A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 128

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

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servants, July 4, 1849. He was twice married, first to Miss Thornton, who bore him Peter, William, Ebe, John, James, Thomas, and a daughter, Mary, who married Mr. Leather- wood. No issue resulted from his second mar- riage. That he was a man of property and standing is evidenced by his ownership of slaves and it seems that he provided liberal edu- cation to at least some of his children.

When John Hamilton reached mature years he began life as a teacher in the country schools. He had learned farming under the regime of his father but taught school him- self until after his marriage. His wife was Rachel Crenshaw, and he moved into Mississip- pi about 1845, where he passed away in 1850. Of his two sons, Peter alone survives; his brother John died from overheat during a fight where his horse was shot from under him. His widow married John Adkison and to them three children were born, namely: Nancy, wife of Lewis Cook, of Travis, Texas; Paul, of Wise county, and Kinch, of Oklahoma.

T. P. Hamilton made his home with his mother until after the war. The rural schools gave him his smattering of an education, and in 1863 he entered the Confederate service as a member of Company G, Fifth Mississippi Cavalry, Col. George, afterward United States senator from that state. His regiment was a part of Forrest's command, Tennessee Army, but he was on detached service much of the time. He belonged to a detail to conscript men and to catch deserters and thus missed many engagements in which his regiment took part. However, he was under fire in the small engagements at Oxford and Abbeville, Missis- sippi. In January, 1865, he was sent home and. en route was picked up by Grierson's cavalry and paroled and before he could again qualify to enter the service the war closed.

He remained temporarily at home after the war and the next year after the surrender he went to Mobile, Alabama, and engaged in huck- stering and fishing and oyster-dredging for a time. He also worked in saw-mills and was absent from home some three years. After farming a year at home he spent two years in Monroe county, Arkansas, returned to Mis- sissippi for two years and then came to Texas. He brought with him to the Lone Star state a wife and child and money enough to provide himself with a farm and to start him in life right. He located on Paradise Prairie first, but disposed of his farm there in 1895 and bought the Couch homestead of eighty acres and has added one hundred and twenty acres

THOMAS P. HAMILTON

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

of the Hallmark survey. Cotton and grain raising chiefly claim his attention and his suc- cess has placed him among the . substantial small farmers of the county.

In May, 1874, Mr. Hamilton married Miss Kate Burton, born in Mississippi and died in Wise . county, January, 1880. Two children were the result of this union, namely: Lillie, wife of Marvin Tunnell, of Bowie, and Carrie, wife of W. W. Edwards, of that city. In March, 1882, Mr. Hamilton married Mary J., a daugh- ter of A. N. Jones, who came to Texas from Missouri. Of the issue of this marriage, Ada died at eighteen years; Ethel is yet at the par- ental home, as are Modina and Ruth.

In his political affiliations Mr. Hamilton is a Democrat and in his fraternal connections a Master Mason. He believes in the teachings of Holy Writ and holds a membership in the Christian church.

DR. JAMES F. ROBERSON, who is en- gaged in the practice of medicine and surgery in Montague county, maintaining his office at Hardy, was born in Alabama, May 1, 1855. He acquired a common-school education while spending his boyhood days in his parents' home. He is a son of James T. and Cynthia (White) Roberson, who were born, reared and married in Alabama. The father was a merchant and stock dealer of that state and in 1860 removed to Texas, settling in Cooke county, where he es- tablished a large ranch. He then engaged in the stock business and was making ,steady progress toward the goal of prosperity when the Civil war came on. During the war he became a cap- tain of a militia company that patrolled the fron- tier and was in many hotly contested engage- ments with the Indians, during which service, however, he never received a wound at the hands of the red man. He was thus engaged in mili- tary duty until the close of the war, but during that time the Indians burned all of his property and stole his stock, so that his fortunes were so sadly shattered that he abandoned his ranch. Following the close of the war he engaged in handling fat cattle and also opened a small store in the Indian Nation. His last business enter- prise was the purchase of a large herd of fat cattle, which he drove to New Orleans market. At Marshall, Texas, however, he was taken ill and died very suddenly. The men he had em- ployed to assist him in taking the cattle to Lou- isiana then run the stock to Shreveport, where they sold out for cash and were never afterward heard from, so that the family received not a dol-

lar of the money that was due them. Mr. Rob- erson was an energetic business man, also public- spirited, broad-minded and intelligent. He voted with the Democracy and worshipped with the Baptist church, of which he was long a devoted member. His wife survived him until 1893, when she was called to her final rest, and she did a mother's full part toward her children, whom she carefully reared. She was a daughter of Am- brose White, a cabinet-maker of Alabama, who followed his trade for a number of years, and also engaged in farming. At an early day he came to Texas, settling in Grayson county, where he died in 1885 at the very advanced age of ninety-eight years. His children were: Mrs. Cynthia Roberson, B. Frank, Nancy, Sarah, Ellen and James.

.Mr. and Mrs. Roberson had a family of eight children : John A., a mechanic ; Molly L., who became Mrs. Livingston, and after her husband's death married M. L. Reed; Levi B., a merchant of the Indian Territory; James F .; Alice, the wife of Josiah Cook; Robert A., a farmer of Oklahoma; Richard H., a merchant of the Ter- ritory ; and William C., a physician, who died in September, 1894.

Dr. Roberson after acquiring his early educa- tion in the public schools was engaged in teach- ing for five years and then turned his attention to the drug business, which he followed in Hardy, Texas. During that period his leisure hours were devoted to reading medicine and in 1884 he entered the medical department of Vanderbilt College, at Nashville, Tennessee. After study- ing a year there he successfully passed the exam- ination before the medical board and was granted a license to practice. He has since pursued a three years' course of study and was graduated in 1887. Entering upon the practice of his chosen profession in Hardy, he there remained until 1890, when he pursued post-graduate work in St. Louis, Missouri. He next opened an office at Vernon, Texas, where he was accorded a liberal and gratifying patronage for five years, when he located at Duncan, Indian Territory, where he later engaged in the drug business in connection with his professional service as a physician and surgeon. His practice extended over a great area and his labors were attended with gratify- ing results when viewed from both a professional and financial standpoint. He remained at Dun- can until 1904, when he purchased the Wash Williams farm at Hardy, where he is now lo- cated. At each place where he has lived he has gained a liberal patronage and his qualifications are such as well entitle him to the professional

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

support of the public. He keeps in touch with the most modern methods known to the medical fraternity and his knowledge is broad and com- prehensive, while in the diagnosis of a case he is very careful, seldom making the least error in judgment concerning the outcome of disease. While in Duncan he took an active and helpful part in the permanent improvement and develop- ment of the town. He was a member of the first city council and later was selected by a commit- tee of citizens to visit Washington, D. C., in the interests of that municipality. His mission there was successful and he drafted a bill, which passed congress, regulating the practice of medi- cine in the Territory.

Dr. Roberson purchased and now occupies the Wash Williams farm, which is one of the early landmarks of Montague county, situated in Wil- . lowally valley, adjoining the town of Hardy. It contains four hundred acres of land in cultiva- tion and the place is well improved with a com- modious residence, substantial barn and other outbuildings. The home is attractively situated and everything about the place indicates the careful supervision of a progressive owner.

Dr. Roberson was married in 1893 to Miss Laura Williams, who was born at the old Wil- liams homestead, near Hardy, in 1870, and is a daughter of Washington and Cynthia (Robert- son ) Williams, both of whom were natives of Tennessee, where they were married, emigrating to Texas in 1858. They lived in Lamar county until 1860, when they came to Montague county, where Mr. Williams purchased land in Willow- ally valley and there developed a farm, to which he added until it became a very extensive and profitable property. It is this farm upon which the Doctor and his wife now reside. When the Williams family came here there was a fort on this farm, affording safety for the pioneer fam- ilies. During the Civil war Mr. Williams was in the frontier service, taking part in many raids and battles with the Indians, and his time was thus passed until the close of hostilities. He afterward settled on the farm and resumed the business of cultivating the fields and raising stock. Later he engaged in merchandising at Forestburg in company with Mr. Adkins and successfully carried on the enterprise for a num- ber of years. He witnessed the development of the county from a sparsely settled district to a populous region, in which were many homes of a contented and prosperous people. The wild game was replaced by the domestic farm animals and the red men were followed by white settlers,

whose enterprise and labors have wrought a wonderful transformation in improving and de- veloping the country. In all of his business transactions he was strictly fair and honorable, his integrity being above reproach. At length he retired from the labors of the farm, rented his land and removed to the Indian Territory, and at Duncan was engaged in the drug and furni- ture business. While devoting his energies to the conduct of that enterprise death claimed his wife, who died in 1897. She was a devoted member of the Baptist church and an earnest Christian woman, beloved by all who knew her. Mr. Williams has since retired from active busi- ness and now spends his time among his chil- . dren at the ripe age of seventy-three years. He, too, is a faithful member of the Baptist church and he belongs to the Masonic fraternity. He had three sons and a daughter: George D., who is living in Lawton ; Charles R., also of Lawton ; Laura, now Mrs. Roberson ; and Nathanial C., a resident of Duncan.

Dr. and Mrs. Roberson have two interesting children: T. L., who was born in August, 1890; and James W. R., born December 25, 1905. They also lost two: George L., born December 3, 1893; and John R., born May 16, 1901. The parents are members of the Baptist church and Dr. Roberson is a Royal Arch Mason. In a pro- fession where success depends entirely upon in- dividual merit and achievement he has worked his way steadily upward, and the extent and im- portance of his practice is indication of the un- qualified trust and confidence reposed in him by the general public.

BEN PLASTER is one of the well known representatives of stock-raising interests in west- ern Texas, owning a fine ranch not far from Colorado. He is also a representative of one of the earliest families of the Lone Star state. His paternal grandfather, Thomas Plaster, came to Texas in 1830 from Tennessee and then, return- ing to the latter state, removed his family to Texas in 1835, at which time this country was under Mexican rule. He was a native of Vir- ginia and at the time of the Texas war he served as quartermaster and aided in achieving inde- pendence for the republic. He afterward made his home in what was then Montgomery county, but is now Grimes county, and his last days were spent in Austin. His family numbered seven children : Tony; John; Ben ; William ; Joe and Mrs. Margaret Harrison, twins : and Frank. Of this family William is now living in Mexico and

David R. Fly m. D.

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Mrs. Harrison, now a widow, resides in Grimes county, while Joe Plaster is a resident of Bell county.

William Plaster, the father of our subject, was born in Tennessee on the 8th of January, 1830, and was brought to Texas by his parents in 1835., His youth was passed in Grimes county and about 1857 he was married in what was then Montgomery county to Miss Nannie Simms, who was reared in that locality. Two of their children are yet living: Dollie, the wife of Will Casper, a resident of Taylor county, Texas; and Ben, of this review. The father has been en- gaged in dealing in cattle throughout the greater part of his life and is now connected with that industry in Mexico. He removed from Grimes to Bell county, Texas, and in 1869 went to Tay- lor county, this state, whence he removed to Mexico in 1886. He now makes his home in the state of Sonora.

Ben Plaster was born in Grimes county, Texas, December 18, 1861. He had but limited educational opportunities in youth, but experi- ence and observation have greatly broadened his knowledge, and he is now a man of good prac- tical business education. From the age of fifteen years he has been dependent upon his own re- sources and whatever success he has achieved is due entirely to his earnest labor. He arrived in Taylor county in 1879, when the family re- moved to that locality, and there engaged in raising cattle on the shares for his father. Con- tinuing there until 1885, he and his father then sold their cattle, but afterward bought other cat- tle and took them to Presidio county, but that winter they lost over half their stock. In the following spring they rounded up the herd and took them to old Mexico, the father remaining there until 1895. Ben Plaster, however, did not go to Mexico with the cattle, but made his way across the border in 1889, having employed a man to herd the cattle there. In 1895, however, he began to dispose of his herd, shipping many to other points, and in 1896 he left Mexico and came to Colorado, Texas, where he has since been living. His place is situated about eight miles down the Colorado river and his ranch comprises six and a half sections of land. He has one of the best bunches of high-grade Here- fords in the state.

On the 22d of December, 1885, Mr. Plaster was united in marriage to Miss Ida Worley, of Taylor county. They have a fine home, which was erected at a cost of about four thousand dol- lars, and its hospitality is one of its attractive features. Mr. Plaster is a member of Colorado

lodge, No. 280, I. O. O. F. He devotes the greater part of his time to stock farming and has made a reasonable success in life. He has always lived upon the frontier and his early edu- cation was gained largely from nature, of which he has been an earnest student. He was practi- cally reared in the saddle, for as soon as able to ride he tended cattle on the range, and his has been the typical life of the cowboy, but all through these experiences of the trail, the cow- boy camp and the roundup he has devoted such time as opportunity afforded to the acquirement of knowledge upon all general subjects, and is to-day a well informed man. His life has always been characterized by good judgment in practi- cal affairs and he is to-day rated as one of the substantial cattle men of his county.

DAVID RICHARD FLY, A. M., M. D., physician and surgeon of Amarillo, has made a conspicuous success in his profession, and his reputation is by no means confined to the im- mediate locality of his practice, for he is well known throughout North and Northwest Tex- as. His principal accomplishment from a public standpoint, perhaps, has been his ex- ploiting of the advantages of Amarillo as an ideal place, climatically considered, for the cure of tuberculosis, and to this dread white plague he has devoted a large portion of his professional investigation and study. He is author of the phrase "vampire disease," as ap- plied, so fitly descriptive, to tuberculosis. He is known as the principal promoter of the St. Anthony's Sanitarium at Amarillo, an institu- tion which has already enjoyed much success and undoubtedly has a large range of useful- ness before it. Dr. Fly has a large private prac- tice in medicine and surgery, and is one of the most progressive and energetic Aesculapians in the state. Besides the large spheres of work implied in the above statements, he has done much toward effective organization of his pro- fessional confreres and the promotion of the esprit de corbs so essential to any class of men whose lives are devoted to work largely outside of selfish pursuits.

Dr. Fly is, withal, one of the younger mem- bers of his profession. He was born at Water Valley, Mississippi, October 15, 1865, belong- ing to a family of long and honorable ancestry. The paternal line originated in Wales, where his great-grandfather was born. His grand- father Dr. Joshua Fly was also a physician. Dr. Fly's father was Judge Anson B. Fly, who was born in Maury county, Tennessee, but in boyhood accompanied his parents to Water

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Valley. He was one of the successful and fore- most jurists of that place, and for sixteen years served as master in chancery for the United States court, northern district of Mississippi. Judge Fly died at Water Valley in 1894. His wife was Mary Jane Giles, who was born in Charlotte, North Carolina, of Scotch-Irish stock, and her death occurred in 1878.

Dr. Fly passed the first sixteen years of his life at Water Valley. During that time he received a good education in the high school, from which he was graduated. At the age of sixteen he went to Galveston, Texas, to live with his brother, Dr. A. W. Fly, a very prom- inent physician of that city and furthermore active in public life, serving for three terms as mayor of Galveston. While living with his brother he became interested in the study of medicine, and to carry out his purposes he ma- triculated in the medical department of the University of Kentucky, at Louisville. Dur- ing his student days he was in poor health much of the time, and in consequence he did not follow up his university course continu- ously to graduation. In 1892 he sought a salu- brious climate and arrived in Amarillo, when that city was in its raw western beginnings, and, after passing the necessary examination before the district board of health, he began practice here. On the 1st of January, 1894, he returned to Louisville to finish his course in the university, and graduated in the spring of the same year. He is also a graduate of the Chicago Post Graduate Medical School and Hospital, of Chicago. He then went to Fort Worth and was given the position of demon- strator of anatomy in the medical department of Fort Worth University, which institution had just been organized. He remained in that position until January 1, 1899. During that time he served for two years as city health of- ficer under Mayor Paddock's administration, and in that capacity he is remembered in Fort Worth for the valuable services he rendered in preventing the entrance of smallpox and other epidemics that threatened the city. He was also quarantine physician of Tarrant county.

Dr. Fly had enjoyed exceptional advantages throughout his preparation for his profession, and in medical college was under the inspira- tion of Dr. Bacon Saunders and other noted surgeons and physicians. From the time of his first residence there, Amarillo had appealed to Dr. Fly as an ideal climate in which to treat tuberculosis of the lungs, and also for convales- cence following surgical operations, and in

January, 1899, he decided to relocate in this city. He has been a very busy practitioner since coming here, and his skill and ability have brought him great success and prominence. He is surgeon for the three railroads centering here-the Rock Island, the Santa Fe and the Fort Worth & Denver, and also has a large private general practice.

In February, 1901, he organized and estab- lished, with the aid and under the management of the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word, St. Anthony's Sanitarium at Amarillo, which is now a flourishing institution, and of which Dr. Fly is chief of staff. The building, in its construction and equipment, is modeled after the most approved hospital construction in the east, and is noted for the conscientious care and attention paid to its patients. Operative surgery here is unusually successful on account of the purity of the atmosphere and the absence of pathogenic bacteria-the bete noir of mod- ern surgery.

Dr. Fly organized and is president of the Panhandle Medical Association, the meetings of which are especially interesting and valua- ble to its members. He is also a member of the State and of the American Medical Associa- tions and in the latter he is a member of the congressional committee on national medical legislation, representing the thirteenth con- gressional district of Texas. He is a member of the International Association of Railway Surgeons and the Rock Island and the Santa Fe (Railroad) Surgical Associations, and is councilor for the Panhandle District of the Texas State Medical Association. As a mem- ber of the International Congress on Tubercu- losis he was a Texas state delegate to the meet- ing of that congress at St. Louis in the fall of 1904. The treatment and cure of tuberculosis are his highest professional ambitions and he is an authority on several phases of that scourge. He has written papers on the subject for medical journals. In particular his sym- pathy goes out to the great number of poor people-an increasing host every year-afflict- ed with consumption and thus isolated from so- ciety but without means to procure relief or treatment. He sees here one of the greatest objects of philanthropy, and has bent his ef- forts toward securing a permanent institution or endowment which would help meet the diffi- culty. In this connection he made a strong appeal to Andrew Carnegie to furnish means for establishing a tuberculosis sanitarium for poor people at Amarillo or at some other equal- ly favorable point, but so far without success.

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Dr. Fly is president of the medical examin- ing board of pensions at Amarillo .. He has been granted the honorary degree of A. M. by the Amarillo College, in which institution he is lecturer on anatomy, physiology and hygiene. He is also still retained as a lecturer on the staff of the' medical department of the Fort Worth University, where his subject is anatomy. His fraternal connections are with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Knights of Pythias. He served for a year or two as pres- ident of the Amarillo board of trade, and is now vice president of the same. Throughout' the period of his residence here he has been a very active and enthusiastic citizen in spreading abroad the advantages of Amarillo and vicini- ty, not only from a climatic but from a business point of view, and in various ways has contrib- uted to the permanent growth and welfare of his adopted city.

In 1899 Dr. Fly was married, at Dallas, to Miss Lizzie Miller, a sister of State Senator Barry Miller, of that city. Miss Miller was a prominent society leader of Dallas, and the wedding was one of the social events of the yearly calendar.

ISAAC N. PRESTON, a well known farmer and county commissioner of Montague county, Texas, was born on a farm in Virginia, April 23, 1843, son of Elisha H. and Arabella J. (Whitton) Preston, both natives of the "Old Dominion." Stephen Preston, the grandfather of Isaac N., was a planter and slave owner in Virginia, prominent and highly respected. He died there in 1859. In his family were nine children, as follows: Newton, W. B., Thomas, John, Joel, Moses, Elisha H., Stephen and Mrs. Mildred Nellum. The sixth son, Moses, was a prosperous and well-to-do tobacconist of Rich- mond, Virginia. He had two sons, William I. and Andrew, who were in the invasion of Nicar- agua, where Andrew was wounded, had to re- main in Peru, and never returned until 1866. William I. came home and settled in Missouri, where, when the war of the Rebellion broke out, he raised a Confederate regiment, of which he was made colonel, and went to the front under General Price ; did valiant service, was wounded and had to surrender. After the war he was president of a female institute of learning in Missouri.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 128

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