USA > Texas > A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I > Part 116
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his family and attended the meeting. While he was absent the Indians sacked the house, taking everything of value, broke into trunks, emptied feather beds in order to take the ticking and left the cabin full of feathers. They took all of the clothing that they could find and, in fact, each article that they could use in any way, including all of the food. On reaching home Mr. Williams found that the family had nothing left to wear or to eat or to sleep on. He took part in a number of raids after the Indians and was in many fights with them, having some narrow escapes, but was never struck by a bullet or arrow. At one time "there were four "braves" near him who kept the air full of arrows that struck all around him, but not one hit him. His escape on this and other occasions seemed marvelous and he was led to believe that Providence was guarding him. The settlers, however, were constantly on the alert and with great difficulty succeeded in driving out the red men' and in reclaiming the district for the purposes of civilization. To the pioneers the present generation owe a debt of gratitude that can never fully be repaid. Because of the trying conditions of the times Mr. Williams made ar- rangements to send his family out of the country for safety, but his brave wife refused to go, say- ing that she preferred to stay by her husband's side and take chances with him.
When he came to Montague county but little farming had been done and cattle-raising was the chief industry, but in the course of years it was demonstrated that crops could be profitably raised, and Mr. Williams has been among those who have proven the value of the state as an agricultural district. The first products raised were all used at home, for the emigrants needed all that they could secure. The first cotton pro- duced in the country was marketed at Jefferson, Texas, to which town all supplies were brought, and it required thirty days to make the trip with ox-teams. Lumber sold at seven dollars per hundred and was hauled from the Red river country, while milling was done in Grayson county. The pioneer suffered from many disad- vantages and hardships, but Mr. Williams with others persevered in his effort to establish a home on the frontier. He found the soil productive and secured good prices for his produce, corn
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bringing one dollar and a half per bushel, and wheat the same price. He has seen the country settled up, villages established, churches and schools built, postoffices opened and all the work of modern progress and improvement carried on. The wild beasts and wild game have long since been replaced by the domestic farm animals. Mr. Williams has killed buffaloes, deer and turkeys and greatly enjoyed the sport. He continued upon the old homestead until 1895, when he re- tired from active farm labor, and now spends much of his time among his children in the Ter- ritory, while his son-in-law, Dr. Roberson, now owns and occupies the old homestead. There Mr. Williams also spends much of his time, for he has great love for the place where so many eventful years of his life were passed.
Unto Mr. and Mrs. Williams have been born four children: George D., who was born in 1863 and is living at Lawton, Indian Territory ; C. R., who is also at Lawton; M. C., of Duncan, In- dian Territory ; and Laura, the wife of Dr. Rob- erson. The wife and mother departed this life January 26, 1898. From the age of fifteen years she was a devoted member of the Baptist church and was a loving wife and mother, while her many excellencies of character won her the warm friendship and favorable regard of all who knew her.
In Montague county not to know Wash Wil- liams is to argue one's seif unknown, for few settlers have resided in this part of the state for a longer period or have been more actively as- sociated with the development and progress of the county. He is a man of social and genial disposition, whose home was ever celebrated for its gracious hospitality. In politics he has al- ways been a stanch Democrat and has served as juryman and has often been called upon to settle legal disputes. He belongs to the Masonic fra- ternity and to the Missionary Baptist church, and, honored and respected by all who know him, he certainly deserves mention in this volume, be- cause of the helpful part which he has taken in the development of the state.
ROBERT LARKIN TANKERSLEY .- A native of the Lone Star state and a young man of character and promise is the county assessor
of Young county, Robert L. Tankersley. He was born in Hood county, November 15, 1874, and has passed the thirty years of his life amidst the environment of the farm. Left an orphan in infancy by the death of his father and forced by conditions and circumstances to endure fail- ure or win success by his own hand, he has, by the guidance and training of a good mother and the self-assertiveness of mature years, reached a station of independence, trustworthi- ness and honor among his fellow townsmen.
The Tankersleys of this review came to Texas from Tennessee, and the founders of the family were Roland Tankersley and Phebe (McCas- lin) Tankersley, who reared their family in Hood county and died there. Their children were: Mrs. Martha Henry, of Erath county; Larkin, our subject's father, who died in 1875; LaFay- ette; Lena and Teresa, twins, the former the wife of G. A. Cloud, and the latter the wife of John Dertt, of Young and Hood counties, respec- tively; Amanda and Retta, twins, the latter be- coming Mrs. W. M. Moss, of Parker county; Addie, wife of C. M. Profit, of Young county, being the youngest of the family.
Larkin Tankersley was a child when his pa- rents sought Texas and he grew up, married and was killed by a horse in Hood county. He gave some active service to the Confederacy during the Civil war and married Mary J., a daughter of R. S. Profit. Mrs. Tankersley was born in Missouri, and brought her two young sons up to honorable manhood without their father's aid or advice. She educated them to the extent of her ability and was the pilot at the wheel and the engineer at the throttle in the making of their Young county home. Her love and inter- est spurred her sons on to the accomplishment of tasks and her sympathy and her consolation cheered and comforted them in hours of adver- sity and trouble. Edwin M., her first child, helped start the farm in Young county, helped build their little fourteen by sixteen foot box- cottage and performed a dual part in all the strenuous labor that was necessary to be done in the reduction and improvement of a new three- hundred-and-twenty-acre form. He was married in 1894 to Miss Lona Cusenbary and has chil- dren, Ernie, Andrew, Raymond and. Ethel. He
HENRY T. CANFIELD
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was engaged in the livery and transfer business in Graham with James Carlton, one of the live and promising young men of Young county, and, in 1905, disposed of his business.
Robert L. Tankersley stepped between the handles of a plow and did his part toward the family maintenance and support from an early ,' 1904 against eight competitors and succeeded age. The country school gave him his insight . W. P. Beckham in the office a month after elec- tion.
into books and when he was not needed at home he worked for wages among the neighbors. On coming to Young county the family purchased a half block of Texas Immigration land and fourteen years of his busy life have been passed in its reduction and cultivation. They came to the county scarcely more than even with the great world and it was a struggle from year to year to meet the family expenses and lay by money to pay for the farm.
August 8, 1895, Mr. Tankersley married Miss May Price, a daughter of Thomas Price, an early settler and a successful farmer near Murray. Mr. Canfield belongs to one of the oldest and most prominent American families, whose ge- nealogical history goes back some six centuries, and whose personnel in this country contains names in every state of the Union. Mr. Can- field has many generations of sturdy New Eng- landers back of him, and he is himself thor- oughly Yankee, although broad-minded in sen- timent and able to appreciate the viewpoint of other men reared under other ideals of life. His paternal grandfather, Titus Canfield, was the son of Dan Canfield, who was a soldier in Mr. Price came to Texas in 1875 from Grundy county, Missouri, where he grew up, and married Annetta Lisko. He was born in Perry county, Ohio, August 8, 1844, and was a son of Joe F. and a grandson of Thomas Price. The latter was born in Fayette county, Pennsylvania, near the close of the eighteenth century and was a son of a Revolutionary soldier. Thomas Price established the family in Ohio when it was a new country and died there, while his son Joe F., who married and had seven children, died near Trenton, Missouri, in July, 1889, aged > the Revolutionary War. This branch of the seventy-three years.
Thomas Price, of Young county, served in the Forty-fourth Missouri Infantry, Federal troops, during the war and among the important battles in which he took part were Franklin and Nash- ville. He farmed in Missouri until 1872 when he settled in Dallas county, Texas. His wife was a daughter of Mr. Eisko, and their children are: Maud, wife of Milt Ritchey, of Young. county ; Mrs. Tankersley, born in Dallas county, Texas ; Mrs. Ella Johnson, of Greer county, Oklahoma ; Hattie, who married Robert Profit, of Young county ; and Gertie and Charles Grant.
Mr. and Mrs. Tankersley's children are: Mary Winifred and Nettie Fay.
Mr. Tankersley united his fortunes with the Democrats when he came to vote and has fol- lowed its cause since. He was elected county assessor of his county by a plurality vote in
HENRY TITUS CANFIELD, postmaster of Wichita Falls is an old resident of this city, being such by virtue of the fact that he came here nearly twenty years ago when the town was just springing into activity on the prairie. He had already experienced a very prosperous business career in other parts of the country, and since locating here he has been very active and enterprising in promoting the development of the material resources of this fine Texas community.
Canfield family is descended from Thomas Canfield, who, with his brothers Timothy and Matthew, came from England and settled at Milford, Connecticut, about 1639. These brothers were direct descendants of James de Philo, a French Huguenot, who on account of persecutions left his home in Normandy, France, about 1350, and went to England, where he became a loyal subject of the English sovereign. He was a soldier in the wars of the latter country and in reward for his serv- ices was given a grant of land on the river Cam, in Yorkshire. The family name then became
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Cam Philo, later contracted to Camphilo, and by subsequent mutations of orthography be- came Campfield and Canfield. The Canfield family has a coat of arms.
Mr. Henry T. Canfield was born in Chester- field, Fulton county, Ohio, in 1841, being a son of Heman A. and Amanda G. (Brown) Can- field. His mother was born in Ontario county, New York, and moved to Fulton county, Ohio, in 1838, where she lived until her death in 1902, aged eighty-four years. His father was born in Ontario county, New York, in 1816. He moved to Fulton county, Ohio, in 1837, being one of the pioneers there. He fol- lowed farming pursuits, and lived and reared his family in Fulton county, being an honored and respected citizen throughout the years of his long life, which ended there in 1902 at the age of eighty-six.
Henry Titus Canfield was reared on his fa- ther's farm back in Ohio, and during about half of the year attended the country schools in the neighborhood. He later attended for two terms the Oak Grove Academy at Medina, Michigan. During the rebellion he was a civil- ian clerk in the quartermaster's department on the staff of General James B. McPherson, of the Seventeenth Army Corps, and in that ca- pacity was stationed at various points through- out the south. In 1873 he moved to the pine woods of Michigan, and was there until 1877, when he took up his residence at Zanesville, Ohio, and became a prosperous hardware merchant with a large establishment. In 1885 he came out to Texas and located at the then new town of Wichita Falls, where he has centered his business activity to the present time. On March 31, 1898, he was appointed postmaster by President Mckinley, and was reappointed January 20, 1903, by President Roosevelt. He has been successful in business affairs, and is now well to do, although he has always been conservative and never a specu- lator. Although sixty-three years of age, he is remarkably strong and well preserved, really looking twenty years younger, and he attrib- utes his vitality to his careful living and to
the many generations of New England vigor behind him.
Fraternally he is a Mason, and it was through his active efforts in behalf of that order that the Masonic lodge was instituted in Wichita Falls in the early days of the city. He is also a member of the Presbyterian church, and in politics has always been a Republican. Mr. Canfield was married in Fulton county, Ohio, in 1864, to Miss Delia A. Mansfield. Mrs. Canfield is descended from an old New Eng- land family. They have just one daughter living, Mrs. Grace Canfield Prescott, of Kansas City; another daughter, Mrs. Belle Canfield Jalonick, with her husband and two of her children, lost their lives in the memorable Galveston flood of 1900. Mrs. Jalonick's other two children, Edison Canfield and Nellie, were saved from the waters, and now have their home with their grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Canfield.
HARRY TONE, well known in business cir- cles of Denison, where he is conducting a real estate and abstract office, is a native of Ohio, his birth having occurred in Cleveland on the 17th of February, 1870. He was but three years of age when brought to Denison and in the schools of this city he acquired his preliminary education, which was afterward supplemented by a course in Croton Military Institute of New York. Returning to Denison, he entered upon business life in the office of his father, Harrison Tone, under the firm name of H. Tone & Son, engaged in real estate dealing and in making ab- stracts of titles, Mr. Tone, Sr., being one of the early business men of this city. At the death of H. Tone, Sr., in January, 1901, H. Tone, Jr., assumed the business and still conducts it under the same firm name. He has since thoroughly informed himself concerning property values and is thus enabled to readily assist the prospective seller or purchaser in his efforts to dispose of or become possessor of property. He is wide- awake, alert and enterprising and since entering his father's office has negotiated many important realty transfers.
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In 1897 was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Tone and Miss Cassandra Woods, a daughter of Hon. J. D. Woods, formerly state senator from Sherman, Texas. They now have two living children : Margaret, born in 1899; and Mildred E., in 1904. They lost their only son, James H., who was born in 1903 and died at the age of three months.
Mr. Tone votes with the Democracy and he has fraternal relations with the Knights of Pythias . lesome and while on the way they had frequent and the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is a pleasant, genial gentleman, whose social qualities have endeared him to many friends in the city where almost his entire life has been passed.
J. D. WULFJEN is president of the City Na- tional Bank of Colorado, Texas, and is one of the well known cattle men of the great south- west. As a native of the south and a citizen of Texas since a mere lad, his earliest recollections are of the Lone Star state and the principal epochs of his life have been directed toward the development of one of the most promising re- gions of this great country. Starting in the cat- tle business on the open range he has been a witness and participant in the progress that has marked the development of this great source of revenue to Texas, and has also seen the subjuga- tion of the wilderness as the wild western dis- tricts of the state have been reclaimed from the domain of the savage and converted to the uses of the white man. He is a native of Arkansas, his birth having occurred in Johnson county on the 20th of January, 1845. His father, John E. Wulfjen, died during the early childhood of the son, so that little is known concerning the an- cestral history of the family. The mother bore the maiden name of Susan Hail and was a na- tive of Kentucky. In 1858 with her family of nine children, three girls and six boys, she re- moved to Texas and settled at Roundrock, Wil- liamson county. When the Civil war was in- augurated in 1861 some of the older sons enlisted in the Confederate service. The family at that time were in comfortable circumstances but the
close of the war found the estate sadly depleted owing to the ravages incident to the prosecution of hostilities. In 1869 Mr. Wulfjen of this review embarked in the cattle business and with three of his brothers and another white man and several Mexicans drove a bunch of cattle across the plains into Kansas. There were many dis- couragements and trying circumstances con- nected with the trip, for the Indians were troub- encounters with them. In the territory now known as Oklahoma they came across a big band of Indians, who preyed upon the herd, killing one `hundred and forty head of cattle for their own amusement notwithstanding that a good many other head were given them in the hope of keep- ing them on friendly terms. At length they suc- ceeded in reaching Abilene, Kansas, where they spent the summer fattening their cattle and get- ting them in shape for the market. Abilene was then a wild frontier town in which the rougher element endeavored to hold sway and the life was such as is usually found in a frontier settle- ment before the reign of law commences.
After disposing of his cattle Mr. Wulfjen made his way back to Williamson county, Texas, and with the money earned in the business ven- ture just completed he paid his way through two terms of school in the Masonic Institute of Roundrock. Subsequently he embarked in mer- chandising at that place, continuing in the busi- ness for five years, but he had become imbued with the spirit of the plains and the fascination of its free life and he again turned his atten- tion to the cattle industry, driving a herd from Texas into Wyoming in 1877. He continued in the business until 1885 and during that time handled many thousand head of cattle. One of his largest deals was made in 1884, when he drove eight thousand head of steers and two hun- dred head of horses to the north, marketing them in Colorado. In 1885 he came to Mitchell county, Texas, and bought a small ranch twelve miles south of Colorado, where he has since been engaged in the stock business. In 1900 he was instrumental in organizing the City National
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Bank of Colorado and in 1902 was elected its president, which position he has since filled. The capital stock of the bank is sixty thousand dol- lars with a surplus of twelve thousand dollars,' and the other officers are F. E. Mckenzie, vice president, and J. E. Hooper, cashier. A safe conservative policy was inaugurated and has al- ways been maintained, so that the City National Bank is regarded as one of the strong and reli- able financial centers of the western county.
Mr. Wulfjen was married in February, 1873. to Miss Molly Cochreham, a daughter of D. K. Cochreham, of San Marcos, Texas. Six chil- dren were born of this marriage, four sons and two daughters, but one son is now deceased. Mr. Wulfjen has been a consistent member of the Methodist church South for about forty-five years and for thirty-five years has served as one of its stewards. He became a. Mason on attain- ing his majority and has taken the Royal Arch degree. Such in brief is an outline of the life work of J. D. Wulfjen, a man who has always resided in the southwest and has been largely identified with the growth and development of the country. In his extensive experience in riding over the plains he frequently came across large herds of buffalocs and has killed many of those animals. He says that they are an easy game to kill if one knows their habits. On different occasions he has been engaged in encounters with the Indians and has had some narrow es- capes. As a business man he has been eminently successful, having started out in life as a day laborer with no capital save his own energy and determination. Winning his way in the world in the face of obstacles and difficulties he has steadily worked his way upward and is today a prominent representative of banking interests and of the cattle industry of western Texas. Public-spirited, he co-operates in many measures for the general good and, benevolent and char- itable, extends a helping hand to the poor and needy, while in the closer circle of friendship he is found as a most genial and companionable gentleman.
WILLIAM H. OGDEN. Comfortably situ- ated upon one of the rich alluvial farms of Clay county and contributing annually toward the domestic welfare of the county is he whose name initiates this brief narrative. While not indigenous to Texas and not an adopted son from youth, yet he has called the Lone Star state his home for a total of nearly twenty years and it is as a full fledged Texan that we herewith present the salient features of his life record.
Mr. Ogden's birthplace was Calvert county, Maryland, and the date September 13, 1844. His parents, Aaron and Martha E. (Wilson) Ogden, were native to the same county and were of English stock. His grandfather, Wil- son, was an Englishman born and was related to the Magruders, noted in their time. Aaron Ogden emigrated from his native state in 1846 and became a settler of Franklin county, Mis- souri. He was a farmer in active life and toward the close of his life he moved to Lex- ington in Lafayette county where he died in 1859, aged forty-seven years, while his widow survived him thirty years and died in 1889 at the age of seventy-one. Of their three children, our subject is the oldest, the others being A. R. and C. H., of Johnson county, Missouri.
In Franklin county, Missouri, William H. Ogden grew to young manhood, or rather to mature boyhood, for he was a youth of fourteen years when he accompanied his parents to Lex- ington to live. He received a common school education and learned something of farming while leading a rural life. As the political mixup of his day progressed and led nearer and nearer to actual civil war young Ogden was led by the nature of local events to take up arms in aid of the Southern cause and he joined Quant- rell's guerrillas, Captain Bill Anderson in im- mediate command. He was with the band for about one year when one day he and a comrade entered the town of Wyandotte, Kansas, out of pure hardihood and were captured by the Federal authorities. His comrade met death by hanging because of his identity and our subject saw the same fate awaiting him, but
WILLIAM H. OGDEN
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succeeded in making his escape. He went into northwest Missouri and remained till the close of the war when he ventured into the country of his old enemies and located for a short time in Illinois in the spring of 1865. Returning to his old home he ultimately took up farming and continued that calling there with some success till 1875, when he came south and brought up in Texas. He became identified at once with the stock interests as a plainsman, being in the employ of the Waggoner's on their ranch near Wichita Falls. After a somewhat extended stay in the state he returned to his old home to recuperate and was induced to resume farming in Lafayette county and he continued it for ten years. Finding himself approaching a physical collapse he again sought the healthful atmos- phere of the Texa's plains and this time located in Archer county and turned his attention to farming here. In 1900 he disposed of his in- terests in Archer county and purchased land in Clay county, an improved tract of three hundred and sixty acres which cost him only ten dollars per acre. To this rich and fertile estate he is giving his time and effort and is denominated one of the successful small farm- ers of his locality. Cotton, grain and the grow- ing of stock occupy him, his little bunch of White Faces being among the interesting and attractive features of his farm.
In his domestic life Mr. Ogden is yet un- married. He surrounds himself with his books and periodicals and with his friends and enjoys life really and to the full measure. He is a Democrat and has served his party in a dele- gate capacity to local conventions.
JOHN F. WILLET, of Bonita, Texas, is a son of one of the early pioneers of Montague county who lost his life at the hands of the Indians at Illinois Bend.
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