A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 44

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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The Virginia Military Institute, at Lexington, graduated Adolphus W. Raht in 1874 and he at once took up the study of civil engineering in the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, at Troy, New York, completing his course and graduating in 1877. He took a position with the United States government survey on the Missouri River Com- mission and spent a year at this work. He then joined the engineering force of the B. and M. R. railway in Nebraska and spent five years with the company, chiefly engaged in the work of lo- cation. He took charge of a party and started from the Missouri river and "footed" it all the way to Denver. Much of his work was done on the main line of the road but side lines were run, the one from Lincoln to Billings, Montana, be- ing conspicuous among them.

The life of the chief of a surveying party is a strenuous and trying one. Carrying a transit day after day on preliminary and location work tries one's physical endurance and taxes it to its utmost limit and it is not surprising that, after five years of touring, on foot, a new country and weighted with responsible duties and encum- bered with the paraphernalia applicable to his po- sition, he should seek a less laborious and ex- hausting vocation.

Leaving the employ of the railroad company in 1883 Mr. Raht came to Texas and engaged in the cattle business, with headquarters at Gainesville. He pastured his stock about forty miles north of the latter place in the Chickasaw Nation and maintained his ranch there till some time in 1890, when he purchased a large portion of the old Red River Cattle Company's ranch, comprising ten thousand acres and extending al- most from his present headquarters ranch to the village of Shannon, and being divided into sev- eral pastures. He brought his entire cattle hold- ings to his new property and has carried on an extensive business here since. He has a thou- sand head of registered stock, Hereford variety, and is admirably situated for the successful car- rying-on of this attractive and remunerative in- dustry.

October 13, 1892, Mr. Raht married, in Fort Worth, Ella M. Smartt, formerly from McMinn- ville, Tennessee. Mr. and Mrs. Raht have an adopted son, Carl G., born September 15, 1882, and is connected with the shipping department of Swift and Company at North Fort Worth, Texas.

Mr. Raht's ranch is equipped with three ten- ant houses and a beautiful modern and commod- ious residence, good barns and with an orchard of many varieties of fruit. His headquarters is surrounded by a grove of native oak, is situ- ated on the apex of a low hill and the landscape is one exceedingly beautiful and attractive to be- hold.

CRAWFORD B. REEDER, lawyer at Am- arillo, has attained to a large degree of promi- nence and success in the central Panhandle coun- try during the two years of his legal practice there. His career is typical of that of so many men who win success through heavy odds and make their way to the goal of their ambitions by industrious striving with one set purpose con- stantly in view. Adherence to high ideals and diligence in all his endeavors are qualities which all who have ever known Mr. Reeder will glad- ly impute to him, and he has won and deserved all the success which has come to him.

Born in Lee county, Alabama, in 1867, he was a son of Mortimer and Lenora Elizabeth (Mc- Cutcheon) Reeder. His father, a native of Geor- gia but reared in Alabama, was a farmer and planter, and died at his home in Lee county in 1876. His paternal great-grandfather was a na- tive of Ireland, and his maternal great-grand- mother was born in Scotland. These ancestors settled in Virginia, and, of their descendants who migrated to other states as the country set- tled up, Mr. Reeder belongs to the branch that

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came to Georgia and later to Alabama. Mor- timer Reeder was a Confederate soldier in the Civil war, being one of six brothers to enlist in the cause, and the other five were all killed in the service. The mother, who was of Scotch ancestry, died in 1872.

Thus deprived, before he was ten years old, of both his parents, Crawford B. Reeder has been dependent on his own resources from an early age. At the age of fourteen coming out to Texas, he spent four years in working on a farm in Upshur county, in the lumber region of the state, and that he was thus early a faithful, conscientious employe, and appreciated accord- ingly, is evidenced by the fact that he received several dollars per month more than the custom- ary wages paid to farm hands at the time. His aspirations were above and beyond his immediate necessities and duties, and throughout that period of boyhood he was adding gradually to his some- what neglected primary education. It was his intention to prepare himself for teaching, which he would use as a stepping stone to the profes- sion of law, for which as an ultimate goal his ambitions had long been set. He taught school altogether for seven years, and his success and reputation as a teacher were such that he got better schools with increased salary at al- most each succeeding term, and his last school, in Smith county, paid him a salary of one hundred and forty-five dollars a month. Pre- vious to this his teaching had been in Upshur county, where he opened and taught the first ses- sion of the Shady Grove Academy. All this time he had been studying diligently, and in 1892 he graduated from Add-Ran College, at Thorp Spring, Texas.

During this time, also, Mr. Reeder had been hard at work studying law, both privately and in law offices, putting in about seven years alto- gether in legal studies. He decided to begin his practice at Granbury, the county seat of Hood county, and was admitted to the bar there on the third Monday of March, 1893. That summer he was candidate for county attorney of Hood county, but was defeated by eighteen votes. A second candidacy was successful and he served one term in that office. His practice, beginning in a very humble way, grew from year to year until, having achieved success in some important cases which involved large interests, his reputa- tion as an able lawyer was established and his permanent success at the bar assured. In 1895 he was joined by his brother, J. W. Reeder, the firm becoming Reeder & Reeder. This brother, who has since died, had worked with Mr. Reed- er as a student and teacher in Upshur county,

and was possessed of like ideals and ambitions to become an efficient and capable lawyer.

February I, 1903, Mr. Reeder located for prac- tice at Amarillo, having for a partner Mr. Hugh H. Cooper, also of Hood county. Mr. Cooper's father, Hon. N. L. Cooper, now deceased, was noted as one of the ablest criminal lawyers in the state of Texas. Since establishing themselves here the firm of Reeder & Cooper have built up a very large business, extending over the entire Panhandle and into New Mexico, and represent- ing clients with very important interests. They transacted business in 1904 to the net amount of twelve thousand dollars. The firm has been en- gaged in a number of noteworthy cases in this- part of the state. Their first cases were those involving the status of the local option laws, in which they were successful. They represented the successful litigants in the well known Moore county case involving the county judgeship of that county ; also the Hughes case in Potter coun- ty, over the deposing of Mr. J. E. Hughes from the office of sheriff.

Reeder & Cooper have a splendid law library, representing an expenditure of about six thou- sand dollars. Theirs is an actual working library, in use almost every day, comprising the works that are thoroughly up to date and including all the latest and best edited state and federal re- ports. Mr. Reeder has never ceased to be a thorough student, with an unusual knack of get- ting at the gist of the law. His clients are al- ways satisfied that he gives them his very best efforts, for he loves his profession for its own sake and from the start it has been his ambition to excel in it. System has always marked the conduct of their business, records and copies of every business and legal transaction being kept, so that the members of the firm at all times have everything under perfect control.

Mr. Reeder was married in June, 1893, at Big Spring, Howard county, this state, to Miss Gus- sie Brack, who was a graduate of Add-Ran Col- lege and had taught for several years music, art and literature.

LEWIS T. RICHARDSON. The advent of the subject of this biographical article to Jack county dates from February 27, 1877, at which time he stopped at Ranger Springs, where he held a bunch of cattle for S. J. Woodward, of Den- ton, Texas. The situation, as cowboy, which he held then marks the beginning of a life of activi- ty in Jack county which has resulted in placing its participant in a position of financial independ- ence when just past the meridian and in showing

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that persistent and intelligent effort is always properly rewarded.

From the youthful age of thirteen years Mr. Richardson has been a vigorous actor within his sphere on the soil of the Lone Star state. It was at this age that he made his first trip from home, accompanying Hill brothers to San An- tonio with twelve wagon loads of apples out of which he saw them make almost a small fortune. Returning, he drove beef cattle for a Mckinney butcher from Elm Flats, and when the family moved to Denton he was handy boy around his father's livery stable for a time. From this work he became a freighter, once accompanying his father with goods for the post at Fort Richard- son. Abandoning the business of hauling goods, he passed a period as deputy sheriff of Denton county and also tended bar for a saloon man in Denton. Arranging with Mr. Woodward to ac- company his cattle west he deserted his old haunts and started a new era for himself. He worked for this employer eleven years, invested his wages in cattle and in this way drifted into the cow business himself. When the open range disappeared he leased lands for his stock and finally bought land, also, and while he owns but twelve hundred acres he has seven thousand under lease and his "jug" brand marks the sev- eral hundred head of cattle in his herd.

Lewis Tilford Richardson was born at Cal- houn, Henry county, Missouri, February 29, 1856. His father, Amos Richardson, was born in Hardin county, Kentucky, about 1830 and moved out to Missouri with his father, Jesse Richardson, who passed away there as a farmer. Among the latter's large family were Lewis, Daniel and Amos, the last named passing away in Denton county in 1875.

Amos Richardson brought his family to Texas overland, passing down through a portion of the Indian Territory and reaching the Lone Star state in the year 1869. He devoted himself to trading and freighting in the early years and, as already intimated, kept a livery in Denton town. He married Melissa Jennings, a daugh- ter of Jesse Jennings, who moved from Tennes- see to Bates county, Missouri, very early and there died. Mrs. Richardson makes her home with our subject and was born in Tennessee, and came to Texas in 1869. Of her two children, Thomas died in 1875, and left one child, Jesse, now at Colorado City, Texas, and Lewis T. still remains.

A good education seemed to be beyond the reach of Lewis T. Richardson as a youth, and for more than a third of a century now he has been arrayed against idleness in the real battle

of life. For a short time he was associated with H. B. Bowen as a dealer in cattle, but for the most part, he has engineered his own success.

September 19, 1886, he married Betty Saffell, a daughter of Hale Saffell from Blount county, Tennessee, where Mrs. Richardson was born May 11, 1859. Guy, Grace, Alma, Dot and Wal- ter and Warren, twins, constitute their family of children and they are pupils in the Jacksboro schools.

Mr. Richardson has allied himself with pure Democracy in all political contests in which he has found an interest, but the success of his own interests overtower every other consideration and he has kept politics under a ban.

JOSHUA NOBLES. Among those toilers whose efforts have been directed for more than a quarter of a century toward the development in the rural confines of Wise county and whose substantial achievements are seen in the improve- ment of two separate farms, Joshua Nobles of the Lone Star community is conspicuously prom- inent, and as a citizen and a man do his traits of character commend him. Himself a product of the primitive school of experience of the days when "Webster's blue back" was the chief text- book, he is a link connecting the dark past with the brilliant present, a witness of the conditions that were in contrast with the things that are.

Mr. Nobles was born when the second Adams was president and when his native state of Ten- nessee was only about a third of a century old. His birth occurred in Williamson county, Octo- ber 20, 1827, and he grew up in the flax-straw- shirt and the homespun-trousers epoch, when "a pair of shoes a year was all a farmer boy got"; when the teachers in the log cabin schools called "horseback" "hors-e-back," "gnat" "g-nat," and "knot" "k-not," and ruled his pupils with the rod. His father being a mechanic, he learned to handle tools in the wagon shop before he went to the farm later on in life and put himself in possession of a trade.

He is descended from Colonial stock, North Carolina being the home of his patriotic ances- tors. His paternal grandfathers were Revolu- tionary soldiers and his father, John Nobles, was a soldier of the war of 1812 and a volunteer for the Mexican war. John Nobles was born in 1790, in the old Tarheel state, grew to manhood there and then migrated to Williamson county, Tennessee. There he married Elizabeth Rags- dale, a lady of North Carolina antecedents, who died about 1879. The issue of their union were: Eliza married John Carey and died in Tennes- see; Absolom left a family in Arkansas at his

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death; Nathaniel died in Pemiscott county, Mis- souri; Frank passed away in Tennessee; and Peggy married Richard Craddock and died in Hickman county, Kentucky; Joshua, our sub- ject; Prior died in Dunklin county Missouri; Mary A. married a Blackwell and died in Ten- nessee, and John lies buried in Wise county, Texas.

John Nobles acquired the trade of a wagon- maker in his native state and made it his liveli- hood during all his vigorous career. When in the army he was detailed to help build roads and to construct forts and although he was beyond the age of service, he enlisted as a volunteer for the war with Mexico, but was not called into the field. As a citizen he was most loyal and upright and entertained the highest opinions of Gen. Jackson under whom he served. He was a Democrat, of course, and entertained the right notions of piety, although he never united with the church until late in life. He preceded his wife to the grave some years, dying at the out- break of the Civil war, in 1861. He and Na- thaniel, his brother, constituted their parents' family, the latter rearing his family and passing away in the state of Tennessee.

May 14, 1848, Joshua Nobles married and set- tled on a farm at once. The California gold ex- citement took possession of him early but he was able to resist it until 1855, when he took a boat for San Francisco, crossed the isthmus and reached the Golden Gate without incident of note. He located in Siskiyou county where, the first eight months, he worked on a farm. He freighted for a time and then let out his team and himself opened a wagon-repair shop, at "Rough and Ready Mills." He remained in the "Golden state", two years and although his passage to and fro cost him $1,004.00, his trip was one of profit and he returned home much improved in purse. Upon his return home he engaged, for a time, in shipping produce from Hickman, Kentucky, down the river to New Orleans, and then took up farming, which he followed till the outbreak of the war. He then moved out to Dunklin county, Missouri, and while there the Confederate congress passed a law confiscating all land belonging to citizens of northern states and lying within the Confed- eracy and he returned to Tennessee to protect his rights.

During the war period Mr. Nobles was not molested by either side, remarkable as it now seems. If the North offended by declaring a state of war and followed its declaration up by sending troops into the South he "never got mad about it" and got down his "patchen" and pow-

der for a fight. He pursued the vocation of a civilian the whole period through and when the struggle was over he had not assailed the flag of his country nor made enemies of his van- quished friends.

Immediately following the war he engaged in the milling business in Gibson county, Tennes- see, and at Yorkville, he and postmaster Flowers, of Chico, were partners in a saw and grist-mill 'for some four years. Soon after closing out this venture he started on his journey to Texas. He came through Missouri and stopped two years in Dunklin county and then proceeded, by train, to Dallas and established himself in Cooke coun- ty. There he resumed farming and continued it until 1879, when he came over into the new country of Wise county and purchased a quar- ter section of land on the Robinson survey in the West Academy neighborhood of Sandy. He settled in the "woods,". cleared year after year until one hundred acres of the postoaks had dis- appeared and fields of grain and stalks of cot- ton were waving in their stead. His farm cost him two and one-half dollars per acre and he sold in ten years for fifteen dollars an acre and invested in three hundred acres of the Cofflin survey at five dollars. Thus he has opened up two new farms in the county and aided material- ly in the reduction of wild nature where now cluster thrifty and comfortable homes.

The first years of Mr. Nobles' experience in Wise county were years of disappointment and the $1,880.00 which he brought here with him had disappeared. He resorted to wood-hauling and other laborious but legitimate makeshifts to sustain himself and family while another sea- son was coming and still another crop was grow- ing, and recovered in time his lost prestige and his lost funds. At a former time, while in Ten- 'nessee, he met disaster from dealing in cotton and he was forced to literally take up log-rolling and other forms of amusement to win bread for his domestic wants. Although he was small of stature, no man could pull him down on a handspike and no husky and fleet-footed rurale could pass him in a race.

Mr. Nobles' first wife was Sarah J. Dickson, a daughter of David Dickson, of Yorkville, Ten- nessee. Mrs. Nobles was born in Gibson county, in 183I, and died in Wise county, Texas, in 1894. `The issue of their marriage were: David, who died by accident in 1893 and left a family ; Sarah, of Ocate, Oklahoma, wife of Robert Jackson; Mary, wife of Frank Wright, of Dunklin county, Missouri; Wesley, a successful farmer of Wise county ; Bailey, of Fredrick, Oklahoma; Eliza, who married Jim Kindrick, of Davidson, Okla-

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homa Territory; Nannie, who married John Denney, of Wise county; Ollie, wife of Alexan- der Lowrey, of Bridgeport. January 1, 1895, Mr. Nobles married Mattie, daughter of John Muse, formerly from Tennessee. Mrs. Nobles was born in Madrid county, Missouri, where her fa- ther lived. Her birth occurred October 21, 1860, and she is the mother of one surviving son, Zel- ma, born April 29, 1897.

In his political relations to his country Mr.' Nobles is a Democrat. His sentiments were union during the war, but the ancient traditions of the family dominated him and the principles of the "unwashed" have remained with him to the end. He has been a churchman since 1858 and worships and communes with those of the Missionary Baptist faith.

WILLIAM R. HOWARD, M. D. A physi- cian and surgeon of distinction at Fort Worth, where he has been engaged in successful practice nearly twenty years and, like the city which is his home, has in this time risen to foremost rank in northern Texas, Dr. W. R. Howard was born in Fulton county, Arkansas, September 13, 1848, being a son of Isaac and Esther (Hampton) Howard. The family is of old and distinguished . New England stock, going back in direct line to Isaac Howard who, as the first American rep- resentative of the name, left England and took up his residence on this side of the Atlantic dur- ing the colonial days. The progenitor settled in Rhode Island, and that famous little common- wealth has been the home of seven successive gen- erations of this family. There Dr. Howard's father was born and an uncle of the former was for fifty consecutive terms a member of the Rhode Island legislature, while in equally honorable ways other members of the family have pursued their different careers. Dr. Howard's mother, who was born in middle Tennessee, December 10, 1825, and, at the age of eighty years, is still liv- ing in Marionville, Missouri, is a member of the illustrious Hampton family, made so, among others, by Wade Hampton.

The family home being transferred to Ozark county, Missouri, when the son William was four years old, the latter lived there until he was about fifteen years old, and in the early years of the war accompanied his parents to Marshfield, in the same state. The schools which he had begun to attend during child- hood were practically suspended during the Civil conflict, and in order to continue his education from 1863 to 1865 he made his home with his grandparents at Foster, Rhode Island, where

he was a student in the public schools. At the close of the war he returned to Marshfield and completed his education in the schools of that place and at Springfield, Missouri. With broad literary knowledge to serve as the foundation upon which to rear the superstructure of profes- sional learning he entered upon the study of med- icine in St. Louis Medical College at St. Louis, Missouri, from which he was graduated in the class of 1873.

Beginning his active practice in Taney coun- ty, Missouri, where he remained until 1875, in the latter year he came to Texas and was en- gaged professionally in Hunt county until 1886, since which time he has been a permanent resi- dent of Fort Worth. Ranking among the first not alone as a practitioner, Dr. Howard is also well known to the profession in the state and city in connection with his biological investiga- tions. His years of research along such lines have brought to light much that is recognized as permanent contributions to scientific knowl- edge, and it is therefore in the realm of discovery as well as that of applied science that his life work will be held noteworthy. At his residence. 921 Cannon avenue, he has one of the most com- plete biological and bacteriological laboratories in the country. That his work in this department of science is regarded highly is evident from the fact that he is the present incumbent of the chair of histology, pathology and bacteriology in the medical department of Fort Worth University, and has been a prominent factor in advancing that institution to its present high standard of efficiency. He is also the author of a number of treatises on biographical and bacteriological subjects. As a scientist he has gained a wide reputation, while his large general practice indi- cates his professional standing.

Fraternally the Doctor is a Mason. His chief relationship, however, is with the societies for the dissemination of knowledge in the line of his profession and for scientific research, belonging to the county, state and North Texas medical associations, to the American Microscopical So- ciety, and is a fellow of the Texas Academy of Science.

Dr. Howard was married in 1873 to Miss Sa- rah M. Hensley, and they had three children, Isaac, Mrs. Abby Logan and William R., Jr .; the latter died at the age of three and one-half years. Mrs. Howard died in 1882, and the Doc- tor subsequently married Mrs. Hetty A. Wilson, nee Farmer, who is still living. No children have blessed the union.

UmRHoward

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

J. LEN JACKSON is one of the best known business men of North Texas, especially in and about Wichita Falls, where he at present has his residence and his principal interests. He is a fine type of the young and successful man of affairs, and when he and his brother located in this city some dozen years ago they had only a most modest amount of capital. Their enter- prises developed at a most remarkable rate, and this part of the country has received a great impetus from their efforts. Mr. Jackson now con- fines his attentions mainly to oil well operating and similar capitalistic ventures, and his energy and enterprise have been demonstrated effective- ly many times in the past few years.

Mr. Jackson is a native son of this state, and his mother, who is still living, was also born and reared in the state of Texas. He was born in Dallas county in 1868, being a son of Frank and Lizzie (Hunter) Jackson. His father was born in Devonshire, England, at Barnes Farm, where was the ancestral home for several generations back. In 1848 he accompanied the entire family on their migration to the United States, and with his brother George Jackson settled at what was known as Peters' Colony in the northern part of Dallas county, Texas. The father still lives on the same place where he settled so many years ago, only a short time after the Lone Star state was admitted to the Union. The family were among the first settlers in Dallas county, and at that time the country was entirely new and unsettled. There were just two stores in what is now the metropolitan city of Dallas, and from this may be seen how long and close has been the identification of the Jackson name with northern Texas. Frank Jackson has successful- ly followed farming all his life, and is a prom- inent citizen of Dallas county. He and his wife are both living, and they were married after he came to Texas.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 44

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