USA > Texas > A history of central and western Texas > Part 35
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BEN H. PITTMAN was born in Bullitt county. Kentucky, and he was reared there, finally coming to Texas in 1872 and locating at Prairie Lee on the San Marcos river in Caldwell county. In 1875 he came to Cole- man county, thus becoming one of the earliest of the pioneer citizens of the county, and he is its present district clerk. Coleman county was per- manently organized in the latter part of the year of 1875, and Mr. Pitt- man was made a member of the first grand jury in connection with the county's first district court, which convened in October of 1876. It was also during the summer of that year that the new town of Coleman was started and the site selected as the county seat, but as there was no per-
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
manent court house at that time Mr. Pittman recalls to mind that the grand jury conducted their deliberations in a grove of pecan trees not far north of the present court house.
Mr. Pittman established and conducted a ranch on Home Creek in the southern part of the county. In 1880 he was elected the county's sheriff, serving in that capacity for four years, and he was the county's third sheriff. In 1800 he was elected the district clerk, re-elected in 1892, serving for four years at that time, and following his retirement from that office he embarked in the hardware and implement business in Coleman, in partnership with J. F. Gordon, the firm name being Gordon and Pittman, and they built up a large trade extending over Coleman and adjoining counties, so large in fact that as it was conducted entirely on a credit basis, as was the custom then, the firm finally became unable to continue the business and finally retired. In 1908 Mr. Pittman was again elected to the office of district clerk, and he is now filling that important office with all his former efficiency. His life has been intimately asso- ciated with the history of Coleman county and he is numbered among its representative citizens.
Mrs. Pittman was before marriage Miss Maggie Malloch, from Caldwell county, daughter of E. Malloch, born in Edinborough, Scotland, and who came to Texas during an early period in its history. They have five children: Walter, Edward, Minnie, Mrs. Lucy Garland and Kate. Mr. Pittman is a member of the Masonic and Odd Fellows orders.
JUDGE FERDINAND M. BOWEN has long been one of the most promi- nent characters of Coleman and of Coleman county, an active and enthu- siastic worker in their growth and development, believing that in central and western Texas no better country is found on earth. He is well known as a merchant and farm owner and as one of the best judges of Coleman county. The late R. S. Bowen, one of the pioneers of Coleman county and a brother of the judge, came to this part of the state in the early seventies as a land surveyor, and he was living in Coleman county at the time of its organization in 1876, assisting in laying off the town of Cole- man and organizing it into the new county seat in the summer of the same year. He was elected and served as the first county surveyor of Coleman county, and he died at Waco in 1902.
Ferdinand M. Bowen was born in Yalobusha county, Mississippi, in December, 1848, and in 1851 he was brought by his parents to Texas, the family locating in Collin county, and there he was reared and lived for thirty-one years, coming then to Coleman county in 1882 and since remaining here. He located his home in the new county seat of Coleman and for several years was in the cattle business, continuing the vocation to some extent to the present time. But in later years he has given the most of his attention to the Bowen drug store, in which he is associated with two of his sons, Robert I. and Berry Bowen. In 1906 he was elected the judge of Coleman county, and served in that office for a term of two years.
W. J . Knex trife
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
Judge Bowen married Alice Berry, and he is the father of ten chil- dren : Robert, Mrs. Cora E. Orr, Mrs. Dove Davidson, Mrs. Georgia Gough, Miss Cherry Bowen, Mrs. Blanche Beakley, Berry, Floyd, Joe and Nellie. The Bowen family are among the most prominent residents of Coleman.
WILLIAM T. KNOx is one of the most prominent farmers and stock- men of Coleman county and one of the largest land owners and wealthiest citizens in Central and Western Texas. He was born in Lavaca county, Texas, and was reared there and in DeWitt county, receiving in the mean- time good educational advantages in local schools and in Concrete Col- lege in DeWitt county. On coming to Coleman county in the spring of 1882 he bought a ranch on Home creek in the southern part of the county, stocking it with cattle, and it is interesting to recall the fact that the land he bought at that time for a dollar and a quarter an acre he sold in recent years for twenty-five dollars an acre, an illustration of the won- derful increase in the value of the property in this part of the state within the past few years. After living on that place for five or six years Mr. Knox came to Coleman and bought a small place a mile east of the town,
the nucleus of his present splendid land holdings in this location. Begin- ning at his home, located on a beautiful elevation commanding a fine view of the city and extending eastward, Mr. Knox has gradually ac- quired a large body of this rich valley land, until now, with his sons, he owns here considerably over a thousand acres of the finest agricultural land in western Texas, the Knox place being universally considered the best farm in Coleman county. And besides these holdings near the town, he also has other good farms in the county, and in Foard county he owns two thousand acres of fine wheat land. He has always been interested in live stock and until 1908 he handled each year from five hundred to one thousand head of beef steers.
Mr. Knox has not achieved this splendid prosperity in an easy way or by mere chance, but instead it has come to him through constant energy, industry and through the exercise of thought, foresight, common sense and patience in overcoming obstacles. He has had the courage at proper times to borrow money extensively to enlarge his cattle inter- ests. Within a year or two after coming to Coleman he was practically ruined financially through the depression in price of cattle and sheep, drouths and the hard times generally that prevailed during a period in the '8os, but he soon came once more to the front. In those days he taught school in the northeastern part of the county, and with such suc- cess that he was called to the northern part of the state, at Harrold, to take charge of a school there. He has also been honored with quite an extensive public career in Coleman county. His first office was that of county surveyor, and he was then made the chief deputy sheriff and tax collector, and served in those capacities for four years, while in 1908 he was elected to the office of sheriff and served in that capacity for one
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terni. His official career was marked by strict efficiency and satisfaction to the general public.
In DeWitt, soon after leaving the school room, Mr. Knox was mar- ried to Miss Anna Edgar, a member of an old and wealthy family in that county, and they have ten children, namely : William Hugh, Maggie, Henry, David, Jesse, Edgar, Thad, Anna Lee, Percy and Myrtle.
JOHN F. GORDON .- The name of John F. Gordon is perhaps as closely associated with the history of Coleman county as any other of its residents, and the activities of his useful manhood have been of impor- tance in the development of his city and county. He came to Texas with his father and family from Georgia in 1866, locating in Upshur county, and he was reared there and attended school at Daingerfield in Titus county. For some years he lived in Jefferson, Marion county, and in February of 1876 he arrived in Coleman county. This was the year of the county's organization and the laying off of the town of Coleman and its establishment as the county seat. Mr. Gordon, however, at first located at Camp Colorado, in the eastern part of the county and the oldest settlement therein. In pursuing his education he had learned sur- veying and engineering, and on coming to this county he resumed the profession and was principally engaged in the location of school lands. He served as a deputy under R. S. Bowen, the first surveyor of Coleman county, and later Mr. Gordon was elected and served one term as the county surveyor. In later years he was further identified with political life through his two terms' service as a district clerk.
Mr. Gordon started the first permanent drug store in Coleman, later taking into partnership L. E. Collins and adopting the name of Gordon and Collins. This house was established in 1878, and is still in business, now known as the Coulson drug store. After selling his interest in that store, Mr. Gordon turned his attention to the dry goods business and later to the hardware and implement trade in connection with B. H. Pittman, their firm name being Gordon and Pittman, and he has also been quite extensively identified with the cattle and live stock business and since about 1892 with agricultural pursuits, his home being on his farm two miles and a half north of town. Although he is no longer identified with mercantile pursuits he is an active member of the firm of Watson and Gordon, real estate, financial and insurance agents, and in recent years he has also dealt largely in lands that he surveyed as school lands in the early years of his residence here, it being interesting to note the wonderful increase in value of those lands since the days when he could have secured a half interest in a section merely for surveying and locating it.
Mr. Gordon is one of the few remaining pioneer citizens and business men who located here in 1876, and from those early days until the present he has been an active and public-spirited citizen in all movements of progress. His wife is Alice (Mason) Gordon, who was born at Weather- ford in Parker county. They have eight children: William, Oldham.
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
Walter, Marshall, Mrs. Ethelyn Holcomb, Mrs. Edna Bardwell, Mrs. Annie Patton and Evelyn.
JUDGE JESSE O. WOODWARD is one of the pioneer lawyers of Coleman, a man of the highest attainments in his profession, and his influence ex- tends not only into the professional, but in the political and social circles as well. He was reared on a farm and studied law at Mt. Pleasant, Texas, in the office of Judge P. A. Turner, the present district judge of the Texarkana District. He was admitted to the bar at Mt. Pleasant in March of 1876, and began his practice there as a partner of Judge W. P. McLean, for many years one of the prominent lawyers of Fort Worth. Mr. Woodward came to Coleman in the fall of 1878, and this city has ever since been his home. In the fall of 1880 he was elected the attorney of Coleman county, serving in that office for two terms, and then, after a term as the district attorney, he was electd a district judge, and served in that capacity for eight years. Resuming then his private practice, he has for many years enjoyed a lucrative practice that extends not only in the local courts but throughout other parts of the state as well. As a lawyer and particularly as a county and district attorney in earlier years, Judge Woodward had to pass through scenes and incidents in the dis- charge of his duties that were often in the nature of violence and tragedy, typical of the frontier period and the litigation characteristic of the times. But he was always an able and fearless judge and prosecutor. He at- tained particular success in murder and other criminal trials, and in that branch of jurisprudence his influence is far reaching. His law business is conducted under the firm name of Woodward and Baker, his partner being his son-in-law, J. K. Baker.
Judge Woodward was born in Cass county, Texas, in 1855. His father, Sam Woodward Sr., was born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and com- ing to Texas in about 1850 he located in Cass county. From there he came to Coleman county in the spring of 1878, and he lived here for some time, but his death occurred at his old home in Cass county in 1885. Judge Woodward married at Mt. Pleasant, in 1876, Miss Fannie Dillard, a daughter of Colonel John D. Dillard, of that place, and their six children are: Mrs. Willie Baker, Mrs. Mabel Henson, Walter C., Jessie, Garland and Nadine. Walter C. Woodward is the present attorney for Coleman county. Judge Woodward is a member of the Knights of Pythias and Odd Fellows fraternities.
ED B. SMITH is prominently known in Central and Western Texas through his connection with railroad, townsite and ranch building, and as a railroad contractor and farmer. He was born at Chillicothe, Mis- souri, to John B. and Mollie (Griffey) Smith, both also Missourians. The father died when his son was a boy, and the mother subsequently married her present husband, L. G. Saunders. She was born in Boone county, but lived in Livingston county after her marriage to Mr. Smith,
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
and in later years she and Mr. Saunders came to Texas to make their home with her son, who has never married and has always taken care of his mother and his stepfather.
Ed B. Smith left northern Missouri when he was fifteen years old and came to Texas, locating at Sherman, in Grayson county, where he worked with cattle and horses, and from there he went into the Pan- handle and worked on the large ranch of Colonel Charles Goodnight, at that time the largest cattleman in Texas and perhaps the state's wealthiest citizen. Mr. Smith had at that time gained some experience in sinking wells, and he worked along that line for Mr. Goodnight. He put down the first wells in the Panhandle, and, being successful in discovering water, he was afterward busily engaged for some time in drilling wells and making tanks in the Plains country. From the Panhandle he re- turned to northern Texas and accepted railroad grading contracts on roads being built at that time, including the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe from Fort Worth to Gainsville and from Dallas to Paris, also graded a line from Mt. Pleasant to Sulphur Springs and later worked on grading contracts on the Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railroad from Fort Worth to Brownwood. In 1886 he was busily engaged with his force on grading work for the Fort Worth and Denver City Railroad from Quanah through the Panhandle to Texline. He also put down the first wells at Washburn, Amarillo and other places, his efficiency as a contractor and his equipment of machinery being so well known and so complete that he obtained all the work he could do, and he took part in the first building and in the mushroom growth of a number of the new towns that sprang up along that line during its building, including several of the buildings at the instance of the townsite agents for the original town of Amarillo, and the moving of the court house, jail and a number of other buildings in the original town of Clarendon from its old location to its present one.
After completing his work in the Panhandle country, Mr. Smith returned to Dallas, where during the following four years he dealt in horses and mules. In 1900 he came to Coleman, where during a similar period he was engaged in the same business, resuming then his old occu- pation of making tanks and drilling wells, and in the meantime also taking up farming. He has leased land on the Robey ranch, north of Coleman, and in 1909 had one hundred and thirty-five acres planted with cotton. In the summer of 1909, when the Santa Fe Railroad Company decided to build its transcontinental cut-off through Texas from Texico to Coleman, Mr. Smith was awarded the contract for the building of the first three miles of grade from Coleman. The inauguration of this work was a notable event in Coleman. He also received the contract to build another section of grade through the northwest part of the county, and this work was completed by the 15th of January, 1910. His large business dealings have placed him among the leaders in industrial circles in Central and Western Texas, and he is leaving the impress of his forceful individuality in his special lines.
RESIDENCE OF W. J. ROBEY
N.J. Rokey
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
WILLIAM J. ROBEY .- During many years William J. Robey has been extensively engaged in the handling of cattle, sheep and horses, his inter- ests increasing from year to year until he has become one of the county's most prosperous citizens. He was born and reared on a farm in Simpson county, Kentucky, born in 1849, and in 1883 he came to Coleman and acquired a ranch lying north of and almost adjoining the town, the nucleus of his later vast land properties, but much of his old pasture he has sold off in later years. He has retained some farms, however, and these afford him a substantial resource. He has built up a fine ranch property north of town, and also owns a large ranch in Ochiltree county and another in Glasscock county, and he has a beautiful home in Cole- man, a splendid residence built in 1900. By conducting his business interests conservatively and with careful thought and planning for the future he avoided the disastrous failures that often overcame stockmen in the early days when panics, drouths or depressions in prices came on. He has been a large handler of sheep, and his wool clip each year has helped to swell Coleman county's total in large proportions. Mr. Robey's brother, the late J. H. Robey, also had a stock ranch north of town. He died in 1900, and his son, B. F. Robey, now has a fine farm which is a part of his father's old ranch.
Mr. Robey married Florence Batsell, a native daughter of Kentucky, and their three children are Trunion, Annah and George Robey. Mr. Robey is a member of the Methodist church.
ROBERT L. DUNMAN has achieved success in his native state of Texas as a stockman and farmer. Both he and his wife represent families that are truly Texans in every sense of the word, for they have lived here and have been prominently identified with its interests since the common- wealth formed a part of Mexico. The parents of Mr. Dunman came to Texas in 1824, at that time a part of the Mexican republic. The father, Scotch-Irish in descent, was born in Louisiana in 1811, and he died in 1885, in Harris county, Texas, where he had lived since 1858. The mother died in the year of 1905.
Robert L. Dunman was born in Liberty, now Chambers, county, Texas, in 1843. At Houston he enlisted in that famous fighting organi- zation known as Terry's Texas Rangers, technically the Eighth Texas Cavalry, and during his services throughout that war he was twice wounded, and took part in all the battles fought by Generals Bragg and Joseph E. Johnston, being with the latter's army when it surrendered at Charlotte, North Carolina. He married in 1866 and left his parents' old home in Harris county to go to Chambers county, where he worked on a cattle ranch. He later obtained a start for himself in the cattle business, and in 1869 took a bunch of cattle to Refugio county, and he continued as a cattleman in that country for ten years. Early in the year of 1879 he came to Coleman county, bringing his cattle with him, and he estab- lished a home for his family in Coleman, but made his headquarters for his cattle at the mouth of the Concho in the southern part of the county.
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
Mr. Dunman continued to operate his cattle ranch at that point until 1882, selling his cattle at that time to the Concho Cattle Company and receiving a good price, and as he had in the meantime acquired some fine land adjoining Coleman on the east he developed this land into a splendid farming property, this work having since occupied the most of his atten- tion. He has there several hundred acres of as rich agricultural land as lies in the entire state of Texas, and it produces splendid crops of corn, cotton, wheat and oats. During late years Mr. Dunman has given very little attention to stock raising, with the exception of mules, of which he makes a specialty.
Mrs. Dunman was before marriage Miss Lucinda E. Winfree, born in Liberty county, Texas. Her mother, who is yet living, is also a native daughter of Texas, and she remembers well the battle of San Jacinto. although she was but six years old at that time. Her husband, Theophile Winfree, was a member of a French family, and he was born in Louisiana and came to Texas during his early years. Mr. and Mrs. Dunman have five children : Mrs. Emma J. Rynerson, Mrs. Mary E. Perry, Robert, Theophilus W. and Zoe E. Dunman. The Dunman home is in a beau- tiful location a short distance from Coleman, and is one of the hospitable and attractive homes of the community.
F. BECK has gained a wide reputation over Central and Western Texas as a dealer in sheep. He was born in 1853 in St. Charles county, Missouri, and he was reared there on a farm. His father was Henry Beck, a native of France and one of the pioneer settlers of St. Charles county, Missouri, that locality having been originally settled by the French. He had been trained in the sheep industry in his native land and he continued as a sheep raiser after coming to America, so that the son was practically reared in that vocation, and he has been associated with that important industry during his entire industrial career. Early in 1878 he came with his brother, H. Beck, to Coleman county, Texas, and after working together for about two years on the ranch of Colonel Overall, south of Coleman, F. Beck engaged in business for himself as a sheep and cattleman, and has been thus engaged with ever increasing success since that time. He has a valuable ranch of about fifteen thou- sand acres in Coleman county, seventeen miles southwest of the city of Coleman, and this place has become noted as one of the finest sheep ranches in the southwest. His wool clip averages about thirty thousand pounds a year, the wool being of the highest quality grown in America, and thus brings the highest market price each year. The sheep are prac- tically all of the Delaine Merino breed, which Mr. Beck selected after years of study and experience, for their combined mutton qualities as well as for the quality and quantity of their wool production. He has become noted for the amount of money he has expended in grading his sheep and improving their quality in every possible way, and thus bring- ing them to the nearest possible point of perfection known to American
DA Saddleford
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HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
breeders. He has gained a wide reputation as a sheep expert, and is often selected as a judge or as an examining expert on sheep at fairs and live stock shows. Mr. Beck is also prominently identified with the raising of cattle, and usually has about six hundred Herefords, and is as equally successful with those animals as with his sheep. He has given hard work, hard study and intelligent direction to his live stock interests, and his success as a stockman has made him a citizen of large resources.
Mr. Beck married Melinda Pauley, born at Ashland, in Boone county, Missouri, and their seven children are: Mrs. Mary Horne, Oscar, Maggie, Louis, Edgar, George and Curtis Beck.
DAVIS A. PADDLEFORD .- The name of Davis A. Paddleford has been indissolubly identified with the annals of Coleman from the very earliest epoch of its history to the present time, and he is well and prominently known'as an implement and vehicle dealer, as a pioneer merchant and as an influential citizen. He was born in Dane county, Wisconsin, about nine miles north of Madison, in 1846. He was reared in Dane county, and early in 1863 he enlisted in the Sixth Wisconsin Battery for service in the Civil war. He went with his command to the battlegrounds of Tennessee and participated in the battle of Missionary Ridge, in the campaign that was waged in the advance on Atlanta, under General Sherman, in the fighting around Atlanta, and was with the army that returned to Nashville after Sherman started on his march to the sea. From Nashville they went to Chattanooga, where they were mounted and converted into a battery of flying artillery, and, subsequently returning with his command to Wisconsin, Mr. Paddleford was mustered out at Madison in July of 1865.
In September of the same year he accompanied his father and family on their removal to Henry county, Missouri, their home until 1875, and in that year they came to Texas and located in Comanche county. In 1876 they came to Coleman county, arriving at Camp Colorado in March of that year. On the 4th of July, 1876, Davis A. Paddleford arrived in the new town of Coleman, which under the then recent organization of the county had been selected as the county seat, but there was no town to speak of at that time and it was not laid off until the following August and September. He had learned the carpenter's trade in Missouri, and with the beginning of the new town of Coleman he resumed that vocation and erected many of the first buildings of the town. He established his first mercantile business, a furniture store, in 1884, two years before the arrival of the railroad, and in 1892 he embarked in his present business, now conducted under the name of D. A. Paddleford and Son, and this is the pioneer implement and vehicle house of Coleman. Mr. Paddleford has always been successful in his business enterprises, and now has ample financial resources and is one of the substantial citizens of Coleman county and the vice president of the Coleman National Bank, of which he has been one of the directors since 1893. He has two splendid farms in
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