A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 67

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 67

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July 31, 1866, Mr. Allgood married Mrs. Sarah Tidwell, a daughter of William Mont- gomery, of Blount county, Alabama. Mr. Mont- gomery was born in the state of South Carolina, and married Miss Elizabeth Crawford, born in Tennessee, who bore him ten children. Mrs. Allgood was born in Alabama in 1837, and mar- ried, first, Yaggil Tidwell. Her and Mr. All- good's children are: Elizabeth, wife of F. Eir- ring, of Hale county, Texas; James DeForest, of Fort Worth; Miles P. and Baylus C., of Wise county, and Sarah J., wife of Newton Johnston, of Whitt, Texas, the two last named being twins.

In his relation to the county as a citizen Mr. Allgood has won and maintained a business standing of the first order and he has not been without interest in its political affairs. With- out assumption of personal importance or with- out essaying leadership Democrats know him as a man who does his own thinking and one who seldom thinks wrong, and his aid of a candidate aspiring to office gives him an ad-

mitted prestige in the race. While he was brought up in the faith and taught that baptism is essential in the life of properly trained fami- lies, he does not feel that ardency for the cause which his worthy ancestor did, and claims no allegiance to the church.

MORRIS HENRY MILLS, of Fort Worth, was born at Mount Morris, New York, a son of Colonel Wm. A. and Alice (Brooks) Mills. His grandfather, General William A. Mills, was a soldier in the war of 1812, and after its close became a prominent official in the New York state militia. With General Wadsworth he was one of the early pioneers of the Geneseo country of western New York, where they took up large tracts of land and became very wealthy. Colonel William A. Mills was a promi- nent business man and farmer of Livingston county.

Morris H. Mills received his education in the public schools, while for many years there- after he was connected with railroad work, starting originally as a messenger boy in the telegraph office at Clinton, Iowa. After three months' service as messenger he became an operator for the Chicago & Northwestern Rail- road at Maquoketa, Iowa, while later he be- came connected with the Union Pacific as train dispatcher at Laramie and also as dispatcher and chief clerk in the office of the general super- intendent. Leaving the Union Pacific, Mr. Mills became an employe of the Northern Pacific, for about ten years filling the positions of dispatcher, chief dispatcher and superinten- dent, and on the expiration of that period con- nected himself with the Fort Worth & Denver Railroad Company at Fort Worth, filling the positions successively as chief clerk, purchas- ing agent and trainmaster. After seven years spent in this work Mr. Mills left the railroad to embark in the lumber business in Texas, and was prominent in the organization and development of the National Lumber Com- pany, one of the most prominent concerns of its kind in the state. He was vice president and secretary and later became president of the company. This company erected extensive works at Texarkana for chemically treating lumber, principally railroad ties. They also did an extensive business, conducting a gen- eral wholesale lumber trade, with railroads and yards in Texas and Oklahoma. Mr. Mills sub- sequently retired from the lumber business to engage in other interests, and in 1904 erected a beautiful residence near Fort Worth, on the Interurban railroad. He is now general man-

MORRIS H. MILLS

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS. .

ager of the Fort Worth Iron & Steel Manu- facturing company, in which he is a stock- holder. He was married in Laramie, Wyoming, to Miss Alice Brockway, in 1879, and they have one son, Fred Mills.

JESSE HOUSTON CARPENTER. Among those of Wise county's rural citizens who are successful tillers of the soil and one whose per- sonal worth is everywhere admitted and acknowledged is Jesse Houston Carpenter, whose name introduces this article. Two years in Parker county and twenty years in Wise mark the limit of his citizenship in the state, and his passage from mendicancy to a position of financial independence tells the story, briefly, of the achievements his labors have wrought.

Born in Gilmer county, Georgia, August I, 1854, Mr. Carpenter is descended from a fam- ily of Revolutionary patriots of North Caro- lina, Joseph Carpenter, his German ancestor and great-grandfather, having served in the Patriot army under General Green and having been shot through the body with a British ball. The latter lived in both Lincoln and Ruther- ford counties, but passed away in Rutherford, the father of several children, among them be- ing Joseph, Peter and Morton. Morton Car- penter, our subject's grandfather, passed through life a successful farmer, trader and slave owner and died about 1891, at ninety- five years of age. His wife was Sallie Wood, and four of their eight children were : Emanuel, Samuel, Byron and Morton.

Emanuel Carpenter was born in Rutherford county, North Carolina, in 1820, and died in Wise county, Texas, April 12, 1893. Like his father he succeeded as a farmer and trader and accumulated much property prior to the re- bellion, but the Union sentiments which he entertained made him an enemy to the Con- federacy and he was forced to refugee behind the Federal lines. During the period of civil strife he practically gave away his farm and remained poor and dependent in a way from then to his death. For his wife he married Lizzie Wikle, born May 19, 1816, a lady of German antecedents and a daughter of Henry Wikle, a farmer. Mrs. Carpenter accompanied her husband to Texas in 1890 and survived him several years, dying at the home of her son in Wise county January 13, 1901. By the union of Emanuel and Lizzie Carpenter there were born : Henry, of Greer county, Oklahoma; J. Houston, of this notice, and Crate G., who died in Wise county, Texas, leaving a family.

It is said of the father that he left home without his parents' consent as a boy of fourteen and made his own way and built himself up to a position of worth and independence in his Georgia home single-handed and alone. Save for the period of the Civil war his life was a quiet and peaceful one, unmarred by untoward events. Naturally he dropped into the Re- publican party, and except when he voted for Hancock, he always cast his ballot for its presi- dential candidate. The Contederates forced him into the ranks of their army and he was unable to escape for fourteen months, but when he finally succeeded he hurriedly disposed of his property and sought the Federal lines.

In the county where he was born and brought up J. Houston Carpenter, our subject, acquired his limited knowledge of books. The most valuable period of his school experience was at the age of twenty-four when he spent ten months as a pupil, and this term's work really fitted him for the battle of life. He was past twenty-six when he left his father to carve out a career for himself and shortly afterward he came to Texas, reaching here with nineteen dollars in cash and a modest wardrobe. He stopped first at Springtown, in Parker county, and took up the carpenter trade. When he came to Wise county he contracted for two hundred and two acres of wild land southeast of Chico and set about its primitive improve- ment at once. As time passed he prospered as a farmer and bought additional land, owning now four hundred acres in two separate farms.

Mr. Carpenter had no terrors for bachelor- hood and did not take a wife until he was well able to provide for her in a good comfortable home. September 22, 1889, he married Miss Alice, a daughter of Jesse and Harriet (Hart) Franklin, a Parker county farmer and a Mexi- can war veteran of Texas. Mr. Franklin set- tled in Parker county in 1854, settling first in Collin county from the state of Tennessee. His children were: H. Franklin, who lives in Okla- homa ; "Sis," wife of John Rowe, of Jessie; Mrs. Carpenter, John, Benjamin, Benton and Clar- issa, wife of Frank Shown. Mr. and Mrs. Car- penter's children are: Jesse, Annie, Morton, Lillie W., Alice and Sam Houston.

In his political career Mr. Carpenter has sup- ported the candidate more than the party and he voted for Garfield, Weaver, William J. Bryan, McKinley and Roosevelt. He is a Royal Arch Mason and a member of the Meth- odist church.

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

ISAAC JACOB HARTSELL. The success- ful farmer and public official whose name heads this article is the commissioner for the fourth precinct of Wise county, where he has lived since the year 1884, and where the substantial achievements of his life have been won. Liber- ally favored with Fortune's smile and happily established in the confidence of the community he serves he is one of the figures of his epoch and a citizen most worthy of the name.

Washington county, Tennessee, was Mr. Hartsell's native place and his birth occurred February 22, 1843. Martin Luther Hartsell, his father, was born in the same county in 1821, grew up and married there and after the war moved into Roane county and there died in 1897. His vocation was that of farming, and as a Whig he favored the union of the states at the outbreak of the war. He cast his fortunes with Democracy later on and was a deacon in the Missionary Baptist church. Jacob Hart- sell, his father, seems to have been the founder of the family in Washington county and he settled there with his mother, who was an Auntney, near the opening years of the nine- teenth century. Jacob Hartsell married Nancy Milliam, and his children were : Auntney, Rus- sell, Martin L., Isaac W., Polly, wife of Orvil Nelson; Delila, who married Thomas Jackson, and Nancy, wife of William Love. Martin L. Hartsell married Margaret, a daughter of Joseph and Hannah (Bogart) Longmire. Mrs. Hartsell preceded her husband and died in 1882, mother of Joseph, of Johnson county, Texas ; Isaac J., our subject; John, of Pulaski county, Missouri; Nannie, wife of A. P. Hutcheson, of Roane county, Tennessee ; Hannan, who passed away unmarried; Mary, who married John Viar, of Roane county ; Lavenia, wife of Will- iam Clark, of Roane county, and Charles, of Wise county, Texas.

Isaac J. Hartsell grew up strictly as a coun- try youth with what opportunities and advan- tages his community alone provided. Septem- ber 9, 1861, he enlisted in Company K, Sixty- fourth North Carolina Infantry, Colonel W. N. Garrett, Frazier's Brigade and Buckner's Di- vision. He did his first duty at Knoxville and the regiment was then sent to Big Creek Gap. It remained in this vicinity and around Cum- berland Gap till September 9, 1863, when that stronghold surrendered to the Federals and our subject was sent to Johnson's Island as a prisoner of war, remaining such until hostilities had ceased and peace was restored.

Mr. Hartsell reached home in June, 1865, and at once resumed the work of the farm. He re-

mained in Tennessee four years and then moved to Camden county, Missouri, from which point, in the fall of 1875, he came to Texas and settled in Johnson county. Six years later he sought Parker county, and from there made his final move into Wise two years later. A team and about one hundred dollars com- prised his visible assets when he began life in the Lone Star state, and he was a renter until after he made his last move. His first pur- chase was ninety acres of the Margaret Swift survey, a tract of wild land which he has brought under cultivation and placed in a sub- stantial and attractive state of improvement. From a rude one-room-with-shed log cabin his family has passed into a modern farm cottage and from the primitive methods of farming he has adopted those of modern days, and his progress has been gradually upward and on- ward to the present. He added fifty acres more of the same survey and one hundred and twenty-five of the William Swinney survey to his original farm as time went on, and owns now two hundred and sixty-five acres of land.

In the fall of 1900 Mr. Hartsell was chosen county commissioner and has been twice re- elected since. The board has built nine steel bridges and opened up many new highways in addition to the routine work of their office, and is regarded as one of the most safely progress- ive boards ever elected.

October 16, 1867, Mr. Hartsell married Miss Mattie, a daughter of Joseph and Ailsy (Carr) Bowman, old Tennessee people, but Mr. Bow- man was formerly from Virginia. The chil- dren of Mr. and Mrs. Bowman were: John, Alfred, Calvin, Richard, Henry, Mary, wife of Alfred White, Mrs. Hartsell, Bettie, who mar- ried David Swadley, and Julia, wife of a Mr. Rubeck. Mr. and Mrs. Hartsell's issue are : Robert E., who married Lillie Boulware and is a Wise county farmer; Oscar L., residing near home, married Eva Pewitt; Bertie, wife of T. B. Hayes, of the state of Washington; Joseph B., still at the old home; Martin L., Jr., married Rosa Blackwood and lives close by; John R., of the parental home; Charles, married Maud Wilks and remains in the home of his childhood, and Fred, the last, still with the domestic circle.

JOHN H. SHURBET. Mr. Shurbet is prom- inently identified with the fertile region about Crafton, Wise county, where he settled in 1897, and where on the Mackey and Wilson surveys his farms, aggregating four hundred and twenty acres, lie. He came hither from

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Thackerville, Indian Territory, where he passed some nine years of his life as a lessee on Indian lands and where he settled as an emigrant from Prentis county, Mississippi.

Born in Itawamba county, Mississippi, Mr. Shurbet's physical existence began December 30, 1858. His father was Henry Shurbet, a farmer of Alabama birth, 1814 being his natal year. The latter was an only child of an Eng- lishman who settled in South Carolina on cast- ing his lot with the United States, and in the early years of the eighteenth century he took a step or two westward and established him- self in Alabama. In the early '50s Henry Shurbet brought his small family into Missis- sippi and he died in Prentis county in 1892. He served in the ranks of the Confederate armies during the first years of the rebellion, but was detailed finally to work in the hospital around Richmond and wound up his service there. He was a churchman, identified with the Christian denomination. He married Win- nie Gillham, who died in 1862, the mother of : Oy, wife of Thomas Cowley, of Wise county ; Fannie, wife of Polk Brewer, of the same county ; Mary, who died in Tyler county, Texas, as Mrs. Tom Read; Martha, who passed away in Prentis county, Mississippi, as Mrs. Joseph Mckay; Sallie, wife of Thomas War- ren, of Wise county; Brister, of Montague county ; Clayborn, of Crafton, Texas; John H., our subject, and Cornelia, who died in the Chickasaw Nation as the wife of Joe McKay.

At the age of only nine years John H. Shur- bet was deprived of parental protection and from then forward until his thirteenth year made his home in Henderson or McNairy coun- ties, Tennessee, in the homes of James Hailey and David Smith. He came to mature years with little knowledge of books and when ready to take up the battle of life independently he returned to Mississippi and "cropped" about until he was twenty-one. He then married, September 9, 1879, and not many years after- ward he and his wife "put their effects into a pillowslip and moved." In order to obtain his wife he confesses to a form of grand larceny and the trunk above suggested contained their personal effects. A good and liberal-hearted farmer, Ed Anderson, took them in and gave them all the aid and encouragement necessary to restore their self-confidence and start them off on their modest and humble career. Their move upward was a slow one and when they left Mississippi, in 1888, to begin their career in the west they were prepared with team and cash to sustain them while maturing their first

crop. They made their efforts count while leasing from the red man and when they dropped down into Texas they were amply able to pay for and possess a real home.

Mr. Shurbet married Miss Julia Pate, who was born in Mississippi in 1861 and she and her husband are the parents of: William, who married Carrie Holliday; Oscar, whose wife was Maud Turner ; Ora, wife of Marion Husky ; Allie, wife of Albert Harris, and Lula, Jesse, Bettie and James comprise the childhood circle.

Mr. Shurbet adheres to Democracy as his political manna and has brought his house- hold to revere sacred things and believe in the doctrines of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist church.

WILLIAM HARRISON DUNSON, cattle- man and real estate dealer at Dalhart, has been identified with this extreme northwest part of the Panhandle country ever since the process of disintegration began by which the immense cattle ranges were portioned out among perma- nent settlers and towns and farming communi- ties became in evidence. He has been very successful in his various enterprises, and is an honored and esteemed resident of Dalhart and the two counties of Dallam and Hartley.

Mr. Dunson is an old resident of the Lone Star state, and has been closely identified with its northwestern portion throughout its most important period of development. A native of Troup county, Georgia, he was born in 1840, being a son of William and Sarah (Cook) Dun- son. His father, also a native of Georgia and reared in Jackson county of that state, moved with his family to Chambers county, Alabama, in 1856, and died there after the war. He was a farmer. His wife was born in Georgia and died in Chambers county, Alabama.

Reared on the home farm and receiving his education in the common schools, a short time after the outbreak of the Civil war Mr. Dunson, on February 10, 1862, being then twenty-two years old, enlisted in Chambers county, for service in the Confederate army. He went to Memphis, where a number of Alabama regi- ments were being organized, but before he could become regularly connected with an Alabama regiment there came a hurry call for troops to go to the defense of Fort Donelson. For this special purpose he was placed in the Fiftieth Tennessee, and when Fort Donelson fell he was among the prisoners. Some time later he was among those exchanged at Vicks- burg, and he then became a member of Com- pany E, First Alabama infantry, serving in

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

this regiment throughout the remainder of the war. A great deal of his soldiering was in the Georgia campaign, some of the arduous service in which he participated being the battles of New Hope, Jonesboro, the siege and battle at Atlanta, and then under Hood in the Nash- ville campaign.

When the war was over Mr. Dunson returned to Chambers county and went to farming, which he continued for several years, until his removal to Texas in 1867. For nineteen years thereafter he was engaged in farming in Na- varro county, and in 1886 he came up to the Panhandle, locating in Hardeman county, a short time before the railroad reached the county. There he went into the cattle business, which has been his chief business interest ever since. After the town of Quanah in Hardeman county was started he made his home there for several years, carrying on his ranching oper- ations from that point. Early in 1900 he came to Hartley county with W. E. Smith and W. D. Wagner, their purpose being to find cheaper and larger pastures for their cattle. Mr. Dun- son bought four sections out of the immense IOI ranch, which before that had covered a large part of this region. This fine ranch, on which he built his residence and which is still his home place, is located about eight miles to the southwest of Dalhart. Recently, however, he has gone into the real estate business in Dal- hart, where he spends most of his time, but without detracting from his cattle interests. In the real estate business he is the partner of V. E. Cammack, the firm name being Cammack and Dunson. They do a general real estate and live-stock business, and are among the ener- getic and public-spirited promoters to whom Dalhart and the surrounding country owes so much of its material growth and prosperity.

Mr. Dunson was married in Chambers county, Alabama, in 1861 to Miss Sarah Fran- ces Leverett, and they have one daughter, Mrs. Mary Alice Auten, of Dalhart. Mr. Dunson has been a member of the Baptist church since 1862, and he is also one of the oldest Masons in this part of the state, having joined that ancient order forty years ago. In 1890 Mr. Dunson was elected tax assessor of Hardeman county, and continued to serve in that capacity for six years. or three terms.

JOSEPHUS YOUNGER, M. D. At Whites- boro, Grayson county, in 1870, Dr. Younger be- gan his Texas career as a farmer, although his position now places him among the leading medical practitioners of Bowie. It is now

twenty-six years since he first became identi- fied with Montague county, and his success in his profession has placed him in the category of substantial men.

Dr. Younger is a South Carolinian, born in Spartansburg District, July 9, 1847. His father, William R. Younger, was born, reared, lived and died in the same district, his birth occurring in 1812 and his death November 5, 1864. Like his father, William R. Younger was a modest planter, owned a few slaves and played a modest part in politics on the Demo- cratic side. James Younger was his father and was from the Shenandoah valley of Virginia and died in the old South Carolina home. On the maternal side Dr. Younger comes from the Camps, of Virginia origin. Julia R. Camp was his mother and she was a daughter of Aaron Camp, who first settled in Rutherford county, North Carolina, later in or near Ringgold, Geor- gia. He was a contractor and builder and Julia R. was his second child by his wife, nee Miss Sarah Russell. Mrs. Younger died at Whites- boro, Texas, July 13, 1896, having been the mother of: James A., of Cordell, Oklahoma ; John W., of Sayre, Oklahoma; Dr. Joseph, of this notice; Julia R., deceased wife of S. W. Robinson, of Montague county, and they have three children living, Angie, Samuel and Mabel ; Sarah F. C., wife of D. N. Funk, of Jones county, Texas; Dr. R. N., of Whitesboro; Pierce C., of Wise county ; Douglas A., of Whitesboro, and a commissioner of Grayson county, and Bulah B., deceased wife of John Decker, of Grayson county, and they had one child, Perry Decker.

The rural schools of his home county pro- vided Dr. Younger with the rudiments of an English education and in early life he followed in the footsteps of his forefathers and became a farmer. When he came to Texas in Novem- ber, 1870, he was twenty-three years old and he established himself near Whitesboro, where an additional seven years of agrarian life was passed. Deciding to abandon the farm for something less physical and more congenial and possibly more remunerative he chose medi- cine and began preparation for the profession by a course of reading in the office of Drs. Graves and Trollinger, of Whitesboro. During the summer season for two years he was under their guidance, spending his winters in the St. Louis, Missouri, Medical College. He com- pleted his course with graduation in the spring of 1879 and located at Valley View, in Cook county, where the initial work of his profes- sional career was done. On leaving there he

C. LIPSCOMB

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

located in Denver, Montague county, where four years were passed and then Sunset knew him as a physician and citizen for ten years. Having acquired a ranch in Jack county dur- ing the years of his practice he now decided to rest from professional duties for a time and he located upon the ranch and devoted himself chiefly to his stock and the cultivation of his farm. After four years of life in the country Dr. Younger again sought activity in his old place in the ranks of medical men and in De- cember, 1897, he located in Bowie and estab- lished his residence and family here. He repre- sents the regular school of physicians and is one of several strong men of that faith who own Bowie as their home.

Four miles south of Post Oak lies the ranch and farm of Dr. Younger. It embraces a tract of nine hundred acres, fenced into pasture and farm, stocked and three hundred acres are under plow. As an aid to Bowie's internal develop- ment he has improved a modest home and has manifested a serious interest in the affairs of his favorite town. He is a member of the North- west Texas and the Montague County Medical Associations, and by virtue of the latter, is a member of the Texas State Medical Society.

December 1, 1881, in Montague county, Dr. Younger married Miss Mary A. Dillard, a daughter of James M. and Eliza (Davis) Dil- lard, who came to Texas from Missouri in 1875. Mr. Dillard was a Virginian by birth and he died in 1901 at Whitesboro, Texas, at eighty- two years of age. Among his children were: Peggie D., wife of Charles Bond, of Roswell, New Mexico; Sophia, wife of Dr. R. N. Younger, of Whitesboro, and Mrs. Dr. Josephus Younger, born in Clinton county, Missouri, January 10, 1862. The issue of the marriage of Dr. and Mrs. Younger are: Miss Gladys, a graduate of the Western Dental College of Kansas City, Missouri, and now practicing her profession in Bowie, married Warren B. Shoemaker, a stockman of Fort Worth ; "Bob," James R. and Jack.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 67

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