USA > Texas > A history of central and western Texas > Part 30
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In 1852 Captain Stewart and his brother, General Stewart, became associated with William B. Ogden, John S. Wallace, James Y. Sanger, Henry A. Clark and other representative citizens in the purchase of one hundred and sixty acres of land in the Bridgeport district of what is now the southern section in the city of Chicago. This tract they platted into town lots and the place was laid out under the name of the South Branch addition. Along the east side of this sub-division, Stewart Avenue,- named in honor of the two brothers,-was laid out, and the same ex- tended from the vicinity of Twenty-second Street south to about the present Fifty-ninth Street. Subsequently, through a concession made by the city council of Chicago, and without compensation to the original owners of the sub-division, the main tracks of the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad were laid through Stewart Avenue, which was thus virtually confiscated. For a long term of years, this valuable right of way has been in litigation in Chicago, on the part of the heirs, who have sought to recover title or gain due compensation.
(General Hart L. Stewart was postmaster of Chicago under the ad- ministration of President James K. Polk, who conferred the appointment, and later his brother, Captain Stewart, was assistant postmaster of Chi- cago, in charge of the west Chicago division, under postmaster John L.
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Scripps, who later attained much prominence in the field of newspaper publishing. Captain Stewart passed the closing years of his life in Evan- ston, Illinois, where he died in 1871, and his cherished and devoted wife, a woman of most gracious personality, was summoned to the life eternal in 1869. She was born in Cuyahoga county, Ohio. Both were devoted members of the Methodist Episcopal church, and the names of both merit a place on the roll of the honored pioneers of both Michigan and Illinois.
Judge William Wallace Stewart, the immediate subject of this re- view, was about two years of age at the time of the family removal to Michigan, and in the village of White Pigeon, that state, he gained his early educational discipline, which included a course in a branch prepar- atory school established there under the auspices of the University of Michigan, which great institution was then in its infancy. Later he con- tinued his studies in Albion College, an institution still maintained under the auspices of the Methodist Episcopal church, in Albion, Michigan. After leaving this college, on the Ist of January, 1847, Judge Stewart went to the city of Chicago to assume a clerkship in the postoffice, under the administration of his uncle, General Stewart. He was in the post- office work for several years, under both his uncle and his father, and in the meanwhile he had given close attention to the reading of law, in which connection he had most able preceptors. In 1852 he was admitted to the bar, and his commission was signed by Hon. John Dean Caton, who was then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Illinois. At the same time the young lawyer was appointed one of the five notaries public of Chicago, which city could claim only seventeen thousand population when he there took up his abode.
After his admission to the bar Judge Stewart engaged in the practice of his profession in the future metropolis of the west, and he soon gained prestige as an able trial lawyer and well fortified counsellor, so that his professional business rapidly expanded in scope and importance. In 1863 he was appointed trustee for Sanger, Camp & Company, and was given charge of the lands and town sites owned by that firm, which had com- pleted the contract for the construction of the Ohio & Mississippi Rail- road from St. Louis, Missouri, to Vincennes, Indiana, and which had acquired properties along this line, in partial compensation for the con- struction work. In June, 1867. Judge Stewart removed temporarily to Flora, Illinois, where he formed a law partnership with Hon. Aaron Shaw of Olney, Illinois, and he also conducted a large business in the handling of real estate in verious sections of Illinois and Indiana. After the great Chicago fire of 1871 he returned to the prostrate city to settle up the estate of his father, who had died in 1871, as previously noted in this context. From 1873 to 1876 Judge Stewart resided at Wilmette, now one of the beautiful north shore suburbs of Chicago, and in the latter year, he re- moved to the village of Hyde Park, now an integral part of the city, on its beautiful South Side. There he became official attorney for the villages of Hyde Park, Pullman, Kensington and South Chicago, and finally he
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removed to Pullman, where he was local attorney for the great Car Com- pany for a period of six years.
In 1890 Judge Stewart and his wife came to Texas, to join their son, William F. and their daughter, Mrs. Grace Potter, the latter of whom died in Chicago in 1892, she having been the wife of Gilbert Latem Pot- ter. The son, William F. Stewart, now the only surviving child, had established himself in business in Fort Worth, and here the parents took up their residence. For about three years Judge Stewart served as a member of the city board of equalization, to which position he was ap- pointed by Judge George W. Armstrong. He was then appointed by the city council, under the administration of Mayor B. B. Paddock, to the office of judge of the corporation court of Fort Worth. He held this position nearly six years, and in 1904, having virtually retired from active business or professional life, he established his home in North Fort Worth, where he has since resided. He is a notary public and also car- ries on, to a small extent, an advisory real estate business, as he finds this occupies his time, and he has been too active in the long intervening years to find pleasure in the supine ease. He is a gentleman of the old school,- courtly, affable and dignified,-and his life has been guided and governed by the loftiest principles of integrity and honor, so that he has not been denied the generous and well merited gifts of unequivocal popular confi- dence and esteem. He has been one of the world's noble army of workers and his mind, broadened by culture and association with men and affairs, is a veritable store house of information concerning the history of his native land. In politics the judge gives his allegiance to the Democratic party and his religious faith is that of the Presbyterian church, of which his loved wife was likewise a devout member.
In the year 1853 was solemnized the marriage of Judge Stewart to Miss Angeline Stewart, who was born and reared in the city of Phila- delphia, Pennsylvania, and a representative of one of the old and honored families of that city. She was a daughter of Francis L. and Sarah A. (Davis) Stewart. She was summoned to eternal rest in 1899, at Fort Worth, and in her death came the great loss and bereavement in the life of Judge Stewart, to whom she had been a devoted help-meet and com- panion for nearly half a century. Of the five children, the only one now living is William F., who is one of the representative business men of Fort Worth, and has been for the past thirty-five years. In the mean- time, he has been also officially connected with the city, as editor, alder- man and representative leader of the City Democracy and County Poli- tics. At the present time he is largely interested in establishing a "ranch" in Pecos county, Texas, and founding a town, railroad station and postoffice on the line of the great Kansas City, Pacific and Orient Railway which is being constructed through said county and his "ranch." This town, station and postoffice is named "Tessie," and Mr. Stewart has been appointed the postmaster by the President. It is suggestive, signifi- cant and not without interest that in 1847 the father should arrive in Chicago; that in 1876 the son should locate in Fort Worth; and in 1890
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both should again be united; that in 1907 the son should push out again for western and frontier environments and enterprise, awaiting the com- ing of the father in 1911 !
The intervening sixty-four years involves the lives of two early pio- neers of both Illinois and Texas.
PARKER COUNTY
Parker county was created December 12, 1855. The act directed that the county court, when chosen, should order an election for the location of the seat of justice, the site selected to be called Weatherford. The first settlements followed soon after the establishment of the military post at Fort Worth in 1848. For twenty years the county was on the frontier and exposed to the hostile raids of the Indians. For several years after the organization of the county, the settlers had little trouble, but the removal of a large part of the Texas Indians beyond Red river caused a persistent warfare along the fringes of settlement. In 1859 an attack was made on the town of Weatherford, when Mrs. Sherman was killed and scalped. During the Civil war the danger from such raids was never abated, and as late as 1873 an Indian incursion was made into Parker county.
During the comparative security of the early '50s settlement was rapid. The population in 1858 was estimated at 3,507, including a small number of slaves (160). About ten thousand acres were in cultivation, wheat and corn being the only crops, and over ten thousand cattle grazed on the ranges. Weatherford had a population at this time of 175, there being only five negroes in the little town.
The author of "Information about Texas," whose observations were made about 1856-57, says of Parker county : "It is a desirable region for small farmers. Weatherford, a new town and the county seat, is rapidly increasing. Not twelve months ago the site was laid out, and yet there are already a court house in process of construction and several other public buildings, one hotel, several stores, private dwellings and other marks of civilization." Weatherford built up rapidly in those years. One of the first steam flour mills in a large region of the country was started there by Mulkin & Carter about the middle of 1858, and in No- vember of the same year a correspondent wrote: "This flourishing little town I find still improving rapidly, and, notwithstanding the universal cry of hard times, new buildings are going up all over town. The new court house is rapidly approaching completion, and also a handsome brick edifice on the hill west of town, which is designed for a female seminary. Weatherford seems to have increased faster than any town in North Texas during the first three years of its existence." The establishment of a newspaper-the Frontier News-at that place, which two years before could not boast of a cabin, was striking evidence, not only of the enterprise of its publisher, C. E. Van Dorn, but more so of the rapid
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strides the northwestern frontier was making in improvement and settle- ment.
The population of Parker county in 1870 was 4,186; in 1880, 15,870 (615 negroes) ; in 1890, 21,682; in 1900, 25,823 (865 negroes). The increase of property values is shown by the following assessment aggre- gates : In 1870, $1,511,975 ; in 1882, $3,653,138; in 1903, $7,187,955; in 1909, $14,229,050.
The rapid increase of population during the '70s was due partly to the general immigration to this portion of Texas in that decade, but more particularly to the building of the first railroad through the county. The citizens of Weatherford were inspired with the same hope of railroad connection with the outer world as were the people of Fort Worth. By 1877 the town had grown so that it was credited with two thousand population. Some of the men whose civic and business energy was behind the progress that this town made during the 'zos were Judge A. J. Hood, Captain Ball, I. Patrick Valentine, and the district attorney of the county was S. W. T. Lanham, later governor of Texas. Weatherford has been the home of many well known men. And their spirit of enterprise was of the same sort with that of the people of Fort Worth; for when they saw that there was no immediate prospect of the T. & P. being extended from Fort Worth to the west, they followed the example of their more fortunate rival and formed the Parker County Construction Company to build the line between the two cities. In January, 1879, the grading was begun, by the following May half the work was completed, and by the winter of 1879-80, trains were running into Weatherford. During the '8os the branch of the Santa Fe from Cleburne to Weatherford was built, and later the Weatherford, Mineral Wells & Northwestern.
In 1890 the population of Weatherford was 3,369; of Springtown, 657. Veale Station, which before the coming of the railroad ranked next to the county seat in importance, had only 47 inhabitants in 1890, and has since sunk into obscurity. At the census of 1900 the towns with a population over 100 were: Weatherford, 4,786; Springtown, 518; Aledo, 162; Peaster, 182; Millsap, 261 ; Brock, 13I.
ROBERT PERCELL LOWE .- One of the largest business corporations of Weatherford, as well perhaps as of Parker county, is the Lowe-Carter Hardware Company, both wholesale and retail dealers, and the head of this corporation is Robert Percell Lowe, for a number of years one of the leading business men of Weatherford. He is of Scotch-Irish par- entage and was born in the state of Louisiana on the 20th of October, 1843, and he was ten years of age when he left the state of his birth, living afterward in Mississippi, Tennessee and Illinois. During about twenty-five years he was employed as a freight agent by the Mobile and Ohio Railroad Company, stationed successively at Baldwin, Mississippi, Humboldt, Tennessee, and in Cairo, Illinois, and resigning that position in 1894 he came direct to Weatherford, Texas, and engaged in the hard- ware business as a member of the firm of Thomason and Lowe. After
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four years he purchased his partner's interest and continued the business as the Lowe Hardware Company until in 1904 this firm was consolidated with that of W. D. Carter and Company under the name of the Lowe- Carter Hardware Company. This corporation annually transacts a large volume of business, and they maintain five traveling salesmen in their wholesale department. At the time of the consolidation of the two firms in 1904 the three-story brick structure which the business now occupies was erected, and in addition to this the company also maintain and occupy four large warehouses, all of which have railroad track con- nections.
HENRY MILLER is numbered among the public benefactors and among the public-spirited and influential residents of Weatherford, which has been his home for nearly thirty years. He was born, however, in Ger- many, on the 30th of November, 1848, and coming to this country in early life he arrived on American shores on May 17, 1867. In 1875 he made his way to Fort Worth, Texas, and from there, in February of 1881, came to Weatherford. While in Fort Worth he was variously employed, dealing at different times in books and stationery, in pianos, etc., and after coming to Weatherford he took up real estate and fire insurance. In April of 1889 he was elected grand keeper of records for the Knights of Pythias fraternity, an office he has held continuously to the present time, and he has also served Weatherford five years as a member of its board of aldermen, seven years as a school trustee and six years as its mayor. His efforts throughout the entire period of his residence in Weatherford have been discerningly directed toward its upbuilding and future development, and during his administration as the city's mayor fourteen miles of sewerage were built, the Third Ward school building was erected and additions to other schools built, and the Widows and Orphans Home for the Knights of Pythias fraternity, a state institution under the jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge, was secured for Weatherford largely through his efforts. He is an alert, well informed man, and is held in the highest esteem by his fellow citizens.
ROBERT JAMES NORTON, the first white child born in the city of Weatherford, was born on the 18th of March, 1858. D. O. Norton, his father, a native of Tennessee, had come to Parker county in the previous year of 1857, and he is thought to have erected the first house within the present limits of Weatherford. He also established the first newspaper in this city, the Frontier News, and he was a charter member of and assisted in organizing the first Christian church in Weatherford. He was both a lawyer and surveyor, and to him belongs the honor of surveying, platting and naming Weatherford, and throughout the remainder of his life he continued as one of the city's most efficient builders and promoters. He served two terms as a district judge. During the period of the Civil war he was once arrested as a Union sympathizer, he having been charged with furnishing information to the Union forces, and he was taken to
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Beaumont, Texas, and tried by a court martial, but as nothing could be proven against him he was given his liberty. Mr. Norton did not return to Weatherford until the war closed, and it was after his return that he was appointed by Governor Davis to the district judgeship, and he was serving in that capacity at the time of his death. D. O. Norton and Lydia Crabtree, his wife, became the parents of eight children, but only a son and daughter are now living, the latter, Katie, being the wife of John W. Williams and living in Clearmont, this state.
Robert J. Norton, the only surviving son, has been identified with Weatherford and its interests throughout his entire life, and he is now one of its representative business men. Desiring in his early life to become a printer, he served an apprenticeship on the paper which his father had established here, the Frontier News, but which had been sold and the name changed to the Weatherford Times, and he afterward con- tinued his journalistic work for four years in Houston, Texas. In 1901 he established the Weatherford Bottling Works and began the manu- facture of soft drinks, and his trade along that line now covers a con- siderable area of the country surrounding Weatherford. He has served two terms as a member of the city's board of aldermen, and he is an efficient local Democratic worker, but devotes the greater part of his time and attention to his business. He is a member of both the Knights of Pythias and the Elks fraternities.
On the 5th of April, 1885, Mr. Norton married Ida Crisenberry, a granddaughter of Robert Potter, an officer during the republic of Texas. The five children of this marriage union are Anice, LeRoy, Josephine, Belle and Ida. Mrs. Norton is a member of the Christian Church.
WILLIAM R. TURNER, one of the well known business men of Weatherford, was born in Christian county, Kentucky, December 8, 1834, a son of Jerome B. and Mary W. (Young) Turner, born respectively in Lynchburg, Virginia, September 2, 1806, and in Trigg county, Kentucky, in 1812, and he is a grandson on the paternal side of Robert Turner, born in Virginia February 22, 1766. William R. Turner spent the early years of his life on a farm near Paducah, Kentucky, and came from there in 1857 to Lamar county, Texas, and in 1858 he came to Parker county, locating eight miles east of Weatherford. During the first year of the Civil war, that of 1861, he enlisted for service in Company E, Eighth Regiment of Texas Infantry, and remained with his command until the war closed, in the meantime having been promoted from a private in the ranks to the first lieutenancy of Company E. He escaped without a wound, and when his services were ended he returned to Parker county and later began work on the cattle ranch of William Mosley in Young county. After two years there he came to Weatherford, arriving in this city on the Ist of January, 1870, and he has since been successfully en- gaged in the livery business here. He built both his livery barn and his home here. He is a director in the First National Bank of Weather ford,
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and, although never desiring the honors or emoluments of public office, he served Weatherford several terms as a member of its board of aldermen during the early period of its history. He was made a Mason in Ken- tucky in 1856, and now affiliates with Phoenix Lodge in Weatherford.
In the year of 1869 Mr. Turner was united in marriage with Eunice C. Powers, a native daughter of Mississippi, and their five children are Catherine, who married S. S. Tullice and is living in Dallas county, Texas, and Robert C., William L., Edward G. and Jesse Y. Turner, all of Weatherford.
GEORGE MORLAND BOWIE is one of the most prominent of Weather- ford's business men, the vice president of its First National Bank and conspicuously identified with the cattle industry. He was born in Banff county, Scotland, December 20, 1846, a son of George and Elizabeth (Morland) Bowie. In 1866 he left his native land for America, his first home here being in Dallas City, Illinois, moving from there to Avoca, Iowa, and in 1868 he came to Texas. He taught school in Palo Pinto county and engaged in various other enterprises, and going to Fort Worth in 1879 he embarked in the lumber business, and ten years later became a member of the firm of William Cameron and Company, who had lumber yards in various parts of the country, and Mr. Bowie was president of the company at White Castle, Louisiana, and also the presi- dent of the Cypress Lumber Association of that state. He remained in that city for eleven years, and in that time became one of its most influ- ential and prominent men, its mayor for some time and the president of the White Castle Bank. Selling his interests in the William Cameron Company lumber business in 1901, Mr. Bowie in the same year came to reside in Weatherford, having built his present home a year previously.
On November 18, 1875, Mr. Bowie was married to Margaret Arm- strong, a native of Jack county, Texas. They have four children : W. A., vice president of the Rockwell Lumber Company of Houston, Texas; G. D., a lumber merchant of Amarillo, Texas; Edith, now Mrs. B. W. Fauts, of Guadalajara, Mexico ; and Ellen M., at home.
IRA BAKER TAYLOR .- One of the highly respected citizens of Weath- erford, Texas, is Ira Baker Taylor, engaged in real estate and abstract business with his son, under the firm name of Taylor & Taylor. He is one of the older residents of the city, and is well known among the busi- ness men of the community. He has established a business that has for years been one of the leading enterprises of the city and county, and is regarded as a man of keen judgment and foresight. Mr. Taylor was born in Trenton, Kentucky, June 28, 1834, and is a son of Wright B. and a grandson of William Taylor.
The earliest ancestor of this family of whom anything definite is known is John Taylor, who with his wife, Ruth Wayette Taylor, was living in North Carolina prior to 1796, when his will was probated, in Nash county. He and his wife had seven children, and one of these was
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William, grandfather of Ira B. Taylor. William Taylor married Hannah Dudley about 1795, and they located in Todd county, Kentucky. Their son Wright B. married America E. Halliard, of Clark county, Kentucky.
Wright B. Taylor himself put the initial "B" in his name, for the sake of having more than one initial or given name. He was born in North Carolina and his wife was born in Winchester, Clark county, Ken- tucky, daughter of Captain Halliard, who served in the war of 1812. He had a good common school education and became a farmer and stock raiser. Wright B. Taylor was an Episcopalian and a Democrat. He served as sheriff of Todd county two terms. In the fall of 1854 he moved to Texas, becoming convinced that a Civil war was imminent and that Kentucky would be a fighting ground. All his four sons served in the Confederate army from the beginning to end of the war with the exception of the youngest, who went into service in the spring of 1864, at the age of sixteen years.
Ira B. Taylor attended high school at Elkton, Kentucky, until he reached the age of eighteen years, and then went to John D. Tyler's private high school, or college, near Clarksville, Tennessee, two terms. He left school to accompany his father and family to Texas, and in the new location engaged four years in merchandising. He then spent his time profitably raising horses and mules until the beginning of the Civil war, and then spent three and one-half years in the Confederate service. At the close of the war he returned to Corsicana, where he again engaged in mercantile business, and became prominent in the community. He served as the first mayor of Corsicana, his term covering the period about the time when the Texas Central Railroad entered the city, in 1870. In March, 1879, Mr. Taylor removed with his family to Weatherford, and there engaged in his present business, taking his oldest son into co-part- nership. Ira B. Taylor and his son, Wright D. Taylor, are still owners of the abstract business under the style of Taylor & Taylor, established at Weatherford, Texas, in 1879, and are actively engaged in the same.
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