age. He and his wife had only two children, and the daughter was Mollie, who died as Mrs. T. W. Reeves, leaving no children.

James G. Ashford was reared by his grandmother Ashford, who was a Goree, and whose people were prominent in Texas affairs. His education was acquired in a country school in Grimes county, and his first inde- pendent experience was as a farmer in that same locality. Leaving the farm he found employment as a clerk in the postoffice and drug store at Courtney, in Grimes county, then went to Graball in Washington county, where he continued clerking and marked and shipped cotton for James Baldridge for several years. His next location was at Whitehall, in Grimes county, and he elerked for George E. White, one of the ablest mer- chauts in that locality and now a well known resident of Fort Worth. With this varied experience, Mr. Ash- ford came to Huntsville in 1888, and was employed by Cunningham & Ellis, who were the lessees of the state penitentiary. This firm employed him as outside store- keeper, and buyer for the prison. He was with that firm seven years, and when the state resumed control of the prison he continued in the same capacity for the state's financial agent, Hayward Brahan, and also under the second financial agent, W. G. Parish. He retired from this office to engage in the general mer- chandising business as one of the firm of Ball, Smither and Company. That was a partnership relation which was maintained for one year, and Mr. Ashford then started on a small scale in the furniture business on 12th Street. His business was conducted under his own name, and finally in 1896 be built his present store. The building had just been completed, at the time of a reunion of the surviving veterans of Hood's Brigade, and the new store was dedicated by being used for a ball given in honor of the old veterans.

Mr. Ashford has been prominent in many other affairs besides his individual mercantile business. He was one of the organizers of the Huntsville Electric Light & Ice Company of the Huntsville Canning Company, the Hunts- ville Telephone Company, the Huntsville Cotton Oil Mill Company, and helped organize and is president of the Huntsville State Bank. He is interested in agri. culture, owns several farms in Walker county, and is chairman of the good roads conunittee. He has taken

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much interest in the upbuilding of both county and city, and has done much building which has profited Huntsville, as well as himself. For the past ten years he has served as president of the school board of Huntsville, and during this time, a manual training school house has been built, and also a hall of music and a high school building, at a cost of fifteen thousand dollars.

Mr. Ashford for ten years has served as county chair- man of the Democratic party. He is one of the Demo- cratic leaders, has served as mayor of Huntsville, and while in that office the city installed the system of water works now in operation. During his active career he has missed only a few state conventions. He was a delegate to the famous car-shed convention of 1892, and remained with the Hogg faction. He has also been a warm supporter of Senator Bailey, and it is his opinion that the state lost a fine statesman when Bailey weut out of public life. Mr. Ashford is affiliated with the Huntsville Masonic Lodge, has taken the Knights Temp- lar degree, is a past master, past high priest and past eminent commander and was one time deputy district grandmaster of this district. He is a past chancellor of the Knights of Pythias, and a charter member of the Pythian Lodge at Huntsville.

Mr. Ashford was married at Cuero, Texas, in 1889 to Miss Ella Claire Woodworth, a daughter of J. C. and Nannie (North) Woodworth. Her father was at one time mayor of Cuero, held the office of postmaster under President Cleveland, and is now postmaster un- der Woodrow Wilson, was a Confederate soldier, but had brothers who were on the Union side. The family of Mr. Ashford and wife are: J. G., Jr., of Brazoria county; Mary, wife of A. M. Barton of Midway, Texas, a merchant, and private secretary of Governor Campbell, and subsequently financial agent at the penitentiary ; Claire and Nan, who are both at home.

JOHN WESLEY ROBINETT. A resident of Huntsville since 1885, John Wesley Robinett has lived in Walker county since 1856. His father, David W. Robinett brought the family to Texas from Russell county, Ala- bama. A wheelwright and carpenter by trade, he spent the last ten years of his life as a farmer, and died on the Walker county farm in 1878. His birthplace was about twenty miles west of Richmond, Virginia, where he grew up, going to Georgia at the age of twenty-two and settling in Fluvanna county, and from there going to Alabama. He brought his family to Texas by rail as far as Montgomery, Alabama, where they took boats to Mobile and there embarked on Lake Pontchartrain steamer to New Orleans, and thence by ocean vessel to Galveston. At Galveston they again changed and took passage on the "Bettie Powell" up the Trinity as far as navigation, getting off at Liberty and continued and completed their journey of many experiences by wagon aud stopped at the old Cabiness place near Hunts- ville.

David W. Robinett had three brothers and a sister: Allen lived in Georgia; Granvil lived in Columbus, Georgia; William of Richmond, Virginia, was noted as a naval officer on one of the Confederate gun boats during the war; and Margaret married a Mr. Williams of Virginia. David W. Rohinett married Elizabeth Clemmons, who was born in Alabama, and when she came to Texas had five children. Her death occurred in Huntsville in 1885. The children were: John W .; William, who died since the war, aud saw service as a Confederate soldier with John W .; Victoria who married Chilton Rawles and lives at Graceland, Texas; Thomas died when eighteen years old; Andrew died in childhood; Katie married James H. Smith of Hunts- ville; Wiley Robinett, who was a child of David's first wife died in Huntsville, spent his life as a farmer and was also a Confederate soldier.

John Wesley Robinett was a boy of twelve years

when the family came to Texas, and during his youth spent in the vicinity of Huntsville, he knew some old Texas independence veterans, including Sam Houston, Sam Calhoun, Captain Wright, and James Mason. He heard the last speech General Houston delivered from the hotel porch in Galveston at the beginning of the war, when he urged the necessity of Texas remaining with the Union, predicted the final overthrow of the South, and at the same time advising that Texans should remain loyal to their state whether it seceded or remained in the Union. At that time General Houston wore the famous Leopard-skin vest, which is among the collection of his relics at Sam Houston Normal School.

Mr. Robinett himself entered the army in May, 1862, in Captain Dickey's Company at the Twentieth infantry under Colonel Elmore. The company was sent to Galves- ton and assisted in retaking that city from the Federals. Later it was at Sabine Pass, where Diek Dowling made his command famous by its remarkable exploits. Com- pany H to which Mr. Rohinett belonged was stationed at Fort Orange when the firing of cannons was heard at Sabine, and they embarked on the famous river steamboat Florilda, and reached Sabine Pass in time to receive the prisoners from the Federal boats. The Clifton and the Sachem, two big boats, and four harges laden with soldiers and four hundred and eighty pris- oners were taken by the forty-two Irishmen in com- mand of the fort. That was an engagement which will always have a prominent place in the annals of the war. The prisoners were taken to Beaumont, thence to Houston, and marched through the country to Tyler, where they were confined in the stockade. After the battle at Sabine Pass, the company to which Mr. Robinett belonged returned to Louisiana, took part in the battle of Fordoshe and subsequently returned to Texas and was disbanded at Richmond, on June 8, 1865. At Galveston he received a flesh wound, and was once captured, but made his escape.

Following the war he returned to the quiet vocation of farming, but after a few years came to Huntsville and took up merchandising. His first stock was shoes, and with increasing business he expanded it to a general store. Mr. Robinett has continued in business at inter- vals ever since. At one time he went to Waco, and con- dueted a lumber yard there for eighteen months, when he sold at an advantage, and returned to Huntsville as the center of his merchandising. He has done his share towards the upbuilding and improving the town. He was the first man to lay a sidewalk in Huntsville. He built a business block, one of the best residences in the city, and other improvements have sprung up as a result of his capital and enterprise. Mr. Robinett has served as an alderman in Huntsville, is an active Demo- erat, has served in county and state conventions, and was a delegate to the San Antonio convention that nominated Governor Colquitt. Fraternally Mr. Robinett is a past master of the Masonic Lodge, has been twice to the Grand Lodge, and has taken the Royal Arch degrees. His church is the Christian.

His first wife was Amelia Drewry, a daughter of Sherman Drewry. She died in 1877, leaving three chil- dren two of whom grew up. Beulah, who married M. W. Consden, and died in San Antonio, leaving five children, and Sherman, who died unmarried at Hunts- ville. On October 20, 1881, at Huntsville, Mr. Robinett married Miss Annie H. Abernathy, a daughter of James Abernathy, who came to Texas from Pulaski, Tennessee ; James Abernathy married Louisa Shelby, and both lived to an old age and died in Huntsville. The other Aber- nathy children were: James, of Huntsville; John, who died at Huntsville; Ida, wife of Jack Hampton of Huntsville. By his second wife, Mr. Robinett had the following children: James B., a book-keeper at the penitentiary in Huntsville; Minnie, the widow of Nanse Bowden; Katie, wife of Mr. Hopkins, an insur- ance man at Dallas; John O., a Huntsville merchant ;

W.L. Davidson

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Wiley, a book-keeper at Huntsville; Annabelle who mar- ried Mr. Litherland of Port Arthur, a railroad man; Horace; and Stafford.

HON. WILLIAM L. DAVIDSON. The people of every state are especially jealous of the honor and integrity of their highest courts, and Texas has always had spe- cial reason to be proud of the attainments and personal character of its judges and the dignified, able and im- partial manner in which justice has been administered from the state courts. During more than twenty years of membership as associate and part of the time as pre- siding judge of the court of common appeal, Judge Davidson has discharged his judicial functions with a degree of human and technical understanding that rarely comes to the public service. Judge Davidson comes from that hardy, courageous and splendid stock of Scotch- Irish people and his ancestors were among the early set- tlers of the Atlantic colonies. Through his own record he has added much to the lustre of the name of this country.

William L. Davidson was born November 5, 1845, near Coffeeville, Mississippi. The Davidson family was orig- inally Scotch, and the Davidson clan was one of the strongest in Scotland. From the north of Ireland they emigrated to North Carolina, while Judge Davidson's maternal grandparents were of the Irish stock of Mitchell, who came to the United States previous to the Revolutionary war. Judge Davidson is a son of Rev. Asbury and Mary M. (Fly) Davidson. His father, a native of Tennessee, was a Methodist minister and was one of the delegates and members of the Methodist Episcopal Conference at Louisville, Kentucky, in 1884, which inaugurated the division of the Methodist church into northern and southern branches. Rev. Davidson came to Texas in 1851, locating in Gonzales, and for many years was Presiding Elder of that district of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. His death occurred December 21, 1868.

Judge Davidson received his early education in the country schools, and was about sixteen years old when the war broke out between the states. Though little more than a boy, he bore a full share of individual service practically from the beginning until the close of the great conflict. He was with the troops in 1861, but did not regularly enlist until March 10, 1862, when he became a member of Cook's Heavy Artillery, and in 1863 was transferred to Company B of the Thirty-second Texas Cavalry, attached to General Tom Green's Divi- sion. From that time until the close of the war he saw service in Louisiana and eastern and northern Texas. After the war he took up the study of law in Gonzales and in June, 1871, was admitted to the bar.

Judge Davidson carried on a successful private prac- tice at Gonzales until January, 1887, and since then has been continuously in the public service. Governor L. S. Ross appointed him assistant attorney general of the state, and, by reappointment from the same governor in January, 1899, served four years in that office. On February 1, 1891, on the resignation of Judge Sam A. Willson from the court of criminal appeals, Governor Hogg appointed Judge Davidson as Willson's successor. He qualified for this high judicial position on February 5, 1891, and his service has been continuous for more than twenty-three years. From January 1, 1899, until July 1, 1913, Judge Davidson was presiding judge of the court.

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A history of Texas and Texans, Part 79

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