USA > Texas > A history of central and western Texas > Part 34
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Upon the expiration of the original charter of the bank, in 1900, at the end of the twenty years designated by the government as the limit of national bank charters, the charter was renewed under the original title and for another period of twenty years. In 1908 the capital was again in-
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creased, as the growth and development of the town and country made it practically imperative for this enterprising institution to keep pace with the march of progress, which it promptly did by expanding its capital stock to one hundred thousand dollars, which is the basic reinforcement now in evidence, with an additional surplus fund of fifty thousand dollars and undivided profits amounting to sixty-five thousand dollars. These figures bear their own significance and emphatically evidence the pro- gressive policy followed in the management of the affairs of the bank, as well as indicate the substantial advances made in the civic and industrial upbuilding of this favored section of the Old Lone Star commonwealth.
Those who are in a position to know will uniformly concede that from the beginning of its history the bank has been managed with scrupu- lous conservatism. Its original stockholders, all men of high reputation, are still, to a large extent, identified with the institution, and yet even the foregoing brief statements show that the bank has at all times kept abreast of the times in this fast growing country, and it has led its influence in support of every legitimate enterprise that has been launched in Coleman. The personnel of the present official corps is as here noted: Littleton E. Collins, president ; Joseph P. Morris, vice-president; Robert H. Alex- ander, cashier ; and Charles W. Hemphill, assistant cashier. In addition to the president, vice-president and cashier the directorate now includes James C. Dibrell, William Anson, Charles J. Dibrell and John H. Babing- ton. The banking offices, occupying a substantial and attractive building erected for the purpose, are thoroughly metropolitan in appointments and facilities, and the business of the institution shows an appreciable expan- sion from year to year, making it one of the staunch banking honses of central and western Texas.
HORACE R. STARKWEATHER .- There are few men in central or west- ern Texas who have acquired a wider reputation as business men than Horace R. Starkweather, the president of the Farmers State Bank of Coleman. He was born in Lucas county, Ohio, in 1856, and he was reared and educated in Toledo of that county, and there he also received his business training as a bookkeeper and accountant. He came to Texas in 1877 and to Coleman in 1881, and he engaged extensively in the cattle business, having a pasture of forty thousand acres in the southern part of the county. And although the disastrous results following the fence cut- ting war in 1883 put him out of the business, he later resumed the vocation and for some years was engaged extensively in land and live stock trans- actions, one of his notable deals being the sale of a large portion of his land holdings in the southern part of the county to William Gould Busk, an English capitalist, who established there a large cattle ranch. But more recently Mr. Busk decided to sell this land, he having returned to his home in England, and Mr. Starkweather is his agent for the sale of it in small farming tracts for actual settlers, and in addition to the selling of these tracts he is also developing a town there called Gouldbusk, a post-
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office, store, gin, etc., being already located there. It is situated in the midst of a rich agricultural country.
In June of 1907 Mr. Starkweather promoted and established the Farmers State Bank of Coleman, of which he is the president, Of the eighty-five stockholders connected with this bank the greater majority are farmers located in various sections of Coleman county, and the bank was established primarily for the purpose of enabling the farmers to borrow money at reasonable rates of interest and thus develop the agricultural re- sources of the county, and it has not only succeeded admirably in that purpose but has also been highly successful in every way. In 1908 the Farmers State Bank moved into the splendid new building erected for its purpose. The capital stock of this institution is valued at fifty thousand dollars, its deposits are guaranteed under the Depositors Guarantee Fund as provided by laws passed in the Thirty-first session of the Texas legis- lature, and the officers and directors are among the best known and most substantial citizens of Coleman county.
Mrs. Starkweather was before marriage Carrie Knox, born in Mich- igan, and they have three children, Elizabeth, Marjorie and Helen.
HON. WILLIAM R. MCCLELLAN was born in Washington county, Texas, in 1846, and he is a son of one of the pioneers of that county, W. B. McClellan, who came from Tennessee in 1841, but he was born in North Carolina. The son William was reared in Washington county, and while yet a boy he went into the Confederate army, joining Company F, Twenty-first Texas Cavalry, and he served until the close of the war in the Trans-Mississippi Department, Parson's Brigade, Steele's Division. He was in hard service in Arkansas and Louisiana, including the hostilities in connection with the Banks' expedition, and he took part in the battle of Yellow Bayou, the last engagement fought west of the Mississippi river.
After the close of the war Mr. McClellan returned to his home in Washington county, and later went to Ledbetter in Fayette county, where he embarked in the mercantile business and enjoyed continued success and financial prosperity until retiring from that business in 1893. In the same year he came to Coleman, which has since been his home, and during his first nine years here was engaged mainly in trading in cattle, since living retired, although he has large and important interests in Coleman and in Coleman county. He is a director of the Coleman National Bank, and has a fine stock farm three miles west of the town and a beautiful city residence. Mr. McClellan's only political honor and which came to him unsought was his election to the legislature in 1899, 1901 and 1905, repre- senting the One Hundred and Eighth legislative district, which comprises Brown and Coleman counties. He served in the Twenty-sixth, Twenty- seventh and Twenty-ninth legislatures, and his most important and useful services in the legislature, commencing with the Twenty-sixth session, were in his successful opposition to the proposed land legislation which came up at that time and which if it had been enacted would have been the means of depriving actual settlers of millions of acres of the state's
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school land and thus retarded the community's development. This pro- posed legislation was in the interest of land speculators, as it would have disposed of all school lands in the state in bodies of not less than ten thousand acres at from seventy-five cents to one dollar an acre, no actual settlement being required. Mr. McClellan's efforts as a legislator were widely recognized, and they proved of signal usefulness to his state. He is one of the substantial and resourceful citizens of Coleman county, a retired merchant, a bank director and a wealthy farmer and stockman.
He married in Washington county Lou Ratliff, who was born in Mis- sissippi, and they have four children: Claud McClellan, Mrs. Mary O'Hair, Mrs. Lela Johnson and Mrs. Mildred Woodward, all living in Coleman.
The Hon. William R. McClellan is a member of the Masonic order and of the Christian church.
ROBERT GOODFELLOW is well known throughout Coleman county and the state of Texas as a notable criminal officer and as a prominent stock- man. Born in Dallas county, Texas, adjoining the Tarrant county line near Grapevine, in 1870, his parents were old time residents of that local- ity, and an older brother, J. J. Goodfellow, now of San Angelo, was for nearly thirty years the county surveyor of Tarrant county.
Robert Goodfellow was educated in Baylor University at Waco, studying under Dr. Rufus Burleson, and early in 1890 he came to Cole- man county and began working with cattle on the Frank Anson ranch, re- maining there for several months. His efficiency and trustworthiness in the meantime made him many friends, and after locating in Coleman he was elected the constable, that forming the beginning of his long and notable career as a criminal officer. This public career has included his services as city marshal, as deputy sheriff and for six years as sheriff, he having retired from the latter office in 1906. Since that time he has de- voted himself to his extensive farming, live stock and business interests. As a stockman he handles cattle, sheep and horses, making somewhat of a specialty of the latter. He is a breeder of draft horses, coach horses, sad- dlers and racers of the highest grade and also, of mules, and he has helped to make Coleman county famous for its fine horses. He is also a mem- ber of the firm of Goodfellow and Bell, proprietors of the Coleman Buggy and Harness Company, which was established in 1906, a successful busi- ness institution. He has two farms and a stock ranch in Coleman county, one of the farms being located about thirty miles south of the Colorado river, and the other near the city on the northwest, while the ranch is eight miles northwest of the city.
As city marshal and as deputy sheriff and sheriff Mr. Goodfellow be- came noted as one of the ablest criminal officers in the southwest, this fact being recognized most of all by his fellow officers, the truest test, and he was honored by them through his election as vice-president of the Texas Sheriffs' Association and subsequently as president of that organization. He was the president of the association during his last term as sheriff of
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Coleman county. As an officer he did not merely perform his duties in a routine or perfunctory manner, but he was always alert and brought to bear a finely trained intelligence on the conduct of his cases. His repu- tation for actually catching criminals became such that Coleman county won the name of being an unsafe place for fugitives from justice, for if one came here Sheriff Goodfellow was sure to get him. One of the most notable cases with which he was connected was that of the Montana bank note robbery. In 1901 a Northern Pacific train in Montana was held up and robbed of forty thousand dollars in unsigned bank notes. The robbers scattered to various parts of the country, some drifting to Texas, and a few were convicted. Sheriff Goodfellow got trace of this work by one of the bank notes passed in Coleman county, and succeeded in capturing three men that were involved in the robbery, following them into Callahan county and having them put in jail at that point, where they were held until taken in charge by the Federal authorities. He captured these men in advance of the Federal Secret Service officers who were working on the case in this vicinity. Another important case in which Mr. Goodfellow was connected was his capture of A. P. Brady at Jackson, Mississippi, for murder committed in Coleman county, and this was a very unusual case owing to the fact that the murder had been committed twenty-five years before the date of the arrest. Bob Beaver, alias Meeks, Mitchell, etc., a desperate character and a partner of the notorious outlaw, Bill Cook, escaped from jail at Crowell in Foard county in 1900, and was traced southward by a number of sheriffs and deputy U. S. marshals, but in Coleman county they lost all trace of their man and were about to give up the chase when Mr. Goodfellow took the trail with his force, and late at night found Beaver in bed at the ranch of F. Beck, about twenty miles southwest of Coleman. He captured his man and turned him over to the officers who had come for him. In 1898 a Santa Fe passenger train was held up and robbed at Coleman Junction by five men, and Mr. Goodfellow took the leading part in the capture of these men in Sutton county, about thirty miles below Sonora. Some time previous to the above robbery and while he was serving in the office of deputy sheriff, another hold up occurred on the Santa Fe at Coleman, in which the train was robbed of about fourteen thousand dollars. For this crime Mr. Goodfellow caught and arrested Will Teague, the leading participant in the robbery, and he was sent to the penitentiary for a long number of years. Mr. Goodfellow also captured in Montana John Wiley Davis, a cattle thief who had jumped his bond sixteen years previously, and had been a fugitive during that time. He was a constantly busy officer and dealt with numerous cases of cattle and horse thieves, murderers and other criminals. It was his official duty to hang one man while serving as sheriff, the execution of John Pearl for murder taking place in 1901.
Mr. Goodfellow's wife was before marriage Miss Fannie Foster, born at Kirksville in Adair county, Missouri, and she came from there to Ellis county, Texas, with her parents. The three children of this union arc Leita Eugenia, Robert Clarence and Nancy Lee
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DR. CHARLES M. ALEXANDER is the pioneer physician of Coleman and he is a director of the oldest bank in Coleman, the First National. Born in Cumberland county, Kentucky, he is a son of Joseph H. and Julia (Wallace) Alexander, both of whom were also born in that common- wealth and both were of Scotch ancestry, the mother having been a descendant of William Wallace of that country. Dr. Alexander enjoyed liberal educational advantages in his youth, and he received the degree of A. B. from the Cumberland University of Lebanon, Tennessee. of which he is a graduate with the class of 1879, and he is a graduate of the medical department of the University of Louisville with the class of 1882. Prac- ticing then in his home county of Cumberland until January of 1883, he came to Coleman, Texas, and has practiced here continuously ever since, his labors as a physician here covering the changing conditions of life that have taken place in western Texas since that formative period. And in those earlier years, particularly before the building of the railroad and when the country was but thinly settled and occupied only by the people connected with the great cattle outfits, Dr. Alexander's practice extended over a wide expanse of country and involved long drives into the neigh- boring counties of Runnels, McCulloch, Brown, Callahan and others. He is a physician of the highest standing in his profession, and is the presi- dent of the Fourth or San Angelo District Medical Association, the presi- dent of the Coleman County Medical Society, and during a long number of years the local surgeon for the Santa Fe Railroad Company. He is also a member of the State and American Medical Associations.
Dr. Alexander's wife was before marriage Mary Brown, from Mum- fordsville, Kentucky, and they have four children: Howard L., Amelia (married Lloyd A. Brewer, of Washington, D. C.) ; Charles and Eliza- beth. Dr. Alexander is a member of and an elder in the Presbyterian church.
HON. JOHN A. B. MILLER in 1897 came to Coleman, and since then as a lawyer, public official and citizen he has been an important factor in the development of the town and of the community. He was born at Homer in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, in 1865, and his father, the Rev. Jolın A. Miller, born in South Carolina, is living at Patterson, Louisiana, now retired after sixty years or more of labor as a Methodist minister. The son was reared at Homer and attended Homer College, but he studied law in the University of Mississippi at Oxford and was admitted to the bar at Pittsboro in Calhoun county, Mississippi, in 1891. He also began his practice there, his first law partner being Judge A. T. Roane, a circuit judge and a native Mississippian. Leaving Pittsboro Mr. Miller came from Ruston to Coleman, Texas, in 1897, and this city has since remained his home. While living at Pittsboro he was elected and served a term as the mayor of that city.
Within a year or two after coming to Coleman Mr. Miller was elected the county attorney, and he served in that office for one term, re- engaging at the close of that period in private practice. He served the
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city four years as an alderman, and in April of 1906 was elected without opposition the mayor of Coleman, the petition which brought about his nomination and election being signed by a large majority of the citizens of Coleman. By re-election he has remained continuously in the office since that time. Mr. Miller's administration of municipal affairs has been highly efficient, economical, progressive and business like, and during his term many public improvements of importance have been made, the most notable of which was the purchase by the city of the water works systent and the enlarging and improvement of this system, assuring a permanent supply of the best water in western Texas. Another great achievement for the city in which Mr. Miller took a most prominent part was the securing for Coleman the junction point for the new trans-continental division of the Santa Fe Railroad, to extend from Texico, a town on the main line of the road and on the northwestern border of Texas, to Cole- man, where it joins the San Angelo branch of the Santa Fe and completes a new trans-continental route for the Santa Fe extending from Galveston to the Pacific ocean. Work was begun on the Coleman end of this new line in the latter part of June, 1909, and in the public celebration in Cole- man in honor of this great achievement Mr. Miller was accorded the honor of handling the plow which started the grading operations. Prev- ious to this time for several months and with unselfish spirit he had de- voted much of his own time to the work of promoting the securing of this road for Coleman, and this work was accomplished in the face of strong opposition from rival cities seeking the honor. He spent much more of his time in the securing of this project than was required of him officially, and he also made three trips to Chicago to urge Coleman's advantages to the Santa Fe officials in that city.
He married in this city Miss Mattie B. Morris, a daughter of John P. Morris, a prominent stockman. They have four children, John P., Thomas Louis, Claude and Mattie B.
WILLIAM L. FUTCH has inscribed his name on the pages of the his- tory of Coleman county as its present sheriff. He was born at Magnolia, the county seat of Columbia county, Arkansas, in 1866, and he was reared there, but since July of 1884 he has been a resident of Coleman county. His father made a trip to this state in 1873, stopping for a time in Hill county, but he afterward returned to Magnolia and he is now deceased. His widow is living at their old home there. Mr. Futch's first work here was on a cattle ranch, continuing with some of the large cattle outfits for several years, and this section of the state at that time was entirely a cattle country. He later went into the railroad service in western Texas, and for six years was with the western division of the Texas and Pacific Company and with the Pecos Valley Railroad Company.
Returning to Coleman county in 1897 Mr. Futch became the deputy sheriff under J. T. Sanders, later serving as deputy sheriff under Sheriff W. T. Knox, and then for about four years he was the superintendent in
Vol. 1-22
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charge of the convicts on the county road work in Coleman county. In 1906 he was elected the sheriff of Coleman county, and was re-elected to the office in 1908, and his administration of the duties connected with that important office have given eminent satisfaction to the people. Through long years of residence in Coleman county and in western Texas he has become thoroughly familiar and prominently identified with its growth and interests.
Mr. Futch married in 1898 Miss Hattie Jones, born in McLennan county, Texas, and their three children are Neil, Jack and Allen. Mr. Futch has membership relations with the Odd Fellows and the Rebekahs and the Knights of Pythias fraternities.
COLONEL RICHARD H. OVERALL, a pioneer settler of Coleman county and a prominent and wealthy stockman, died at his home in Coleman in 1900. He was born at St. Charles, near St. Louis, Missouri, in 1832, and was reared and educated there. His father was one of the earliest pioneer settlers in Missouri, moving there from Tennessee, and he was a soldier in the Black Hawk war. The son Richard, after reaching mature years, was engaged in the lumber business at St. Charles until the breaking out of the war between the states, and during that conflict he was employed as a train conductor on the old North Missouri Railroad, now the Wabash road, running from St. Louis into central north Missouri. On account of the fierce contention and disorder throughout that portion of Missouri and the warfare that waged there, largely of a guerilla and bushwhacking na- ture, Mr. Overall was often a witness of and a participant in the scenes of violence enacted. One occasion in particular was in 1863, when his train was attacked at Centralia by forces headed by Frank James and . Bill An- derson. The train was stopped, the passengers robbed and roughly used, and twenty-seven Federal soldiers on their way home on a furlough of sick leave were taken from the train and shot. The depot and practically the entire of Centralia were burned to the ground, and even the train was set on fire, but by a ruse worked by Mr. Overall in connection with the engineer he rain the train out of town for quite a distance and the remaining passengers, particularly the women and children, were taken out and given protection to a place. of safety.
After the close of the war Mr. and Mrs. Overall went to live at Macon, Missouri, and there he was engaged in the milling business for about nine years. Early in 1876, his mill having burned, he and Mrs. Overall came to Texas to start life anew in a new country, and coming to Coleman county in the spring of the same year they located south of the present town of Coleman at what has ever since remained the Overall ranch and yet the property of Mrs. Overall. Colonel Overall as a begin- ning went into the southwestern Texas country, to Laredo, on the border- land, and brought back a small bunch of cattle, it taking him three months to make the trip, and this proved the nucleus of his cattle business which, growing from year to year through careful and intelligent management, finally reached what it is at present, one of the most valuable stock ranches
R.H. Overall
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in western Texas. The Overall ranch consists of nearly thirty thousand acres, beginning about three and a half miles south of Coleman and ex- tending southward for many miles. Colonel Overall handled horses, cattle and sheep extensively.
He also took a great interest and a prominent part in the growth and development of Coleman and of Coleman county, and at the time of his death he had been living in the town for some months, establishing his residence therein in 1900, the year of his death. He was a public spirited citizen and a valuable man in every phase of life, and his death was greatly mourned. In worldly affairs he had been a successful man, accumulating a comfortable fortune, but at the same time he was generous and liberal in all his dealings, and a man of the strictest honor and integrity.
Mrs. Overall was before her marriage Miss Martha Tye Robinson, a native of Callaway county, Missouri, and of Virginia ancestry. Her grandfather, also of that state, was a soldier in the Revolutionary war. Mrs. Overall was reared at St. Charles, Missouri, and was there married to Mr. Overall. She was educated at Science Hall College in Shelbyville, Kentucky. From the time of her marriage to Colonel Overall she was his constant companion and helpmeet. Leaving the comforts and conven- iences of her home life in Missouri cities and coming to the Texas frontier in 1876, a region at that time very thinly settled and practically open range, far from sources of supply, she cheerfully took up her share of the burden of establishing a ranch and getting a start in the new country, and with a fine spirit of adaptability she not only performed her necessary household duties but readily learned the ways of the frontier, such as shooting, rid- ing, etc., and also learned the cattle and live stock business thoroughly. She joined her husband at Waco after his tedious trip to Laredo above mentioned in search of stock for the ranch. In those days all their supplies had to be shipped from Fort Worth or Waco overland. Since her hus- band's death she has managed her ranch with ability, good judgment and the experience learned from long years in the live stock business. Al- though residing in town she is the active manager of her ranch, which is connected with her residence by telephone, and she has a competent fore- man and trained assistants. Mrs. Overall also takes an active interest in the general affairs of the city, and as did her husband she enjoys a wide popularity.
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