A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 69

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 69

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).

no persons had a less auspicious beginning than he and Mrs. Threadgill, yet they triumphed over all difficulties and have played an im- portant part in the up-building of the locality where their home has been carved out and which they love so well.

WILLIAM A. MORTON, M. D. The medi- cal profession is ably represented by a score of successful physicians in Wise county, among whom is widely known Dr. W. A. Morton, of Paradise, and the subject of this personal rec- ord. One-fourth of a century marks the epoch which his professional labors have spanned within the county's limits and they have been years busy with the affairs and duties incum- bent upon one so fitted to do honor to the noble calling of a physician. Entering the state and county in 1880, as he did, and passing four years in Garvin and nine years in the village of Cottondale, since 1893 Paradise has num- bered Dr. Morton among her own and in this vicinity he has achieved most of his substantial success.

North Carolina was the mother state of the Mortons of this American branch. William Morton, an Irishman and the great-grandfather of the doctor, settled on the coast of the Tar Heel state early in the history of our republic and from there his son, William, emigrated to Tennessee, where, in Pulaski county, his son William, father of our subject, was born. Will- iam the second left his North Carolina home at about fourteen years of age and no trace of his deserted relatives seems to have been kept. He married a Miss Brown in Tennessee, reared a large family and followed mill-wrighting and carpentering and finally removed to Fayette county, Alabama, where he died .

William Morton, father of the doctor, was born in 1812 and passed his active life in Fay- ette county, Alabama. Like his father, he was a mechanic, a success in his personal affairs, public-spirited and stood high. He was de- cidedly religious and held to the doctrines of Methodism. He married Nancy McCraw, a daughter of Thomas McCraw, who died in Perry county, Alabama, in 1847. Of their union, Thomas W. was a Confederate soldier and died during the war; Martha married A. J. Carroll and died in Alabama; Dr. William A .; and Amanda, who died unmarried. For his second wife the father took in matrimony Jane Reedus. The children of this union were: Alice, wife of Wesley Morris, of Portales, New Mexico, and Jeff W., of Jacksboro, Texas.

During our subject's youth the Morton fam-

MR. AND MRS. WILLIAM W. LANGFORD.

337

HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

ily was situated in the rural precincts of Fay- ette county and it was under such surroundings that Dr. William A. Morton was brought up. His educational opportunities had been con- fined to the proverbial country school when the war of the rebellion broke out and as he enlisted at once for the. fray experience was his teacher for the next four years. He joined Company F, Twenty-sixth Alabama Infantry, Colonel O'Neal, later governor of the state, and the regiment became a part of the Army of Northern Virginia until toward the close of the war, when it was transferred to the Army of the Tennessee. In the first army the doctor fought at South Mountain, Sharpsburg, Freder- icksburg, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg and in the second army, at New Hope Church on the Atlanta campaign and at the battles of Franklin and Nashville, after the fall of ' At- lanta. He was wounded in the left, ankle in the latter battle, but returned to his command after his recovery and was in the field when the sur- render of Lee terminated the war. .

Further resistance being futile, our subject left Cuba Station, Alabama, where he was sur- rendered, returned home and resumed his acquaintance with the work of the farm. The next year he began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. W. L. Morton, of Vernon, and when he was prepared for lectures he entered Louisville Medical College and received his diploma in 1875. Being equipped for his life work, the doctor located at Fayette Courthouse, the capital of his county, and ministered to the needs of that community in a professional way until his departure for Texas five years later. In 1894 he formed a partnership with Dr. Floyd in Paradise, which professional relation existed for four years, and since then, as before, he has practiced medicine alone.

In October, 1867, Dr. Morton married Miss Jane Moore, a daughter of W. O. Moore, whose family was originally from Tennessee, but who was born in Fayette county, Alabama, January 19, 1837. Dr. and Mrs. Morton's children are : William O., a lawyer of Los Angeles, Califor- nia, married first Miss Agnes Taylor, of Fort Worth, Texas, and they had one son, William Taylor Morton, and afterward married Miss Maud Hunter ; Eula, who married A. A. Edins and died January 10, 1904, the mother of eight children, whom she left in Sterling county, Texas; White, of Hall county, Texas, a farmer and teacher, married to Jessie Gear ; Lillie, wife of G. W. Bass, of Hall county ; J. Addison, who died at the age of sixteen years ; Florence, who

passed away at the same age, and Claud B., a law student in Los Angeles, California.

While putting into his profession all the knowledge and all the enthusiasm of his sur- charged nature, Dr. Morton has ever found it convenient and a pleasure to participate in those other human affairs which go to make up a moral and upright community. No personal aspirations seem to consume him beyond his chosen field of endeavor and when he has taken any active hand in politics it was to help right- eousness win in a contest with the forces of evil. He and his wife are communicants at the Meth- odist table and their offspring have been brought up to know the truth and fear God.

WILLIAM W. LANGFORD, son of one of the honored pioneers of Montague county, Texas, was born in Overton county, Tennessee, July 23, 1858. His parents, Thomas and Lizzie (Dillon) Langford, were both natives of Ten- hessee. Wylie Langford, his grandfather, went from Virginia at an early day to Tennes- see and settled on what was then the frontier, where he engaged extensively in farming. Po- litically he was a Democrat and religiously a member of the Primitive Baptist church, and both in politics and religion his children and grandchildren have followed the example of their worthy ancestor. His children in order of birth were: Thomas, Mat, Barney, George and Betty.

Thomas Langford in his early manhood taught school and also carried on farming, and during the war of the rebellion he was a con- script officer. Being in a border state, he sus- tained heavy loss by the foraging of both arm- ies, and when he returned home at the close of the war his property was in a dilapidated condition. He resumed farming and did some repairing, but the change in affairs at the old home made it undesirable, and in 1867 he sold out and moved over into Kentucky, where he remained two years. In 1869 he came to Texas, locating first in Denton county, where he re- mained three years. In 1872 he moved to Montague county, and settled in the vicinity of where Bonita has since been built. There were then but few settlers here. His first location was made on school land, which claim he subse- quently sold, after which he bought a half section of land near by, which he developed into a good farm, where he passed the remain- ing years of his life, and where he died in June, 1882. After his location in Montague county he taught school one term, but with

338

HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

that exception his whole time and attention was given to agricultural pursuits. He was an ardent Democrat. While in Tennessee he served as justice of the peace for a number of years and after his location in Montague coun- ty he filled the office of county commissioner.' In his life he exemplified the teachings of his church, and his many estimable qualities won him the respect of all who knew him. His widow survived him until 1894. Her family, the Dillons, also were early settlers of Tennesse, and she was the sixth born of seven children, namely : Thomas, Squire, Eliza, Ade, Bird, Lizzie and Dicia. Thomas and Lizzie Lang- ford were the parents of nine children: Jane, wife of G. Howard ; George, a resident of Mon- tague county ; Samuel, who died at the age of twenty-one years; Nancy, wife of J. Howard ; Bird, who has been twice married, first to Mr. Wakefield and after his death to a Mr. Mc- Adams; William W., whose name introduces this sketch; Thomas, a resident of Bonita ; Enoch, of Oklahoma; and Cash, a druggist of Bonita.

William W. Langford moved with his par- ents from Tennessee to Kentucky and then to Texas, being eleven years old when he land- ed in this state. In his father's frontier home he grew to manhood, assisting in the improve- ment of the farm, and remaining a member of the home circle until 1883, when he married and settled on a farm near Bonita. Five years later he sold his farm. Then he bought an- other place on which he lived for nine years ; bought and sold again, and finally, in August, 1899, purchased the farm on which he now lives, two hundred and eleven acres on Farm- er's Creek, seven miles east of Nocona. Only a few improvements had been made here at the time Mr. Langford came into possession of this property. He at once directed his energies to the task of development, with the result that he now has a commodious residence and good barn, and one hundred acres under culti- vation, producing a diversity of crops. In con- nection with his brother Cash, Mr. Langford conducts a drug store at Bonita. He will con- tinue to reside, however, at his country home, five miles from Bonita. Like his father and grandfather, he is a Democrat and a Baptist, being identified with the Missionary Baptists.

Mr. Langford married Miss Mittie M. God- ley, a native of Louisiana, born June 1, 1864, daughter of James B. and Mirom (Simmons) Godley. Her parents, natives of Georgia, went to Louisiana in early life, where they were married and where Mr. Godley was a promi-

nent planter, owning a number of slaves at the time the war of the rebellion came on. He served all through the war as a Confederate soldier, always in the front ranks, participat- ing in many hotly contested battles. Return- ing home at the close of hostilities, he found his slaves freed and his property in a ruined condition. After remaining there a few years, he sold out and came to Texas, and here in Fan- nin county he began life anew. He built a gin which he conducted successfully in con- nection with farming operations until 1880. when he sold out and came to Montague coun- ty; bought land, erected buildings and made improvements, and here he has since lived, carrying on general farming and stock-raising. He is a member of the Missionary Baptist church, to which his good wife also belonged. She died December 23, 1904. Her father, Mitchell Simmons, was a planter of Louisiana and later of Grayson county, Texas. At the time of his death he was engaged in the hard- ware business in Savoy, Texas. Mrs. Godley was the second born in her family of eight children, namely: Grisham, Mirom, John, Wil- liam, Elias, Martha, Mitchell and Mollie. The children of James Godley and wife are: Mrs. Ella Prather, Mrs. Mittie Langford, Mrs. Edna Dozier, Thomas Grisham, Mrs. Matt Arm- strong, and Mrs. Inez Moore. Mr. and Mrs. Langford have eight children, viz: James, William, Lilla, Cash, Ed W., Stella, Inez and Mittie.

GEORGE B. WADE, M. D. We are in- debted to the honored profession our subject represents for great good to the world and in- numerable blessings to human kind. With its modern discoveries the ravages of disease have been mitigated, surgery has given us a new lease on life and the contagions which once swept us into eternity have become as harmless as the air we breathe. The practice of medicine in this age consists in humanely aiding nature to throw off our afflictions and restore normal conditions without resort to the brutalities of the dark ages or the superstitions of our fore- fathers of the centuries just passed. While dis- eases seem to have multiplied and their viru- lence sometimes increased, science has placed medicine in control, and the physician of today as compared with the physician of the blood- letting era of the eighteenth century is as day- light compared to the darkness of night.

With the present enlightened age Nature has decreed that Dr. Wade shall be associated. The journey from the farm to the physician's

339

HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

chair included a season of professional reading with Dr. Irwin, of Patonville, Texas, a course of lectures in the Missouri Medical College at St. Louis and a finishing course in the Univer- sity of Tennessee at Nashville. While he en- gaged in the practice at times on his way to- ward a full-fledged member of the cult, he en- tered the work in all seriousness at Bagota, Texas, in 1890, at once upon completing his course. For seven years he administered to the wants and needs of the distressed and phys- ically afflicted at Bagota, when a relaxation of his bodily vigor forced him to seek a different climate and he located in Jacksboro in 1896. In Jack county the doctor's personality and his professional attainments drew him into a grati- fying practice and his familiar countenance is known in many homes at every point of the compass, even beyond the limits of his county. To better fit him for his calling, in 1898 and in 1900, he took post graduate work in the Chicago Polyclinic, and in 1902 at the Poly- clinic at New Orleans. He is local surgeon for the Rock Island Railroad, and for eight years was health officer and physician for Jack county, resigning and recommending his suc- cessor in 1905.

Dr. Wade was born in Person county, North Carolina, June 15, 1864. His family was one of the old ones of the Tar Heel state and his father, Richard A. Wade, and his mother, Mag- gie Adams, were born in the same county with himself. The Wades and the Adams were agricultural people, and in 1870 Richard and Maggie Wade brought their family to Texas and located in Lamar county, where they con- tinued farming and died, the former in 1893 at seventy-five years, and the latter in 1897, at seventy-four years of age. Of their children, Sallie married George B. Bolton and Martha became the wife of J. C. Bolton, both of Lamar county ; John A. is a farmer in Coleman county, Texas; Mary died as the first wife of J. C. Bolton, before named; Ab B., of Delta county ; Richard H. died in Lamar county : and Maggie, who married John Howard and resides in Cole- man county, Texas.

The rural schools provided Dr. Wade with his elementary education and he quit the farm at twenty-three years of age and took up medi- cal studies in preparation for his life work. After he located in Jacksboro he returned to Lamar county and married, January 7, 1897, Miss Jennie Bentley, a daughter of E. R. Bent- ley, who settled in Lamar county from Arkan- sas. Mrs. Wade was born in Lamar county, Texas, as was her mother, Mary E., a daughter

of Dr. Burris. George Bentley is Dr. and Mrs. Wade's only child.

Aside from his professional duties Dr. Wade has given some attention to rural pursuits in Jack county, having a farm of more than a half section and owning in addition a section and a half in Crosby county. He is examiner for some of the strong insurance societies and for the Woodmen and is Entered Apprentice in Masonry.

ALFRED G. SMITH. A successful farmer of Jack county who has passed from the de- pendence of childhood to a substantial and in- dependent station in middle life without the aid of parental influence or direction, and one whose efforts seem to have been providentially blessed, so marked has been his agricultural achievements, is Alfred G. Smith, mentioned as the subject of this biographical reference. Left to the care and consideration of grand- parents in infancy and abused by lack of in- terest and positive neglect, he cast off his re- lations in childhood and since the age of thir- teen years has weathered the storms of adver- sity and stemmed opposing and contrary cur- rents so as to anchor his life craft in safe waters and be reckoned among the successful naviga- tors of his county's rural craft.

About 1856 David Smith, our subject's father, went into Leon county and there hired to the Widow Lauderdale to do the work of her farm. In 1858 he married her and, at the opening of the rebellion, entered the army and she soon afterward died. She was Phebe A .. daughter of Joseph Henson. Sr., widely known as a Jack county pioneer. Mrs. Smith was born in Alabama, and by her first husband was the mother of Mary E., wife of A. T. Allen, of Venus, Arkansas, and Sarah J., wife of Moses Rhoades, of Placerville, Colorado.

Although his advent dates from an infant of one year Mr. Smith is numbered among the pioneers of his county. He was born in Leon county, near Ferguson Prairie, December II, 1859, the only child of his parents' marriage, and a ten months' schooling, which he paid for himself, was the best educational advantage he had. When his mother died, in 1861, his father, David Smith, was in the Confederate army and Joseph Henson, his maternal grandfather, claimed him and brought him to Jack county, to his home on Carroll creek. There, on what is now part of the Hensley ranch, he can be said to have grown up, with little raising other than his boyhood judgment would direct. He was destined to gain little knowledge from

340

HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

books and from the time he left his home until his marriage he worked for wages on a farm or a ranch. From this source he seemed not to accumulate, but to gradually sink into debt and when he took him a wife three hundred and fifty dollars was needed to start him even with the world. For a time he rented land on Car- roll creek and then moved to the West Fork and in 1884 took possession of a tract of land he acquired on the Antelope road, nine miles northwest of the county seat. Here he felt himself gather financial strength and the efforts of himself and faithful wife met their reason- able reward. Except for six years spent in Jacks- boro, where no financial advantage was gained, he has been busy with the transformation of the wild and tree-covered landscape into a fruitful and productive farm. Tract after tract has been added to the tax roll in his name un- til fourteen hundred and seven acres are em- braced in his estate.

Mr. Smith married, February 15, 1880, Miss Elizabeth Graves, a sister of Miles A. Graves, mentioned also in this work. Mrs. Smith was born September 15, 1864, and died February 10, 1899. She left children, D. Oscar, Maud L., Lena A., A. Jasper, Fred and Frank, twins; LaFayette and Lydia Jewell. Opho A. and Hallie passed away before their mother. Mr. Smith has held himself strictly to the duties of a well-managed farm; hence his commendable success. He has almost eschewed politics, but church work has ever made a demand upon his attention and time. He has brought up his family in the fear of God and he worships the Master as a member of the Methodist church.

JAMES H. SPIVEY. Since the opening years of the nineteenth century the Spiveys, of whom our subject is a lineal descendant, have scattered to various and remote parts of the American continent, and each succeeding gen- eration has furnished a slip to graft the family on to some new community and thus infuse new blood and new vigor into ever-changing and restless society. During the period above noted the forefathers of the subject of this review were fastened, as planters, to the soil of North Carolina, where the family was founded about the birth of or during the infant years of our republic.

Lovett Spivey, grandfather of our subject, was born in this favored locality of the old Tar Heel state. When a young man we find him living in Coffey county, Tennessee, where his son William was born. Of his children, Will- iam, father of our subject, and Henry met ac-

cidental deaths in Drew county, Arkansas, from damps in a well; James also died in Arkansas; David was killed in the Confederate service; Jane; Jennie married J. R. Stewart, of Waxa- hachie, Texas; and John R. resides at Ham- burg, Arkansas. Lovett Spivey finally moved out to Drew county, Arkansas. He was count- ed among the moderately successful farmers where he lived before the war and lost some slave property in consequence of that struggle.

William Spivey was reared in his native state and was only twenty-eight years old at death. He married Nancy Richardson, a daughter of George Richardson, of Coffey county, Tennessee, and his widow lives in Jack county, Texas, in the company of her children. At his death Mr. Spivey was the father of George, who was killed at the Jenkins Ferry fight during the Civil war; James H., our sub- ject ; Annie, wife of James Taliaferro, of Louis- ville, Kentucky, and Lovett and William, farm- ers of Finis, Texas.

James H. Spivey remained with the home circle until past his majority and then took up the work of the farm for himself. He was born in DeSoto county, Mississippi, August 27, 1848, and the next year his parents removed to Drew county, Arkansas. The rural schools of the time gave him his educational equipment and at twenty-five years of age he married and established a new home in the locality where he was brought up. His wife was Rachel Har- rison, a daughter of George Harrison, who set- tled there from Marshall county, Mississippi, where Mrs. Spivey was born in 1852. Their wedding occurred in October, 1873, and their children are: Carrie, wife of G. M. Jenkins, of Temple, Oklahoma, with issue, Ima, Morris and James ; Hugh, a clerk in Jacksboro; Will- iam, who is just out of school; and George and Ray complete the list.

In 1880 Mr. Spivey came to Texas and set- tled at Finis, in Jack county, and resided in that locality until 1894, when he removed to a small place and a new one near the limits of the county seat. Here he began the building of a home and has added other parcels of land, as his finances warranted, until three hundred acres constitute his well-improved homestead. He is a stockholder in the Jacksboro Mill and Elevator Company, a Democrat in politics and has served many years as a trustee of the Jacks- boro schools.

JAMES MCDONOUGH MADDOX. In the subject of this notice is presented an ex-sheriff of Jack county and a retired farmer, whose

34I

HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

residence within the county dates from the year 1880, when he settled on Keechie creek,. thirteen miles south of the county seat. For twenty years he was engaged in stock-farming, four years of which time he was grazing his cattle on the range south of Carlsbad, New Mexico, disposing of his · marketable product largely where it was made ready for sale. Since taking up his residence in Jacksboro, however, his interests have extended to farming his land and to the care of the few stock necessary to graze off a small tract. From 1880 to 1888 the firm of Maddox & Van Slyke were well known in the south part of Jack county, Mr. Van Slyke having established himself there prior to the entry of Mr. Maddox to the county. In 1886 the firm drove a bunch of cattle to Chey- enne, Wyoming, to market and Mr. Maddox succeeded the firm two years later and con- ducted its affairs without special incident the succeeding twelve years.

Mr. Maddox came to Texas from. Claibourn parish, Louisiana, where he grew up, but his birth occurred in Throop county, Georgia, July 26, 1843. His father was Edward Mad- dox, born in Cumberland county, Virginia, in 1799, and his grandfather, Notley Maddox, was for six years and a half in the artillery service during the Revolutionary war. The latter took his family into North Carolina and settled on the Yadkin river in the early part of the nine- teenth century and he died there, the father of John, who died in Putnam county, Georgia, as did his brother, Alexander; Edward, who died in Claibourn parish, Louisiana, in 1866; Not- ley, who passed away in Harris county, Geor- gia ; Samuel, of East Texas, and Mrs. Emily Saddler, who passed away in Putnam county, Georgia. Edward Maddox led a plain coun- try life, was limitedly schooled as a youth and settled in Georgia. He acquired slave property, as was the custom of the thrifty farmer of the south before the war. He removed to Louisi- ana, and there his life ended. He was a Whig in politics in early life, and was a member of the Methodist church for seventy-eight years and a devout Christian. He married Frances Sale, who died in Arkansas in 1872, and their children were: William A., whose life ended in Fort Worth in 1904, was an Arkansas colonel in the Confederate army ; Robert F., who died at Atlanta, Georgia, in 1899, was colonel of the Forty-second Georgia during the war; Seman- tha E., wife of Thomas Scott, of Atlanta, Arkan- sas; Payton P., adjutant of the Ninth Louisiana Confederate service, died in Fort Worth in

1873 ; Bettie J. died in Harris county, Georgia, in 1859, as Mrs. Dr. Wallace, and James M., of this notice.

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.

A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 69

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