USA > Texas > A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume I > Part 61
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On account of the nature of his father's busi- ness, requiring an occasional change of resi- dence, Captain George Spiller spent a great deal of his early life at school, having been reared in Botetourt county and the city of Lynchburg. The principal part of his education, however, was received at the noted Virginia Military In- stitute, where he graduated with the class of 1866, there preparing especially for the profes- sion of civil engineering. When only sixteen years of age, and while a student at that Insti- tute, he joined the state troops organized at the school, known as the Corps of Cadets, for service in the Confederate army, this being composed of students of the Institute. The corps contained an infantry battalion of two hundred and an artillery battalion of fifty, Mr. Spiller being a member of the former. The Corps of Cadets was in service mostly at Lex- . ington, but on more than one occasion was
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called out for duty in regular operations, not- ably, in 1862, in the McDowell campaign under General Jackson. This Corps achieved consid- erable distinction during the war, and in 1904 each surviving member was presented with a , the county surveyor, having been so long the incumbent of that position that his fellow citi- zens now reinstate him at each recurring elec- tion without naming an opposing candidate. For several years he also had charge of the medal of honor by the Alumni Association of . detail work of the office of secretary of the the Virginia Military Institute, and a monu- ment to the memory of the deceased members has also been erected at Lexington within re- cent years. Texas Cattle-Raisers' Association, under his father-in-law, J. C. Loving, who was the secre- tary of that association for so many years. He is a man of wide acquaintance and friendship among the most prominent people of the north- west.
In 1870 Mr. Spiller went to Alabama, where for nearly two years he was a civil engineer with the Mobile & Montgomery Railroad Com- pany, now the Louisville & Nashville railroad, with headquarters at Mobile. Going thence to Louisiana, he was for a few months engaged in engineering work on the Teche Division of what is now the Southern Pacific system. In December, 1872, he came to the port of Texas, which has since been his home during the greater part of the time. His first location was at Graham, the county seat of Young county, where he embarked in the land and surveying . business, and in time the firm of Graham, Hill- iard & Spiller was formed to carry on this busi- ness, which reached extensive proportions. In April, 1876, Mr. Spiller was elected district sur- veyor of the Young County Land District, com- posed of sixteen counties extending westward to the New Mexico line. He was the first sur- veyor of this district under the new state con- stitution of 1876, while previous to this he had done some surveying on the Texas & Pacific, in 1874, and after his term of service with the Young County District he went to Tennessee and engaged in railroad work on the Mobile & Ohio railroad, being roadmaster of the North- ern Division, with headquarters at Jackson, Tennessee. Subsequently, however, he re- turned to Texas, and after living at Fort Worth for a time came again to his "old stamping ground," this time, 1884, locating at Jacksboro, Jack county, which has ever since been his home. Captain Spiller is now at the head of a first class and long established land, insurance and abstract business, having the only set of ab- stract books in the county, with office in the court house. For many years past he has been
While living at Graham Captain Spiller was married to Miss Belle Loving, she being a daughter of J. C. Loving, and their marriage was celebrated in Lost Valley, Jack county. She made the first draft of the constitution and by-laws of the Texas Cattle-Raisers' Associa- tion, and was of valuable assistance to her father and husband in conducting the affairs of the association. Her grandfather was the well known Oliver Loving, a noted cattleman of the early days, who was killed by Indians in wes- tern Texas, on the Pecos river. This family has attained distinction in the cattle history of western Texas. Mr. and Mrs. Spiller be- came the parents of ten children, namely : James L., William M., George, E. Berkeley, Oliver L. (a midshipman in the Naval Acad- emy at Annapolis, Maryland), Hampden, Al- fred Marshall (deceased), Kyle, Carrie Belle and Loving.
JOHN PRICE HACKLEY. Entering sub- stantially into the support and maintenance of Jacksboro as the metropolis of Jack county are its milling interests, established by a stock company composed of her own citizens and su- pervised and managed by a gentleman whose connection with the milling interests of North- western Texas has extended over a quarter of a century and whose experience embodies the passage from the old regime to the new and equips him admirably for the management of his charge to the end that it may be counted among the successful and permanent enter- prises of the county. Already, and while yet little more than in its infancy, Mr. Hackley
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has led the mill into channels which have brought its owners surprising results and en- couraged them to forecast a future for their investment exceeding their fondest expecta- tions.
From 1879 to 1898 Mr. Hackley grew up with the milling interests of Parker county, whither he accompanied his father as a youth of eighteen and started his career in the Lone Star state as a miller on the Brazos in the old Brannon mill. Some years later he went to the Crystal Palace Mills at Weatherford in the same capacity and from that situation he came to Jacksboro to open and manage the mill at this point.
For three generations the Hackleys of this notice have devoted themselves to the manufac- ture of flour and meal. Among the first set- tlers of Howard county, Missouri, was William Hackley, the grandfather of our subject, who ran a distillery and mill, the power for the lat- ter being furnished by oxen on the old incline, or tread, as was the custom before the days of steam propulsion or the presence of the water wheel. In that old pioneer mill Spencer C. Hackley, a son, got his first lessons and in his mill, many years later, the subject of this re- view acquired the elementary knowledge of a subject which he has made the study of his life and which finally led to his connection with and the management of the Jacksboro plant.
William Hackley went into Missouri from Kentucky and was killed by a Union soldier or Union sympathizer during the Civil war. He was born in the state of Kentucky in 1810 and Lucy McCrary, who died in Howard coun- ty, became his wife. Their children were: Mary, wife of Dudley Estell, of Fort Worth, Texas; Spencer C., of Abilene, Texas; John and William were both killed while in the Con- federate service; Charles S. died in Butler county, Kansas; Thomas J., of Kansas City, Missouri ; Nancy J. married M. W. Henry and lives in Glasgow, Missouri ; James B. and Boyd, of Howard county, Missouri, and Martha, wife of Mike Crigler, of Glasgow, Missouri.
Spencer C. Hackley, as previously indicated, passed his youth and young manhood in his
father's mill and in the rural community about Howard county, Missouri, where his birth oc- curred April 15, 1836. In 1879 he brought his family to Texas and until a few years ago he was identified with his favorite calling in Park- er and Taylor counties, retiring from the work at Abilene where he now resides. For his first wife he married Sarah M. Wood, daughter of William H. Wood, who lived in Saline county, Missouri, when his daughter Sarah was born. Mrs. Hackley passed away in Weather- ford, Texas,.in 1884 and a few years later her husband married Sallie Hill, who, without issue, has been his companion since. Six children were born to Spencer C. and Sarah Hackley, namely: E. F., a machinist and engineer at Perla, Arkansas ; John Price, our subject ; Will- iam C., who died in 1878 at Glasgow, Missouri ; Callie, wife of G. L. Hitt, of El Paso, Texas; Cassie, wife of W. D. Gamble, of Abilene, Texas; and Mattie, who died unmarried.
October 4, 1861, John P. Hackley was born in Howard county, Missouri. The schools com- mon to his boyhood location provided him with an education and his earliest serious recollec- tions of work were earned in his father's mill and on his father's country estate. He con- tributed toward the support of his father's family from an early age to his marriage and then the sober seriousness of life actually be- gan. Having pursued a life of confinement at a trade requiring the closest attention and hav- ing to rely upon the labor of his head and hands for his family's support he has been without time for other interests, and he was without the time, had he had the inclination, to lend a hand in the conduct of civil affairs. He is a Democrat, as were his forefathers, but while they were Baptists he holds to Methodism in religious matters and is a steward of the Jacks- boro church. He is a past master and past high priest of the chapter in Masonry and Generalis- simo of the Jacksboro Commandery.
October 10, 1887, Mr. Hackley married Mary E. Kutch, who was born in Jack county April 6, 1869. Mrs. Hackley was a daughter of the late pioneer Texan, DANIEL KUTCH, who was one of the commissioners appointed to organize
THOMAS J. POWELL
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Jack county in 1857, whither he had moved from Smith county in December, 1855, but which county he left in 1870 and located in Parker county, where he died June 15, 1874.
The Kutches emanate from the German and their founding on American soil antedates the closing years of the eighteenth century. In tracing up their ancestry we find Daniel Kutch, the grandfather of Mrs. Hackley, living in Mercer county, Kentucky, in the first years of the nineteenth century, for his son Daniel, fa- ther of Mrs. Hackley, was born there Decem- ber 4, 1807. The year following his father re- moved to Maury county, Tennessee, where his death occurred about 1820. In Maury county, Tennessee, Daniel Kutch, Jr., was married to Mary Bell, who died in Parker county in 1861. In December, 1837, he left Tennessee for Texas, taking the steamboat Black Hawk bound down the Mississippi river. On Christmas morning while approaching Natchez, and while the boat was racing with another in an effort to reach landing first, the neglect of its boilers and the incapacity of its crew on account of drunken- ness, caused an explosion, by the flushing of empty boilers with cold water, which killed one hundred and thirty people and started the vessel to the bottom of the stream. When day- light came on that Christmas morning the Kutch family was on the bank of the river minus everything but the clothing they had on. In his eagerness to recover something from the wrecked boat the father returned to it and his search revealed some government silver dol- lars, which the explosion had turned loose from their cases and spilled on deck, and of these he picked up eighty dollars and carried them on his hurried journey from the sinking vessel. Fifty dollars of this money he parted with to a man to land the family in East Texas and they were set down in Shelby county to make the best of their perilous situation. For three bushels of corn the father agreed with Dr. Ashcroft to split a thousand rails and burn the laps of the trees from which they were made, and one-half bushel of this grain was saved for seed the next spring. The remaining portion was all the breadstuff the family had from then until corn was hard enough
to. grit the next year, and thus is indicated the hardships of some of those who helped to build up. the Lone Star state. From January 21, 1838, to October following the Kutches remained in Shelby county and on the latter date settled in Walker county, near the home of Gen. Sam Houston, and there remained until 1848, when they located in Smith county, whence they estab- lished themselves in Jack county, as previously stated.
'By his first wife Daniel Kutch was the father of William C., who was born in Maury county, Tennessee, March 7, 1833, married in Smith county, Texas, December, 1854, settled in Jack county in June, 1855, and farmed and fought Indians on Keechi creek until November, 1896, when he took up his residence in Jacksboro as county treasurer and filled the office six years ; Rufus H., Mode, Hannah, wife of Dwight Townsend, and Susan, who married Tom Cris- well. 'His second wife was Mrs. S. H. Criswell and they had children, namely: Jefferson, Mag- gie, wife of J. R. McAnally, and Mrs. Hackley.
Mr. and Mrs. Hackley's children are: Jewell, William, Marie, Wade, Olivia and John P., Jr.
HON. THOMAS J. POWELL as mayor of Fort Worth is the executive head of a city of fifty thousand people, population, institutions and general municipal improvements and enterprises making it one of the foremost cities of second class in the country. The growth of the city has been rapid and substantial, and to few men is more credit due for this progress than to Mayor Powell. He is by no means a typical city mayor, such as are familiar to the whole people through recent exposures of their selfish methods and high-handed corruption. There is no "graft" in Fort Worth, no decay and rottenness of muni- cipal system, nothing to cause the honest busi- ness man, manufacturer or private citizen to hesitate before making this place his home and center of activity. Mayor Powell has the high distinction of being possessed of "common honesty and efficiency," and these qualities ani- mate all his public works and are the touchstone by which his purposes are tested before they crystallize in municipal actions.
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Mayor Powell is a student of America's great- est economic incubus-the correct government of large cities, and, while essentially agreeing with the best thought and opinion of the age, he has original theories of his own and does not hesitate to pronounce them. Among other things, he dis- agrees with the old figure that a city should be run like a business institution. A bank, for in- stance, is conducted for the benefit of its de- positors and patrons only incidentally to its giv- ing a greater reward to its stockholders; where- as a city should be run entirely for the welfare of its patrons and depositors-that is, its citizens. Immediate referendum is also another principle which, in the Mayor's opinion, is a most im- portant safeguard of the people's good. He be- lieves that franchises should be authorized not by the council and mayor but by the people. Mr. Powell has made a splendid record as city offi- cial, and has been the means of having enacted many beneficent measures.
In 1889, when he was elected to the position of city attorney of Fort Worth, the city had an in- ferior system of water works. The limit to the bonded indebtedness of the city had also been reached, so that there seemed no road open for progress to take. In order to build the water works without risk to the city Mr. Powell origi- nated the idea of having the plant built by pledg- ing its value as a guarantee for the payment of the money necessary for construction, and he drew up a most clever instrument which, in- stead of being a mortgage proper (involving the city in a possibility of foreclosure), was a sort of self-acting receivership, under the terms of which, if the municipality failed to make payment of interest, etc., the trustee representing the syn- dicate who furnished the money would take con- trol of the works and operate them for the bene- fit of the capitalists until the debt was paid, after which the plant would be turned back to the city, the "fee" never passing from the city. Au- thority was secured from the legislature, through the efforts of Mr. Powell, to make an amend- ment to the city charter to this effect, and the water works were constructed, six hundred and fifty thousand dollars being borrowed for that purpose.
But the water works as first built were never satisfactory. In 1900, when Mr. Powell was elected mayor, he went to Chicago and interested a distinguished hydraulic engineer, D. W. Mead, to such an extent that the latter came to Fort Worth to plan a way of procuring water by a system of artesian wells, the first supply having been obtained from surface water. The engineer was very favorably impressed by the situation, and proposed to establish new water works and guarantee to give the city three million gallons of pure artesian water per day, or not charge a cent for what he put into it in case he failed to fulfill his contract. The. whole plan was put into exe- cution with admirable results, artesian wells be- ing sunk to a depth of one thousand feet, the wells being connected by tunnels, and there is furnished an ample supply of water that is abso- lutely pure, soft, and free from any organic mat- ter, augmenting greatly the healthfulness of the city. Mayor Powell has studied the artesian wa- ter question for a number of years, and the es- tablishment of the present water works under his administration is a monument of which he may be justly proud, it being a permanent blessing to every citizen of Fort Worth that he has access to a water supply inexhaustible and uncontam- inable.
When Mr. Powell was elected mayor in 1900 the city was financially a very nearly stranded community on account of the hard times yet ex- isting after the Baring Brothers' failure in 1892.
In the four years that he has been mayor the city has devoted six hundred thousand dollars to judicious public improvements without the is- suance of a bond, the work all being done out of the general revenue, and, as far as lies in the power of the chief executive, has a model city ad- ministration. Although during the past the city has been obliged to cover itself with a large bond- ed debt, the mayor is not in favor of the continu- ance of such a policy and believes in the city paying its way as it goes. Through his devoted and conscientious efforts he has accomplished much good in Fort Worth and has so exalted its standards of improvement and municipal con- venience that it is one of the most attractive cities
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of the south for the permanent resident and cap- italist and business man.
The debt of the city of Fort Worth when Mr. Powell was elected was about $200,000, bearing 5, 6 and 7 per cent interest, and the city at times was forced to extremes to meet the interest, and the sinking fund requirements had been disre- garded in the annual levies. Mayor Powell, realizing that under existing conditions the city could not secure its needed water supply unless radical measures were taken, submitted a re- funding measure to the bondholders, substituting 4 per cent bonds for those outstanding, and re- fused to pay interest on the debt. He secured through the legislature an amendment to the charter authorizing the refunding proposition. He took the money and used it in general perma- nent improvements and began a long fight against the bondholders, which finally terminated after refunding about three-quarters of a million dollars and after the advalorem values of the city had increased about $10,000,000. This refunding proposition cut down the fixed charges on the bonded debt over $20,000 per year, the new bonds running forty years, which is a saving to the city of over $800,000, less what amount will be taken therefrom by the investment of the sink- ing fund from year to year.
Mayor Powell is a lawyer by profession, just now in the prime of his life and powers, and in the natural course of events has many more years of usefulness and high public-spirited en- deavor before him. He was born at Knoxville, Tennessee, in 1858. His parents were Thomas J. and Margaret (Drake) Powell, both deceased, the former a native of Fairfax county, Virginia, and the latter of Tennessee. His father came to Ten- nessee in the forties. He was a business man, and after the war he moved to New York city, also lived for awhile in Washington and died in Brooklyn, New York, being buried in the family plot at Knoxville, Tennessee.
Mayor Powell received the greater part of his education in Long Island, was a student for four years in Fairchild Institute at Flushing, Long Island. He also attended school four years in Prince William county, Virginia, where he like- wise taught school and studied and practiced law. He lived in Virginia with a cousin and an
uncle. He was afterward located in New York city for a time, and on July 26, 1883, he came to Fort Worth, where he has lived ever since. He was actively engaged in the practice of his pro- fession nearly all the time until his election as mayor, but since then has given his time and en- ergies almost entirely to the city's business. For two years he was a newspaper writer in this city, being on the staff of the old Fort Worth Gazette. In 1889 he was elected city attorney, serving un- til 1893, and in 1900 was elected mayor and in April, 1904, by a second re-election, entered upon his third term.
Fraternally Mr. Powell belongs to the Odd Fel- lows, the Elks, the Eagles, the Red Men and the Woodmen. He was married in Fort Worth in 1894 to Miss Julia Ellen Hogg, the daughter of Professor Alexander Hogg, superintendent of schools, who is the father of the present city school system and a distinguished educator. There are three children in the family of Mr. and Mrs. Powell, namely: Margaret B., Thomas J. and Alexander Kyle.
GEORGE METCALF, who is filling the po- sition of county clerk of Palo Pinto county, Texas, to which he was called by the vote of the people, was born in the city of Palo Pinto in 1873, and is a son of William and Sallie (Jowell) Metcalf. He is a representative of one of the well-known and prominent old families of the county. William Metcalf came to Texas with his parents in 1848, locating first in Dallas county, where they were among the pioneer settlers of Dallas, being then a place of only a few houses. The family consisted of the grandfather, J. J. Metcalf, his wife and two children -- William and Fannie Metcalf. They remained residents of Dallas county until 1856 and in the spring of that year continued on their westward way until they reached Palo Pinto county. They drove across the site of the present city of Palo Pinto, there being not a single house here at the time. However, the town was founded a short time af- terward and was at first called Golconda, but later the present name was adopted. The Met- calf family located at what became known as Metcalf Gap, on Ioni creek, about twelve miles west of the town. They only spent three or four
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years there, however, for the Indians became so dangerous that they were compelled to remove to Palo Pinto for safety and the latter place has since continued to be the family home. The three generations of Metcalfs, the grandfather, father, and son, the latter the subject of this review, have been surveyors, giving up their time to that work. J. J. Metcalf served as district surveyor of the Palo Pinto land district, which included Palo Pinto and a large number of other counties lying to the west. He was also county judge at one time and in other ways figured prominent- ly in Palo Pinto and western Texas, exercising a strong and beneficial influence in behalf of public progress and substantial development in this part of the state. Judge Metcalf died in Palo Pinto in 1875.
William Metcalf, his son, was born October 15, 1839, in Hopkins county, Kentucky, and as before stated, accompanied his parents on their removal to the Lone Star state. He was elected county clerk of Palo Pinto county in 1869 and by subsequent elections was continued in that of- fice for the long term of eleven years-a fact which indicates his fidelity to duty and the trust reposed in him by his fellow townsmen. He was also elected county surveyor and filled that office for nearly eight years. He was a veteran of the Confederate army, having enlisted in Palo Pinto county in the company which was organized by Captain David B. Cleveland and who saw active service in Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas with the Trans-Mississippi Department under the com- mand of General Kirby Smith, who joined the army as orderly sergeant but was later promoted to the rank of lieutenant and at the close of the war was serving as captain of his company. In later years he made his home at his ranch eight miles northeast of Palo Pinto on the Brazos river. His wife is also one of the early settlers of Palo Pinto county, having come to this part of the state in her early girlhood days with her parents, who settled at Mountain Springs in 1855, at what is now known as Loving's Valley. Miss Fannie Metcalf, who came with her parents to Texas, is now Mrs. McKee and resides in Palo Pinto.
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