A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 68

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 68

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Dr. Younger's citizenship is unalloyed. He is without ambition beyond the honor and prestige of a good name and the highway of his life is marked by duty done and independence won. He is a Chapter Mason and a quiet force in local Democratic politics.

CUVIER LIPSCOMB, M. D. The world instinctively pays deference to the man whose success has been worthily achieved and accords its measure of praise to the representatives of professional life wherein advancement comes

in recognition of individual merit. In a calling where success results entirely from personal capability and thorough training Dr. Lipscomb has won an honored name and a gratifying measure of prosperity, being today one of the most prominent physicians and surgeons of Denton county, maintaining his residence in the county seat of Denton.

Born March 17, 1840, Dr. Lipscomb is a na- tive of Mississippi, his parents being Dr. Dab- ney M. and Millicent H. (Scrivner) Lipscomb. The Lipscombs are a prominent and well known southern family and Dr. Dabney M. Lipscomb was a cousin of Judge Lipscomb, who with judges Wheeler and Hemphill con- stituted the first supreme court of the state of Texas and in whose honor Lipscomb county was named. A sister of Dr. Dabney M. Lips- comb became the wife of Isaac Van Zandt, who was a prominent and honored citizen of the republic of Texas and was equally influ- ential in molding the policy of the new state of Texas after its admission to the Union. His son, Major K. M. Van Zandt, is the president of the Fort Worth National Bank and is rep- resented on another page of this volume.

Dr. Dabney M. Lipscomb was born in Louisa county, Virginia, but in his boyhood days ac- companied his parents on their removal to Ten- nessee, from which state he went to Mississippi. In the spring of 1861, the day after Fort Sum- ter was fired upon, he started to Texas with the intention of establishing his home in this state. After spending a year in Ellis county he located permanently at Grapevine, Tarrant county, which remained his place of residence until his death in 1886, when he had reached the venerable age of eighty years. He con- tinued in the active practice of medicine almost until the time of his demise. During the war between the states he administered medical aid gratuitously to the families of the Confederate soldiers who were at the front and he was ever a man of benevolent and kindly spirit, quick to respond to the call of the suffering even when he knew that no financial remuneration would be forthcoming. His wife, who was born in Tennessee, died in Grapevine in her eighty- seventh year. They were a worthy and valued pioneer couple of that locality and their worth gained for them warm and enduring friendships.

Dr. Lipscomb, whose name introduces this record, acquired his early education at Middle- ton, Mississippi, and at Locust Hill Academy in Franklin county, Tennessee. In early youth he decided upon the medical profession as a life work. Whether natural predilection or en-

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

vironment had most to do with this decision it is impossible to determine. Perhaps both had a share in shaping his life history. It is a well known fact, however, that the choice was wise- ly made, for in the profession he has gained prominence and prosperity. He pursued his first course of lectures in the medical depart- ment of the University of Louisiana at New Orleans. He assisted his father and the family in removing to Texas in April, 1861, and im- mediately afterward started back to his old home in Mississippi with the intention of en- listing there in the service of the Confederacy, but upon reaching Marshall, Texas, he decided to join the troops from this state together with his cousin, Major Van Zandt, and from the first almost until the close of the war he was in Major Van Zandt's command, being a member of Company D of the Seventh Texas Infantry. For the first two years he was in the regular service as a private soldier and for the remain- der of the time he acted in the capacity of hos- pital steward for his regiment. This service, however, was in the field and consisted of giv- ing surgical aid to wounded soldiers. Even while acting as a regular soldier he would always after a battle assist the surgeons and hospital corps in their work and thus he gained a good preparation for the medical profession, having the practical experience without which all the theoretical knowledge in the world is of little avail. Subsequent to his enlistment he went with his command to join Johnston's army in Mississippi and took part in the battle of Fort Donelson, where his regiment escaped capture, although other commands were made prisoners of war. Later Dr. Lipscomb served for six months temporarily in the Fifteenth Mississippi Regiment and then returned to his own command, taking part in the battle of Shi- loh and the second battle of Corinth. He was also an eye witness of the first gun boat siege of Vicksburg and he was at Port Hudson, Louisiana, when that place was captured by General Banks. Following those events Dr. Lipscomb was in the very hotbed of the war, taking part in the battles of Chickamauga and other strenuously contested engagements in the vicinity of Chattanooga. Later he went to Georgia and took part in the fighting at Jonesboro, that state, and the siege and battle of Atlanta. After Johnston was succeeded by Hood he then started back with the army un- der the latter commander to Franklin and Nashville.

Dr. Lipscomb left the army at Decatur, Ala- bama, and reported for duty to surgeon gen-

eral Sam P. Moore at Richmond in the hospital service, and while there was placed in charge of a ward in Howard Grove Hospital. He also finished his medical course at Richmond as a student in the Virginia Medical College, from which he was graduated with the class of 1865.

In that year Dr. Lipscomb returned to Texas and located for practice at Birdville, Tarrant county, where he remained for a brief period. He then located at the edge of Grand Prairie, near Double Springs, in Tarrant county, where he enjoyed a good practice. In 1870 he came to Denton, which has since been his home and where he has been constantly engaged in practice as a physician and surgeon with a large patronage. His name is a household word throughout Denton county. He possesses rare qualities as a member of the profession and is continually striving to promote his efficiency through further reading, investigation and ex- periment. His work has been of marked bene- fit to his fellow men and his skill and ability place him in the front rank of the medical fra- ternity in Denton county. Dr. Lipscomb has made much money in his practice, but has also spent it generously in the education of a large family and in support of public enterprises and of church and school interests. He is thoroughly in sympathy with all that tends to promote general progress and improvement and his labors have been of marked benefit to his community. Fraternally he is connected with the Masonic lodge and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, while in the line of his profession he has membership relations with the Denton County Medical Society. Both he and his wife belong to the Christian church.

Dr. Lipscomb was first married to Miss Mary A. Walden of Grapevine, Texas, who died in 1888, leaving six children: Priestly, Clough, Cuvier, Legrand, Emmett and Gar- land. The eldest son, Dr. Priestly Lipscomb, is a graduate of the medical department of the University of Louisville at Louisville, Ken- tucky, and for some time he was a general prac- titioner of medicine but in recent years has become a specialist on the treatment of dis- eases of the eye, ear, nose and throat after taking three post-graduate courses as prepara- tion for this line of professional service. He has become quite proficient in his specialty and is meeting with very gratifying success. In 1890 Dr. Cuvier Lipscomb was again married, Mrs. Emma Belle Gregg becoming his wife at Denton. She was the widow of W. B. Gregg and a daughter of W. H. and Mattie (Haynes)

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Mounts. She was born in Denton, while her parents were Kentucky people, her mother be- ing a daughter of Catharine Bell of a prominent Kentucky family. Mrs. Lipscomb was edu- cated at Maple Hill College in Lebanon, Ten- nessee, and by her first marriage there were three children : Mrs. Susie Simmons and Mary and William B. Gregg. Unto Dr. and Mrs. Lipscomb have been born two children: Emma Belle and Dabney Lipscomb.

LEONARD A. WINSTEAD, M. D., a prominent physician and surgeon of Spanish Fort, Texas, was born in Hopkins county, Ken- tucky, August II, 1867. He received his early education in the common schools of his native state, and after the removal of the family to Texas, which was in 1886, he attended Spring- town College and Fort Worth University. In his youth he decided to adopt the medical pro- fession and all his studies were directed with that end in view. For two years he read medi- cine in the office of Drs. Cosby & Smith, of Azle, Tarrant county, and in 1895 he took a course in the medical department of the Fort Worth University. Then he began the prac- tice of his profession at Jeannette, Jack county, Texas, where he continued one year success- fully, but at the end of that time moved to Petersburg, Indian Territory, at which place he practiced four years. However, feeling the need of further preparation for his life work, he returned to Jeannette and matriculated in the medical department of Baylor University, of which he is a graduate with the class of 1902. After this he established himself in practice at Spanish Fort. He had visited Spanish Fort in 1901 and was so pleased with the future outlook of the town that he decided to make it his home. Here, associated with Dr. Hart, he has a well equipped, up-to-date office and enjoys a good business.

Dr. Winstead is a son of Dabney and Valeria (Johnston) Winstead, both natives of Ken- tucky. Dabney Winstead was a farmer and stock-raiser in Kentucky. During the war of the rebellion he was in the Confederate army, a member of General Forrest's Cavalry, and after the war he returned to his Kentucky farm, where he remained until 1886, when he moved with his family to Texas and located in Parker county. Later he bought a farm in Tarrant county, where he still resides, giving his attention to farming and fruit-raising, and where he is well known as a prosperous and highly respected citizen. For a number of years he has filled the office of justice of the

peace. Politically he is a Democrat. He is the third in a family of five, having two older brothers, William and Manly, and two sisters, Jane and Elizabeth. Dr. Winstead's mother was second born in a family of five, as follows : Cave,. Valeria, Sarah, Cordelia and Stephen. Her father, Washington Johnston, was a farmer, first of Tennessee and afterward of Kentucky. Dabney and Valeria Winstead have ten children, namely: Charles, Lee, Leonard A., George, Rena, William, Cave, Valeria, Eliza- beth and Edwin.

In 1897, at Jacksboro, Texas, Dr. Winstead married Miss Anna Ham, a native of Jack county, born in 1877, daughter of A. L. Ham and wife, nee Wilson, the former a native of Texas, the latter of Alabama. Mr. Ham is a well known stockman. The doctor and Mrs. Winstead have three interesting children : Kathleen, Leonard and Vivian. Fraternally the doctor is identified with the Masonic order of Spanish Fort. Both his wife and mother are members of the Christian church.

WILLIAM TRUSTEN BALL. For the past sixteen years the stock interests of Mon- tague county have been earnestly and mod- estly represented by the gentleman whose name initiates this article, and while he has maintained his residence in Bowie in the main since his advent to the "cow country" of the northwest, he has acquired grazing interests in the "plains country" and here and there have his successful efforts been directed. Mr. Ball has been a resident of Texas since November, 1873, when with his parents he settled in Gray- son county, seven miles southeast of Whites- boro. The family were emigrants from Polk county, Missouri, where our subject was born July 31, 1857. At about the age of majority his father, William C. Ball, went to Polk county from Lee county, Virginia, where his birth occurred in 1822. The latter's father was Jesse Ball, who came west and passed his last years and died in Benton county, Missouri. Jesse Ball had several children, but John, Sam- uel and William C., sons, are the only ones ap- parently accessible for this record.

William C. Ball, like his father, passed his life on the farm, brought up his family to lives of industry and sobriety and cast his lot with the south when the slavery question brought on the war. He entered into the struggle with intense feeling, fought the war to a finish and carried his enmity toward the north, whom he regarded as his persecutors, with him to his grave. He left Polk county in the time of the

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

war and lived in Johnson, Missouri, for a time, and then came to Texas to be among his own people of the south, dying in Grayson county in 1889. He married Nancy C. Noland, a daughter of John Noland and Mary Cross, who were farmers and natives of Kentucky. Mrs. Ball died in 1891, being the mother of: George E., of Gainesville; William T., our subject; Robert, who was drowned in the Big Wichita river in the year 1881, unmarried, and James P., of Collinville, Texas.

The country schools furnished William T. Ball with the elements of an English education and he knew only the farm while under the parental roof. At eighteen years of age he went into the saddle for his brother on a ranch in Grayson county and did the first range work for the Burrell Yarbrough outfit in that county. He remained with his employer three years and was employed later in Cooke county, then a thinly settled community, and was there about three years. He had acquired a few cat- tle himself by this time and a small ranch, and these he sold to his brother and returned to Grayson county, where he was a cattle dealer and feeder till 1889, when he located in Mon- tague. Mr. Ball became interested in Knox county ranching in 1901, where as a member of the firm of Boedeker & Ball, he owns and has under lease twenty-two sections, fenced and stocked, and from which the owners have been and are known as shippers. In Montague county Ball & Young, comprising W. T. Ball and Samuel Young, of Bowie, carry on a large business for this locality as feeders and shippers.

January 9, 1879, in Grayson county, William T. Ball and Luella Gregory were united in mar- riage. Mrs. Ball was born in Carroll county, Missouri, November 27, 1858, and is a daughter of David and Martha A. Gregory, who died on the farm near Whitesboro, leaving children; Finness, of Grayson county ; Samuel, of Brisco county; Russell, who was killed in Brisco county, Texas, leaving a child; Susan, wife of James Goodson, of Carrollton, Missouri; and Belle, wife of Calvin Tomlin, of Carroll county, Missouri. Mr. and Mrs. Ball's children are : Etta Lee, wife of Charles Brown, of Bowie, with a son, James Trusten; Sallie Belle, Will- iam David, Edith Ann and Georgia Ella com- plete the family roll. Mr. Ball, while a Demo- crat, has not dabbled in politics. He is a Chap- ter Mason and holds a membership in the Knox County Baptist church at Truscott, Texas.

REV. JAMES ANDERSON. In the de- velopment of any community the physical and spiritual phases have been inseparable com- panions, have gone hand in hand from the first pulse-beats of civilized life to the approach to ultimate perfection. Workers in the Master's vineyard have shared in the privations and hardships of the frontier, that spiritual leaven might be injected into the daily life of the popu- lace to the end that God's kingdom shall be honored and His will be done in every house- hold. To him who brought the gospel early, spread it resolutely as a disciple of the Great Teacher and continues the contest until the last victory is won shall be due an honor and a credit in excess of him who shall found a colony, build a city or win a decisive battle. The awakening of religious sentiment is the province of God's agents and the development of our spiritual lives the work of God's grace. In every county His servants bear His mes- sages and plead His cause in the regeneration of souls and to the amelioration of the human race. In this broad field of spiritual labor has. Montague county known the subject of this review, whose efforts have spanned nearly thirty years and whose physical vigor promises another generation of active, effective work in the rounding-out of his ministerial career.

In June, 1876, Rev. James Anderson reached St. Jo, Texas, and took charge of the Presby- terian church as its pastor, having ever since maintained that relation, and is also pastor of the Adora church near Stoneburg, and these charges constitute his main field of labor and give him his chief concern. He has officiated on so many occasions in intervening localities, such as Bowie, Henrietta, Gainesville, Wichita Falls and other points, that he has become widely known and is coming to be considered the father of Presbyterianism in Northwestern Texas. The family to which Rev. Anderson belongs was Americanized at Schenectady, New York. It was founded by his grandfather, John Anderson, who brought a portion of his family from Scotland in the forepart of the nineteenth century and was engaged there in the grocery business. The latter married and passed away in Sennett, New York, at an ad. vanced age, being the father of: William, who died in Oneida county, New York; John, who died at Boonville, New York; and Charles, our subject's father.

Charles Anderson was born in Schenectady, New York, in August, 1812. He graduated from Auburn Theological Seminary in 1845.

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

and located in central New York and engaged in the ministry of the Presbyterian church. He filled pastorates at Union Springs, Sennett, Savannah and in the suburbs of Auburn and died in the latter city in March, 1901. He mar- ried Elizabeth L. Clary, a daughter of Dr. Jo- seph Clary, of Throopsville, New York, but formerly from New England. Mrs. Anderson died at Sennett, New York, in 1872, at the age of fifty-one years, being the mother of: Rev. Charles Anderson, a graduate of Hamilton Col- lege and of the Andover Theological Seminary, a Congregationalist and for many years one of the professors of Roberts' College in Constan- tinople, Turkey; Rev. James, our subject ; Jo- seph C., a banker of Auburn, New York ; John B., a fruit exporter and extensive horticultur- ist of Geneva, New York, and William H., a physician of Medical Lake, Washington,' and superintendent of the Eastern Washington Hospital for the Insane.

Rev. James Anderson's youth was passed as a student in Hamilton College and in the Auburn Theological Seminary, where he gradu- ated in 1872, in Monroe Collegiate Institute, and in Oakwood Seminary, from which he graduated in 1876. In company with class- mates, the late Rev. Warner B. Riggs, of Dal- las, Texas ; Rev. C. F. Goss, now of Cincinnati, Ohio, and W. H. Niles, he came to Texas and began his work at St. Jo, as previously stated. After the lapse of five years, in which the foundation for his future successes was laid, he returned home and August 24, 1881, was united in marriage with Sarah E. Foster. Three children have blessed the home of Rev. and Mrs. Anderson, viz: Elizabeth C., deceased ; Edward L., who was educated at the college in Glasgow, Missouri, and is beginning life on his father's farm; and Hermione B., an accom- plished young lady just entering womanhood, the jewel of the domestic crown.

From childhood to the present Rev. Ander- son's life has been a busy one, first in the prep- aration necessary for his successful professional career and then in the grand work which has lain so close to his heart for nearly thirty years and in which he has triumphed in the end.

THOMAS THREADGILL. The subject of this biographical record has been identified with the rural development of Montague county for the past thirty-one years, having settled here that year and having stopped temporarily at Queen's Peak, apparently the center of in- terest in the early times, and around which clustered the first immigrants on the west side

of the county. As many before him, and as many have since, Mr. Threadgill came hither from Grayson county, but Dallas and Hunt counties had also received the family and known them as settlers for brief periods of time. Like other settlers before and since, his ambition was to build up a home in the new west and the height, the breadth and the depth of that ambition has been achieved.

The Threadgill family, headed by William D. F. Threadgill, our subject's father, crossed the east line of Texas as settlers in 1868, and first stopped in Dallas county. Later Hunt county was tried for two years, when a return to Dallas was made, and then Grayson county made its brief acquaintance. All the while they were little more than existing as farmers and when they reached Montague county they dropped down at the Peak, where, in May, 1875, the father died. The war had greatly reduced the family resources, they having near its close .sold their cotton for Confederate money, there- by losing the family labor and indirectly being deprived of the family homestead. But the first ten years after the war were the darkest of their lives and from out of that domestic cir- cle have come some of the best parents of some of the best families in their respective counties.

William D. F. Threadgill was born in 1818 in Anderson county, North Carolina, and was a son of Thomas Threadgill. The latter reared his family on the farm, passed away in the old Tar Heel state and was the father of: Wyatt, Shrock, Samuel, William D. F., Sneed, Dock, Gideon, Sarah and Ann. William D. F. Thread- gill left North Carolina and settled in Wilcox county, Alabama, where our subject was born. In 1855 he moved into Marengo county, that state, and then to Carroll county, Mississippi. He was married to Miss Amanda Stafford, a daughter of Pliney Stafford, whose wife was a Miss Anderson. Mrs. Threadgill still survives and resides in Hunt county, Texas, the mother of: William, Tom, our subject; Gideon, Lou, Adelaide, Delitha, Felix, Stafford, Tillman S., and Berry.

Thomas Threadgill was born October 5, 1844. His advantages were of the rural sort and the country school gave him a most limited education. Prior to the rebellion his father was considered a successful planter, owned slaves and amply provided for the material wants of his large and growing family, but the power of education was not so well known then as now and sons were taught to work instead. When the war came on Mr. Threadgill joined Company A, Thirtieth Mississippi Infantry,

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Captain Johnson and Colonel Neal, and joined the regular army at Corinth in time to take part in the fight at Perryville, Kentucky. After this battle he was detailed with the regi- mental quartermaster for some months and re- joined his company just before the battle of Chickamauga. He was in that and in the en- gagements at Jonesboro, Georgia, and Frank- lin, Tennessee, as well as Nashville, after which he furloughed home and never returned to the army again. Mr. Threadgill was yet unmarried when he came to Texas, but he was married in Dallas county June 22, 1869, and his efforts as a farmer until his final settlement in Montague were put forth on a rented farm. As a starter in Montague county he made the rails and fenced a piece of ground for Mr. Moore at Queen's Peak, for which he received two hun- dred dollars, and with this money he laid in house supplies, some seed wheat and a mule. He then moved into his present community and rented land of J. W. Booth, the same year set- tling a piece of Jack county school land, which he afterward bought at two dollars and twenty- five cents an acre. He and his mule made a crop and his time was afterward devoted to his own land. When his farm work had made it possible he bought additional land and as more prosperity favored him he purchased more land, until he owns four hundred and twenty- five acres on West Belknap creek, one of the most desirable farms in his county. Grain, corn, cotton and stock, together with continu- ous and unremitting toil, have accomplished these things and he and his never-failing wife have made themselves old in the contest. They have watched their neighborhood grow from the time when they alone occupied it, and their nearest neighbors were at Henrietta on one side and Queen's Peak on the other, till houses are dotted all about and not a tract of land lies unfenced.

Mr. Threadgill married Sarah V., a daughter of Edward Walton, who had issue: Richard, who died in Dallas county ; David, killed as a soldier in the Confederate army ; Ed T., of Clay county, and Mrs. Threadgill, who was born in Monroe county, Mississippi, October 18, 1846. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Threadgill are: Davis, who lives on his farm near his father and is married to Ollie Lay and they have a son, Joe, and Edwin, who married Kate Hos- ford and resides on the home place and has two sons, Truman and Thomas. Thomas Threadgill has, to use the slang of the west- erner, "seen the whole show" in the settlement and development of his locality. To reiterate,

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 68

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