A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 51

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 51

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Mr. Howell was married near Arlington in June, 1893, to Miss Mattie A. Brandon, who died at her home in North Fort Worth, March 11, 1905. His niece, Miss Fannie Howell, now resides with him. Mr. Howell is a member of the Knights of Pythias fraternity and the Woodmen of the World and is a gentleman who enjoys in high measure the good will and respect of those with whom he has been as- sociated. He is proving a most loyal and ef- ficient officer, his record as city marshal being most creditable.

JOHN A. RICH, of Spanish Fort, Texas, is one of the prominent early settlers of Montague county. It was, however, in Grayson county, this state, that he was born, February 8, 1855, son of John and Sarah (Stiles) Rich, both na- tives of North Carolina, where they were mar- ried. John Rich was the eldest of a family of four children, the others being Sarah, Martha and Mary, and was reared by deeply pious par- ents of Methodist and Baptist faith. After the death of his father, which occurred before John was quite grown, he remained with his mother, assisting her in the management of the farm and in bringing up the younger children. When he was twenty-seven he married, and the next year, 1851, he and his mother sold the farm and he came to Texas, his mother joining him here the following year. He took a homestead of 320 acres in Grayson county, which he improved and where he carried on general farming and stock- raising until 1872. That year he sold out and moved to Montague county, at the same time his mother and some of the children moving to Victoria county in the southern part of the state, where she subsequently died. John Rich located

RICHARD D. HOWELL

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

at the old Spanish fort. Here he bought five hundred acres of land, soon afterward platted a town and named it Burlington, the name later be- ing changed to Spanish Fort in commemoration of the old fort and the massacre of the Spaniards by the Indians. He also improved a farm, and during his residence there was well known as a prosperous and highly respected citizen with a character above reproach. He was of a retiring disposition and never aspired to public life, but he was a stanch Democrat, true to the South, and during the war served two years in Colonel Bourland's regiment, with headquarters at Gainesville, their duty being to protect the fron- tier against depredations by the Indians. It was at that time that he first visited the locality in which he afterward made his home. His widow survived him until 1902. She was a daughter of the Rev. Stiles, an old time Methodist minis- ter of North Carolina, who late in life came to Texas, where both he and his wife died. Their children were John, Charles, Benjamin, Humph- rey and Sarah. John and Sarah (Stiles) Rich were the parents of three children: Benjamin. F., who resides near Spanish Fort; Nancy J., now Mrs. Fowler; and John A., whose name introduces this sketch.

John A. and his brother helped to improve the homestead farm, and carried on agricultural pursuits here until 1879, when he went to the Indian Territory and leased a tract of land on which he raised cattle and hogs and did some farming. He also owned a half interest in a cotton gin and mill. He made several moves and after an absence of a few years returned to the old home and took care of his mother in her old age, and here he has since remained, having some years ago bought his brother's in- terest in the place. He now owns three hundred acres of fine valley land, nearly all under culti- vation, and raises a variety of crops. At one time, in connection with his farming, he was en- gaged in the manufacture of brick. Rocked in a Democratic cradle, he has never departed from the political faith instilled into him in his youth. While he has never sought official hon- ors or public place, he has been a public-spirited man, giving his influence for the uplifting and betterment of mankind. He is a member of the world-wide church-the Church of God.

Mr. Rich married, in 1877, Miss Sarah An- derson, a daughter of one of the pioneer farm- ers of Montague county. Her parents moved to the Indian Territory, where both died. Mrs. Sarah Rich died in 1887, leaving four children: Walter, John, Hiram and Nora, the latter now Mrs. E. Brown. In 1889 Mr. Rich married a

Mrs. Anderson, nee Caufman, a native of Ar- kansas.

JUDGE JESSE C. BURCH, ex-county judge of Hale county and at present a retired resident of Plainview, has the distinction of having been a pioneer in three Texas counties, namely, Ellis, Taylor and Hale, and in each one has been a prominent factor in its initial development and upbuilding. A man now past the seventieth mile- stone of life, he has had a varied and interesting career, and has won esteem and high regard through his life of industry and sterling integ- rity.

Born in Caddo parish, Louisiana, in 1833, he was a son of Rev. Jesse Burch, who was a na- tive of Georgia but for a long number of years lived in Caddo parish, Louisiana, where he was a successful cotton planter. He was also a local preacher of the Methodist church South, and for years was one of the old-time exhorters and preachers in northwest Louisiana. His death occurred in 1856, and the Judge's mother died during the course of the war.

Judge Burch was reared on his father's plan- tation. He received a good part of his education in the well known school of Professor John W. Mckenzie, a noted educator of that period, his school being located near Clarksville, in Red River county, Texas, whither young Burch went from his home in Louisiana in order to attend school. On coming out of school he remained on the plantation for some years, and in 1860 became one of the early settlers of Ellis county, Texas, where he located on a farm. From here he enlisted, in April, 1861, in Company C, Colonel Bufford's regiment, General Parson's brigade of cavalry, and was a cavalryman throughout the war, being in the Trans-Mississippi Department. He saw his first service in northern Arkansas, whence the regiment went with General Marma- duke on the raid into Missouri, penetrating into that state as far as Cape Girardeau. He partici- pated in many perilous and adventurous scouting expeditions in Missouri and Arkansas. In the latter part of the war the regiment came down into Louisiana and assisted in repelling the Banks expedition at Mansfield, and thence fol- lowed the federal army down the Red river, his last engagement being the battle of Yellow Bayou.

On coming out of the army in 1865, he re- turned to Ellis county and resumed farming, his farm of five hundred acres becoming one of the best conducted and most profitable places in the county. He continued his residence in Ellis county until 1879, when he moved to Taylor

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

county, that being then in a pioneer country and just opening up to settlement. After living there for eight years, in the fall of 1887 he came to Hale county, which was not organized until the following year, and he has been identified close- ly with the material progress and social and civic development of this section of the state ever since. He took up land three miles north- east of where Plainview is now situated, and later his sons joined him in the cattle ranching business. They owned four hundred acres, with additional pasturage leased for their cattle so that they had a thousand acres inclosed with fence. Judge Burch sold out his ranch inter- ests in 1903, and is now living retired from ac- tive affairs.

In the fall of 1888, at the first regular election after the county was organized, he was elected to the office of county judge, which indicates the esteem and confidence in which he was held by his fellow citizens. He served for two terms or four years, during which he made a most excellent record in administering the generous load of duties which fall to the lot of such an official in a newly organized county. Judge Burch is a member of the Methodist church.

Judge Burch was married in Caddo parish, Louisiana, to Miss Maria T. McClellan. She was a native of Tennessee, educated at Lebanon. that state, and died at Plainview in 1894. There were six children by this marriage, namely : Robert E., who has been sheriff of Hale county since 1896; Mrs. Sudie Red; Hugh M .; Mrs. Hettie Johnston; Mrs. Ione Morrison, and Jesse I. Burch.

JAMES KNOX THOMAS. In this article we pass in review as its subject the career of one whose life has been a busy and eventful one and whose efforts have contributed not only toward his own substantial welfare but toward the ma- terial prosperity of the county in which he re- sides. His unflagging industry, his well-known integrity and the elements of an upright life have conspired to commend him to the confidence of his fellow citizens, and their suffrages have honored him with public office and have given them an efficient 'servant. Montague county has numbered James Knox Thomas among her citizenship since 1878 and the state since three years before. He came to Dallas by rail from his Alabama home and divided his small and al- most exhausted means with a gentleman to haul him to Cleburne, and he sat down on a farm eight miles north of that town about as near financial ruin as a man with a family ever gets. He did some hard skirmishing those three years

and when he moved into Montague he brought his own team of mules and wagon, four cows and calves and began his career here with ten shoats and their mother as well. A quarter sec- tion of Hill county school land was contracted for on the usual payment plan and, with farm- ing, he paid it out. Until he could erect his log cabin he housed his family in his wagon box and many other primitive makeshifts were resorted to while he was getting a good hold on things out in the postoaks near Bowie.

Mr. Thomas was born in Monroe county, Georgia, October 14, 1844. His father, John J. Thomas, was born in Baldwin county, that state, in 1812, passed his life as a physician, but owned farming interests also. As a young man Dr. Thomas came to Texas on a mule, reaching here the year Texas veterans were fighting for independence. He was stopping at San An- tonio the greater portion of the four years he spent in the republic, but he returned to Georgia in 1840 and soon married Mary, a daughter of a farmer, John Wooten. Mr. Wooten was a sol- dier in the war of 1812 and helped General Jack- son whip the British at New Orleans. He was born in Jones county, Georgia, and died about 1871 at one hundred and four years of age. Dr. Thomas practiced his profession in his native state many years, and in 1876 came to Texas and died at his son's in February, 1902, while his widow survived until early in 1905.

John J. Thomas was a son of Spencer Thomas, born in North Carolina of Irish parents, who settled there during Colonial days. Spencer Thomas married Fannie Hendrix, of Kentucky, and reared the following family: Seaburn, Lucy, wife of F. J. Harrison ; Dr. John J .; Fan- nie, wife of Covington Dumos; Spencer, and Georgiann, who married a Mr. Beck, of De- Soto parish, Louisiana. John J. Thomas was a Federal soldier in the war with Mexico in 1846, and while he was friendly to his favorite Southland at the outbreak of the rebellion he opposed his son's enlistment until he should reach the proper age, as provided by the con- gress of the seceded states. He was a Demo- crat and took a lively interest in public events until late in life. In religious matters he believed in the doctrines of the Missionary Baptist church. .His children were: James Knox, our subject ; Moston, of Covington county, Alabama; Lottie, who married W. W. Faucett, of Nacogdoches county, Texas; Mary Ella, widow of Robert Howard, of Montague county ; Fannie, wife of J. N. Garrett, of Montague county, and Sea- burn Thomas, also of Montague county.

The boyhood and early youth of James Knox

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Thomas were passed on the farm and in his father's saw-mill in Georgia. His school days were comparatively few and his education, there- fore, rather limited. Desiring to enter the Con- federate service early and being opposed by his father, he ran away from home and enlisted in Company H, Fifty-fifth Georgia, Captain Al- len and Colonel Harkey. Until ordered into the field the company rendezvoused at Calhoun, Georgia, and was placed at first under General Bragg in the Tennessee army, Kirby Smith's . Division, and later in Buckner's Division of John- ston's army. Mr. Thomas was in battle at Bridgeport, Alabama, Somerset and Richmond, Kentucky, and at Perryville, Kentucky. He was in the Knoxville mixup and was taken prisoner at Cumberland Gap. He was held in Camp Douglas, Chicago, until December 26, 1864, when with three others, he placed a ladder on the wall and made his escape. They remained in the city as guests at the Sherman House that night and took the train the next morning for Detroit .. There they crossed into Canada where they met emissaries of the Confederate government who supplied them with funds to continue their jour- ney. They went to St. John, New Brunswick, and to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where they took a brig bound for the Bermuda Islands. They went next to Nassau, Bahama Islands, and on to Ha- vana, Cuba. At Havana they took the "Fox," a blockade-runner, for Galveston and there Thomas and Hoke Williams started on their foot-journey to Navasota and Shreveport, down Red river to Alexandria and, on foot, to the boat landing below Rodney, on the Mississippi river. There they slipped across and went to Lake Pontchartrain, where they took the train for Jackson, Mississippi. At Meridian they heard of Lee's surrender, but as they were not ready to - take the oath or be picked up by the Federal au- thorities, they evaded danger points and slipped on toward home. They went to Demopolis, Sel- ma and Montgomery, Alabama, to Eufala, Ala- bama, and over to Georgetown, where Hoke Williams stopped, and Mr. Thomas proceeded . Bowie.

to the little station in southwest Georgia where he took the train the day he ran away from home.

Among his first acts after the war we find Mr. Thomas going over into Alabama and taking him a wife. As best he could without the necessary equipment he settled down in Georgia on a farm and gathered some moss in the succeeding three years so that when he returned to Covington county, Alabama, in 1868, he possessed a small capital with which he engaged in mercantile pur- suits. He sold goods at Rose Hill until 1874 and then settled up his few remaining affairs

preparatory to beginning life in Texas the next year. In 1884 Mr. Thomas became interested actively in the gin business, when, in company with A. J. Kilcrease and J. W. Stallings, he built an eighty-saw gin. When this was worn out he bought out his partners and put in a plant of four seventy-saw gins with a capacity of thirty bales, and in 1904-5 one thousand one hundred and seventy-two bales passed through his house. He owns a plant of equal value at Olney, Young county, where he has a half section of land and keeps a good bunch of cattle. These various accumulations have come along in the course of his individual industry and management during a quarter of a century and show, conclusively, the possibilities of achievement where natural ele- ments are properly blended.

December 18, 1865, Mr. Thomas married Eliz- abeth, a daughter of Seaburn Cowart. The Cowarts were Georgians by nativity but moved into Alabama early, and in Henry county, that state, Mrs. Thomas was born in 1844. The issue of their union has been: Rev. Seaburn, a Bap- tist minister of Goodnight, Texas; Mollie, wife of D. G. Moore, of Childress, Texas, with issue, Barker, Ruth, Sadie and Seaburn; Nancy, wife of W. K. Haygood, of Olney, Texas, with chil- dren, Curtis and Sallie; Georgie, who married Walter Crow, of Comanche county, Oklahoma, and has children, J. C., Ruby and James, who was drowned when fifteen years of age; Lillie and William still remain with the family circle.

Mr. Thomas became a Democrat in spirit be- fore he became a voter, and in 1884 he was elect- ed county commissioner for precinct two and was re-elected three times, filling the office eight years. During this incumbency the board built the court house, jail and many important bridges besides carrying on satisfactorily the routine business of the county. In 1904 he was called again to represent his precinct on the board, and is now serving his first term. He is a member of the Baptist church, and is a Royal Arch Mason and belongs to the Blue Lodge at

DOCTOR M. HOWARD, figuring promi- nently in business affairs in Mineral Wells, where he is now engaged in merchandising and bank- ing, was born in Randolph county, North Caro- lina, in 1850, his parents being D. H. and Han- nah L. (Moffitt) Howard. Both were natives of North Carolina and are now deceased. The fa- ther was a farmer and tanner and in later life he conducted an extensive business, especially in the days before railroad building, when buy- ing and selling was all done by local traders from

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

wagons. It was in this way that the trading in- stinct in Mr. Howard was developed, for when not more than eleven years of age he traveled around the country in a wagon with his father selling various commodities to the settlers. He came to Texas in 1876 and for a short time resid- ed in Cooke county, after which he removed to Tarrant county. In 1877 he started westward with the intention of going to the Black Hills, for that was the year of the gold excitement there, but when he arrived at Fort Griffin in Shackelford county he decided that he had had all of the "west" that he wanted and after re- maining at Fort Griffin for a short time he re- turned to Fort Worth, Texas. Later he went to Wise county and at the little town of Andyville established a small store. In 1881 he came to Mineral Wells, in Palo Pinto county. This place was then only a small settlement of a few tents and there were two or three box-like shacks. At that time, however, what was known as the Lynch well, the forerunner of their mineral med- icinal waters that have made the city of Mineral Wells such a well known resort, had been dis- covered by J. H. Lynch. In 1882 he began busi- ness here with almost nothing, having a small store, which, however, through his capable man- agement and untiring industry has been devel- oped into the largest and most prominent mercan- tile establishment in Palo Pinto county. It is a department store, containing dry goods, clothing, groceries, shoes, and other commodities, and on the second floor a wholesale business is carried on. Mr. Howard has erected a large substantial brick building and occupies the entire structure with his extensive line of goods. His daughter, Mrs. Bessie Howard Taylor, an accomplished young business woman, is manager of the store. He is to-day a wealthy man, but is modest and unpretentious. He was one of the founders of the bank of Mineral Wells in 1890 and has con- tinuously served as its president.

Mr. Howard gives his political allegiance to the Democracy and fraternally is connected with the Masonic and Knights of Pythias lodges. What Mr. Howard has accomplished in the world of commerce cannot adequately be told in words. It is not asserting too much to say that he pos- sesses, aside from mercantile foresight and sa- gacity, the happy faculty of reading and judging men and unusual powers of organization and executive ability and yet if one was to seek in his career the causes that have led to his success they will be found along the lines of well-tried and old-time maxims. Honesty and fair dealing, promptness and fidelity, all of these are strictly enhanced and adhered to. He is always just and

fair with his employes and appreciates faithful- ness on their part. He stands today as an hon- est, upright, self-made man, and a progressive merchant and banker.

JOHN W. HAMILTON. The fertile and productive community of Chico is populated by a citizenship universally substantial, permanent and thrifty whose advent hither dates, in the main, back, a quarter of a century or more in the past and whose pathway to the present has been marked by successive and positive agricul- tural victories. They cleared the forest, brought wild nature under subjection and filled the re- gion with comfortable homes. Prosperity has brought the smile of contentment to their faces and where once was pinching and forced econo- my is now luxurious abundance and hearts light- ed with hope and filled with encouragement for the future. Numbered conspicuously among this citizenship and enjoying liberally these agricul- tural victories and achievements is John W. Hamilton of this review.

The year 1878 witnessed his advent to Wise county and his settlement on a portion of the fine farm now embraced in his estate. He had re- cently passed seven years in Grayson county, whither he went in 1871 from Newton county, Missouri. He accompanied his parents to the lat- ter place when a young man just attained to his majority and took part in the initial work of de- velopment in Southwest Missouri. He was de- scended from a family of farmers and this voca- tion he followed himself there and at all places and times in Texas. He emigrated from Tennes- see, where his parents were also born and where his grandfather, Robert Hamilton, founded the family about the closing years of the eighteenth century.

Robert Hamilton's birthplace is not now known and nothing tangible with reference to him, save the drowning of himself and wife while crossing a stream when his son James was a small boy. James was born in Robinson county, Tennessee, in 1804, and when deprived of his parents made his home from place to place as circum- stances and conditions seemed to justify. He was of a studious turn and made much advance- ment in books for his day, and when he began life it was as a teacher in the country schools. He continued this vocation until 1842, when he took up farming and continued till his death, in Clay county, Texas, in 1882. In 1850 he brought his family the first step westward and remained a citizen of Newton county, Missouri, until 1874, when he cast his lot with Texas.

James Hamilton married T. Ora Price. His

Thomas Ros.

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

sisters Martha and Mary became the wives of terest in political battles beyond the casting of his vote as an expression of his choice of candi- dates. He has lived in the enjoyment of the re- wards of his years of earnest toil and has reared an upright family to become useful and honored elements in our civil fabric and is closing his career in the consciousness of an industrious and well-spent life. John and Greenberry Kelly, respectively, of Ten- nessee, and his brothers, Samuel, Andrew and John, grew up in that state. His wife died in Newton county, Missouri, at fifty-eight years of age, the mother of: John W., of this sketch; Thomas, deceased; Nancy, who died in Missouri as Mrs. J. D. Ferguson; William died in Denton county, Texas; Henry died unmarried; Mary married Henry Lowe and resides in Missouri ; THOMAS D. ROSS, lawyer, president of Sallie became the wife of William Hudson, of . the Fort Worth and Tarrant County Abstract Parker county, Texas, and Marshall passed away in Tarrant county, while Joann, the youngest, married F. S. Skipworth, of Swisher county, Texas.

The home of his father remained his own until John W. Hamilton married. He began farming as a renter and when he came to Texas .he had accumulated two teams and wagons and a limited amount of money. He stopped near Pilot Point, in Grayson county, where he bought land at two dollars an acre and sold it for ten dollars when he left the county seven years later. Stopping near Chico on his search for a new location he paid fifteen hundred dollars for two hundred acres and has added, since, one hundred and forty- six acres of the William Becknel survey. He has brought broad acres under cultivation and has erected comfortable and roomy buildings to house his family and his farm presents the ap- pearance of an old-settled place.

In September, 1862, Mr. Hamilton entered the Confederate service, joining Company G, Eighth Missouri Infantry. He was in Price's Brigade and served in the Trans-Mississippi Department. He fought at Prairie Grove, Mansfield and Jen- kins' Ferry and surrendered with his command at Shreveport, Louisiana. He was sent down Red river and up the Mississippi to St. Louis and from there to Rolla, Missouri, by rail and walked from there home.

November 25, 1832, John W. Hamilton was born. Although his father was a teacher the children were not extravagantly taught and our subject came to manhood with only a limited knowledge of books. He married May 8, 1856, Miss Henrietta Ferguson, born in the state of Tennessee, November 19, 1838. The issue of this union were: Thomas A., a successful farmer near his father, whose wife, nee Annie Wallace, died in 1899 leaving five children; Martha, who died as Mrs. C. S. Short, leav- ing a daughter, Dema, widow of Robert Left- wich, and J. David, who has four children and is married to Mrs. Leda Peeler.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 51

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