USA > Texas > A history of central and western Texas > Part 43
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The many friends of Mr. Gibson unite in saying that he is worthy of commendatory notice for the fearless and effective part he took in rid- ding Pecos of the notorious outlaw, Jim Miller, and his gang. For some years the city and surrounding country were the scenes of operation of this unsavory character, who from all accounts was the most lawless and desperate character that ever infested the state of Texas. He possessed none of the bravery or manliness that sometimes formed a romantic back- ground in the case of some desperadoes, but on the other hand he was sneaking, underhanded, shooting in the dark and from behind, and in most cases his murdering was done for money or for some financial ad- vantage. It is said that for a consideration he would undertake to kill or have killed any man that any one might want to have put out of the way, and in connection with his trials for his numerous murders it is also said that he always had the case against him beaten before the crime was com- mitted. He would do this by premeditating the circumstances of the crime and by hiring witnesses in his favor. In the Miller-Frazer feud, which terrorized the Pecos country for some time, Miller finally killed
Vol. I-26
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Bud Frazer, a former sheriff and son of Judge Frazer, a prominent pio- neer of the Pecos country.
Mr. Gibson lost his own brother, Con Gibson, by an assassin's bullet during the troubles arising from this feud, he having been shot at Carls- bad, New Mexico, by a man hired to do the work by Miller. The Gib- sons had incurred Miller's enmity through their activity in proving a conspiracy on the part of Miller to kill Bud Frazer. Both prior and sub- sequent to the murder of his brother Mr. Gibson, in association with Sheriff Leavell and a handful of other citizens who upheld law and order, were relentless in their efforts to rid the country of the outlaw, often at the risk of great personal danger to themselves, for in addition to Miller's own gang many others on account of their fear of Miller re- fused to take a hand against him. He was, however, finally driven out of Pecos, and it is a matter of history that following this event the town began to change its character from a lawless and practically uncivilized community to what it is at present, one of the most law-abiding cities of Texas. Miller was finally lynched by a mob at Ada, Oklahoma, on April 19, 1909.
JUDGE THOMAS J. HEFNER .- The name of Judge Thomas J. Hefner is enduringly inscribed on the pages of the history of western Texas in con- nection with the records of its jurisprudence and as a pioneer and public spirited citizen. Born and reared in Fayette county, Texas, he received the most of his education in old Trinity University at Tehuacana in Lime- stone county, this state, and he read law under Timmons and Brown at LaGrange and was admitted to the bar in 1885 at Breckenridge in Stephens county. In that same year he also came to the city of Pecos, the town at this time having just been moved from its old site about a mile and a half east to its present location, but there was not much to move at that time, however. But although the town was new and a small one there was considerable litigation characteristic of the times and of the country, such as land and cattle litigation and criminal trials, the latter being a lucrative branch of the profession here at that time, and Mr. Hefner soon became established in a lucrative law practice. In 1896 he was elected the judge of Reeves county, and by successive re-elections he has served most efficiently in that position to the present time. But aside from this he has a large general law practice in the district and higher courts, and he has one of the most valuable and largest working law libraries in western Texas, and is thoroughily equipped for all branches of litigation.
Judge Hefner is one of the public spirited and useful citizens of Pecos, and beginning in the early years when it was a lawless, wide-open town, with the criminal element often predominating, he has ever been stanch in his support of law and order and is numbered among the fore- most of those who finally made Pecos what it now is, one of the most law- abiding little cities of the commonwealth of Texas. And he is also num- bered among the most prominent and successful of the lawyers practicing in the courts of western Texas.
He married at Tehuacana Miss Annie E. Morgan, a daughter of W. I. Morgan, one of Limestone county's most prominent citizens. Their eight children are: Mrs. Etta May Mederis and Mrs. Clara L. Dean, Thomas Clifteen, Robert Lee, Charles Newton, George Burette, Clarence
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Wycliffe and Balser Dixon Hefner. A daughter, Miss Willie Morgan Hefner, died in 1907. Judge Hefner is a Mason and a Knight of Pythias and a member of the Baptist church.
CHILDRESS COUNTY
The movement of population into the uplands of Northwest Texas began in the '70s. One of the pioneers was the stockman, Charles Good- night, who established his headquarters in the Palo Duro canyon in 1876, having to dispute the possession of that region with both the Indians and the buffalo. From that time on the cattlemen were the lords of these vast plains, and their herds were driven from range to range and from creek to water hole, without a single "squatter" or permanent habitation to obstruct them.
In 1876 the legislature divided all this territory into counties, leaving the organization of local government to wait on settlement. About the same time Fort Elliott was established in Wheeler county. By 1880 there were several thousand inhabitants in this plains region. First of all the counties to organize was Wheeler, which obtained a local government in 1879, with county seat at the old town of Mobeetie. Oldham county was organized in December, 1880, Wilbarger in October, 1881, Donley in March, 1882, Hardeman in December, 1884, and Childress on April II, 1887.
At the census of 1880 the population of Childress county was 25; Hardeman had 50; Wheeler, 512; Oldham, 287; Armstrong, 31 ; Donley, 160; and Collingsworth, 6.
For several years conditions were little changed, with the cattlemen supreme. The entering wedge of civilization was the railroad. The Fort Worth & Denver City in May, 1885, was built as far as Wichita Falls ; in April, 1887, Quanah was its terminus, and on March 14, 1888, the two divisions were connected at Texline. All along this road stations and cattle pens were built, and around each point merchants, mechanics, labor- ers, farmers and stockmen collected as the nucleus of a town, and in a short time something like permanent conditions prevailed, whereas before population and wealth had obeyed the transient laws of the range and the cattle trails.
At the census of 1890 Childress county had a population of 1.175, the county seat town having 621 of this number. In 1900 the population of the county was 2,138, and at the recent census of 1910 the figures are 9.538. In the early 'gos crop failures and the financial panic caused a general exodus from all Northwest Texas. But about the close of the decade immigration began again, and this time with a more substantial class of settlers. The conditions of success in this country became better understood, and in the last ten years the development has proceeded on the basis of solid and lasting prosperity, and the population of Childress . county has more than quadrupled during the decade. In 1903 the value of taxable property in the county was $1,992,707, and in 1909, $5,110,300.
JOHN M. AND HOWARD S. CRAWFORD, both educators of note in northwest Texas until within a comparatively recent period, and now members of the real estate firm of Crawford & Crawford, of Childress, are sons of the late Dr. Augustus W. Crawford, who engaged in the practice of his profession and in farming for a period of over a quarter
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of a century, the family homestead being located in Ellis county about two miles southwest of Midlothian.
The paternal grandfather, Samuel Crawford, was born in South Carolina in 1767, his father (great-grandfather of John M. and Howard S.), William Crawford, having been a Scotchman who had migrated to the north of Ireland. The Crawfords spread into Alabama and Georgia, and became prominent in the making of history for these states. One of the members of this branch of the family was Hon. William H. Craw- ford. United States senator from Georgia, minister to France, secretary of war, secretary of the treasury and ( 1824) candidate for the presidency. He died in Elbert county, that state, in 1834.
Samuel Crawford moved from South Carolina to Georgia, where, until the year of his death in 1839, he conducted a plantation by slave labor. He was noted for the humane treatment of his blacks, whom he treated more as members of his family than as employees. In politics he was a Whig, and in religion, an old-school Presbyterian. His wife (nee Mary H. Long) was also a native of South Carolina, born in 1778. Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Crawford were the parents of twelve children, of whom Augustus W. was the ninth. The paternal great-grandparents, William and Rebecca (Reed) Crawford, were natives of Ireland and South Carolina respectively, the former (as stated) being of Scotch an- cestry. He was the owner of a flouring mill in South Carolina and, al- though exempt from service in the Revolutionary war, was killed by the Tories.
Dr. Augustus W. Crawford was born in Georgia in 1826, and in 1844 moved with his mother to Alabama, where he remained with her for three years. He then returned to Georgia, attended Marietta academy for three years, taught for seven years, and began the study of medicine with Dr. J. W. Wadkins, of Fayette, Alabama. After continuing under his tutelage for two years he took a course of lectures at Nashville University, gradu- ated at an Atlanta institution and pursued a post-graduate course in New Orleans. In 1858 Dr. Crawford commenced practice at Fayetteville, Ala- bama, and within the succeeding eight years continued his professional labors in Brenham, Texas, and New London, Arkansas. In 1866 he re- turned to Texas and, after a short stay in Louisiana, located on the Ellis county farm near Midlothian, where he resided and practiced until his death in 1894. He was a fine type of the skilful, conscientious physician and the southern gentleman. In 1867 Dr. Crawford married Miss Mary McHenry, an Alabama lady born in 1842, daughter of John V. and Keziah (Brown) McHenry, natives of Virginia and South Carolina. The third of their three sons, James F., is a resident of Helper, Utah. Dr. Craw- ford's widow is living in Childress with John M. Crawford.
John M. Crawford, the eldest of the children, was born at Brenham, Texas, and was educated mainly at old Waxahachie College in Ellis county. He began teaching at an early age, and was engaged so successfully in that profession for a number of years that he became one of the best known educators in northwest Texas. Teaching his first school in Ellis county, later he became president of the Literary and Scientific Institute at Italy ; in 1890 resigned that position to assume charge of the public school at Quanah, and in 1891 was appointed principal of the public schools at Childress, continuing thus for some three years. Professor Crawford then returned to Ellis county, where he had charge of the Mid-
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS. £ .405
lothian school for another three years, and at the end of that period was elected president of the Southwestern Normal School at Italy. He re- mained in that capacity for six years, building up the school until it was a power in the cause of higher education throughout central Texas.
On coming to Childress in 1891, Professor Crawford had made some investments and acquired various other interests which so bound him to the place that in 1903 he returned to the city to make it his permanent home. In that year he was again chosen superintendent of the city schools, and continued to ably conduct the public system of education for three years. He then resigned to devote his time exclusively to the real estate business already established by himself and brother. Outside the fields of education and business, Professor Crawford is also widely known and warmly admired for the leading part he has taken in estab- lishing and promoting the plans of the Childress Y. M. C. A. Especially is the institution of the greatest ethical value and importance to the hun- dreds of railroad men who reside in Childress, which is the main division town of the Fort Worth & Denver Railroad and which contains large and growing shops. Mr. Crawford's wife was formerly Daisy Alexander, and their children are Margaret, Louis and John Henry Crawford.
Howard S. Crawford was born at Mansfield, DeSoto parish, Louis- iana, but was educated in Ellis county and chiefly at Waxahachie College. Like his brother, he first taught in that county, and in 1890 located at Chillicothe, northwest Texas, where he took charge of the public school, at the same time being publisher and editor of the Chillicothe Clipper. Subsequently he was principal or superintendent of various schools in Texas, his entire career as an educator covering fifteen years and his last work in that field being conducted at Strawn, Palo Pinto county. In 1906 he located at Childress to join his brother in the real estate business and make the city his home. Howard S. Crawford is also prominent in the promotion of the Y. M. C. A., of which he is a director, and is a steward of the Methodist church, with whose work his brother is promi- nently connected. The junior member of Crawford & Crawford is a trustee of the Childress Independent School District; a leading member of the local Board of Trade; secretary of the Childress Light & Ice Company ; and secretary and treasurer of the Childress Compress Com- pany. The wife of Howard S. Crawford was known, before marriage, as Miss John C. Cunningham, and on her mother's side is a member of the well known Reagor family, pioneers of Ellis county. The four chil- dren of their union are Fred A., Cathryn, John A. and Corinne.
JOHN H. P. JONES .- One of the most prominent of the citizens of northwestern Texas is found in the person of John H. P. Jones, who has been identified with its banking interests perhaps longer than any other of the citizens of Childress or of the Panhandle. He is the vice-president of the City National Bank and president of the Panhandle Bankers' Associa- tion, and he is also the president of the Childress Board of Trade and is intimately associated with the commercial interests of the city and of the territory.
Mr. Jones was born at Cleburne in Johnson county, Texas, in 1869, but in 1870 his parents and their family moved to Hood county and later to Jack county, the son John attaining to mature years in the latter place. W. P. Jones, his father, and who is now living at Matador in Motley
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county, was a merchant and stockman and later a banker, and it was with his father that John H. P. Jones had his first banking experience. The family had come to the Panhandle country at about the time of the build- ing of the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad in 1887, and Mr. Jones' banking experience in Childress began about Christmas time of that year. He has filled practically every position in this calling, and besides having a thorough knowledge of the intricate science of banking he enjoys a wide personal acquaintance and familiarity with the commercial, live stock and agricultural conditions that have made him exceptionally fitted for the banking business. He was made the assistant cashier of the old First National Bank in January of 1892, while in the following year of 1893 he became the cashier and he remained in that position until the bank was moved to Quanah in 1898, where it is still carrying on business. That institution had been organized on the 22d of May, 1891, and Mr. Jones became associated with it at that time, it being the original national bank in Childress. After continuing with the house at Quanah for a short time he went to Matador in Motley county and there established a private bank in association with his brother, Will P. Jones, and this is now the First State Bank of Matador, John H. P. Jones still retaining an interest therein and his brother is its president. After four years in Matador he returned to Childress and the banking business here, and in 1906 pur- chased the interest of R. E. Dunn in the Childress National Bank, of which he was made the cashier. This house was organized in 1904 by Judge A. J. Fires, R. E. Dunn, R. H. Norris and G. W. Deahl, and in May of 1909 the Childress National and the City National Banks of Childress were consolidated under the name of the City National Bank. The City National was also organized in 1904, by Dr. J. H. Cristler, R. L. Ellison, N. Harding, S. P. Britt and W. L. Underwood, and under the consolidation Mr. Jones became the active vice president and is co-man- ager of the bank with S. P. Britt, chairman of the board, and these two pass on loans and have general supervision of all details of the house. The consolidated City National has a capital of one hundred thousand dollars, with a surplus of twenty thousand, which with its large deposit account and close financial relations with several large banks in the money centers enables it to handle all business to advantage and with expedition.
Mr. Jones is one of the city's most public spirited residents. He has remained with Childress county and the Panhandle through all their vari- ous periods of adversity, and has been active in the forward movement which has made Childress grow in inhabitants from six hundred to over six thousand since the year of 1900. He is the president of its Board of Trade, has been a member of the board of school trustees for several years, is the president of the Panhandle Bankers' Association and belongs to the Methodist church, to the Masons, to the Elks and to the Knights of Pythias.
Mrs. Jones was before marriage Miss Lynch Chesnutt, born in Cooke county, Texas, and their two children are Paul C. and Mary Jones.
WILLIAM L. UNDERWOOD was born on his father's farm near Aledo in Parker county, Texas, in January, 1858, but many years of his life have been spent in Childress and he is the president of its First State Bank. His father was one of the early Texas pioneers. He was born in Ohio, lived for some years in the state of New York, moving from there to Mis-
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souri, and in the early forties he emigrated to Texas and located where Waco now stands. He was a Mexican war soldier and one of the early Texas rangers, and he became one of the well known citizens of the Texas republic. In 1847 he pre-empted a farm homestead in Parker county, on the Clear Fork, adjoining the present town of Aledo, and his widow still lives on this old place.
Parker county's history as a frontier community and as the scene of many disastrous Indian raids is well known, and William L. Underwood was reared in that frontier atmosphere and in the cattle business, the only industry of those days open to a boy. As a cowboy, ranch foreman and in kindred lines he worked for some of the famous old-time cattle outfits. From Parker county he went to Coleman county, and from there in 1879 to Kent county, while in the spring of 1881 he came up to the Panhandle country and began work for the old and well known firm of Adair and Goodnight, on the famous J A ranch on Palo Duro. Later he embarked in the cattle business for himself and operated successfully in the Pan- handle for several years, but in recent years he has disposed of his cattle interests and now devotes the most of his time to his banking and property interests. He is one of the pioneer citizens of Childress and is the presi- dent of the First State Bank, a prosperous and solid financial institution founded in September of 1907, and having a capital stock of twenty-five thousand dollars. He is also the treasurer of the Childress Board of Trade. With E. D. Biggerstaff he owns a fine farm two miles east of the town and on which is located the well known Harper mineral well, a mineral water with notable medical properties.
Mr. Underwood's wife was before her marriage to him Mrs. Sarah J. Ward, a native daughter of Texas and a member of a well known pioneer family. She was reared at old Fort Griffin, a notable frontier post of the earlier years. Mr. and Mrs. Underwood have a daughter. Mrs. Carrie Pennell, of Childress. The Underwood home is a beautiful residence in the southern part of the town.
DR. JAMES WILLIS ALBERT has passed his entire professional career in Texas. He came to this state in the year of his graduation, that of 1883, and located first at Aledo in Parker county, but not long afterward he came to Childress and is numbered among the city's earliest pioneers. He arrived here in the year of 1887, the same year of its organization and the completion of the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad to this point. and he has lived here ever since and has taken a most prominent and active part in its history, in its growth and development and in its medical profession. He has continuously remained in the practice of medicine. and for several years has been local surgeon for the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad Company. He was one of the founders and the first president of the Panhandle Medical Association, was also one of the or- ganizers and the first president of the Childress County Medical Society, and he also started the first drug store in this city, the building being the . third business structure to be erected in the town. This was on Main street, near the site of the present Albert building, the latter a modern two-story business block erected and owned by Dr. Albert. It is one of the best business buildings in the city. In the early years Dr. Albert bought a large amount of land at a low price, and his investments in this direction have brought him highly profitable returns.
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The Doctor was born at Atlanta, Georgia, in 1852, and he was also reared in that city, and his family were visited with the general misfor- tunes which fell upon Atlanta at its fall and burning and the devastation wrought by the war. He prepared for his profession in the Southern Medical College there, and graduated with its class of 1883. Dr. Albert since coming to Childress has been a generous contributor to all worthy public enterprises. He is a member of the Methodist church and gave largely of his time and money to the building of its beautiful home, and he is a Knight Templar Mason and a Shriner. He is also well known in the political life of the state, and has served as a delegate to state conven- tions of the Democratic party, and as chairman, etc., of local and county conventions.
Mrs. Albert was before marriage Eunice Sappington, from Georgia. They have one daughter living, Mrs. Florence Albert Welch, of New York.
FRED ESTES .- In the early days of the history of the Panhandle coun- try there came to its community one who has since proved an influential business man and citizen, Fred Estes, whose residence here antedates the organization of the county of Childress. He was born in Clarke county, Mississippi, in 1855, and in 1875 he came to Texas and for some time thereafter lived in the northern part of the state and in the vicinity of Fort Worth.
Mr. Estes gained a place in the history of the Panhandle country and in northwestern Texas through his remarkable escape from the Indians in 1879. Early in that year he had decided to make a trip overland to Leadville, Colorado, then in the midst of its great silver excitement, and starting from Fort Worth he picked up his brother, Joe Estes, at Gaines- ville, who joined him for the proposed trip, and on reaching Wichita county they fell in with a man named Joe Earl, who seemed to be an ex- pert frontiersman and whom they invited to accompany them on the ex- pedition. He accepted, and the three started in a northwesterly direction over the trail to Colorado, a route which in later years was selected for the line of the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad. They had a team and wagon, an extra horse and a modest camping outfit, and they began their trip in April of 1879. Some time previously a member of the Kiowa tribe of Indians had been killed by the Rangers in northern Texas, over which the tribe were greatly incensed, and declared they would obtain vengeance and retaliation by killing some white men.
The party of three on the day in question were making ready to stop and prepare their noonday meal, Joe Earl being on horseback a short dis- tance in advance of the two brothers, who were in the wagon. Without warning they saw a band of about thirty-five Kiowas coming rapidly to- ward them, and before they had time to realize their danger the red skins had surrounded Joe Earl, whom they shot several times, he falling from his horse. Joe and Fred Estes immediately got out of the wagon, un- hooked the two horses, Fred saddling his horse, Joe not having time to saddle his, and they broke away at breakneck speed, retreating in a northeasterly direction toward the R 2 ranch owned by Stephens and Worsham. A number of the Indians gave the brothers a dangerously close chase for their lives, but mounted as they were on exceptionally good horses they finally eluded them and made good their escape, reach-
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