A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 32

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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Mr. Mulholland was married to Miss Anne McNally, who is a native of Ireland, and they have three children: Mrs. Margaret Lydon, of North Fort Worth; John F., who is in the audit- or's office of the Frisco system at Fort Worth; and Joseph A., who is joint agent of the Frisco and Cotton Belt railroads at North Fort Worth. Dependent upon his own resources from early life Mr. Mulholland has made consecutive advance- ment in his business career and today occupies an enviable position as a substantial real estate dealer and representative citizen of North Fort Worth.

EDD ANDREWS, a popular citizen of Tar- rant county and a member of the board of commissioners, makes his home a short dis- tance south of Grapevine, where his farm of two hundred acres indicates in its splendid ap- pearance his careful supervision and practical and progressive methods. He was born in this county, April 18, 1862, his parents being Jabez B. and Annie M. (Burgoon) Andrews, who were natives of Illinois and came to Texas in 1850, being early settlers of Tarrant county, their home being near Grapevine. The father became prominent and influential in the com- munity and positions of public trust were con- ferred upon him, including that of commis- sioner, in which capacity he served for sev- eral years, discharging his duties with prompt- ness and fidelity. He voted with the Democ- racy and he passed away several years ago,

aged fifty-eight years. Such has been his value in citizenship and his reliability in business life that his death was the occasion of deep and widespread regret. He held membership in the Methodist Episcopal church at Grapevine and left to his family the priceless heritage of an untarnished name. Three of his children survive: Edd, of this review ; William W., who is living at Lawton, Oklahoma ; and Walter M., a resident of Tarrant county.

Edd Andrews spent the days of his boyhood and youth in the usual manner of farm lads in Texas. He was educated in the public school of Grapevine and when not busy with his text books was trained to the work of the home farm. On attaining his majority he determined to make the occupation to which he had been reared his life work and has always given his attention to general agricultural pursuits, own- ing now two hundred acres of rich and valu- able land a short distance south of the town, where he is successfully interested in general farming.

On the fifteenth of December, 1883, Mr. An- drews was married to Miss Fanny C. Newton, a native of Tarrant county and a daughter of Thomas Newton, who for many years resided here but has now passed away. Six children were born of this union: Nellie W., Katie B., Louis E., Armine A., Lea and Harold, all at home at present.

Mr. Andrews has served as a trustee of the school district in which he makes his home and the cause of education finds in him a warm and stalwart friend, who has done effective ser- vice in its behalf. He is now serving for the second term as commissioner of Tarrant coun- ty, his re-election coming to him in recognition of his faithful service during the first term. He belongs to Grapevine lodge, No. 288, A. F. & A. M. and is a member of the Farmers' Union, while in politics he is a Democrat with indepen- dent proclivities.

ROBERT SAVAGE. In enumerating the pioneers of Montague county the subject of this review holds rank among the earliest, for his father, Wiley B. Savage, founded the family on the head of Denton creek, or in that vicinity, in 1856, and is, therefore, entitled to rank among the very first white men to hide himself away among the Indians and wild animals of the then wilderness of Montague. He came hither blazing the way for settlers of the future and to plant a Savage seed which should grow and flourish when the generations of industry and peace

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should reign upon the land and conquered nature should yield up her fruits to the hand of man.

It was in March of 1856 that this band of Sav- ages brought the first ray of civilized hope into the Denton creek neighborhood and its leader established himself. on his pre-emption on what is now the McCaleb place, where the Englands were afterward murdered by Cribbs and Preston. Wiley B. Savage introduced farming into the community and he was accom- panied hither by settlers, Hamilton, Alfred Campbell, David Avis, John Campbell and wife. Of this number, or their descendants, the subject of this sketch is the only one remain- ing. They organized their little colony in Grayson county, whither Wiley Savage had gone from Rusk county, Texas, a few years be- fore. The latter came to the Lone Star state in 1849 from Robinson county, Tennessee, where he was born and married. His birth occurred in 1812 and he married Mary A. Car- ney, who died almost upon their arrival in Texas and lies buried at Henderson. His sec- ond wife was Rhoda A. Taylor, yet surviving and a resident of Indian Territory. In his early years in Texas Wiley B. Savage seems to have been restless and unsettled, for he moved about much and lived in Rusk, Gray- son, Cooke and then Grayson counties, before his advent to his final residence in Montague. He came to this place with ox teams and had little more than firmly established himself when, in 1864, he died. By his first wife he left children : Thomas N., Louisia; Elizabeth; William, and Robert of this review. By his second wife were born Mary J. and John W.

Robert Savage was born in Robinson coun- ty, Tennessee, June II, 1849. The family made their western trip the same year, by boat, to Jefferson, Texas, and, in the several counties above named, he grew up. "Among the In- dians and wolves," as he states it, he came to his majority in Montague county, having ac- cess to little more than the sight of a public school. Having sentiments in opposition to the purposes of the Confederacy, the family went north during a portion of the war period and passed several months within the Federal lines. Following his return home he spent . several years in the saddle as a cowboy, being on the old drives to Baxter Springs and dupli- cating, in many ways, the tracks of old-time cowmen. When he finally settled down to the farm and began his domestic career it was near his present home. His modest residence of today is erected upon a tract of the Win-

gate survey which was purchased years ago and his stock-farming has so prospered him as to enable him to add one hundred and sixty acres to his original domain. He was mar- ried at just past twenty-four and he and his wife started in the world about even. With the start they had they have played a strong hand in the game of "give and take" for a third of a century and no family within this rural com- munity stands higher than that of "Bob" and Annie Savage.

August 12, 1873, Mr. Savage married Miss Annie Wainscott, a daughter of John Wain- scott, mention of whom occurs elsewhere in this work. Mrs. Savage was born in Arkansas, July 24, 1843, and came in 1857 to Texas. She and her husband are the parents of: John Wi- ley, a young farmer of Montague county ; Sarah L .; Annie and Obedience.

Robert Savage is a living witness to the whole realm of progress which has occurred in his county. He stands as a mile-post marking the beginning of things here and he has watched its events and wielded a quiet influ- ence in the fashioning of things according to the notions of civilized life. He is the oldest settler in Montague county, was here when the first wave of civilization rippled on this fron- tier district, participated in the movement of retrogression from the county during Indian and Civil war, and has been identified with the lasting progress from the '7os onward.

PHIL T. ALLIN. By reason of his identi- fication with the town of Cleburne from the time it consisted of only a few houses until its population is close on to ten thousand, Mr. Phil T. Allin, who is head of the well known real estate firm of Phil T. Allin and Company at that place, is rightly considered one of the old- time residents of Johnson county and also one of its most prominent and influential citi- zens.

Mercer county, Kentucky, was his birth- place, December 15, 1839, and his family his- tory goes back to colonial days, including among its members his grandfather Major Thomas Allin, who served as an officer in the Continental army during the Revolutionary war. His parents were Ben C. and Susan (Warren) Allin, his father also a native of Mercer county, where both he and the grand- father died.

For many years the father was clerk of the court of Mercer county, and the son Phil, after spending his early days on the farm, became his father's assistant in the court house at Har-

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rodsburg. He made a trip to Missouri before the war, and in 1860, having in the meantime returned to his native state, made the move, which was destined to be permanent, to Texas, locating first in Anderson county. He made various trips of inspection about the state, and for a short time in 1861 lived in Johnson coun- ty, his present home. Mr. Allin had just reached his majority when the Civil war be- gan, and like thousands of other young south- erners of his age he volunteered in defense of the beloved southland. Enlisting in Com- pany G, First Texas Infantry, his first colonel being the noted and afterward general Louis T. Wigfall, he joined the Army of the Poto- mac in Virginia and participated in much of the fighting in that state, including the seven days' fighting around Richmond, the second battle of Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericks- burg, etc. From Virginia he was sent with the reinforcements for Bragg's army at the battle of Chickamauga, where he was wounded, and thereafter was unable to take part in much active service.

On his return to Anderson county Mr. Allin, up to 1871, was principally engaged in farm- ing. In the year mentioned he came to his present home, Cleburne, in Johnson county, where he has been a resident ever since and where he has been actively concerned with the development of town and country. In 1878 he was elected clerk of the district court, and following his eight years' service in that busi- ness engaged in the insurance and real estate business, which he has prosecuted with suc- cess to the present time. He was chief clerk of the insurance department of Texas during three years and a half of the Governor Hogg admin- istration. He now has associated with him in business his son Phil W. Allin, who was born at Magnolia, Anderson county, and for some time was a clerk in the state treasurer's office at Austin, being a bright and capable young business man. Besides other interests Mr. Allin owns a nice farm in the northwest part of Johnson county.

Mr. Allin's wife was before her marriage Miss Maggie Van Noy. They were married at Palestine, Texas.

LIONEL S. LEVERSEDGE, a well known civil engineer and contractor at Fort Worth, for over thirty years identified with this line of business in Texas, was born in Taunton, Eng- land, April 3, 1853. The family line goes back for generations in English history, and it is noteworthy that some of the ancient members

were prominent participants in the early Eng- lish revolutions, notably the Jack Cade rebel- lion, and many persons intertwined with the stirring events of early English history are reckoned among the ancestors of the present Leversedge family. One of Mr. Leversedge's sisters, while on a visit to Europe and England, spent considerable time and labor in unearth- ing the ancestral history of her family. Mem- bers of the ancestry were among those who founded the town of Taunton in the Massa- chusetts colony.

Mr. Leversedge's parents were John and Eliz- beth (Hunter) Leversedge. His father, who is now deceased, was a civil engineer of dis- tinction in his profession and very successful. On coming to America he located at Danville, Virginia, and the Leversedge home was in that city for several years. He was assistant city engineer of Danville, and later, going into railroad engineering, was connected with the engineering department of the Western North Carolina Railroad, now a part of the Southern Railway System. He was also at one time con- nected with the Central North Carolina Rail- road. The mother was of Scotch parentage.

Educated at Fox College, Taunton, England, when sixteen years old Mr. Leversedge came to America to join his father, who had come over some time previous. It was under his father's tutelage that he received his technical education largely, fitting himself to follow a career of similar usefulness to his father's. He came to Texas in 1874 with the expectation of going to work in the engineering department of the Texas and Pacific Railroad, but on ac- count of the financial stringency following the panic of 1873 the construction of the road was discontinued for some time, and Mr. Leversedge had to look for employment in other lines, tem- porarily. During this time he lived in Fort Worth, and in 1876 became attached to the county surveyor's office under W. A. Darter, then county surveyor. On the expiration of Mr. Darter's term Mr. Leversedge was elected county surveyor, in 1878. He resigned this of- fice, however, in 1879, and took a position in the engineering department of the Gulf, Colo- rado and Santa Fe Railroad, under Chief En- gineer B. M. Temple, which position he held for five years. He then went into the engi- neering business as a contractor for and builder of bridges, railroads and municipal works. Since then his son, J. H. Leversedge, who is also a civil engineer, a representative of the third suc- cessive generation to follow the profession, has come into the business, the firm name by which

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they are known being the Leversedge Bridge Company, who have made a most enviable rep- utation as civil engineers and contractors, de- signers and builders of steel and concrete-steel bridges, wood and concrete piling, concrete foundations, granitoid pavements and curbing, etc.

Mr. Leversedge was married at Fort Worth, April 21, 1878, to Miss Bettie T. Newcomer. J. H. Leversedge, who is their only living child, was born in the old Mansion Hotel at Fort Worth.

LESLIE C. DENNY is one of the numer- ous prosperous and enterprising farmers and stockmen about the town of Iowa Park, Wich- ita county. A little more than fifteen years ago this fertile region was giving up its wealth in meager measure as stock ranges, and its wealth and fertility as an agricultural center had not been tapped. Then came enterprise in the shape of resourceful, energetic, shrewd and per- severing men, and in a few short years trans- formed the prairie stretches into a beautiful succession of diversified grain fields and pas- ture. Whereby, the banks of this region are now overflowing with the deposits of the farm- ers and stockmen, and the territory of which Iowa Park is a center is among the wealthy and wealth-producing sections of the great Lone Star state.

Mr. Denny, himself so prominent in this ag- ricultural development and progress, is a Ken- tuckian by birth and parentage. He was born in Mercer county, that state, in 1854, a son of Walter and Eliza J. (Banta) Denny, both na- tives of Kentucky and now deceased, his father having passed away on the old Denny home- stead in Mercer county in 1885.

Mr. Denny obtained his early advantages in the way of education and practical training in his native state and on the home farm. When he was twenty-one years old he went to Tren- ton, Grundy county, Missouri, where he lived for two years, and then for a short time in Saline county of the same state. In 1879 he moved to Grayson county, Texas, and farmed there for the following ten years. In 1889 he located at his present place, seven miles southwest of Iowa Park, in Wichita county. His brother S. L. Denny came to this locality about the same time, and the brothers own large adjoining farms, the neighborhood being known as "Denny." Mr. L. C. Denny's large and well im- proved place contains five hundred acres, and it lies in the famous Wichita valley and in a re- gion noted for its special wealth of crops, par-

ticularly wheat, which grain is of as fine quality and as abundant in yield as in many of its more indigenous northern states. The brothers own substantial and commodious residences, and have telephone connection with Iowa Park. Mr. Denny is in all respects a modern, up-to- date agriculturist, carrying on his enterprises with profit both to himself and the community, and is a representative citizen of this locality. Around Iowa Park the farmers are the moneyed men, and in large measure those who take the initiative in building up and promoting public undertakings.

While living in Grayson county Mr. Denny was married to Miss Kate George, and they now have a bright and happy family of nine chil- dren, Maggie J., Gertrude, Walter, Ida, Hugh, Lottie, Lloyd, Marie and Earl. Those of school age are being given the best obtainable educa- tion, and both Mr. and Mrs. Denny are thor- oughly in harmony and co-operation with the intellectual and social progress in their com- munity.

JOSEPH H. MARTIN. In the subject of this sketch we have a gentleman distinguished as a pioneer and one whose life has spanned a half century of Wise county's development and been almost undisturbed as a resident thereof since man's first footprints marked the advance guard of civilization. Fifty years a witness to the events which have brought order out of chaos, removed the resisting elements to intelligent progress and transplanted a people with aims and purposes and plans rivaling those of their kinsmen in the old states of the east, is the record ascribed to him and, were he without individual achievement, who can gainsay that he has lived in vain?

Of the ante-bellum settlers of Wise county few remain within its boundaries to tell the story of their conflict with barbarism and of their survival of the hardships with which nature afflicted them. The chance settler of '54 was followed by the occasional settler of '55, and to this latter epoch does Joseph H. Martin belong. The days of his childhood witnessed the establishment of the Lone Star Republic and the years of his youth saw her join the galaxy of states and become the "Em- pire" of the great Southwest. His martial spirit and patriotic impulse urged him to the ranks to beat off and subdue our Mexican foe and the spirit of adventure prompted his joining the cara- van of Texas forty-niners to seek his fortune in the Eldorado of the Pacific coast. Notwithstand- ing their interest these are only incidents of his life and serve to spice the more substantial achievements of his rural life.

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Barren county, Kentucky, gave us the Martins of this record and there Henry Martin, the found- er of this branch, was born. His birth occurred in 1797, and his life was ever rural and apparently fitted to the work of civilizing and developing the frontier. He married Rebecca Hindman, who accompanied him westward, sojourning briefly in Mississippi and reaching Texas in the year 1836. They established themselves in Harrison county and there the wife passed away in 1844.

The issue of the marriage of Henry and Re- becca Martin were: Elizabeth, who married James Hudson and died in Comanche county, Texas; Robert, a steamboat captain, who died in Marshall, Texas; Luann, of Marshall, wife of Judge Hendrick ; Joseph H., of this notice; Nan- cy J., whose first husband was Thomas Llewellyn and who is now the widow of John Robinson, re- sides in New Mexico. Henry Martin married a second wife, Mrs. Wortham, but no issue re- sulted.

Henry Martin was one of the characters of Texas. He may be called, with propriety, an original Texan, because he helped do the work which wrenched this great slice of Mexican terri- tory from the Montezumas and placed it under Anglo-Saxon dominion, establishing a new na- tion upon the earth. Sam Houston had an army of about seven hundred men at San Jacinto, and the winning of the fight made every man a hero. After that war Mr. Martin rejoined his family and located a part of his head-right in Harrison county and the remainder in Collin county, whither he subsequently removed. As a citizen he was a quiet farmer, with no political ambi- tion, yet voting with the Democrats when the state began practicing United States politics upon its admission into the Union. He settled in Wise county in 1854 and passed the remaining years of his life on his homestead near where Chico now stands. He died in 1872.

Joseph H. Martin was born in Barren county, Kentucky, January 1, 1828, and was an infant when his parents took up their journey toward the setting sun. He was eight years of age when they reached Texas and stopped in Harrison county. His education was of the "pickup" sort and when the admission of Texas brought on the war with Mexico he joined the First Texas regi- ment, in 1846, under Colonel Wood, and marched to the Rio Grande. His enlistment was for six months, and during that time he took part in the battle of Monterey and, when discharged, re- turned to his home in Harrison county. Having had a taste of adventure, he decided to seek his fortune in California and, accordingly, joined a

party bound there, in 1850, passing through Mex- ico and taking a sailing vessel at Mazatlan, on the Pacific coast, for San Francisco and going at once to the gold fields in the interior of the state. He began prospecting on his own account and had various degrees of success the few years he depended upon the pick and pan for his living, and the streaks of lean were often as wide and long as the streaks of fat. Eventually he drifted into freighting from Stockton up into the moun- tains, and this undertaking brought him good returns. In 1855 he returned home by the way of Aspinwall, on the Isthmus, and New Orleans and immediately came to Wise county.

Returning again to rural pursuits, Mr. Martin bought out his brother, who had a bunch of cat- tle under the brand "RM," and followed the cow business as his chief vocation until 1871, when he moved to Kansas and settled in the frontier coun- ty of Butler. He expected to find an ideal place there for his favorite vocation, but conditions were somewhat disappointing and in three years. he came back to Texas and took up farming where he had run cattle only a few years before. . Martin Prairie, named in honor of the family, is where he established himself, and there he still. owns nearly three hundred acres of valuable land. In 1900 he left the farm and removed his family to Chico in permanent retirement from exhaust- ing toil.

While Wise county was still a field for Indian attacks the Martins were exposed to the moon- light dangers from tomahawk and arrow and on one occasion the savages charged our subject's. house, but without fatalities or serious results. They lost horses, as the pioneers nearly all did, and a few cattle passed from them into the red man's hands.

In 1861, February 6, Mr. Martin married Eliza A. Earhart, a daughter of Joseph Earhart, origi- nally from Pennsylvania. Mr. Earhart married Mrs. Mary Penn, a daughter of William M. Quis- enberry, and was the father of Mrs. Martin, born in Franklin county, Arkansas, in 1843; Elifelet, of Lubbock county, Texas ; Mrs. Julia F. Hall- sell, of Decatur; William and Samuel Mc., who- died in Wise county with families; Joe Ellen, widow of Larkin P. Beavert, of Durant, Indian Territory ; Orby Earhart, of Lubbock county.

Mr. and Mrs. Martin's children are: Rev. William W., of Bowie, married Lizzie Jones and has children, Winnie L. and Gatha; Mary, wife of Ed Boone, of Blanket, Texas, is the younger.

Mr. Martin has the distinction of having erect- ed the first house on the Decatur townsite. He has served his county as one of its first commis-

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sioners and he has ever championed Democracy's cause. The family adhere to the Presbyterian faith and the son is an ordained minister of the denomination of Cumberlands, with Montague county as headquarters for his work.

HOUSTON E. DEAVER, of Memphis, Hall county, is a progressive and successful member of the bar at that place, and for a number of years has been ranked among the leaders in his profession in that locality. Mr. Deaver is a man of high attainments, personally and pro- fessionally, is liberally educated and has been an exponent of advance along all lines of mod- ern culture and civilization. He has had a suc- cessful business career, and is an influential and highly esteemed lawyer and citizen.

A native son of Texas, born in Grayson coun- ty in 1862, he was a son of John A. and Sarah (Hughes) Deaver, the former of whom came from his native state of Missouri to Texas when a boy, and was for a number of years a success- ful rancher in Grayson county, where he died in 1870. The mother, a native of Tennessee, is now living in Grayson county.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 32

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