A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 47

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 47

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NATHANIEL BRUMBELOW. Among the pioneers of Jack county who planted the seed of civilization there before the war was Archibald Brumbelow, father of the subject of this bio- graphical review. In 1859 he established himself upon a pre-emption in Sand valley toward the north side of the county and prepared to build him a rural home. Save for the incursions of the hostile "brave" he was in undisturbed pos- session of the locality for miles around, but en- couraged to further pillage by the conditions of civil strife the red man's acts came nearer and nearer, until their bloody results seemed to touch the threshold of this Sand valley cabin door, and its occupants in 1861 fled to Lost creek, tem- porarily under the protection of the Jacksboro settlement. In 1863 it placed greater distance between it and danger by removal to Grayson county, and still later it found itself in another state and a fixture in Madison county, Arkansas.

While these events were transpiring with the parents and the younger children there was one member of the family in particular who witnessed nothing of this domestic wandering. It was Nathan, the oldest son and the subject of our sketch. He responded to the call for Confeder- ate troops in April, 1861, and joined Company H,

Colonel Moxey's Ninth Texas Infantry, in Kirby Smith's command. From the battle of Iuka the regiment followed that fighting commander through till the close of the war. Although the regiment was frequently recruited its organiza- tion or regimental number was never changed. In all the numerous and bloody battles from 1861 to 1865 in which Mr. Brumbelow participated he was not privileged to pass unscathed, but at Mur- freesboro a fragment of a shell hit him in the left shoulder ; at Lookout Mountain a spent ball found his breast; and at Jackson, Mississippi, he re- ceived a gunshot wound in the leg. He was off duty only when wounded, and when the Confed- eracy broke up he was serving in Johnston's army and was gathered in by a portion of Sher- man's command. He immediately set out for Texas and reached Jacksboro May 5, 1865,

Nathaniel Brumbelow was born in Robinson county, Tennessee, June 24, 1841, in the same county in which his father was born about twen- ty-six years before. Lewis Brumbelow, the founder of the family and the grandfather of our subject, was brought into that locality an orphan boy from Ohio. The story goes that he, with his brothers Isaac and William, were orphaned early in life and one of them, thinking that the name had been corrupted from "Brumley" to "Brum- below," changed his name back and his posteri- ty is, therefore, known by the latter name. Lewis Brumbelow reared a family of ten children and died in Robinson county, where his life achieve- ments had been won.

Archibald Brumbelow married Susan Neeley, an orphan girl and an only child. Some time subsequent to the death of her husband she re- turned to Texas and passed her last years in Jack county, dying at the home of her son in 1881 at fifty-seven years of age. To be accurate, it was in 1873 that she returned to her home in Jack, two years after her husband's death. At the time of his demise Archibald Brumbelow was fifty- seven years old and the issue of his marriage had been: Nathaniel ; Evaline, who married Reu- ben Hendrick and died in Denison, Texas; Mary E., who married Frank Hammond and died near Durant, Indian Territory, in 1900; Caddo, wife of Nat Carvey, of Colorado; Cynthia, who mar- ried Robert Craig, of Durant, Indian Territory ; Sophronia, who married Robert Hefton, of Pueb- lo, Colorado, first, but is now the wife of Nolly Bell.

Practically without educational opportunities did Nathaniel Brumbelow reach his majority. The family left Tennessee in 1852, and drove through to Texas by stages and degrees. They stopped two years in Hot Spring county and one

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year in Sevier county, Arkansas. Lamar county, Texas, held them two years and Montague one year. When Jack county received our subject he was a youth of eighteen, just ripe for cowboy experiences which he soon acquired. He went from the back of a "bronk" on the cow chase into the army, and when he returned to civil pur- suits he sought employment again on the range. He hired to Charley Adair first and then em- ployed with Jim Lindsay, remaining with him four years at one hundred dollars a month, "when twenty dollars would have profited hin just as much." He next hired to John Lindsay and got fifty dollars a month for a year and then to Markley and Boaz a year at the same wages. Having saved a few dollars he bought a farm on North creek and lost it, after four years' work, on account of a bad title. Then it was he came to the nucleus of his present farm, with a small house and twelve acres cleared, and began the career which has terminated with such favorable advantage to him and his. On New Year's Day, 1880, he took possession of the farm, in debt, with a small force and weak in the paraphernalia of the farm. He grubbed and sprouted and cleared two hundred and forty acres of the seven hun- dred and thirty which he now owns and has al- ways had a bunch of cattle to do their part in making the ladder's ascent.

December 24, 1865, Mr. Brumbelow married in Jacksboro Miss Mary, a daughter of Thomas Edwards. Mrs. Brumbelow was born in Illi- nois, and when small she came to Hopkins coun- ty, Texas. In 1860 the family came out to Jack county. Her father died and her mother, Mrs. Fox, lives in Motley county, Texas, near her son Tom. William Lewis Brumbelow is the result of the marriage of Nathan and Mary Brumbelow and he, with his family, still occupies the parental home. He was born in 1870 and married Alice Helton, who came to Texas from Shelby county, Tennessee. The issue of their union are: Adda, Lena, Urel and Linnic.

Nathan Brumbelow has ever aided in local political battles, and when there was something doing he has always been around. He has ex- perienced the need of education in his own case and has ever given a warm hand to the question when confronted with it in his own home.

JOHN F. LEHANE, general freight and pas- senger agent for the Cotton Belt Railway, with headquarters at Fort Worth, was born in county Kildare, Ireland, August 15, 1858, his parents being Jeremiah and Margaret (Casey) Lehane. The father was born and died in Ireland, and

the mother is still living there, at the old home in Mallow, county Cork.

John F. Lehane was accorded good educational advantages, completing his studies at Victoria College, at St. Helier, on the island of Jersey. When twenty-one years of age, attracted by the broader business possibilities and opportunities of the new world, he crossed the Atlantic to the United States and located at Fort Worth, Texas, where he lived with his cousin, Martin Casey, who for many years has been a prominent busi- ness man of this city. Mr. Lehane became con- nected with the railroad business in a humble capacity as an employe in the local freight office of the Santa Fe system. His close application and adaptability, however, was soon recognized and he was rapidly promoted, becoming chief clerk in the joint office of three of the railways entering Fort Worth. Subsequently he was ap- pointed auditor of the Fort Worth & New Or- leans Railway, which had been built by Fort Worth enterprise and owned and controlled for- ty-two miles of road extending from Fort Worth to Waxahachie. This line was subsequently pur- chased by the Huntington interests and is now a part of the Houston & Texas Central Railway systems. At a later date Mr. Lehane became connected with Messrs. Jones & Carey as their chief bookkeeper and paymaster in the construc- tion of the Fort Worth & Denver Railway from Fort Worth through northwestern Texas. When this line was completed the construction company appointed him as terminal agent to open up and establish the stations on the line north of Quanah up to and including Folsom, New Mexico, where connection was made with the northern part of the road which had been built southward from Denver. After this line was put in operation and the stations established Mr. Lehane was assigned to a position in the office of Auditor Ross of the railway company at Fort Worth and he occupied every position in that office including traveling auditor and chief clerk.

In the year 1892, however, he resigned and went abroad to Ireland to visit his parents. On returning to Texas he left Fort Worth temporari- ly and located at Mrs. Lehane's home, Houston, where in one of the railway offices of that city he worked himself up from night bill clerk to the cashier's office in about sixty days. In a few months the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway was completed to Houston and Mr. Lehane was offered and accepted the position of chief clerk with that line. He was then offered the position of freight and ticket agent on the Cotton Belt Railway, at Corsicana, and being anxious to re-

JOHN F. LEHANE

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

turn to northern Texas he accepted that place and has since been with the Cotton Belt Company. After about two and a half years he was trans- ferred to Fort Worth as commercial agent and in November, 1900, he was made general passenger agent of the St. Louis Southwestern Railway of Texas (Cotton Belt). In April, 1901, he was ap- pointed general freight agent of this road, and on January 7, 1903, he was made general freight and passenger agent of the Texas system of the Cotton Belt, which position he now holds. His official headquarters are at Tyler but he con- tinues to reside at Fort Worth. The promo- tions and advancements that have come to Mr. Lehane have been richly deserved as he has given his best efforts for the development of the rail- way interests and is a thorough railroad man of great energy, ability and executive force. He is very popular with the officials of the road and the employes with whom he has been brought in contact and in his home he has many valuable gifts that have been presented to him by employes and others who have rejoiced in his success.

Mr. Lehane was married in Houston, Texas, to Miss Katie Mullane, a well known and popu- lar young lady of that city. They have had six children but have lost three, those still living being John F., Katharine and Josephine. The parents are communicants of the Catholic church and Mr. Lehane has fraternal relations with the Knights of Columbus, Elks, the Woodmen of the World, the Eagles and the Red Men. In March, 1905, he was appointed commissioner of railways in the United States in the Elks army.

Mr. Lehane has always been interested to a greater or less extent in politics and in his early. days in Fort Worth he served for some time as secretary of the Democratic executive commit- tee. On again returning to make his home here he again became actively interested in civic af- fairs and early in 1900 was solicited by a commit- tee of business men to become a candidate for alderman from the fourth ward. Accepting the nomination he made a strong canvass and was elected, the business men referred to bearing the expense of the campaign, for it was their object to secure good men for office who would look after the city's affairs and conduct municipal interests along practical business lines. After his election to the council he was made chairman of the waterworks committee and of the pur- chasing committee and he also became a member of the finance and several other important com- mittees. He took an active part in the discus- sion and preliminaries leading up to the establish- ment of the present system of waterworks and

in fact has constantly interested himself in that greatest of all modern municipal problems-the water supply. He has likewise devoted a great deal of his time and attention to the successful operation and working of the municipal electric light plant, but perhaps his most beneficial labor for the city has been his management of the purchasing of supplies for all departments. His business training in the railroad service, con- ducted as it is along systematic and businesslike principles with due attention to economy, makes him eminently equal for this branch of the city's service. It has been his constant policy to place all of the city's purchasing on a competitive basis and get the fullest value for every expenditure. Since his election to the council he has been presi- dent of that body and mayor pro tem, and he seeks not only to look after the interests of his own ward but of the city at large and is a very valued member of the council, his services being greatly appreciated by his fellow townsmen.

DR. H. F. WILTON, who is engaged in the practice of medicine and surgery in Nocona, was born in Lamar county, Texas, August 29, 1857, his parents being Henry H. and Martha (Fullin- gim) Wilton. The father, a native of Tennessee, came to Texas when a boy, casting in his lot with the pioneer settlers who arrived in this state in the early forties. He became a millwright by trade and followed that pursuit for some years. He was married in Lamar county to Miss Martha Fullingim, a native of Alabama and a daughter of the Reverend Fullingim, a minister of the Meth- odist Episcopal church, South, who removed from Alabama to Lamar county, Texas. Following their marriage Mr. and Mrs. Wilton settled in that county, where he owned and operated a mill. Later, however, he sold his property there and went to the Choctaw Nation, where he built two mills. He afterward returned to Wise county, Texas, where he pre-empted land and improved a farm, building a house there for his family and following the carpenter's trade in connection with general agricultural pursuits. In 1861 he enlisted in the Confederate service and rendered valuable aid to the cause of the southland. At Ar- kansas Post he was capturedand was sent to Camp Douglas, Chicago, where he was held as a pris- oner of war until his death, which occurred ere hostilities between the north and the south had ceased. He was a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal church, South, and was an honorable, upright man, always loyal to his con- victions. His wife still survives him and yet resides near Decatur, Wise county. She was one of a large family of thirteen children, the others

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being: William and Fletcher, who follow farm- ing ; Peyton, a resident of California ; Mrs. Mary Hale; Ed, a minister of the Methodist Episcopal church, South; Archie, a stock farmer; Mrs. Frances Akin, Mrs. Antoinette Stewart, Mrs. Janet Watson, Mrs. Raymon Renner, Mrs. Cor- nelia Starks, and J. P., a farmer. Unto Mr. and Mrs. Henry Wilton were born two sons and a daughter: H. F., of this review; George C., a practicing physician of Ryan, Indian Territory, and Mrs. Jessie Wade.

Dr. Wilton, whose name introduces this rec- ord, was educated in the common schools and in Decatur High School and afterward successfully engaged in teaching. He was reared, however, to the cattle business, and he remained under the parental roof with his mother until twenty-five years of age, being largely engaged in herding cattle on the free range. His mother owned the stock, and after she sold out he was employed by others. Dr. Wilton thus spent his time until twen- ty-five years of age, when he began reading medi- cine and has continued an active member of the profession up to the present time. His first pre- ceptor was Dr. J. W. Cartwright of Decatur, who directed his reading for more than a year. In 1883 he spent two terms in the Missouri Medi- cal College at St. Louis and was afterward grad- uated from that institution in the spring of 1885. He then entered upon practice at Greenwood, Wise county, where he remained until the fall of 1885, when he located at Spanish Fort, Montague county, where he remained until 1894. He then came to Nocona, where he has since resided. In 1892 and 1803 he pursued post-graduate courses of study in St. Louis; in 1897 and 1899 in Chi- cago, and in 1901 in New York. He has given his undivided attention to his profession since he entered upon the study of medicine and he justly merits the confidence that is accorded him and the liberal patronage which he receives from a large district. He has a well equipped office, supplied with modern appliances necessary in the practice of medicine and surgery, and he is thoroughly conversant with the most advanced ideas of his calling. While at Spanish Fort he purchased four hundred acres of land, which he yet owns, and he also has a commodious and attractive resi- dence in Nocona.

Dr. Wilton was married in 1886 to Miss Hattie A. Hardesty, who was born in Denton county, Texas, in November, 1862, and is a lady of cul- ture and intelligence. Her parents were Henry and Tiney ( Harper) Hardesty, the latter a native of Illinois. Her father was a carpenter by trade and lived the life of a plain mechanic, respected by all with whom he came in contact. He held

membership in the Christian church and his life was in harmony with his professions. In his family were a daughter and son: Hattie A., who became Mrs. Wilton, and Thomas, a farmer. Dr. and Mrs. Wilton had one son, Walton E., who was born November II, 1886, and is now at- tending school at Fort Worth, Texas. The wife and mother died July 9, 1904. She was a devoted Christian woman, holding membership in the Christian church, and her loss was deeply re- gretted by her many friends as well as her im- mediate family. She held membership in the Eastern Star, to which Dr. Wilton also belongs. He is an exemplary member of Nocona Lodge, No. 753, A. F. & A. M., and he likewise belongs to the Woodmen of the World, while his religious faith is indicated by his membership in the Meth- odist Episcopal church, South. He has deep in- terest in the welfare of his fellow men and prac- tices his profession along modern scientific lines, his labors being of direct benefit to many who have sought his professional service.

THOMAS J. McNEELY. His residence of a quarter of a century in Wise county has not only been a prosperous era for the subject of this review, but it has been an added increment of prosperity to the county, for his years have been full of industry in the building up of a com- fortable and extensive home. Limited as to means, like most of the neighbor-settlers of his day, and embarrassed by hardships at the very beginning of his career he hung tenaciously to his purpose and in the end has achieved that reward which always comes to those who labor and wait.

Mr. McNeely came to Wise county from Ellis county, where he attained his majority and mar- ried, his father having brought the family there in 1874 from Giles county, Tennessee. Two miles south of Waxahachie the parents located and farmed as tenants until their removal to the Sandy country of Wise, when they bought a tract of seventy acres of new land and went en- thusiastically to work to make them a home. In this county they continued to live, enjoying a reasonable degree of prosperity and maintaining themselves in the confidence of the public as al! sincere citizens do. The father died in 1899 and the mother still survives at the age of seventy- nine, passing her last years amid the scenes of her active and more vigorous life. James H. McNeely, our subject's father, was born in North Carolina in 1822 and prior to his marriage ac- companied his father's family into Tennessee. John H. McNeely was his father ; a man of la- bor, without education, and half Irish from birth. The latter passed much of his life employed on

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

public work for wages by the day and remained poor to the last. A large family of children was brought up in his household and they learned early the necessity of shifting for themselves. He passed his last years among his children, and died about 1878 at past eighty years of age. For- tune seems not to have smiled lavishly upon James H. McNeely while he lived. He provided for his family comfortably and gave them fair opportunities while yet under age, yet he could not educate them liberally for lack of the advan- tages so easily accessible to the youth of the pres- ent day. He refrained from enlisting in the Con- federate army because of his attachment to the Union, and while he was served with a conscript and unwillingly started to report for duty, cir- cumstances enabled him to evade the force of the order and thus avoid the service. He took no active part in politics after he came to Texas and the only office he ever filled was that imposed upon him in Tennessee by the Democrats of his voting precinct. In 1840 he married Margaret, a daughter of George W. Davidson and native to the State of Virginia. In the Old Dominion Mrs. McNeeley was born in 1826, and those of her children who married and reared families were: David, who died near Alvord in 1897, left a fam- ily of seven or eight children; Sarah E., widow of F. M. Pitman, of Wise county; William A., of the Chickasaw Nation, and Thomas J., of this notice.

While securing his limited education Thomas J. McNeely made the acquaintance of the old-time slab bench and came into contact with other crude paraphernalia used in training the youthful body and mind. The lard oil lamp served him in the chimney corner at home while poring over lessons that he was likely to be deprived of in school and in this way he laid a foundation which helped him much all through life. He remained in the parental home until twenty-three years old, when he married and took up the battle for two. His birth occurred on the 13th of October, 1857, and his wedding on the 2d of December, 1880, and the little money he had when he came to Wise county only paid for his seventy acres of land. He owned a team when he began life here and it served as a lever to remove all obstacles to his regular advance movement from the first. He moved his family into a little cabin already on his farm and soon began hauling cottonwood logs to the Chico mill to build two box houses, giving half of his logs to have them sawed into lumber. When he raised only three bales of cotton and half enough corn to feed him through in 1881 he supplied the deficiency by working on the Denver Railroad dump, then building, with his

team. In time he got his affairs straightened out and his labors on the farm brought him regular and satisfactory results. Instead of seventy acres he owns more than four hundred acres of land in the fertile region between Chico and Alvord and two hundred and seventy acres of this yields his exchequer every year. In 1904 he removed to Chico to be near a good school for his growing family, that they may not suffer as he has the lack of that knowledge necessary to compete success- fully with their fellow men in the world of trade.

Mr. McNeely married Sarah A., a daughter of C. H. Kytle, formerly from the state of Georgia, where Mrs. McNeely was born January 16, 1860. The issue of this union has been: Ida May, wife of R. L. Denney, with children, Lora, Austin and Wren ; Lula, James A., William Oscar, Jesse and Francis M. complete the list. Mr. McNeely has not followed up enthusiastically the politics of his county, although he belongs to the dominant party. Until 1890 he was not a religious man, but at that time was converted, joined the Missionary Baptist church, and since 1895 has been preach- ing under the regular ordinance of the church.

MARCUS D. CANSLER. One whose efforts have counted in the direction of substantial re- sults and whose residence in Wise county spans an era of thirty years is Marcus D. Cansler, the leading merchant of Paradise and the gentleman named as the subject of this sketch. Aside from Wise county, Wood, Smith and Hill counties have known him as a citizen, and while briefly sojourning in the latter the field of agriculture felt his influence in a modest way, as it did the first ten years he passed in Wise.

Rusk county, Texas, received Daniel Cansler, our subject's father, as a settler about the year 1847, and on the 4th of April two years later the latter was born. The father migrated from Lin- coln county to Rusk county, Texas, where he was born in 1817, and where he married Sarah Smith. He was of German lineage, brought his family to the Lone Star state overland in the primitive way and confined his labors to the farm. He died in Smith county in 1860, and was the father of ten children. The Smiths, into which family Daniel Cansler married, were prominently represented in Eastern Texas during the early years of her history in the person of Colonel Bob Smith, an Indian fighter of the old regime and later Rusk county's efficient sheriff and popular citizen. Sarah, his sister, was no doubt the invis- ible but propelling force which brought her hus- band west and made him a settler of Rusk coun- tv, where she passed away in 1855 or 1856. Their children were: Margaret, wife

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of William Stone, of Rusk county; Rhoda, of Ellis county, wife of Philip Staiger, but who first married John Benson; Ann, who first mar- ried Archie Ramsaur and then Tom McNealy and died in Smith county ; Elmina, of Rusk coun- ty ; George, of Geer county, Oklahoma; Robert, who died in Montague county; Frances, wife of Egbert Harbuck, of Wood county; Marcus D., of Paradise; Sarah, who married John Mot- zinger, of Wise county, and Joseph, who also re- sides in Wise.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 47

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