A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I, Part 37

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co.
Number of Pages: 968

USA > Texas > A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I > Part 37

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Jack county was said to have ten thousand popu- lation, among its industrial enterprises were eight or ten cotton gins, grist and sawmills, brick yards, and seventeen churches and, numerous schools were enumerated.

At the same time . erable market for hides.

Jacksboro had three churches, three three-story flour mills, and other business interests were im- proving in like proportion. Over in the western part of the county the beautiful Lost Valley, one of the most picturesque spots in Texas, its perfectly level floor being hemmed in by the rugged hills, was the abode of several well known cattlemen during the seventies. M. G. Stewart had ten thousand acres in the valley, a fine dwel- The history of Young county is somewhat unique. Its position as the most westerly of the frontier counties has already been explained as .due to the establishment of Fort Belknap and the Indian agency there far back in the fifties. In the spring of 1878 a brief newspaper item is a suggestive chronicle of history : "Belknap, which once had fifteen business houses and the military post, now has three mercantile firms. ling, and his pasture was enclosed with a stone - The shattered walls of the old military buildings

fence, showing a considerable departure from the usual methods of maintaining a stock farm. This valley was also the home of J. C. Loving, and G. B. Loving, the former of whom is else- where mentioned as the most prominent factor in the Cattle-Raisers' Association. The postoffice for this community was called Gertrude, and a stone church was another feature of the incipient center.

Clay and Montague counties had also been set- tled before the war, had suffered from its rav- ages and lost a large part of their population, and in the seventies began to settle up permanent- ly. In one respect they were still on the fron- tier, for to the north was Indian Territory, which, without the civil government which is imposed by the people themselves, offered shelter to many thieves and desperadoes whose depredations on the Texas border were long a standing menace to the prosperity of the northern tier of counties. To prevent horse stealing from this source we find that vigilance committees were organized in Montague county. In 1878 Montague coun- ty had the following towns and villages: Mon- tague, the county seat and containing some five or six stores; St. Jo, Burlington, Red River, Stanton and Forestburg. About the same time a traveler through Clay county noted a rapid increase in the population within the past few months, basing his observations mainly upon the many new houses that were conspicuous objects along his route of travel, the timber sections seeming to receive the bulk of this influx of set- lers. Henrietta, the county seat by choice of the

people over its rival, Cambridge, was a thriving business center in those days as at present, ob- taining the trade of the stockmen and hunters for a hundred miles to the west and it was a consid-

are monuments of its former activities." But the prestige that Young county had received from the presence of Fort Belknap was continued under other auspices. The military post was removed and the town of Belknap declined. But a man of unusual enterprise and talent as a found- er and builder started another town and made it a center not only for Young county but for all the great cattle country around. Col. E. S. Gra- ham, after whom the town of Graham is named, is one of the characters of North Texas who de- serve to live beyond their generation. As a town-builder his enterprise was distinctly indi- vidual and successful. He spent thousands of dollars in advertising the attractions of his town- site, and Graham is today the terminus of a rail- road and a large and flourishing commercial cen- ter mainly because of his efforts put forth during the first years of its history. The history of the town and of his own life is closely connected, and the founding of Graham and much of its early history is told in Col. Graham's biography, which follows this chapter. Some interesting glimpses of Young county and Graham during the seventies are afforded in extracts from the newspapers. A traveler to Graham in the spring of 1876 speaks of the pasture lands all along his route from Jacksboro as being dotted with cattle, and here and there deer, antelope and turkeys, indicating how far the country was from being closely settled. The following com- ment is also of interest: "A large part of these valleys of Young county are Colony lands, but it is probable that next year's tax law, under the

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

new constitution, will throw most of the lands into market by sheriff's sale. Col. Graham owns 95,000 acres of land in and around Young county, and is settling it up and parceling it out to immigrants as rapidly as possible. We visited one point overlooking the Brazos where two years ago not a furrow was turned, but now for twenty miles is a succession of fine farms, with grain fields, and the white farm cottages glistening in the sun." In February, 1877, a writer says the buildings in town number over a hundred, while a year before there were only seven, and the industries were represented by a sawmill, flouring mill, cotton gin, salt works, etc. Graham was more fortunate than most frontier towns in respect to communication with the outside world, for, though no railroad reached there for many years, the military tele- graph gave the citizens daily reports of current world events and was a convenience much ap- preciated by the townspeople.

Scarcity of lumber interfered with building in Graham and all other West Texas towns. The first stage in the history of these towns might be referred to as the "picket-house" stage. Rough shelters were built from upright pickets, plas- tered over with clay or mud, seldom boasting of anything better than a dirt floor. From these primitive "wickey-ups," which served a tempor- ary purpose, there was an advance usually to brick and stone buildings, the abundance of stone making that material cheaper than lumber, which had to be transported from the eastern Texas markets and which sold for almost fabulous prices. Thus the lumber for the schoolhouses in Graham was brought in by ox-teams and wagons from Fort Worth.

From these practical facts excerpted from the story of progress we turn for the moment to memorialize the pioneers who made this advance possible. Men yet living can point out along the roads leading into the western counties spots where entire families were massacred by savages, and here and there the grassy mound that marks the resting place of some adventuresome spirit fallen prey to their thirst for blood. But the grass hides, the rain effaces, and memory for mortal struggles is brief. It is only too easy to forget those whose sacrifices and toils are

the foundation of the present civilization; not only what they actually accomplished, but what they suffered in their endeavors, have become warp and woof of modern life and are contribu- tions to the great social corporation as deserving of recognition and reward as the labors of those still living and who are enjoying largely what a preceding generation has given them.

Beyond the borders of these districts just men- tioned as being settled with a farming class, were also springing up communities that depend- ed more particularly on the cattle business. Cole- man county is noted in 1877 as being the stock- raising district par excellence, where "the stock subsist entirely on natural grasses, hence all is profit minus the first value, care and marketing." Sheep and wool growing were becoming impor- tant additions to the industries of that section of the country. On a site that in 1873 had been barren of any vestige of permanent habitation, the beautiful plateau being the haunt of the buf- falo more often than of domestic animals, is described, in the latter part of 1876, a grow- ing little village named Coleman City, whose first house had been completed scarcely two months before and which now contained twenty- seven first-class buildings, with merchants, law- yers, building contractors, good school, hotel, and half a mile from town was the U. S. tele- graph line. A year later Coleman had a popula- tion of four hundred, was incorporated. Over to the east was Brown county, the center of the great Brownwood district, Brown county being then, as now, a fine farming country, and Brown- wood, the county seat, had within two years grown from a village of two hundred and fifty to fifteen hundred.

To the north was Eastland county, a wilder- ness at the beginning of the decade of the '70s, but before the close also being settled and devel- oped. "Six months ago," according to a record of January, 1876, "Eastland City, the county seat, was laid out, on the north prong of the Leon river. At that time it was nothing more than a wilderness. We now number about 250 people ; have 25 dwelling houses; one saw and grist mill; two large retail stores; one large stone house is being built on the public square, the upper story to be used, gratis, for a court

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house. Our county has not been troubled by the red men for two years." Two years later the edge of settlement had extended over into Cal- lahan county. While much farther to the west, about Big Springs and the head of the Colorado river, where only a few months before the buf- falo had roamed in countless numbers, there was now scarcely one to be found. The buffalo had disappeared, the range cattle were on the distant horizon, and the permanent settler was pressing on with his fences, his grain crops, his cotton patch, his railroad, and school and church. In the midst, we may say, of the many large herds of cattle and sheep of Callahan county was plant- ed the county seat, Belle Plain, in 1878. This place is described at that time as having "every indication of a rapidly growing frontier town; the livery stable is the out-of-doors, the hotel a storehouse, and the county officials do business in one and the same room. Business being dull, the citizens are found playing quoits on the pub- lic square most of the time." "A few miles east from Belle Plain," continues the same writ- er, "is Callahan City, which failing to receive the appointment of county seat, its days are num- bered, there being only one store, constructed of upright posts with ground floor." Thus we see the tragedy of existence even in villages and communities, where one is preferred over the other and lives through the death of the other. Going further, we find another link in the chain of survival. The railroad came through Calla- han county, Belle Plain was left to one side, population clustered around the railroad station and when the people again expressed preference for a. county seat the railroad town won; Belle Plain now possesses historic interest only.

Certain portions of Stephens county, notably Gonzales valley, were also being settled during the seventies. Judge E. L. Walker, the county judge, in 1877, had resided in the county for eighteen years, figuring as a frontiersman and pioneer, and had been one of the most active in developing the county. About 1875 the county seat, Breckinridge, was located on a two hundred acre tract purchased by the county from the state, the receipts from the sale of the town lots going to a fund for the erection of public buildings. A

visitor to the town in 1878 comments upon the need of more farmers for the community and less doctors, merchants and lawyers, a state of affairs which he asserts to be true of all the west- ern towns.

The same observer tells us that Throckmor- ton county was then (1878) unorganized and un- inhabited except by stockmen, and that Shackel- ford had only a few farmer settlers in the south- west corner. "Some genuine dugouts, the cow- boy palaces," he continues, "may be seen ; being excavations from the sides of steep hills, walled with rock, covered with poles, buffalo hides and dirt, these being the homes of the cattlemen whose ranches are located along the creek val- leys." From him we get another glimpse of Fort Griffin, which he describes as being "the liveliest, most stirring town on the frontier. No farmers here, but hunters, rangers, stockmen. Visitors infer it to be a dangerous town because all except residents carry their six-shooters or other arms, yet the record of crimes is small. The Post is being abandoned, much to the alarm of the citizens. The trade in buffalo hides has rapidly fallen off, and the scarcity of buffaloes is causing much of their meat to be cured." Al- bany, according to this writer, was then the coun- ty seat and contained several merchants, but has since prospered while its military rival has declined. From Griffin to Belknap on the Bra- zos his journey brought him in sight of not a single human habitation except one lone cabin in the distance, the humble domicile of some stockman. Then, as illustrative of the progress of settlement, in January, 1880, Throckmorton county was reported as organized, the county seat with a court house and substantial houses where in the preceding August the people had lived in tents.

It was only a year or so after Col. Slaughter had located his headquarters in the Palo Duro canyon of the Panhandle when attention be- gan to be directed to that district as the destina- tion of groups of immigrants. Several colonies were already located there by 1878. A traveler's observations, incidental though they are to his main argument, affirm this movement of settle- ment. "A trip from Graham to Fort Elliott in

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the Panhandle revealed a wonderful travel and trade, directed mostly to Sherman and Denison. Fort Worth is the nearest railroad point, and has the advantage of a firm smooth road thereto, but Fort Worth people have not induced the traf- fic. Quite a settlement of Northwestern states people is being made just south of Fort Elliott in Donley county. The stock interests of horses, cattle and sheep have greatly increased and the hunters' trade is immense." One of the results of this settlement in the Panhandle was the or- ganization, in 1878, of Wheeler county, the par- ent county of the Panhandle counties. The or- ganization was effected by the commissioners' court of Clay county, to which all the Panhandle counties had been attached. Then Donley and Oldham counties were organized by the com- missioners' court of Wheeler county, and soon the thirty-first judicial district was formed, its court being the only one in the Panhandle for a long time and its seat being at Mobeetie, where Frank Willis, Temple Houston and J. N. Brown- ing and other well known early citizens of the district resided. Wheeler county was the nucleus of settlement in the Panhandle until the railroad came. In the early part of 1879 colonies were formed to settle along the Canadian river north of Clarendon, and from that time on immigration has been directed more or less stead- ily toward that portion of the state.

One very interesting colony was settled in Bay- lor county in 1878. In August of that year there arrived a colony of forty persons, under the lead of Captain J. R. McLain, having come all the way from the state of Oregon to find homes in North Texas, and at that time there were said to be only ten other families in the county, and those in the southeastern corner. The town which they began to build and which was chosen as the county scat, was named Oregon. A visi- tor to the place in January, 1879, wrote that part of the inhabitants lived in caves on account of the scarcity of lumber and the distance from market, and the dozen houses in process of con- struction were mostly of stone. The caves, which were said to furnish very comfortable quarters, were dug out of the hillside, and at the side fur- thest from the entrance was placed a fire- place and flue, securing good ventilation. From

this we get another view of pioneer conditions in West Texas. Oregon, however, was a tran- sient center, for when the newly elected officers of Baylor county were sworn in they decided, after much delay, to locate the county seat on 640 acres of state school land near the center of the county, and thus Seymour was brought into being to become the principal town of the county.

J. R. COUTS, president of the Citizens' Na- tional Bank of Weatherford, and probably the wealthiest man in Parker county, was born in Robinson county, Tennessee, April 6, 1833. The blood of the thrifty, industrious German courses through the veins of this family. During the days of colonial unrest, when an infant republic had been born in the new world, an emigrant from the fatherland took up his abode in one of the southern commonwealths, probably North Carolina.

John Couts, the grandfather, was born in North Carolina. He moved into Tennessee when a youth, there grew to manhood, married and was a farmer in moderate circumstances. One of his sons was James Couts, father of our sub- ject. He was born in Robinson county, Ten- nessee, August 12, 1803. His life was devoted to the cause of agriculture, and he remained a citizen of his native state until 1834 when in response to a desire to make his home in the west, he moved his family to Lawrence (now Randolph) county, Arkansas. He settled on a new farm which he improved, and in 1858 came with his son, J. R., to Texas. Here he spent his declining years, dying in 1890.

J. R. Couts received poor school advantages. At the age of nineteen years he married Martha Hardin, with whom he lived happily until 1894, when she died. Their first home was on a small farm in Arkansas which supported them until their removal to Texas in 1858. They came by team, crossing Red river at the mouth of Mill creek, and as they came westward, were on the lookout for a location. Stopping in Kaufman county, Mr. Couts inspected the western counties on horseback as far west as Comanche county. then the extreme frontier, and selected a perma- nent location in Palo Pinto county, bought a small farm on the old Fremont survey of the Texas

JOSEPH N. ROGERS

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

and Pacific Railroad, and engaged in the cattle and horse business. A few years afterward he was obliged to abandon that business on account of the Indians. Mr. Couts next opened a small banking concern in Weatherford, under the firm name of Couts & Fain, which was succeeded by Hughes, Couts & Company, and that in turn by J. R. Couts & Company. The Citizens' Na- tional Bank was the outgrowth of the last named company, and was organized in 1881 with $50,- 000 capital, and with J. R. Couts as president. Early banking in this county was exceedingly profitable. The country was covered with stock, and this point was headquarters for stockmen of large means. Deposits were enormous, rates of exchange good, and a large surplus soon filled the vaults. In addition to his banking interests Mr. Couts owned about twenty-four thousand acres of land in Parker and adjoining counties, most of it under fence and fronting on the Bra- zos river.

Six children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Couts, namely: Mary, wife of S. B. Burnett, of Fort Worth; Susan, wife of A. N. Grant, cashier of the Citizens' National Bank of Weatherford; Martha, wife of Rev. Putnam, of Brownwood, Texas; J. R., Jr., of Weatherford; Maggie, (Mrs. H. L. Mosely) ; and Leah, wife of W. P. Anderson, of Weatherford.

Mr. Couts took part in the frontier service be- fore and during the war. He was a Mason for thirty years, and a member of the Methodist Episcopal church.

JOSEPH NOAH ROGERS. The press of Jack county has known the subject of this re- view as a publisher for a quarter of a century, and in view of this extended service and of the years which weigh significantly against him in the balance of life it is appropriate to honor him with the title of "the newspaper patriarch" of the county. Although his connection with the craft is antedated some twenty years by the appearance of the first paper published in the county, it is the tenacity with which he has pursued his calling and the high order of his publication from a strict observance of the ethics which distinguish the newspaper fakir

from the legitimate sons of the profession that entitles him to a mark of distinction among the worthy citizenship of his county.

The newspaper age of Jack county began with the month of March, 1860, when the renegade Hamner brought this first issue of The White Man before the few people who con- stituted the citizenship of all the territory under the jurisdiction of Jack. The conduct of the editor of this pioneer paper became so questionable and his presence so odoriferous that the elements which did the work of puri- fying society in those days elevated him to the limb of a cottonwood tree and separated him from The White Man for all time to come. The Frontier Echo appeared after the death of The' White Man and this was succeeded by The Jack County Guide, which suspended and left the field to The Sunday Wreath, a little leaflet devoted to the moral and spiritual welfare of the county and founded by the worthy subject of this article. The Sunday Wreath seems to have prospered, for it grew in , size with the lapse of time and became a four-column, many-paged rural journal, but with the establishment of The Gazette Mr. Rogers discontinued it, and all his time since has been devoted to the publication of a mod- ern family newspaper, moral in tone and in politics representing the views of the Demo- cratic party. The Gazette was founded June 4, 1880, and is owned and published by Mr. Rogers and his two daughters, under the name of J. N. Rogers & Company.

Mr. Rogers' career in Jack county begins with the year 1873, when he settled on a new farm on the head of Keechi creek and began its cultivation and improvement. For fifteen years he had been identified with Texas farm- ing on Grapevine Prairie in Tarrant county and he completed his connection with this honored vocation with seven years of applica- tion to his Jack county farm. On leaving the latter he established his home in Jacksboro as the proprietor of The Wreath and his con- nection with the newspaper fraternity has continued uninterruptedly since.

In Butler county, Kentucky, December 4,

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1832, Joseph N. Rogers was born. His fore- fathers were English and, on his paternal side, settled along the Potomac river in Virginia and Maryland and were descended from the noble Squires. Lord Baltimore, who settled Maryland, had in his colony the Rays whose posterity we ultimately find along the north bank of the Potomac river where Jonathan Rogers met and married Elizabeth Ray. In the days of Boone in Kentucky Jonathan and Elizabeth Rogers separated from their Virginia home and crossed the mountains into Kentucky and identified themselves with the new and wooded country about Bardstown, finally es- tablishing their home in Nelson county, where their family was brought up. Jonathan Rogers died in Ohio county in 1844, at sixty-five years of age. They were the parents of Samuel, Elizabeth, wife of Joseph James; James Madi- son ; Cindrella, who married Simeon Wilson ; Joseph; Nancy, who became the wife of John Butler ; and Lloyd.

James Madison Rogers, father of our sub- ject, was born in Nelson county, Kentucky, December 4, 1808, came to maturity upon his father's farm and became a successful farmer himself. For his wife he married Seanna, a daughter of George Borah of Pennsylvania Ger- man stock and related by blood to the Muhlen- burgs and the Valentines, noted families of the Keystone state. Mrs. Rogers passed away in Breckenridge, Texas, in 1882, at seventy-three years of age. She accompanied her husband from her Kentucky home to Texas overland, being seven weeks en route and reaching the state when twenty-five miles of railroad was all it possessed. They made their first stop in Tarrant county, where farming was engaged in until their removal to become pioneer settlers in Jack county. Here Mr. Rogers be- came one of the well known men of the county, being called to serve in the early years as justice of the peace and filling also the office of commissioner from one of the precincts of the county. He died in Ohio county, Ken- tucky, while on a visit, in 1892, at eighty-four years of age. Of the issue of James M. and Seanna Rogers, Joseph N. of this notice is the

first born and sole survivor. The others were : Elizabeth, who married A. P. Maddox and died in Ohio county, Kentucky; George W., who died in Jack county with issue; and Jonathan J., who passed away in Fort Worth in 1904, leaving a family at death.

Joseph N. Rogers passed his youth on his father's Kentucky farm and acquired a fair - education in the schools of his native county. His parents' home was his own until his mar- riage, July 21, 1853, when he soon afterward engaged in mercantile pursuits in Logansport, following the same four years. Upon his re- tirement from this he accompanied the family flock to Texas and renewed his acquaintance with farm work on Grapevine Prairie, Tarrant county, as previously stated, some miles re- moved from his nearby neighbors.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I, Part 37

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub Publication date: 1906 Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co. Number of Pages: 968

Author: Paddock, B. B. (Buckley B.), 1844-1922; Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, pub
Publication date: 1906
Publisher: Chicago, New York, The Lewis publishing co.
Number of Pages: 968