USA > Texas > A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II > Part 6
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78 | Part 79 | Part 80 | Part 81 | Part 82 | Part 83 | Part 84 | Part 85 | Part 86 | Part 87 | Part 88 | Part 89 | Part 90 | Part 91 | Part 92 | Part 93 | Part 94 | Part 95 | Part 96 | Part 97 | Part 98 | Part 99 | Part 100 | Part 101 | Part 102 | Part 103 | Part 104 | Part 105 | Part 106 | Part 107 | Part 108 | Part 109 | Part 110 | Part 111 | Part 112 | Part 113 | Part 114 | Part 115 | Part 116 | Part 117 | Part 118 | Part 119 | Part 120 | Part 121 | Part 122 | Part 123 | Part 124 | Part 125 | Part 126 | Part 127 | Part 128 | Part 129 | Part 130 | Part 131 | Part 132 | Part 133 | Part 134 | Part 135 | Part 136 | Part 137 | Part 138 | Part 139 | Part 140 | Part 141 | Part 142 | Part 143
telling practice with them and his candor and sincerity at all times.
In 1872, having prospered sufficiently to place him in independent circumstances, he announced to his partner his desire to retire and return to Texas. Notwithstanding the most attractive inducements were offered him to remain, he was determined to retire and he did so. In April, 1873, he was married, in Coryell county, and returned to Camargo on his wedding tour, closing up some unfinished business while there. Locating in Denison, he entered mercantile pur- suits and closed his career there in 1876 when he entered the stock business in Clay county.
Mr. Burnam chose for his life companion Miss Vetura Kansas Harris, a native of Ten- nessee. She has a brother in Montague coun- ty, one at Hobart, Oklahoma, and one in Fan- nin county, Texas. Mr. and Mrs. Burnam have not been blessed with children but they reared an orphan girl, Leora, daughter of Dr. James, of Henrietta, Texas.
As has been shown, the life of Joseph Bur- nam has been a busy one and only upon the ap- proach of the weakening effects of time did he abandon the fight. At the age of twenty years he lent his ear to the influences of the gospel and for fifty-five years he has been a member of the Methodist church. .
FRANK MARLETT. The mention of this name introduces a subject whose career covers the civilizing era of Montague county, a period fraught with perpetual dangers and filled with blood-freezing incidents for nearly a dozen years subsequent to the advent of the family to this county. He represents both the old time and the new, because his life spans more than forty years of the history of the county, in which time all that is herein was made. He has taken part in the In- dian hunts, the cow hunts and in the industrial and political strifes which the fact of settle- ment engendered, and of the settlers along Sandy of that early date he is among the very last.
The founder of the Marlett family was Chesley Marlett, the father of our subject, who settled on Sandy in 1864, six and one-half miles south of where Bowie now stands. Save for the exodus during the most dangerous period of the Indian troubles he remained permanently on the creek and did his modest part in the civil affairs of his neighborhood till his death. He entered his land as a homestead, and while he achieved some re- sults as a farmer he never acquired wealth, and passed away with little valuable property, as his estate amounted to about $2,000.
24
HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.
Chesley Marlett was born in Orange county, North Carolina, in1 1822, and in childhood his father, Joseph Marlett, migrated to Orange coun- ty, Indiana, and there Chesley, Jr., grew up. The Marletts of the olden time were French people, and our subject's great-grandfather was the founder of the family in the Tarheel state. Ches- ley Marlett, Sr., married Sidney Montgomery and their issue was: Isaac, who died in Orange county, Indiana ; Eperson, a citizen of Arkansas ; William, who expired in Orange county, In- diana; George, who resides in that county; Ma- linda, who married Cyrus Lomax; Elizabeth, who became Mrs. Ervin C. Polk, and Chesley.
Chesley Marlett, Jr., was not an educated man. His lot when a boy was cast with the primitive country of southern Indiana, where opportunity for education was almost unknown to the coun- try youth. He married when he reached manhood Miss Margaret Jane Hill, a daughter of Joseph and Mary (Davis) Hill. His wife was born in the county in Indiana where she married in March, 1821, and is passing her few remaining years among her children. In 1853 Mr. Marlett moved to Coles county, Illinois, and remained there three years, coming thence by team to Tex- as, and settled a farm eleven miles north of Decatur, in Wise county. Wherever he lived he practiced the industry of the farm and maintained himself an honorable and respected citizen. . In politics he was a Democrat, a Home Guard sol- dier of the Confederacy and a member of the Christian church. He died February 3, 1886. Of the children of Chesley and Margaret Marlett, Joseph, of Montague county, was the first born ; then William, of Tologo, Oklahoma ; Frank, our subject ; Malinda, wife of R. J. Sandefur, of Montague county ; Axiann, wife of Jacob War- ner, of Ryan, Indian Territory, and Mahala A., wife of George Buchanan, of Ryan, Indian Ter- ritory.
Frank Marlett was born in Orange county, Indiana, April 10, 1850. He acquired little knowledge of books as a pupil in school and his life was void of interesting events or excitement until he became associated with the frontier in Montague county. The frequent foray of the red man into the settlement to pillage and steal furnished numerous opportunities for life in a high key, and he joined in the eager chase on many occasions. To rehearse the story of the many deeds of violence inflicted upon the hardy and daring settlers of that dreadful time would only be infringement upon the domain of general history and would aid us none in the develop- mient and proper conclusion of this sketch, and we therefore pass it with a mere suggestion of
its seriousness. When Frank Marlett became able for responsible service on the farm he devoted some seasons to the cowboy life in the family in- terest. With the curtailing of the range the cow interest lapsed and finally disappeared, as a dis- tinct business, and he then devoted himself to the work of the farm. His farm of two hundred acres lies just back from Sandy, and his residence occupies a commanding knoll on the Bowie and Jacksboro road. In 1885 he erected a cotton gin, and for some fifteen years its site was one of the busy places in the Selma settlement. With the wearing out of the machinery and the erection of more modern plants near the railroads the gin lapsed into idleness and the building only is left to mark the spot where an industry grew up, thrived and died.
December 6, 1876, Mr. Marlett married Miss Martha Wagoner, a daughter of Francis and Ad- aline (Smith) Wagoner. As a result of this union there were born: Henry A., who died at seventeen years; Ida A., who passed away at eighteen ; Ada M., wife of William Ford; Addie, wife of Frank Moore; Frankie, Millie and Mat- tie, at home. Of the Wagoner children those surviving besides Mrs. Marlett are: Charley Matthias, of Oklahoma; Frank, of Clay county. Mrs. Marlett was born in Titus county, Texas, April 27, 1857.
In spite of his wild surroundings, growing up among the Indians and the wild game of the for- est, he made an honorable citizen from the be- ginning of his career and he has passed toward the afternoon of life in the respect of and having the good-will of all. He has been content with what his industry brought him and has taken lit- tle notice of matters beyond the boundaries of his personal interest. He answers to the call of Democracy in all party matters, and some years ago united with the Christian church. Thus, briefly, we have touched upon the salient features of Frank Marlett's life, and thus do we submit his record to posterity.
WILLIAM S. FLEMING. In an agricul- tural community the pride of her citizenship is the brain and sinew that settles and brings under cultivation and improvement its fertile soil and thereby lends an impetus to a sure commercial and industrial development. The settlement of any new country entails sacrifice upon its pio- neers. Hardships and even actual distress often visit them and success and failure are intermin- gled the first few years, pending the adjustment of social conditions and the proper performance of nature's part in the regulation of the sea- sons. The life story of our first settlers will
25
HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.
never be fully told, in all its varied phases, but enough may be learned and recorded for the in- formation of posterity to win admiration for their forefathers and to compel a sacred allegiance to their memories through the coming years.
To the category of pioneers does William S. Fleming, of this memoir, properly belong. Al- though his advent to Clay county is but compar- atively recent, yet he is counted among the first settlers of a broad country on the Wichita river and his efforts have mingled with those of his compeers in the reduction of nature and the planting of the seed of civilization. In his ca- reer of fifteen years in Texas he has tasted the sweet and the bitter alike, but the native cour- age of himself and wife and the combined in- dustry of his household have accomplished re- sults which guarantee the family independence for years to come.
It was in 1890 that Mr. Fleming became a settler in Clay county, Texas. An emigrant from Barton county, Missouri, he had been a farmer in that Missouri county for eight years and his accumulations he brought with him and invested in Wichita river bottom land. His family camped about till the erection of his first residence and the business of the farm was car- ried on with more or less success from the start. Grain raising constituted his chief occupation but his pasture supported a bunch of cattle in a little while and all contributed to the prosper- ity of the family. Misfortune overtook them once, through lack of business foresight of a relative, which almost involved the loss of the farm, but this financial storm was successfully weathered, and now an estate of twelve hundred acres constitutes the domestic possessions and marks the family achievement in a very few years.
The Fleming farm is almost a kingly domain. Its tillable area lies in the fertile valley and upon the crest of the hill at the north stands the fami- ly residence keeping watch like a sentinel on his beat. Living spring water gushes out of the hillside in numerous places and the family domi- cile commands a view of the landscape for miles up and down the river. Gathered near together as if under a single roof are the heads and sub- heads of this well-known family, content with what Providence has bestowed upon them and happy in each other's society.
William S. Fleming was born in Sullivan county, Tennessee, July 24, 1835. His father, John Fleming, was one of the early settlers there from Wythe county, Virginia, where he was born and brought up. He was a boy friend of old Parson Brownlow and knew him intimately
during the latter's career in politics and war. He was born in. 1804 and died April 5, 1871, and was a well known citizen and a successful farmer. He aided, as a soldier, in the removal of the Indians from the Georgia Purchase to their reservation in the Indian Territory. He held no public office but was a major of the state militia in old muster days.
John Fleming was a son of John and Martha (Thompson) Fleming, the father an Irishman and an immigrant to America at sixteen years of age. His wife was a great reader and an en- thusiastic Methodist and bore him children as fol- lows: Rev. David Fleming; James, a black- smith who died in Kentucky; William, a car- penter; Rufus, a blacksmith and farmer in Mississippi; Nelson, of Greenville, Tennessee ; John, who died in Virginia, married a Snod- grass; Elizabeth, who died in Washington coun- ty, Virginia, married James Steele; and Mar- tha, who died in Sullivan county, Tennessee. Jane Snodgrass became the wife of John Flem- ing. She was a daughter of William Snodgrass, one of the first settlers of Tennessee in company with Generals Sevier and Shelby. He was a Continental soldier during the Revolution and fought the English under General Ferguson at Kings Mountain, North Carolina. He was born in Maryland, married Mary Elder and reared a large family.
The family to which our subject belonged in childhood comprised two sets of children, the Gillenwaters and the Flemings. Those belong- ing to the first family were Lucien, who died in Texas; Ezra, who died in Sullivan county, Tennessee, was married to William Snodgrass; Matilda A., married G. H. Roberts and died in Cooke county, Texas; and Joel, who died in Hancock county, Tennessee. Of the Fleming children Martha A. was the oldest and married George C. Chamberlain, dying in Tennessee ; William S., of this sketch; James, of Sullivan county, Tennessee, and Asbury, of Wichita Falls, Texas.
William S. Fleming received no education be- yond that offered by the country schools of his time. Farm work occupied him both before and after the war and his efforts along this line have brought his success in life. When the war came on he enlisted in the Thirtieth Virginia Battalion at Broad Ford, McCommas' Company B, and Col. Clark's Regiment. He joined the army in 1862 and saw service in the valley of Virginia and about Richmond, his first battle being that of New Market. Other engagements following were Monocacy, Kerntown, Winchester, twice, Cedar Creek, Fisher's Hill, Wilderness and Cold
26
HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.
Harbor. His service ended at Waynesboro, where he was captured by General Custer's troops and was held a prisoner at Fort Delaware till July 1865, when, on the eleventh of the month, he was discharged and furnished trans- portation home.
At about thirty years of age Mr. Fleming started in life the second time. The war had in- terrupted his early career as a farmer but he took up its duties again when peace had been established. He remained in his birth state till 1882, when he sought Barton county, Missouri, remaining there till his removal to his present location.
October 2, 1867, Mr. Fleming married, in Sullivan county, Tennessee, Mary E., a daugh- ter of John M. Davidson, a representative of one of the prominent families of the county. Mr. Davidson was a blacksmith and farmer and was one of the early settlers there. The issue of Mr. and Mrs. Fleming are: John D., who mar- ried Maggie Pinkerton and has two children, William M. and Albert Lee; Laura J., deceased, was the first child of the family and she died at sixteen years of age; Addie M. also died young ; Gcorge is yet with the family circle as is William A ; Charles A., a student in the Fort Worth Business College; Nat, who married Jose Loving and lives on his own place near Charlie and has a son William Walter; and Stephen J., the youngest, is also a member of his father's household.
Mr. Fleming has held membership in the Methodist church for many years and his wife owns allegiance to the Presbyterians.
JUDGE MIKE E. SMITH, judge of the seventeenth judicial district, a well known and popular resident of Fort Worth, has during the past fifteen years risen to distinction at the bar of the state of Texas and is one of the best read and capable jurists practicing or holding judicial position at Fort Worth. His well trained mind and resources as a lawyer have been abundantly reinforced by his genial manners and engaging personality, which enable him to lay hold of men's friendship and retain their good will and affection both for their own benefit and for his personal advancement.
Judge Smith was born at Granville, Jackson county, Tennessee, in 1868, being a son of Hugh B. and Frances (Dillard) Smith, who were also natives of Tennessee and are now both deceased. Hle attended school at Granville and later the Elmwood Academy, near that place. He began the study of law in the office of his uncle, Captain H. H. Dillard, at Cookeville, Tennessee, and was
admitted to the bar in the latter place in 1889, when twenty-one years old. His preceptor, Cap- tain Dillard, is a prominent citizen and well known lawyer in Tennessee, having been a gal- lant Confederate soldier and having been bre- vetted major at the close of the war.
Judge Smith came to Texas in 1889 and located and opened his office in Vernon, where he con- tinued a resident for six years. He was successful in his practice almost from the first, and also be- came prominently identified with public affairs in Vernon. He was elected to the office of mayor, and also served as city attorney. In December, 1894, he came to Fort Worth, where he soon found himself possessed of all the practice that he could well attend to, and where he entered into partnership with Hon. O. W. Gillespie, now con- gressman, and W. R. Parker. In 1900 he was elected district judge of the seventeenth judicial district, and is still serving in that capacity.
Judge Smith affiliates with the Knights of Pythias and other fraternal orders. He was married in 1892 to Miss Annette Bryan, a native of Bonham, Texas, and they have two children, Hugh B. and Ruth, who are in school.
HON. ELMER A. RICE, lawyer and legisla- tor, has made a most creditable record at the bar and in the council chambers of the state, his career reflecting honor upon the district which has honored him. He has been closely associated with constructive legislation that has shown the thorough familiarity with the needs and possibil- ities of the state in various lines and his labors have been far-reaching and beneficial in their effect.
Mr. Rice was born on a farm near Alvarado, Johnson county, Texas, September 12th, 1874, his parents being W. A. and Frances (Claunch) Rice. The paternal grandfather, Elias Rice, located in Johnson county in 1861, saw service in the Confederate army and was with the Trans- Mississippi department up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1863. The father came to Texas with his parents in 1859, and settled in Johnson county, becoming a pioneer resident of this part of the state. The family home was established near Alvarado and there W. A. Rice was reared to manhood. His birth had occurred in Blount county, Alabama, and throughout an active business career he has fol- lowed farming, becoming a prosperous agricul- turist who now makes his home in Ellis county. His wife is a native of Talladega county, Ala- bama.
Elmer A. Rice was a public school student in the district schools near Alvarado and spent two
27
HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.
years in the high school in this city, where he made a splendid record for scholarship. Sub- sequently he engaged in teaching school for three years, spending two years of that time in John- son county and one year in Hill county. It was while teaching in the latter county that he was. admitted to the bar at Cleburne in December, 1897, having studied law during the preceding five years, a part of which time was spent in the office of Ramsey & Brown, one of the most prominent law firms of Cleburne.
Mr. Rice located for practice in Cleburne and has gained success at the bar, which numbers some of the strongest lawyers of Texas. He has won for himself very favorable criticism for the careful and systematic methods which he has followed. He has remarkable powers of con- centration and application with a retentive mind and oratorical power. He stands high as an orator, especially in the discussion of legal mat- ters before the court, where his comprehensive knowledge of the law is manifest, while his appli- cation of legal principles demonstrates the wide range of his professional acquirement. The utmost care and precision characterizes his prep- aration of a case and has made him one of the most successful attorneys of Cleburne.
Mr. Rice has also gained honor and distinction in public life. In 1902 he was elected a member of the twenty-eighth legislature, representing the Seventy-third district and in 1904 was re-elected to the twenty-ninth assembly. In the former session he performed much valuable service for his district in the commonwealth, including the work which he did as a member of the state com- mittee when it revised, passed upon and reported to the house the now famous Terrell election bill which became a law. In both sessions he was on the revenue and taxation committees, and in the twenty-ninth sessions he was also a member of judiciary committee No. I, the election com- mittee and two other committees and was like- wise chairman of the committee on commerce and manufactures. In the twenty-ninth general assembly he took a prominent part on the work of the committee on revenue and taxation, of which the Hon. W. D. Williams, of Fort Worth, was chairman. Mr. Rice was the author of the bill which became a law, fixing a period of limi- tation (ten years) on superior titles retained on vendor's liens and on deeds of trust-a law of special value in real estate transactions. Mr. Rice was also instrumental in securing the pas- sage of the bill for the new Cleburne charter, permitting a city to issue bonds for certain im- provements, and a special road law for Johnson county was likewise passed through his efforts.
He took a just pride in his work as committee on common carriers and was one of the few members to get up a minority report on the Southern Pacific merger bill.
On the 23d of December, 1903, Mr. Rice was married to Miss Pauline Meredith, a native of Alvarado, and they occupy a very prominent and enviable social position in Cleburne. Mr. Rice is yet a young man and his ability gives promise of a successful future and still greater honors in public life.
LEWIS PINKNEY BROOKS. One of the early sheriffs of Young county and a gentleman invariably mentioned among its venerable pio- neers is he whose name initiates this notice and it is his connection with some of the things that have been done here that it is the province of this article especially to enumerate. Be it said, in general, that to the county's welfare as well as to his personal gain, has he devoted almost forty years of his life, and both as a citizen and as a man has he achieved results to which his pos- terity may refer with pardonable pride.
During the period of the Civil War, Young county lost its organization and it was before it was reorganized that Mr. Brooks cast his lot with this portion of the Texas frontier. He came hither in 1866 and drifted about from place to place until 1870, when he sought the banks of the Brazos in the vicinity of Miller's Bend and estab- lished his permanent home. In company with Taylor Brooks and Ambrose A. Timmons he purchased the Shelton survey settled by Locke Williams, of which he owns three hundred and twenty acres. The pole cabin constructed of pickets set on end became his domicile and it housed him for two years after his return from his old home with his newly wedded wife. In its place, in 1874, arose the time-worn and massive stone pile which stands as a monument to the progress of that day and whose sacred walls whisper silent memories of days gone by.
For several years after 1866 the forays of the red man extended over Young county and the white settler caught out alone and unprepared paid the penalty too often with his life. Only on one occasion did our subject come into open encounter with this treacherous enemy and then not without comrades to spur him on to vigorous deeds of self-defense. A party of a half-dozen men were building a stone wall on the bank of the river near the Brooks home, of which party Mr. Brooks and his brother, and Alex. Timmons were members. Their arms were left in a pile between them and their horses on the sidehill below. Suddenly a bunch of eight Indians appeared up
28
HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.
the road steering for the white man's horses al- most within their reach. With the rush of the party for their arms the Indians spied them and dropped into the brush near by and a fusillade was kept up between the two sides for some minutes without positive casualties other than a wounded horse. With an equal encounter of this sort the Indian was not at all in his element and he never failed to escape it at the first attack. Ilis courage and bravery were never more hero- ically displayed than in scalping a lone and un- armed paleface or in exterminating a family of defenseless women and children.
Mr. Brooks began his career in Young county behind the plow and as a farmer his active efforts will end. Content with his choice of location of the early time he has clung to the landscape com- manding the streak of rust that winds its way southward and moistens with its liquid prepara- tion the sandy bed of the Brazos. Out of his fertile soil have sprung crops which forced a groan from its burden-laden granaries and from its parched surface have occasionally come the chief element of the Egyptian scourge. Along with the bitter there have come doses of sweet and their alternation is the spice which flavors a frontier life to the pioneer's taste.
Lewis P. Brooks was born in Cherokee county, Georgia, May 1, 1841, but migrated to Texas from Barto county. William C. Brooks, his father, was born in Hall county, that state, in 1813, and died in Barto county in 1898. The lat- ter was a farmer, was a man of some education, although his father was not, and was a member of the Georgia legislature once. John P. Brooks, our subject's grandfather, was born on the ocean while his parents, John and Mary Brooks, were en route to America to help settle the colonies of lengland. John P. Brooks had a brother James, who went to Mississippi after he grew up, but the former remained about his parents in South Car- olina, where they first located and afterward founded the family in Georgia. He was called "Col." Brooks, presumably from his connec- tion with the militia service of his state. He mar- ried lester Bennett and, with his wife, passed away in Cherokee county. The issue of their mar- riage were: William C .. Melissa, Narcissa, Frank and Elijah, who died in Georgia; Nathan, of Polk county, Georgia : Mary : George, of Cher- okce county, Georgia : Jefferson, of Farmington, California : Frances, who passed away in Arkan- sas, and Margaret.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.