A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 139

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 139

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James M. Able, father of Mrs. Miller, was a son of James and Jane ( Morrison) Able, who were born, reared and married in Tennessee and afterward removed to Calhoun county, Alabama, where they reared their family and spent their remaining days. James Able was a son of Moses and Nancy Able, natives of Ireland, who, following their marriage, emigrated to America and became pioneer settlers of Tennessee, then a new and undeveloped region in which Mr. Able opened up a farm. He afterward removed to Randolph county, where both he and his wife died. He and his son James were soldiers of the Mexican war. His children were: Moses, Joe, John, Thomas and James, all of whom were Mexican soldiers, while Thomas was a lieutenant and James was a captain in his company.

James Able was born in Tennessee and fol- lowing his removal to Alabama purchased a farm and spent his remaining days in that state, passing away at the age of sixty years. His wife after- ward married a Mr. Leather and by that union had one daughter, Caledonia. Mrs. Able was a daughter of Rev. William Morrison, a Baptist minister and farmer, in whose family were six children : Major and William, who were soldiers of the Mexican war; John; Squire; Catherine;

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

and Jane, who became the wife of J. M. Able. All were members of the Baptist church.

The children of James Able were fifteen in number, as follows: Mrs. Nancy Burson ; Will- iam, of Alabama; Joe, who died from the effects of a wound sustained in the army; John, who died in Hunt county, Texas; James M., of the Red River valley; Frank, who died in Alabama ; Moses, who was killed in Oklahoma; Thomas, who was killed while serving in the Confederate army; Doc, of Indian Territory; Mrs. Mary Helms; Mrs. Jane Rivers; Mrs. Sarah William- son; Caroline; Mrs. Melvina Cristofer; and Mrs. Susan Branneman. All of the eight sons served through the Civil war.

James M. Able was born in Tennessee but was reared in Alabama and after his father's death he assisted his widowed mother until her second marriage, when not being pleased with this he left home and went to Mississippi, where he was employed at ten dollars per month as a farm hand and later his employer raised his wages to twenty dollars per month and made him overseer. He acted in that capacity and when a neighboring farmer offered him better wages-a thousand dollars per year-he refused the offer, so that when his employer heard of this he was so pleased that he raised his salary above that amount. For four years he remained in Mis- sissippi and then returned to his old home greatly to the surprise of his mother and others who thought him dead. He was in impaired health at the time and when he had recovered he engaged in freighting. Later he was mar- ried in 1856 and he then followed farming until 1861, when he joined the First Alabama Cavalry under Colonel Blakey, serving with the Army of the Tennessce. He was at the battle of Mis- sionary Ridge and in other hotly contested en- gagements in central Tennessee under General Joseph Wheeler and General Forest. He was never wounded but was taken prisoner and sent to Rockford, Ohio, where later he succeeded in cluding the guards and securing a Union uniform and, thus disguised, returned home. When the war was over he resumed farming in Alabama, but in 1870 sold his property there and came to Texas. In 1872 he settled in the Red River val- ley, where he yet resides, and his landed pos- sessions are today the most extensive of any landowner in Cooke county. He has become a very wealthy man, conducting his business inter- ests with an ability that has brought him a high measure of prosperity. He belongs to the Mis- sionary Baptist church, of which his wife is also a member. They are now living upon the old

homestead at an advanced age, but Mr. Able does none of the active work of the farm, leaving all this to his tenants. In his family are four children : Thomas, a prominent farmer born in Į856; Fanny, the wife of Mack Franklin; Vic- toria, now Mrs. Miller; and Tenzader, the wife of J. Agee.

Unto Mr. and Mrs. Miller have been born eleven children : William, who is living in Wil- barger county, Texas, at the age of twenty-eight years ; Boney, who died in 1903, at the age of twenty-five years leaving a husband and one child to mourn her loss; Coney, the wife of Y. D. Able and now twenty-three years of age; Claud, twenty-one years old; Doddis, Hugh, Roy, John and Jess, aged respectively eighteen, seventeen, fifteen, thirteen and eleven years; Lela, who is a maiden of nine summers; and Samuel, who at the age of three years completes the family. The parents are members of the Missionary Baptist church and Mr. Miller votes with the Democracy. In him we find an enter- prising citizen who, taking advantage of the nat- ural resources of the state, has improved his op- portunities with the result that he is now one of the leading and prosperous agriculturists of his community.

HARVEY N. FROST. To say of him whose name heads this sketch that he has risen un- aided from comparative obscurity to rank among the capitalists, is a statement that seems trite to those familiar with his life. What Mr. Frost has accomplished in the world of com- merce cannot adequately be told in words. It is certainly not asserting too much to say of one who can direct and control a business of such magnitude, that he must possess, aside from mercantile foresight and sagacity, the happy faculty of reading and judging men, un- usual powers of organization and executive ability-in a word, that he must be a master mind. And yet if one shall seek in Mr. Frost's career the causes that have led to his success, they will be found along the lines of well-tried and old-time maxims. Honesty and fair deal- ing, promptness, truthfulness, fidelity, all these are strictly enforced and adhered to. Faithful- ness on the part of employes is promoted by the knowledge that good service means ad- vancement as opportunity opens and that neg- lect of duty will not be tolerated, and is further enhanced by the interest taken by the employer in the personal welfare of the deserving.

Harvey N. Frost, now living in Mineral Wells, was born in Collin county, Texas, in 1860, his parents being C. C. and Gillie M.

HARVEY N. FROST

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

(Daniels) Frost. The father was born in Mis- souri and came to Texas in 1845, settling in Collin county. He served with the ·Confeder- ate army throughout the Civil War, being a brave and loyal soldier. About 1890 he removed to Haskell, Texas, where he now resides. For many years he followed farming, but is now living retired from active life, enjoying a rest which he has well earned and richly deserves. His wife is also living and is a native of middle Tennessee.

Harvey N. Frost was reared to farm life in Collin county and acquired his education in the schools there. He remained with his father until he had attained his majority, when he entered business life at Farmersville, Texas, as a mem- ber of the firm of Rike & Frost, dealers in agricultural implements. There he remained until 1889, when he took up his abode at Has- kell, Texas, where he established and con- ducted a lumber business. He also had a lumber yard at Grand Prairie, Texas. In 1895 he removed to Mineral Wells and purchased the lumber business of J. M. Roberts & Com- pany. Here he has since been connected with the lumber trade, being now at the head of the Frost-Lewellyn Lumber Company. This, how- ever, is but a small department of his business interests in Mineral Wells, which have grown from a very small beginning to extensive pro- portions. In 1900 he became associated with Cicero Smith in the organization of the First National Bank, at Mineral Wells, of which he was elected the first cashier, and to that office he was re-elected in April, 1904, but resigned in October of the same year in order that he might devote his attention more largely to his ex- tensive building operations in this city. He remained a stockholder in the bank, however. He was president of the Mineral Wells Hard- ware Company, but sold his interests there in the fall. of 1903. He is the president and principal owner of the Mineral Wells Pressed Brick Company, extensively engaged in the manufacture of brick. He is now, however, devoting his capital and efforts largely to the upbuildingandimprovementof his adopted city. He has erected several splendid brick business blocks and has others in the course of erection here. These buildings have added largely to the beauty and substantial appearance of the business district of Mineral Wells. These buildings are modern in construction in every particular, are supplied with steam heat, sani- tary sewerage, etc., and in fact are far in ad- vance of those usually found in Texas towns of this size. He is also largely interested in real

estate and his efforts have been of material benefit to Mineral Wells.

Mr. Frost has been twice married. He wed- ded Miss Nannie Smith, a daughter of Captain Cicero Smith, and they became the parents of six children, three of whom are yet living : Cleo, William and Gillie. After the death of his first wife Mr. Frost married Miss Levie Kight. They have a very attractive home at Mineral Wells, surrounded by a beautiful grove of trees which is one of the noted features of the city. The great prairies had few trees and it has been a difficult task to produce the rapid growth of trees so as to promote the beauty of the cities, but the labors of Mr. Frost in this direction have been crowned with splendid success and his lawn is now adorned with many beautiful trees, which compare favorably with the mon- archs of the forest. Both Mr. and Mrs. Frost hold membership in the Baptist church and are leaders in social circles here. He belongs to the Odd Fellows society, the Knights of Pythias and the Commercial Club, and in com- munity affairs he is deeply interested, pro- moting every measure that he believes will con- tribute to the general good. He is now serving as a member of the school board and his co- operation can always be counted upon to fur- ther any interest that tends to benefit Mineral Wells.

Mr. Frost thoroughly enjoys home life and takes great pleasure in the society of his family and friends. He is always courteous, kindly and affable, and those who know him person- ally have for him warm regard. A man of great natural ability, his success in business from the beginningof his residence in Mineral Wells was uniform and rapid. As has been truly remarked, after all that may be done for a man in the way of giving him early opportunities for obtaining the requirements which are sought in the schools and in books, he must essentially formulate, determine and give shape to his own character, and this is what Mr. Frost has done. He has persevered in the pursuit of a persistent purpose and gained the most satisfactory re- ward. His life is exemplary in all respects and he has ever supported those interests which are calculated to uplift and benefit humanity, while his own high moral worth is deserving of the highest commendation.

CHARLES B. METCALFE, president of the Concho Water Power Company, and proprietor of Glenmore Farm, was born in Lawrence coun- ty, Tennessee, May 18, 1856, his parents being James and Mary Jane ( Taylor) Metcalfe, natives

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respectively of eastern Tennessee and Georgia. about a year, his life in that county being filled with exciting and more or less amusing incidents connected with the deadly feud between the cat- tle and sheep men. Among many other incidents The father died in Lawrence county of his native state in 1875. The mother came to Texas soon after the arrival of her son Charles, locating in Mason county, which at that time was in the , that he recalls is the one of which Scott Cooley, midst of a bitter feudal warfare between cattle and sheep men. The country was infested with desperate characters, among whom life was held cheap, and in one year forty men were killed. Mrs. Metcalfe is remembered as a lady of re- markable strength of will and adherence to high principles, and on one occasion, when alone in her house, she kept at bay thirty desperate char- acters who had come to make trouble. She was drowned in the terrible Concho flood which com- pletely destroyed Ben Flickin and in which sixty- five persons lost their lives, August 24, 1882.

Charles B. Metcalfe was reared to farm life, and received the most of his education under a Montgomery Bell endowment scholarship in the University of Tennessee at Nashville, which was given him for high rank in the common schools. He was not, however, permitted to complete his education as he desired, for the Civil war had reduced his father from a man of affluence to one of reduced circumstances, and the son early felt the obligation of earning money for the ne- cessities of the family. He was an only son, and in his youth worked at various employments on the farm, butchering sheep and disposing of the mutton in Nashville, also selling small fruits, butter, milk and various other commodities in the city, getting up at three o'clock in the morn- ing in order to accomplish his day's work. He left Nashville in November, 1872, traveled over- land, and on December 14 following, he arrived in Fort Worth. He worked for about three months for K. M. Van Zandt, and later in the same spring came on horseback to Tom Green county to work for his uncle, Colonel F. C. Taylor, a noted character in the early history of Western Texas and a wealthy stage con- tractor, operating stage lines and carrying mail and government supplies over the frontier. It was through the Colonel's efforts that Tom Green county was organized in 1876, he submitting the petition to the legislature for that purpose. At the time of Mr. Metcalfe's arrival here San An- gelo had not been started, although the mili- tary post of Font Concho was at the height of its interesting frontier army life. He began work for Colonel Taylor. whose western head- quarters were then at the little settlement of Ben Flickin, four miles from Fort Concho, but shortly afterward went to Loyal Valley, Mason county, and joined his mother, there spending

a leader of the cattle faction and a reckless and desperate character, was the hero. While riding over the country and looking for trouble Cooley spied a deputy sheriff at the top of a well which he and another man were digging, the latter being at the bottom of the well and just in the act of being drawn up by his companion in order to get away from the explosion of dynamite which he had set. Cooley shot the man at the top of the well, thus allowing the other to drop to the bottom and be blown up by the dynamite, after which he scalped the former and used the trophy to pay his whiskey bills around the country.

Returning to Tom Green county, Mr. Met- calfe became superintendent of the old Bis- marck farm, four miles south of Concho, the most noted in western Texas. It was origin- ally established in 1868 by Colonel Gustave Schleicher and Jake Marshall, and was the first farm opened in the western part of Texas and the first on which irrigation was used. At the time of which he took charge it had been pur- chased by his uncle, Colonel Taylor, and was owned by him for a number of years. Mr. Met- calfe also served as the Colonel's superintendent in the construction of irrigation ditches, rais- ing crops, etc., and conducted a large and prof- itable business in the raising of the cereals to supply the large demand at Fort Concho. Fol- lowing this he worked for Colonel Taylor as road agent of the stage lines out of Austin and San Antonio, superintending drivers, local agents and buying feed supplies for stock, con- tinuing in that position about two years. In 1879 he engaged in the sheep business, estab- lishing a large ranch on the Concho river in Tom Green county, and those were the palmy days of the sheep industry, wool at that time being worth about twenty-four cents a pound, a good sheep shearing about eight pounds of wool a year, and animals being worth about six dol- lars a head. He continued with excellent suc- cess until 1885, when on account of tariff agita- tion and unsettled conditions in the wool busi- ness he abandoned the industry.

In 1865 Mr. Metcalfe became the proprietor of the old Bismarck farm and started opera- tions there on an extensive scale, erecting a cotton gin, also a mill for grinding grain and constructing a water power with which to carry

MR. AND MRS. JAMES M. BLOCKER

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

on these industries. He was the orginator of water power development, which has and is yet destined to play such an important part in the building up of San Angelo and surrounding country. His was the first cotton gin built in Tom Green county, and he raised on the Bis- marck farm the first bale of cotton in the county, in 1886. This he brought to town and donated to the local brass band. He has since sold the Bismarck farm. He subsequently became inter- ested with Colonel J. L. Millspaugh in the or- ganization of a water power company for the purpose of furnishing power to supply water, electric lights and other industries to the city of San Angelo, while later, in 1892, he acquired financial control of the company. The first dam constructed by the company was in 1892, a half mile east of San Angelo, below the junction of the main Concho and North Concho, which was subsequently washed away by flood, and for a time the power for the electric light plant and water pumping station was furnished by steam, Mr. Metcalfe then withdrawing from the com- pany. In 1901 the Concho Water Company was organized, of which he has since been the president and chief owner, and they constructed the present dam, completed in 1903 and placed in operation the following year. This is built of stone, about five hundred feet long, twelve feet high, having three turbine wheels of a total of two hundred and twenty-five horse power. This company furnishes power for the San Angelo Water and Electric Light Company and will in time, with the development of the town and country, supply power to other industries. This saves to the company alone about six thou- sand dollars a year in fuel, which is a forcible illustration of its economical advantage.

Glenmore Farm, of which Mr. Metcalfe is the owner, contains about one thousand four hun- dred acres on the Concho river, adjoining San Angelo on the southeast, four hundred acres of which is under irrigating ditch and partly in cultivation, and there is also three hundred acres of upland in cultivation. Here are raised in large quantities hay, corn, cotton, barley, oats, alfalfa, potatoes and truck farming prod- ucts, such as melons, beets and small vegetables, while a specialty is made of celery, for which Glenmore Farm has become famous. This prod- uct he ships over the United States as far as New York city, and the quality and flavor of the Glenmore Farm celery are unequalled by any grown elsewhere. This place is also noted as a stock farm, where he makes a specialty of short-horn cattle and Tamworth hogs, an Eng-

lish breed yet new in Texas, but noted in Eng- land as bacon hogs. The other industries on Glenmore Farm are a cotton gin and a flour and feed mill, all operated by Mr. Metcalfe's water power from Concho river. These are valuable industries to San Angelo, and are the means of bringing a large amount of business from a long distance. He is also interested in another fine ranch sixteen miles south of San Angelo, which is owned by a company, and where is made a specialty of breeding mules, raising from one hundred and fifty to two hun- dred and fifty mule colts each year. He has ever interested himself energetically in the de- velopment of the county, in establishing indus- tries, improving the grades of stock, advocat- ing better and more scientific methods of farm- ing, bringing substantial settlers, and "making two blades of grass grow where only one grew before." At the age of eighteen years, in the early days of Tom Green county, he was elected county commissioner, serving as such for six years, and it was during this time that the county commissioners constructed the fine steel bridges which have made traveling such a con- Wanience in the San Angelo territory. The minor disability was removed by decree of court, enabling him to serve. In this and many other ways he has assisted in the building up of the county and maintaining its finances in first- class shape.

Mr. Metcalfe's first wife was Miss Lillie Baker, of Austin, Texas, who lived but two years after their marriage. In February, 1892, at Atlanta, Georgia, he was married to Miss Margie Moyers, of that city, and they have one son, Penrose Blakely Metcalfe, born November 24, 1893.

JAMES M. BLOCKER. The business man- agement of the Bridgeport Mill and Elevator Company's affairs is in the hands of one of its original promoters and stockholders, the sub- ject of this personal review. A farmer and stockman near Jim Ned during the last two decades of the century just closed, and, in a modest way, identified with the material de- velopment of the west side of the county, he closed up his affairs there in the opening years of the new century and began life at Bridge- port, a farmer in a small way and prominently connected with the mill.

The few characters who were once identified with an enterprise of domestic commerce which swept the American bison from the plains have long since cased their guns and hunting knives and their remnant is scattered over the broad

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

surface of our American continent with little to remind them of the exciting days of the buffalo hunt, save vivid recollections of the slaughter and of incidents relating thereto. To this band of pelt merchants Mr. Blocker be- longed and a year spent with an outfit at the foot of the plains in 1873 brought to his ex- chequer a visible fullness as ample compensa- tion for the year thus bestowed.

Mr. Blocker came to Texas in 1870 and stopped a year in the county of Rains, follow- ing his residence here with his career on the hunt on the head of the Colorado river. On leaving the plains he took up farming in La- mar county and continued it until his advent to Wise, bringing hither a flock of sheep and remaining in the wool business until misfortune and adversity practically swept away his stock, when he gathered about him a few cattle and came to be somewhat extensively engaged in the business. He owned and improved a tract of more than a half section of land at Jim Ned and the twenty years that he spent there were years of gradual movement toward upper rungs of the ladder of success.

In Choctaw county, Mississippi, James M. Blocker was born September 12, 1849. His father, William H. Blocker, who died at Jini Ned in 1893, was born on the line of the states of Mississippi and Louisiana in 1818, August 4, and remained a farmer in Mississippi until 1871, when he followed his son to Texas and resum- ed his favorite vocation in Fannin, Wise and Stephens counties, as he happened to be located. He was a man of strong conviction, of out- spoken political sentiment and of religious feel- ing, a Democrat and a Primitive Baptist. He advocated, in his humble capacity as a citizen, disunion and the establishment of the Con- federacy, and gave what service he could in the army of the Confederate states.

Michael Blocker, grandfather of our subject, was not far removed from the founders of the family in the United States. The kingdom of Prussia furnished three sons of the Blocker family who emigrated to the new world and in the states of Kentucky, North Carolina and Alabama they are said to have taken up their abode. From the North Carolina branch our subject is descended and in that old common- wealth Michael Blocker was born about 1788. He was twice married, first to Miss Hendry and second to the Widow Gillespie, and by the first union he was the father of eleven children and by the second seven. Among those of the first were the sons, Younger, George, Wesley, Isaiah and William H., and the daughters,

Caroline, who married Joe Myers; Ann, wife of William Guess, and Ellen, who became Mrs. Scrivner. Of the second family Michael, Rob- ert and Sallie are known to have reared families. The father was a gunsmith, owned a farm and was with General Jackson as a soldier in the defense of New Orleans in 1815. He moved down into Mississippi about the time the state was admitted into the Union and died in 1863.

William H. Blocker married Mrs. Elizabeth Gray, a daughter of an Irishman, Willianı Gray. Mrs. Blocker died at Jim Ned in 1888, having been the mother of Ann, widow of Morton Wooten, of Fannin county, Texas; Caroline, who married Robert Parker and died in Wise county ; Ellen, of Young county, wife of R. E. Curry; Maggie, widow of Taylor Hawkins, of Bridgeport; James M., our sub- ject, and Martha, who married G. W. Pace and resides in Denton county.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 139

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