A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 115

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: 972

USA > Texas > A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II > Part 115

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JAMES A. PROCTOR. A half century's residence within the boundaries of a single county and a half century of active endeavor devoted to its material development marks, in a sense, the clistinction of James A. Proctor of this review as a citizen of Wise county. From the year 1854, when he entered a piece of the public do- main upon which the county seat now stands, to the closing months of 1905, either in the saddle, behind the counter or following the plow, he has been a factor, a quiet force in pushing Wise

county up the scale of progress from an unor- ganized and unsettled wilderness to a municipal- ity filled with the arteries of commerce, thriving towns and comfortable hornes.

As a young man of twenty-five he took legal possession of the high point of land which marks the site of Decatur, intending it for his home- stead, and he had gathered about him some of the prime evidences of civilization when pro- posals to locate the chief town of the county there came to him, and he set aside sixty acres of his tract. gratuitously, for the laying out of. the town. Being limited as to means from the start, and having now the responsibilities of a young family, he disposed of the remnant of his quarter section at sale and, with the proceeds, started life as a cow man nearby.

Without special incident Mr. Proctor was en- gaged in the cattle business, with residence near Decatur, for seventeen years, when he changed his location to old Bridgeport and began the open- ing out of a farm. His cattle interests still held his attention and he ranged his stuff clear to the Brazos river and out into Knox county, having still an interest in a pasture in Foard county with a son. In 1884 the cow business subsided, largely, as a business and the cultivation of his Bridgeport farm has since occupied his time. He owns a half section of valley land on three sides of which coal has been developed, and much of it is now being tunnelled for the product on a royalty of five cents per ton. It was upon his farm, some eighteen years ago, that coal was first discovered, a piece of good fortune not only to him but to the community in which he lives.

A few of the first years of his life in the old town of Bridgeport Mr. Proctor passed in sell- ing goods, at which time the village was situ- ated about two miles southwest of the present town. But merchandising was not his forte and he resumed his former active outdoor life.

While the war was in progress he joined a regiment of state rangers under Colonel Morris and Lieutenant Colonel Buck Barry and served on the frontier for more than three months. The regiment was in camp at Buffalo Springs, at Belknap and passed three years and three months of the time in scouting the country for Indians. A few fights with them were indulged in and on one occasion, on the Big Wichita river, the com- mand lost all its horses and pack mules at the hands of the wary Comanche. The last few months of the war our subject was on detail to gather up beef cattle for the Confederate army and drive them to East Texas and was so em- ployed when the "breakup" came.

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Mr. Proctor was an emigrant to Texas from Rockcastle county, Kentucky, where his birth occurred July 3, 1829. He is descended from Revolutionary stock, his great-grandfather hav- ing served in the war for American independ- ence. The latter died in Rockcastle county, Kentucky, when our subject was a child, having migrated there from some point in Pennsylvania soon after the termination of the war. His lin- eage can be traced to the Scotch-Irish, and one of his sons, James, was a young man when the family took up its home in the state of Daniel Boone. James Proctor married Polly Branna- man, a German lady, and passed away in Rock- castle county, being nearly one hundred years of age. Of his children, David, our subject's father, was the first born. Then came, George, William, John, Sidney and Elisha, twins, Ander- son, Green, Alfred. The daughters were Frankie, wife of John Forsythe; Betsy; and Susan, who became the wife of Sebe Seary.

David Proctor took up the vocation of his an- cestors and brought up his family to know the pursuits of agriculture. He left Kentucky about 1850 and located in Morgan county, Indiana. He afterward moved to Jasper county, Missouri, where his wife died, but he returned to Indiana and passed his remaining years. He was born in Rockcastle county, Kentucky, married Miss Lucy, a daughter of Rev. John Quinn, a Chris- tian preacher. His children were: John, of Council Bluffs, Iowa; James A., of this sketch ; Melvina, widow of John Palmer, of Council Bluffs, Iowa; Frances, wife of Ratliff Long, of Indiana, died in Morgan county ; Mary, married Frank Wilson, of Iowa; and George, who died in the state of Iowa.

On the farm of his father in Kentucky James A. Proctor grew up and in the old-time log house, with slab benches, he was schooled and ruled three months in the year. In 1853 he joined three families for the trip to Texas and drove a team for William Perrian, of the party, the journey requiring forty days' time. They stopped first in Dallas county and made a crop, but the next year our subject left Joe's branch and began his career in the unorganized county of Wise. He and his wife were the first couple married in the county, and February 8, 1856, he wedded Polly Hunt, a daughter of William Per- rian's wife, with whom he had made the trip from Kentucky. Mr. and Mrs. Proctor's chil- dren are: Lucy, wife of Virginius Gale, of In- dian Territory ; Mollie, a widow, in Bridgeport, Texas; Laura, wife of Charles Woods, of Wise county ; William D., of Bridgeport; James, of

Dimmit county, Texas; John, of Foard county, Texas; Artemissa, wife of James Stanfield, of Indian Territory; Ella, wife of Charles Selan- ger, of Bridgeport; and Maud, who married A. L. Hutchison, of Bridgeport, Texas.

While Mr. Proctor has resided in Wise county longer than most of its citizens can remember, and has occupied a positive place among the every-day affairs of men, he has shown no in- terest in its political life and beyond voting the Democratic ticket he has not been politically known. He is a Master Mason and is a member of the Christian church. He has ever main- tained an untarnished reputation and a character above suspicion and the confidence of his friends everywhere constantly abides with him.

. JAMES W. AYNES. The commercial spirit of Jacksboro is largely in the ascendancy and is exemplified in the establishment of a few mer- cantile enterprises which dominate the town and surrounding country and bring to the city's urban limits a patronage ample to maintain it easily as the metropolis of the county. The Aynes Dry Goods Company is conspicuous among these dominant enterprises, and of its guiding and leading spirit, James W. Aynes, it is our purpose herein to speak. Reared in an atmosphere of domestic commerce and schooled in the marts of trade by teachers who were past- masters in the art, these influences have brought to him an endowment and an equipment for the sphere that he fills unusual in a rural community like this.

A glance at the history of the Aynes family reveals its Kentucky origin and shows Samuel Aynes, our subject's grandfather, to have been one of its early founders. His birth occurred in the state of Virginia in 1795 and he lived in Denton and Jack counties, Texas, from 1857, dying in the latter county in 1867. His fore- fathers are said to have been Scotch-Irish and Welsh and his wife was Miss Elsie Malare, who passed away in Jack county in 1867, being the mother of James, who died in Kentucky; John, whose life closed in the same state; Elton be- came the wife of Squire Penn and died in Henry county, Kentucky; Fannie married Frank Rob- inson and died in Fort Worth; David S .; and Elizabeth, who died in El Paso as Mrs. Mark Harper.

David S. Aynes, father of our subject, was born in Henry county, Kentucky, December 18, 1832, passed to maturity there, was liberally educated and his introduction to the serious affairs of life was in the capacity of a teacher of a country

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

school. He came to Texas in 1857, stopped in Denton county, married and taught a few terms of school. He came to Jacksboro in 1860, be- gan raising cattle and conducted a general store, and also filled various county offices, being asses- sor, collector, treasurer and sheriff of the county. In 1864 he returned to Wise county and while there held the office of sheriff. Returning west, he was for some years a resident and merchant at Belknap and later on in life opened a store in Gainesville and sold goods till 1895, when he disposed of his interests there, came to Jacks- boro, the scenes of his early and vigorous life, and retired. In politics he has ever been a Dem- ocrat and in fraternal matters a prominent local Odd Fellow, and a consistent member of the Christian church.

For his first wife Mr. Aynes married Emily, a daughter of Dr. George Harper, formerly from Naples, Illinois. His wife died in Jacksboro in 1875 and he then chose Helen Scott for his com- panion, who bore him a son, Daniel, and a daughter, Roxie, wife of John Montgomery, of Amarillo, Texas. By his first marriage he was the father of James W., of this notice; Eliza, who married E. W. Nicholson, of Jacksboro ; David N., of Jacksboro; John S., who passed away at fourteen years of age; Elsie, who mar- ried T. N. Brown, a leading merchant of Jack county, at the county seat, and Hattie, wife of W. R. Sikes, of the metropolis of Jack county.

April 21, 1860, James W. Aynes was born in Denton county, Texas. The first four years of his life were passed in Jacksboro and his fifth and sixth years in Wise and Denton counties. From 1866 to 1876 he was again among the boys of Jacksboro, but the latter year entered the public schools at Denison for a year, then farmed as a hand till 1878, when he went to work on the Denison Herald as a typo for a year. In 1879 he returned to Jacksboro and took a clerkship with D. C. Brown, remaining ten years, and succeeded that gentleman in busi- ness with a partner, J. F. Marshall, which firm stood until 1894, when Mr. Aynes conducted the business alone until 1897. The Aynes Dry Goods Company was organized in 1900 and he was chosen president and manager of the con- cern and its business affairs.

Mr. Aynes helped organize the Jacksboro Mill and Elevator Company and has been its secre- tary ever since. He holds stock in the concern and also in the First National Bank of Jacks- boro, which was organized fifteen years ago, and Mr. Aynes was elected one of its directors and has served in that capacity continually to the

present time. Other enterprises looking toward the good of the town and county have received substantial encouragement at his hands and his material support of the Presbyterian church of Jacksboro is a factor toward its permanency in the town. He holds a membership in this church and also in the Pythian Knights of the city.

March 23, 1888, Mr. Aynes married Miss Kate Wolffarth, a daughter of Edward Wolf- farth, for many years a military guide at Fort Richardson, later county clerk of the county, and who died here in 1898 at seventy years of age. He was a New York man and a veteran of the Mexican war and served in the Federal army many years. Mr. Wolffarth married at Fort Belknap Miss Chattie Sanders and the eleven children resulting all grew up. Mr. and Mrs. Aynes' children are: Hattie, Annel, David Ed- ward, Marie and Edna.

F. E. MCKENZIE is vice-president of the City National Bank at Colorado, Texas, and a man who has won an enviable position in finan- cial circles. He is of Scotch descent, being de- scended from one of three brothers who emi- grated from Scotland to New York and settled at Fort Henry, Essex county, in the Empire state, in the eighteenth century. One of these brothers remained in New York and some of his descendants are still in that locality. One of the brothers went to the British possessions in the northwest and was the discoverer of the Mc- Kenzie river. The third brother emigrated southward and all trace of him was lost. The one who settled in the Empire state was William Mckenzie. Among his grandsons was John Mckenzie, the grandfather of our subject. John McKenzie served as a soldier in the war of 1812. He was a tavern keeper who conducted a "way- side inn" and became well known in his locality in New York.

One of his sons was D. Lafayette Mckenzie, born in Essex county, New York, in 1827. When seventeen years of age he left home and went to Illinois to seek his fortune. He was a poor boy and worked by the month at farming. Settling in Whiteside county, his financial conditions were eventually improved and he was able to carry on farming on his own account, continu- ing his residence in that county, with a brief ex- ception, up to the time of his death on the 19th of November, 1879. He was in Colorado in 1859 during the Pike's Peak rush, and in the years 1870-74 he also lived in Colorado. Im 1852 he had married Lucia W. Brewer, of Puri.

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

tan descent, who was born in Massachusetts, December 23, 1835, and died in Colorado, Texas, November 13, 1905, having made her home with her son, F. E. Mckenzie. She had four sons: Nathan L., who was born October 28, 1853, and is engaged in farming and the raising of Short- horn cattle in Lebanon, Missouri; Fred E., of. this review; J. Clesson who was born October 19, 1860, and is a retired farmer , residing at Anita, Iowa; and Wallace L., who was born Jan- uary 8, 1869, and is living in Vernon county, Missouri. All are well-to-do and pleasantly, lo- cated in life.

Fred Egbert Mckenzie was born in Whiteside county, Illinois, October 27, 1858, and spent his boyhood days on his father's farm until ten years of age, when on account of the mother's and his own ill health the family removed to the state of Colorado, locating at Las Animas, Bent county, where they remained for four years. During that time Fred Mckenzie worked with cattle, his father being in the stock business. He thus regained his health and has never known what it is to be ill since. He was in the saddle and was outdoors day and night, and he thus gained a taste of the kind of life that proved the lodestone that drew him to Texas. Subsequently he returned to Illinois, where he worked on a farm and attended school, being mostly in a dis- trict school save for a period of six months spent in Edwards Seminary at Sterling, Illinois.

In March, 1881, Mr. Mckenzie arrived in Texas and for eighteen months remained in Cooke county, after which he went to Tom Green county and was upon the range with herd cattle. He had a little money when he came here, which he invested in cattle in connection with Hollo- way & Fritz. He also worked for that firm, tak- ing care of their cattle in connection with his own. For twelve months he occupied that posi- tion and then sold out his interests in connection with that firm and entered upon an independent business venture. He bought eastern cattle which he turned loose in Mitchell county and he has since been located there. He ran the cattle on the open range until the fall of 1884, when the country began to be claimed and fenced, and he therefore purchased and leased twenty sections of land. This he fenced and still controls it, the ranch lying in the southeast corner of Mitchell county. In 1899 he built a house in Colorado and in the spring of 1900 traded it to A. B. Rob- ertson for a place comprising nineteen hundred and twenty acres about two miles from the town. Here he made his home until October, 1905, when he sold that residence and again took up his

abode in Colorado. In his business affairs he has been very successful, manifesting untiring diligence and keen discrimination. His experi- ence told him that the country needed a better grade of cattle, and recognizing the fact that improved short-horns are superior to all other breeds he began raising cattle of that kind and today has as good a bunch of registered short- horn cattle as can be found in the country. He pays considerable attention to breeding and makes a close study of the needs of cattle and of the best kinds for the country. He is likewise a member of the American Short-horn Breeders' Association and the National Live Stock Asso- ciation. His entire business career has been marked by progress and he says this is as abso- lutely essential in the cattle industry as in any other line of business activity. In this matter of breeding it is impossible to stand still and the movement is either forward or backward. One should as constantly strive for the ideal in that respect as in any other, and in Texas there has been an urgent demand throughout the state for new blood in order to raise the grade of the range stock. This demand has been met and to- day Texas carries off the leading prizes at the principal live-stock shows of the country. This is the result of the intelligent introduction of registered stock upon the plains and Mr. McKen- zie has done not a little toward producing this result.

The Mitchell County Fair Association was or- ganized in May, 1903, with a capital stock of five thousand dollars. They purchased a tract of land near Colorado and the association has its affairs in good running order with F. E. Mc- Kenzie as president; D. W. Allen, vice-presi- dent : George B. Root, secretary, and Brooks Bell, treasurer. These four gentlemen with the addition of Ben VanTyle constitute the board of directors. The association has done much to stimulate a pride among stock-raisers in produc- ing high-grade cattle. The short-horns are the oldest of pure-bred cattle in the world. They are cattle of greater size and when chosen for the range are thick-meated and are equal, if not better, than any other breed. Mr. Mckenzie has given a great deal of attention to all kinds of beef breeds and is well acquainted with their respective merits. It is his experience, however, that short-horns are best adapted for this coun- try and he is regarded as authority upon the subject of shorthorn cattle. While recognized as a leading representative of the cattle industry of Mitchell county Mr. Mckenzie has also ex- tended his efforts to other lines and is now prom-

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

inent in financial circles. He was one of the or- ganizers of the City National Bank in 1900 and for the past four years has been its vice-presi- dent. The institution has a capital stock of sixty thousand dollars, with a surplus of twelve' thou- sand dollars, and a general banking business is of the safe and reliable financial concerns of this part of the state.

Mr. Mckenzie was married in 1890 to Miss Celia Fletcher of Colorado, a daughter of J. D. Fletcher and a native of St. Charles, Missouri. They have an adopted daughter, Hazel, who was born January 13, 1896.

For fifteen years Mr. Mckenzie has been a Mason and has taken the Royal Arch degree, his membership being at Colorado. . Widely recog -. nized as a man of good business ability and un- failing enterprise, Mr. Mckenzie has made for himself a notable place as a representative of the cattle dealing and financial interests of Mitchell county. He is, moreover, a gentleman of genial manner, whose unfailing courtesy and deference for the opinions of others have gained for him a high place in the public regard and won for him the friendship of many with whom he has come in contact.

SAMUEL DAVID THOMPSON. The fruit and nursery industry of Montague county is an important one. and it is worthily represented by the Bowie gentleman whose name introduces this biographical notice. Market-gardening forms a conspicuous feature of his in-season production, and his little farm in the suburbs of the metropo- lis of Montague county furnish a beautiful, invit- ing and entertaining spot for the horticulturist during the growing and fruiting seasons of the year.

As a "tree man" Mr. Thompson is purely a Texas product, but his connection with the busi- ness dates from so early a time that it will not be amiss to refer to him as a pioneer. When he went to Weatherford, in 1878, with his limited capital he purchased ten acres of land near the city and embarked in market-gardening, and, incidentally, the growing of fruit. His first efforts were so encouraging that he came to consider himself permanently in the business, and when he sold his little place, after fifteen years of identity with it. and located in Bowie, it was with the intention of expanding his business in many directions and making a nursery a prominent and leading feat- ure of his vocation.

Ilis original purchase at Bowie was an orchard tract of twenty-two and a half acres which, owing

to prosperity during the lapse of years, has come to be forty-six and a half acres. Upon this he has built a retail and a wholesale trade of con- siderable pretentions, his shipping points being into the Territory, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas, and. his home market comprises patrons conducted, the institution being regarded as one . from many surrounding counties. His methods

have ever withstood the scrutiny of time and a never-failing practice to deal fairly with all has given him a widespread confidence and is the real key to his success.

Mr. Thompson came to Texas from Maury county, Tennessee, and reached Dallas December 2, 1872, He had passed three years in the Ten- nessee home he had just left, engaged in milling on Carter's creek, near the Columbia and Nash- ville pike. He went to Maury county from Hen- derson county, Tennessee, where the closing years of his youth were passed and where his entry into the service of the Confederacy, as a soldier took place. He was born in Giles county, Tennessee, December 29, 1844, and lived there till fourteen years of age. His father having died and his mother remarried, he accompanied his new father and the family into Henderson county, and in this and Giles county the rural schools common to his day provided him with an education.

Harvey Anderson Thompson was our subject's father. He was a teacher and was preparing for the ministry at his death in 1846, when about thirty years old. He was born in 1814, in North Carolina, and was a son of James Thompson, who migrated to West Tennessee and died there about 1859 as a farmer, at nearly one hundred years of age. The Thompson ancestry traces back to the Scotch-Irish and the family was founded in the United States by the great-grandfather of our subject, who took his family from North Carolina after the Revolutionary War-in which it is thought he participated as a Continental sol- dier-and settled in Middle Tennessee, finally re- moving to West Tennessee, where he died.

Our subject's mother was Mary E. Shields, a daughter of James Leander and Annie (King) Shields, who were the parents of thirteen chil- dren. After the death of her first husband Mary E. Thompson married James M. Johnson, who moved into Gibson county, Tennessee, at the close of the war and was a farmer there some twenty years. She was the mother of only two surviving children, James L. of Dallas, Tex., and Samuel D. Thompson of Bowie. A daughter by Mr. John- son was born, grew and married, but died with- out issue. Mrs. Johnson died in Henderson coun- tv, Tennessee, in 1886, at the age of seventy-two years.

SAMUEL D. THOMPSON

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Samuel D. Thompson's first important life event was his enlistment in the army at Spring Hill, Tennessee, in 1863. Company F, Ninth Ten- nessee Cavalry, was his command, and he saw service in Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia under General Forrest, and his first fight was at Thomp- son's Station. He was with the squad which cap- tured Colonel Straight and helped guard the pris- oners after the Straight raiders were taken in. He was in the battle of Chickamauga and was with General Longstreet's army besieging Knox- ville. He was in the Atlanta campaign and took part in many engagements leading to the evacu- ation of Atlanta and went back into Tennessee with Hood's army to Franklin and Nashville, and when the war ended he surrendered at Gaines- ville, Alabama, and returned home, not yet twen- ty-one years old.

Millwrighting was Mr. Thompson's first work after the war. He was paid eighteen dollars a month for his services, and the work was so agreeable and so remunerative that he continued it for several years. This work led him into gen- eral carpenter work, and even after he became a citizen of Texas he earned his living with his tools, doing his last work as a mechanic in the city of Dallas in 1876. From then to his departure for Weatherford he was associated with his brother in the grocery business in Dallas, then launching his market-gardening career.

Mr. Thompson was first married in Dallas in October, 1876, his wife being Fannie, a daughter of Berry Ballard, originally from Kentucky. Mrs. Thompson died in Weatherford in 1891, be- ing the mother of: Perry S., Denver, Colorado; Addie E., a teacher of the public schools, who finished her education in the Denton Normal School ; Emma M., a teacher in Mangum, Okla- homa, prepared for her work in the State Univer- sity of Texas; Samuel D., Jr., Mattie L. and Harvey. December 28, 1899, Mr. Thompson mar- ried, in Wise county, Miss Juliet M. Green, a daughter of Finley Green, from Missouri, where, in Clinton county, Mrs. Thompson was born.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 115

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: 972

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: 972