A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 27

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 27

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Colonel Taylor's service in the Confederacy was in the Trans-Mississippi department. par- ticipating in the battles of Milliken's Bend. Mansfield. Jenkins' Ferry and many minor en- gagements. His regiment was on the memor-

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able retreat from Simsport on the Atchafalaya Bayou, and finally, by junction with Green's Cavalry which had been marching from Texas, Colonel Taylor's regiment joined General Dick Taylor's command at Mansfield, where the great battle was fought. Bank's army was routed, and seven miles of wagons, caissons, cannon, hospital stores, baggage wagons and all of the necessary outfit of an army became the property of the successful Confederate forces under General Dick Taylor. After the battle at Pleasant Hill, which was fought on the day following that of Mansfield, April 9, 1864, the regiment with Walker's entire division was ordered to Arkansas to meet General Steele, and the battle of Jenkins' Ferry was fought on the 30th of April, 1864. It may be said that this was a drawn battle, as both armies pulled off and rested. The day before the Confederates entered Camden General Price ordered his regi- ment to cross the Ouachita river several miles below that city and get in between Camden and Pine Bluff to cut off their retreat, Colonel Tay- lor being in command of this expedition. Be- fore he had gone many miles, however, he was overtaken and directed to march his command to the town of Camden, it having been learned that Steele had evacuated that place the night previous. He was detailed by General Kirby Smith to take command of the post at Camden, upon which he sought General Smith and asked to be relieved of that order, stating that he came to the front to fight the battles of his country, not to command posts, and through the earnest solicitation of himself Colonel Waterhouse, Brigadier General Scurry and the division commander, General Walker, he was finally relieved and allowed to go to the front. His command was detailed on the morning of April 30th to extend the skirmish line south of the advancing forces to the Saline river, and in fact brought on the battle in that part of the field. His command was then ordered back to Texas, and when Hempstead, in this state, was reached the war had come to a close. He marched his regiment across the country, keeping out guards and maintaining military discipline, disbanding each company as it came nearest its home, giving them all their company supplies, transportation and everything belong- ing to them. Marching on until within four miles of Jefferson, his home, the remaining part of the regiment camped there that night and in the morning marched into town. Here Colonel Taylor said to them :

"The war is now over; you owe no further allegiance to the Confederacy. You have been

true and brave soldiers, now take the belong- ings of each company and divide them among yourselves. Go to your homes and make true and devoted citizens, as you have been soldiers of your country. Go to the commissary de- partment and carry home with you as many supplies as you can get away with, there being quite a large quantity in that department at Jefferson at this time." The boys did go home, and have remained faithful to the stars and stripes, while today they and their descendants are devoted lovers of their country, ever ready to fight for their flag as valiantly as did those who fought to conquer the south. They with others went home in May, 1865, and fortunately it was in the spring of the year, for they found the fences all gone, houses dilapidated, families scattered here and there, but all went to work, and in the following fall brought to Jefferson eighty thousand bales of cotton, which sold for from thirty to fifty cents a pound. Thus their dissipated fortunes became greatly recuperated.

After the close of the war Colonel Taylor engaged in the drug business at Jefferson, which proved very profitable, enabling him to become interested in banks, farms, etc., and almost. all enterprises brought money to his coffers. He was one of the prime movers in the construction and became vice-president of the East Line & Red River Railroad, the build- ing of which was begun at Jefferson in 1886, the late lamented Colonel W. M. Harrison, a true and tried friend, being the president of the com- pany. They succeeded in building twenty miles of track, for which they received from the state certificates for three hundred and twenty acres of state land. They needed money, however, and getting together went to St. Louis and procured thirty-two thousand dollars for those certificates, which enabled them to construct the road on and on until it reached Sulphur Springs, covering a distance of eighty miles. It was then sold to Jay Gould and became a part of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad. In four years, on an investment of thirty thousand dollars, they received one hundred and fifty- three thousand dollars, a rather large amount for amateurs in the railroad trade.

Colonel Taylor's next project was the con- struction of a railroad from Seligman, Missouri, to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, in which he was associated with Colonel Richard C. Kerens, Governor Powell Clayton, Morgan Jones, Stephen B. Elkins and the late lamented Logan H. Roots, of Arkansas. They succeeded in building this short road, and then began the development of Eureka Springs. The earnings

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of the road for eighteen months were set aside for the benefit of its development, for which was organized the Eureka Improvement Com- pany, they building the magnificent and palace- like Crescent Hotel of Eureka Springs, a "thing of beauty and a joy forever." The pure and unadulterated waters of these springs Colonel Taylor assures us is a panacea for all ills of mankind, as it cures all blood diseases, even eradicates the cancer, and makes the blood as pure as that of an infant. His next enterprise was in the construction and maintenance of the Wichita Valley Railroad, extending from Wichita Falls, Texas, to Seymour. He was vice-president of this company, associated with Morgan Jones, General G. M. Dodge and the late lamented Walters of Baltimore. The road was duly constructed, and is today in a fine con- dition, with a good earning capacity. It runs through the finest wheat country in the world, every acre of which in ordinary seasons will double its value in dollars and cents with almost any kind of a crop planted. He feels justlv proud of the Wichita Valley Railroad and its success.

Colonel Taylor established his home in Fort Worth in 1888, and has ever since lived in this city, closely identified with all its varied inter- ests, of which he has been a generous supporter, both in money and influence. He retired from the banking business in 1891, since which time he has lived in retirement, although he is now president of the United Benevolent Associa- tion, a fraternal order organized at Fort Worth and chartered by the state of Texas on the 7th of November, 1895, it having since paid to its beneficiaries, the widows and orphans, two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. This is an assessment order, based on the Fraternal Con- gress table of rates. It is self-sustaining, and in this institution a man or woman pays just what it costs to carry their insurance, as the associa- tion prefers to have the reserve in the pockets of its devoted membership. It is on a solid basis financially, paying its beneficiaries very promptly upon proof of death. He has always taken a deep interest in politics, but not as a secker after public preferment. He was elected mayor of Jefferson over the celebrated Malloy, since which time he has not chosen to become acandidatefor any public office. He is a member of the Board of Equalization in Fort Worth, commander of R. E. Lee Camp, U. C. V., also lieutenant colonel on the staff of Major General Van Zandt, state department U. C. V. He became a church member when twelve years of age, and is now identified with the First

Methodist Episcopal church, South, of Fort Worth. He has passed through all the degrees of Masonry to and including the Knight Temp- lar, and is a Shriner.

Colonel Taylor was married at Jefferson, Texas, February 1, 1859, to Miss Fannie Fisher, and to them have been born three children, but the two eldest, a son and daughter, died in their infancy, the only surviving heir being Mrs. Louise Taylor Connery. This daughter was educated in Boston at the Peter Sillia Academy of Music, and while there became a devoted member of Bishop Brooks' Trinity church. It was also in that city that she met her husband, C. W. Connery, a native of Boston, but now a merchant of Fort Worth.

WILLIAM A. SHOWN. The executive head of the Jacksboro National Bank, mentioned as the subject of this article, has within the past score of years attained a wide prominence over Jack and Wise counties in the grazing industry and as a business man and a citizen has won a strong hold upon the confidence and affections of their citizenship. A gentleman yet little past middle life, a creature largely of his own forming and the rough hewer and shaper of his own des- tiny, the efficiency of his work is apparent in the achievement of a safe, conservative, progressive and successful man.

The years 1870, 1882, and 1898 represent the advent of Mr. Shown to Parker, Wise and Jack counties respectively and in the first he reached mature years and began life, in the second he achieved his greatest success and in the last he has established a stable and permanent citizen- ship and formed business and social ties which bind him to the municipality for years to come. A native of Dallas county, Missouri, he passed his boyhood in a sort of migratory movement over central Texas, in Burleson, Limestone and perhaps other counties, as his father happened to pause, finally reaching Parker county and com- pleting his youth in the northeast corner of the county on the parental estate. While thus ram- bling about he picked up some knowledge of books, and those elementary principles, with the practice of later years in business affairs, ground- ed him in the fundamental principles of an educa- tion.

At twenty years of age he began the shaping of his independent course, in company with a young and industrious wife and with the good will of his associates. Without means, he contracted for land and primitively undertook its cultivation and improvement. He was schooled in the cow business in boyhood and, with the lapse of time

WILLIAM A. SHOWN

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and the slow accumulation of wealth he found himself acquiring a hold on the business he felt most friendly to and in which his chief success has been achieved. When he located in Wise county he took a small bunch of cattle with hin from Parker, bought lands there and carried on stock-farming for a few years. He early formed a partnership with Stewart Castleberry, another young man of integrity and promise, and the two, as Shown and Castleberry, have retained a happy and prosperous business relation ever since. His first brand of "Shon" and his subsequent one of "H," have identified the thousands of animals which have passed through his hands and his two thousand acre pasture in Jack county and the Hunt Creek ranch of twenty-four hundred acres in Wise speaks pointedly of the substantial suc- cess which has accompanied his efforts since twenty years ago.

In the above-named Missouri county William A. Shown was born October 27, 1854, and in 1865, Joseph L. Shown, his father, brought the family to Texas and first located in Burleson county. The father was born in Johnson county, Tennessee, in 1822, and moved out to Missouri. He was ever a farmer, and died upon his Parker county farm in 1875. He served a year in the Confederate army during the rebellion, as a citi- zen was quiet and unambitious beyond success in his favorite vocation, was a Democrat and of the Missionary Baptist faith in religion. John Shown, his father, died on the old homestead in the state of Tennessee about 1880. His fore- fathers were German and among his children were sons, Samuel, Peter, Baker and Joseph L. The two former passed their lives in Tennessee and the two latter died in Parker county, Texas.

Joseph L. Shown married Barbara Howard, who was a daughter of a Tennessee farmer and still survives. The children of this union are: Susan, wife of John B. Dotson, of Wise county ; John and James, who were killed in the Confed- erate army; Hulda, who died in Parker county as the wife of John Pierce, leaving a family ; Nancy, who passed away in Limestone county, was the wife of James Parsons and left no issue ; Cornelia married J. V. Bounds, of Freestone county, Texas; William A., of this notice; and Joseph L., of Jack county, with whom the mother makes her home.

February 25, 1875, William A. Shown mar- ried Mary M. Ratton, a daughter of Hampton Ratton, who came to Texas in the early time. January, 1901, Mrs. Shown died, the mother of John H., a young stockman of Jacksboro, who married Electa Gibson and has a son, Joseph P .; Joseph, who died just a few days before his

mother, and Doddie Delmah, a young lady at home. October 23, 1903, Mr. Shown married Mrs. Mary G. Carpenter, widow of J. C. Car- penter and a daughter of Dr. Stewart, of Wise county. Mrs. Shown has sons, Robert and Jesse, of Wise county and a daughter Doddie, wife of J. H. Partwood, of the same county.

Mr. Shown has not permitted his interest in civil affairs to lag, notwithstanding his large interests in business matters. He is a Democrat and the voters of his precinct in Wise county elected him a member of the board of county commissioners, where he served two years. In his new home he was one of the prime movers in the organization of the Jacksboro National Bank, in 1905, with a capital of $25,000, one-half paid up. Its directors are William A." Shown, C. O. Hess, E. A. Gwaltney, Ward B. Lowe, J. H. Timberlake and Hickman Hensley, of Jacksboro ; T. G. Mullens, of Antelope, A. G. Mc- Clure, of Cundiff, J. H. Walters, of Gibtown, and J. W. Spencer and W. G. Turner, of Fort Worth. At the organization of the institution and the election of officers William A. Shown was chos- en president, a guarantee to its patrons that the bank will be safely, wisely and economically man- aged.

W. HENRY ALLEN. In the agricultural community of Buffalo Springs, Clay county, the subject of this sketch has maintained his residence for nearly twelve years and his efforts and his presence there have materially strength- ened that ancient and historic stronghold. With hard work as the groundwork of his latter-day prosperity, with faith in the future and with an open face to the foe he has met the problems of a farmer in Clay county since 1893.

The first representative of this family of Allens to enter Texas was John Allen, the fa- ther of William Henry of this notice. The former came hither from the Pacific slope in the fifties, whither he had migrated as a "forty- niner" and a gold digger following the first discoveries at Sutter's Mill. Reviewing his career, briefly, we find him born in New Madrid county, Missouri, where he came to manhood's estate. From there he joined a caravan bound for the new Eldorado of the Sierras. As was the custom, he crossed the plains and pros- pected for the yellow metal a few years, over the surface of our new Mexican acquisition, with some success, yet without any phenomenal results. Tiring of the life of a miner and wish- ing to see something of the Orient he shipped for China, reached his destination, but returned

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

without delay and came on from California to Texas.

Arriving in the Lone Star state he secured employment in Brazos county as an overseer of slaves. Leaving that place he spent some time in Denton county and afterward went to Crawford county, Arkansas, where he met and married his wife. He returned to Texas just before the Civil war and settled in Grayson county, where our subject, W. Henry Allen. was born August 8, 1860. Some years afterward he moved into Cooke county and along in the early seventies he joined Jim Daugherty, his cousin, the famous Texas cattle baron, in an enterprise promising good results in Colorado. They engaged in the ranching business near Trinidad and spent two years there, but were so harassed by the Indians, losing some stock and getting a cowboy scalped, that they aban- doned their ranch and came back to the Indian Territory and established themselves at Fort Sill. Mr. Allen severed his connection with the enterprise then and was soon afterward lo- cated in the Chickasaw Nation, on Red river, farming and cattle raising for about three years. In 1876 he returned to Texas and made a trip into Haskell county, with his son Henry, after a bunch of cattle and on this trip saw the immensity of the traffic in buffalo skins and meat. Return- ing at once he went down into Johnson county and died near Cleburne, January 2, 1877, at forty- nine years of age.

When John Allen settled in Grayson county the settlers were widely separated and it was indeed a new place. He dropped down near where Dexter was afterward located and his was the first well dug there. Basin Springs was the then best known place of this settlement and at this point and in Cooke, the Indian Territory and Young counties were his children brought up. He married Caroline Coleman, whose father was a German who first settled in Ohio, next in Crawford county, Arkansas, where he died. Her father was one of the first settlers of that Arkansas county and shoe- making was his trade. His daughter, Caroline, died in Montague county, Texas, in 1892, at the age of forty-nine. Their children were: Wil- liam Henry, our subject; Mattie, who died in Cooke county as Mrs. Kit King; John, of Sug- den, Indian Territory; Allie, of Foster, Indian Territory, widow of Bud A. Henderson; and Aurelia, wife of Felix Fox, of Foster, Indian Territory.

W. II. Allen got little or no training in the public or other schools. In the many family ramblings which seem to have occurred there

was little opportunity if there had been school in progress within reach. Upon his father's death he became the mainstay of his mother for a time and it can be said that he began life for himself at about this date. He returned to Young county after 1880 and was in the employ of a Mr. Jones as a cowboy for a year and made a trip for Mr. Crawford, of Graham, to Running Water, Texas, to bring in a bunch of cattle front the plains. Quitting his wage working, he made a crop in Young county and then hired to O. B. Bachelor at thirty dollars a month for a sea- son. In 1886 and a part of the next year he drove stage into the Comanche country and the latter year kept a stage stand at Elm Springs in the Territory. In 1888 he returned to Young county and bought a farm on Brushy creek, sold it after a year and in 1889 moved into Clay county and bought a farm near Vashti. He owned this two years and spent the next two years on Denton creek. Coming into the vicin- ity of Buffalo Springs he purchased a half sec- tion of wild land, once a part of the Red River Cattle Company's ranch, and at once undertook its improvement. A two-room box house pro- vided his family with shelter as their pioneer shanty and the first winter was spent by the lone cook stove. When things assumed a more prosperous air improvements of a more sub- stantial nature came along and in 1901 his new nine-room cottage, occupying an eminence overlooking his whole farm, was erected. The farm was fenced, broken to the extent of one hundred and thirty-five acres, and is amply stocked and the whole has been made into one of the most desirable rural homesteads to be found.

July 8, 1888, Mr. Allen married Mrs. Eliza Dishman, widow of Robert H. Dishman and a daughter of John Butler. Mr. Butler was a Georgian who settled in Louisiana first and then came to Texas. He is now a resident of Young county, where his wife, nee Lucinda Strickland, died in 1890. Their children were: Elijah, of Greer county, Oklahoma; Belford, who died and left a family at Whitesboro; Joseph, of Carnegie, Oklahoma; Mrs. Allen. born in Cleburne parish, Louisiana, September 17, 1858. By her first husband Mrs. Allen has a daughter, Lula Van, and a son, Robert.

Mr. and Mrs. Allen's children are : Clemmie, Lando, Pasco, Raymond, Clara, John, Leroy and Zella May.

ALEXANDER H. CURRIE needs no special introduction to the citizens of Tarrant county, for he has resided in the vicinity of Smithfield

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for almost a quarter of a century, locating on his present farm in 1882. The qualities of his manhood have been such as to commend him to the confidence and good will of those with whom he has been associated and he ranks with the highly esteemed agriculturists, own- ing and operating eighty-six acres of land which is devoted to general farming.

His life record began in Alabama on the 29th of October, 1837, his parents being Daniel D. and Mary A. (Goodwin) Currie. The father was a native of North Carolina and in the paternal line came of Scotch ancestry. In the year 1849 Daniel D. Currie, accompanied by his family, removed from Alabama to the Lone Star state, settling first in Rusk county, but after a brief period removed to Smith county, where he cast in his lot with the early settlers. Pioneer conditions were to be met there, bring- ing with them many of the hardships and trials incident to frontier life, but the family per- severed in their attempt to make a home there and did not a little toward improving the county and promoting its substantial develop- ment. Both the father and mother died there, the father dying in 1851, while the mother died about 1875.

Alexander H. Currie was reared upon the old homestead farm in Smith county, having been a youth of about twelve years when brought to Texas. His education was acquired in the sub- scription schools, supplemented by knowledge gained through practical experience in after life, and although he is a self-educated man he is also one who keeps well informed on matters of general interest. Seeking a companion and helpmate for life's journey, he was married in Smith county on the 22nd of November, 1865, to Miss Jane C. Stephenson, a native of Blount county, Alabama, born on the 21st of Decem- ber, 1838, and a daughter of James and Nancy C. (Nation) Stephenson. In 1846, during the early girlhood of Mrs. Currie, her parents came to Texas and resided for a number of years in. Harrison county, but subsequently removed to Smith county, where she formed the ac- quaintance of Alexander H. Currie, to whoni she gave her hand in marriage. This union was blessed with eight children: Debbie A., the wife of Robert Tolliver, who resides near Fort Worth; James D., living at Dallas, this state, married Miss Belle Blockwell; John E. M., whose home is in Rusk county, married Miss Fannie Hopplenhite and all live near home; Mary N., the wife of Elmer Utter, of Fort Worth; Effie A., living in Fort Worth; Robert M., who resides near Smithfield

and is the present carrier on the rural free delivery route, No. 2; Celia O., at home; and Frances E., who is living at Fort Worth.

At the time of the Civil war Mr. Currie re- sponded to the call of the Confederacy and en- listed in Company E, Fourteenth Regiment of Texas Infantry. He participated in the battles of Mansfield, Louisiana, and in the engage- ments at Spring Hill, Louisiana, and Saline, Arkansas, together with others of minor impor- tance. He enlisted in Smith county and when the war was over he returned to that county, where he resided until 1880, when he took up his abode near the city of Smithfield in Tarrant county. Here he has now made his home for twenty-three years and is the owner of a good farm of eighty-six acres, the land, which is rich and arable, returning to him satisfactory har- vests as a reward for the care and labor he be- stows upon the fields. He and his wife aredevot- ed members of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, at Smithfield and for many years he served in official capacities in the church. He now belongs to the Farmers' Union. During the years of his residence in the county he has been recognized as a man of genuine worth, free from ostentation and display, but possessing those sterling traits of character that in every land and clime command respect and con- fidence.

DR. ELISHA P. BROWN, a manufacturer of proprietary medicines at Fort Worth, is a veteran of the Civil war and bears an honorable record for brave service in the cause of freedom and union, and in the paths of peace he has also won an enviable reputation through the sterl- ing qualities which go to the making of a good citizen. He is a son of William and Jane (Ken- drick) Brown, both natives of the Old Dominion state of Virginia, but in an early day emigrated to Missouri, where they were among the pio- neer settlers in that section comprising Marion, Ralls and Pike counties, which has sent forth so many noted men, and there they were finally laid to rest. A brother of Mrs. Brown, Rev. William Kendrick, was a very prominent min- ister of the Methodist church in Tennessee.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 27

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