A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 77

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 77

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

marriage, in Cole county, Missouri, with Mar- garet Bowden, a daughter of Nathaniel Bow- den, a Tennesseean and a farmer. The issue. of their union are: Ella, Ennis W., Bessie, Perry and Edward, all with the parental home.

James C. Dyer is one of the old-style south- ern gentleman. He is plain of manner and speech, pleasant and affable and approachable and agreeable to the humblest citizen. He is a type of genuine manhood whose personal worth has been acknowledged and honored in a public way. -

GEORGE W. STRAIN. The locality of Sand Flat, in the west side of Wise county, received, among its early settlers, William J. Strain, father of the subject of this notice, who emigrated hither from Cass county, Iowa; in 1878. With the exception of a few years passed in Chautauqua county, Kansas, where he died in 1882, the family have resided in, and been modest but active promoters of the in- ternal improvement of, the county and several of its members are still represented here.

George W. Strain was born in Cass county, Iowa, May 19, 1866. His father settled there at an early date from near Cincinnati, Ohio, where his birth occurred in 1817. The latter was a son of Samuel Strain, a farmer who was three times married and reared a family by each wife and who passed away where he spent his active life.

William J. Strain married Margaret A. Smith, who was permitted to watch over and guide her family until 1901, when she passed away on her Sand Flat farm at the age of fifty- nine years. The issue of their union were: George W., of this review; Mary E. and Sarah, twins, the former the wife of James Donohoo, of Roger Mills county, Oklahoma, and the lat- ter married George Morrow and died in Wise county ; Cyrus B., of Sand Flat; Ada E., wife of John Johns; and Alma, wife of John W. Bra- zier, of Wise county.

In the Sand Flat neighborhood of Wise county George W. Strain grew up and was edu- cated limitedly in the country schools. In De- cember, 1887, he married Catherine, a daughter of C. Bock, a resident farmer of Wise county and originally from Texas county, Missouri. For a time after his marriage Mr. Strain lived on a rented farm in his home neighborhood and when he ventured to buy land it was near Crafton, in Jack county, where he spent four years. On selling out, and after a brief stop on an inspection of the Indian Territory coun-

try, he settled on the Chico and Crafton road, three miles west of the former place, where he purchased one hundred and thirty-five acres on the Comstock survey. For four years he has been occupied with the improvement and cultivation of his farm, rebuilding his residence after having it torn away by a cyclone in 1904 and adding other and new buildings as more accommodations are needed for housing the products of his farm.

Mr. and Mrs. Strain's family consists of the children: Earnest, Jesse, Edna, Raymond and Joseph. Mr. Strain is a Republican in politics but is passive and without political ambition.

J. F. CLAYTON. There is no reading that furnishes greater incentive and inspiration than biography. The simple presentation without any attempt at ornament of the life record of some men fixes the attention, arouses the inter- est and instills the lesson that is never for- ,gotten. The greatest thinkers of the age have acknowledged this fact and the biography of many men have inspired others to deeds of her- oism and honor or imbued them with the de- sire to achieve success through persistency of purpose and laudable ambition. There is in this volume no life history more worthy of pres- entation than that of J. F. Clayton, who as a pioneer settler has aided materially in the de- velopment of this part of the state and as a citizen has been loyal to the public good, while in all his relations with his fellow-men he has won the esteem and confidence of those with whom he has been associated.

The Claytons of America came originally from England, the progenitor of the family in this country settling in West Virginia at an early date. His name is forgotten but the old log cabin which he built when he first estab- lished his home in West Virginia was still standing there some twenty years ago, a mute witness of many changes that had been wrought with the passing years. One of his sons was John Clayton, who was born in West Virginia, where a number of his descendants are still living. John Clayton reared a family of eight children, three sons and five daugh- ters. He was a farmer, active in his business affairs, and he also took considerable interest in the public welfare, supporting all measures that he believed would advance the general prog- ress and improvement. In politics he was a Democrat and before the separation of his state from the Old Dominion he represented his dis- trict in the Virginia legislature. His children

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tion was acquired in the common schools of his native state and at the age of eighteen years he began the study of medicine, reading at night and at such leisure times as his labors on the home farm afforded. After about two years of this desultory reading he went to Nashville and attended a course of medical lectures at the medical department of the Uni- versity of Nashville. This was in the session of 1872 and 73. At the close of the school year he resumed work upon the farm and thereby ac- quired a strong physical development resulting in vigorous health. He next entered the medi- cal department of the University of Louisville, where he pursued his second course of lectures and was graduated from that institution in the spring of 1874. Dr. Coleman may have been influenced in his choice of a profession by her- editary training and environment, for he de- scended from a line of ancestry among whom were leading physicans. Most of his relatives were physicians both in the lineal and collat- eral lines and some of them attained distinction in the profession, notably the Yandells of Louisville, who are his cousins.

After obtaining his diploma Dr. Coleman located at his old home in Rutherford county, Tennessee, and took up the work as his father had left it. There he practiced until 1883, when becoming imbued with the desire to make Texas his home he settled in Colorado, then a far western city. In the meantime he had lost his young wife, whom he married in 1876, two years after his graduation. She bore the maiden name of Betty Mitchell and died in 1882. She became the mother of two children, Mary Enid, and Walter Addison. After settling in his new home and determining to make it a perma- nent location, Dr. Coleman was again married, in April, 1885, his second union being with Miss Lucy Ham of Tyler, Texas. To them have been born three children, Stephen Reaves, Eleanor Preston, and Lucy Mildred.

Not long after taking up his abode in Col- orado Dr. Coleman joined the county medical society and on entering upon practice he had also joined the Tennessee State Medical As- sociation, never missing a meeting during his entire residence in Tennessee when it was pos- sible for him to present. He has made a simi- lar record in connection with the Texas State Medical Association, manifesting a zeal and devotion to its work cqualed by few. He joined this organization in April, 1885, and has attended each annual meeting to the present time, having to travel several hundred miles in order to do this, especially when the meetings

were held in Houston or Galveston. Moreover he has shown unswerving devotion to the inter- ests and welfare of the association, working in the various capacities to which he has been assigned. He has been chairman of different sessions and has served on various committees and for four years was on the judicial council during the stormiest period in the existence of the association. He has indeed fairly won the honors bestowed upon him by an admiring and appreciative constituency and he has con- tributed valuable papers to several of the de- partments, all of which have been published in the transactions of the association and a number of them have been reproduced in the Texas Medical Journal, New York Medical Record and other leading medical journals. In 1892 Dr. Coleman was elected first vice presi - dent of the Texas State Medical Association, and in 1895 was elected president, and has served as a delegate to the American Medical Association, of which body he is an active member. In meeting with his professional brethren he has constantly broadened his knowledge and promoted his efficiency and his labors in his profession have been most effect- ive in checking the ravages of disease and re- storing health.

Since 1896 Dr. Coleman has been engaged in the cattle industry. His ranch on the Col- orado river in the northwestern part of Mitch- ell county contains twenty-two sections, on which he has one of the best herds of short- horn and Herefords cattle in Mitchell coun- ty. This he supervises in addition to carefully attending to the duties of his profession. He · is a most conscientious physician and in addi- tion to caring for a large private practice he has been chief examiner for the New York Mutual, Equitable, New York Life and many other leading insurance companies for twenty years. He is today the oldest physician living in Mitchell county and his reputation for skill in the practice of medicine and surgery extends for many miles around.

Dr. Coleman has for many years been a de- voted member of the Presbyterian church and was made an elder in the Southern Presby- terian church as the successor of his father at the latter's death. His life has indeed been one of great usefulness and untiring activity. He is numbered among the self-made men of West- ern Texas, for he started out without pecun- iary assistance, possessing, however, strong determination and laudable ambition to achieve success in the world. When he came to Texas he barely had money enough to pay the ex-

Emanuel Deaths

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

penses of the trip and it was after reaching Colorado that he laid the foundation for his present prosperity. Throughout the period of his long residence in this section of the state. he has responded to every call for the allevia- tion of human suffering, possessing, a humani- tarian spirit that has prompted him to give able service even when he knew that no pecun- iary reward might be won. He is a man of pleasant address and genial disposition and during the years of his residence in Texas has done much to promote the interests of .the state and to raise high the standard of profes- sional excellence.

REV. EMANUEL DUBBS, minister of the Christian church, rancher, ex-judge, old Indian fighter, has known and been closely identified with the Panhandle country for perhaps as long a period as any other living man, and it has been his lot to witness the widely different phases of life which have successively passed over this country during the past quarter of a century-having been here when the ground trembled under the rush of the immense buffalo herds and when the roving red race scourged the prairies; he participated in the planting of the first white settlements and beheld the vast stretches of grassy plain when cattle ranging was the only industry considered profitable or possible ; and then of more recent years he has seen the prairie sod turned over by the plow, the advent of agricultural communities, and the Panhandle taking its place as a settled and widely diversified industrial region. Such a representative of Northwest Texas history this work could by no means pass over, for he is part and parcel of the changing past which has made possible the progressive and prosperous present.

His life history begins at Canton, Stark county, Ohio, where he was born March 21, 1843, a son of Daniel and Elizabeth (Meckley) Dubbs, both natives of Pennsylvania and of Pennsyl- vania Dutch ancestry. His father, a life-long farmer, lived in Stark county, Ohio, until after the war, when, his two sons having moved to Elkhart county, Indiana, he and his wife also took up their abode in that county, where they spent the rest of their years.

In 1861, being then a vigorous youth of eighteen, Rev. Mr. Dubbs enlisted at Canton, Ohio, in Company I, First Ohio Infantry, and for three years was in constant service in the Army of the Cumberland, being in Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and other parts of the south. He then returned home, and during the

last year of the war belonged to Hancock's Veteran Corps, composed of about twenty thousand veteran soldiers, who saw service mostly in West Virginia and Virginia. He was in the army altogether for four years. After the warhe came with his brother to Elkhart county, where he was in the lumber business for five years, after which he moved still further west and began his "roughing it" experiences which made him an adept in all departments of west- ern life. For a short time he was located at Paola, Kansas, and then went to work in the construction department of the Santa Fe Rail- road, which was then building through south- western Kansas. This brought him, in 1871, to the noted frontier town of Dodge City, in which place he helped build the first house, and brought his family there. Dodge City was then starting on its career as the roughest fron- tier town of the United States. During the first years of his residence there vast herds of buffalo roamed over the prairie, and after a short time Mr. Dubbs made a business of killing the buffalo for their meat and hides. With his as- sociates he established buffalo camps, and carried on an extensive industry in curing buf- falo meat and shipping it to the market. In 1874 he took part in the Indian war, as a scout assisting the federal troops under General Miles to put down the uprising of the Cheyennes. After this Indian fighting he moved southward from Kansas and established buffalo camps in what was then "No Man's Land," now Beaver county, Oklahoma, his headquarters being on the Cimarron river where he spent the winter of 1874-75.

In the latter part of 1875 his party came still further south, into the Texas Panhandle, where they continued their buffalo hunting. Their headquarters were in what is now Donley county and just a mile and a half northwest of where Clarendon stands. This was about the earliest permanent settlement in this part of the country. Mr. Dubbs had four separate buf- falo camps, and he continued in that business until the herds had practically disappeared be- fore the advent of the white man with his domestic cattle. Then, going into Wheeler county, he helped organize that county in the spring of 1878, just about the time Fort Elliott was established there. He was elected the first county judge of Wheeler county, and thus be- came the first judge on the Panhandle, there being twenty-six counties in this jurisdiction, and served as such consecutively for twelve years. In 1890 he returned to Donley county and located on his ranch a mile and a half north-

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west of Clarendon, where he had first located on coming to the Panhandle in 1875. He lived with his family on this ranch until the spring of 1904, when he moved into Clarendon, dispos- ing of his ranch to his sons, Sylvester and Walter.

In 1896, after a period of serious and diligent preparation, Judge Dubbs became a minister of the Christian denomination, and ever since that time he has been missionary for the Texas State Board of Missions, in charge of the mis- sion work of the Christian church in the Pan- handle district. He has organized a number of churches, and has done effective work in estab- lishing his church in the sparsely settled coun- ties of the Panhandle.

Mr. Dubbs was married in Ohio, shortly after the war, to Miss Angeline Freed, a native Ohioan. She has been with him through all his western life, and has been a noble and in- spiring assistant to him in all the enterprises which have so successfully been undertaken by him. Their marriage has been blessed with five manly sons, who are themselves energetic- ally taking up the tasks of life. Their names are: Clarence E., Charles W., Frederick R., William F., and Sylvester Sterling.

HON. J. H. BEALL. The gentleman whose name stands at the head of this review is one of the old settlers of Texas, and is the senior member of the law firm of Beall & Beall, prominent at the bar of the state. He is now living at Sweetwater, and in Western Texas has a large and distinctively representative cli- entage connecting him with much important litigation in this part of the state. He was born in California but was reared in Texas, and thus throughout the great part of his life has been identified with the interests of this commonwealth.

Josiah Beall, his paternal grandfather, was a native of Mississippi, who had two brothers who settled in that state, one of them, General William Beall, being well known. The other brother was Dr. Frederick Beall, who attained considerable prominence in his profession. In fact the Beall family was a leading and influ- ential one in Mississippi. These three brothers were sons of General Frederick Beall, who, removing westward from Maryland, took up their abode in Mississippi, where the family name was pronounced as though spelled Bell.

Walter D. Beall, son of Josiah Beall, is now a valued resident of Sweetwater, Texas. He was born in Mississippi, and on leaving that state accompanied his parents on their removal

to Missouri, where he was married to Miss Sarah Watson, a daughter of Judge Watson, of Jackson county, Missouri. In the year 1853 he came to Texas, settling in Denton county, where he was engaged in the stock business and farming. He afterward located in Tar- rant county, near Arlington, but because of his wife's failing health made an overland trip to California in 1856, remaining on the Pacific coast until the inauguration of the Civil war. Learning that Texas had voted for secession and had joined the southern Confederacy, he closed out his various business interests in Cali- fornia and returned to the Lone Star state, where he offered his services to the cause of the south, remaining a soldier for four years or until the close of the war. He was during a greater part of his military service a member of Com- pany K, Seventh Regiment of Texas Cavalry, and while with the army rose from the ranks to the grade of captain, at one time having charge of the commissary department of his regiment in the field. Following the close of hostilities and his return he continued his resi- dence in Tarrant county until 1881, when the family removed to the west part of the state, settling in Nolan county, where they have since resided. The mother of this family, Mrs. Sarah Beall, died in Nolan county in 1887, when fifty-four years of age. By her marriage she had two sons and a daughter: J. H., of this review; W. W. Beall, who is living in Sweet- water, and Katie, now the wife of E. L. Col- lins, of Pecos, Texas.

James Henry Beall, whose name introduces this review, was born in Los Angeles county, California, on the 18th of June, 1858, while his parents were residing temporarily in that state. He was two and a half years of age when the family returned to Texas, and his youth was largely passed in Tarrant county. He lived upon his father's farm and had the usual experiences of the farmer boy, giving considerable time to the mastery of the branches of learning taught in the schools of the neighborhood. He also attended a board- ing school for a time, taking up the higher branches of study and although he did not have the privilege of pursuing a collegiate course, he secured a fair education, and by reading, research and investigation has continually broadened his knowledge as the years have gone by. When he arrived at the age of twenty-two years he was married and came to Nolan county, reaching this locality in the spring of 1881. It was in December, 1880, that he wedded Miss Josie Crisman, of Dallas,

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the Crisman family having come from Alabama to Texas.

Mr. Beall found Sweetwater but an embryo city, it having recently been established, so that its life was in its youngest stages. In the fall of 1881 he accepted a position in a mer- cantile house, where he remained for three years and during that period he devoted his leis- ure hours to the study of law. For three or four years he continued his reading of the principal text-books on law, acquiring consid- erable knowledge of the principles of juris- prudence. In the fall of 1882 he was elected tax assessor for Nolan and Fisher countie's, for the latter, being unorganized, was attached to the former for judicial purposes. In the fall of 1884 he was again elected to that office and in 1886 he was admitted to the bar and entered upon what has been his real life work-the active practice of law. He was not long in gain- ing a good clientage, for he soon demonstrated his ability to successfully cope with the intri- cate problems that continually confront the practitioner in the courts. In 1892 he was elected county judge of Nolan county and held the office for one term, while in 1894 he was chosen to represent what was then the one hundred and sixth district of Texas in the state legislature, where he served for one term, when he refused to accept a second nomination. From that time until 1902 he was out of politics and gave unremitting attention to his law prac- tice, his devotion to his clients' interests being proverbial. In the year mentioned, however, he became candidate for district judge of the thirty-second district but was defeated by James L. Shephard, the present incumbent, by a majority of one hundred and forty-seven.

In January, 1896, the law firm of Beall & Beall was organized, his brother, W. W. Beall, becoming his partner. This is considered one of the strongest law firms in Western Texas, for they now have a growing practice, re- ceiving an extensive amount of legal business from Sweetwater and the immediate district. Judge Beall is strong in the argument of a case and prepares his cases with great care and thoroughness, measuring the points of evidence with almost military precision, so that each is given its due prominence, nor does he ever lose sight of the important point upon which the decision depends. The law firm of Beall & Beall is one of the best in Western Texas. Judge Beall devotes his attention principally to civil law but has comprehensive knowledge of various branches of the legal profession.

Judge Beall has been twice married. His

first wife died in 1894 leaving a son and two daughters, Genoa, Florence and Herbert. On the 3Ist of October, 1895, Judge Beall wedded Miss Jennie George, of Sweetwater, a daugh- ter of J. C. George, one of the old citizens of this section of the state. They have four chil- dren, James, Dent, Aline, and Bessie. Judge Beall is a member of the Woodmen camp and the Knights of Pythias, Odd Fellows and Ma- sonic lodges, and in the last mentioned has at- tained the Royal Arch degree. He is also a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, with which he has been identified for thirty-four years and for the past twenty-five years has served as one of its elders. He is honored and respected in every class of so- ciety because of his strong mental . endow- ments, his high attainments in his profession and his genuine personal worth.

OSCAR H. BAUM, president of the Troy Steam Laundry Company, and president of the Union Overall Company at El Paso, was born at Palmyra, Marion county, Missouri, January 28, 1863, and acquired his education in that lo- cality. When a young boy he worked in the printing office of the Hannibal Courier, where he learned typesetting, and before he had at- tained his majority he started for the west, making his way to Texas. He was in El Paso as early as 1881, and for some years he was connected with railroading, being a conductor on the Texas & Pacific, Rock Island and Mexi- can Central Railroads, with headquarters at El Paso. As the years passed he gradually acquired business and real-estate interests in this city, making judicious investments, and in the course of time he discontinued railroading in order to devote all of his attention to busi- ness affairs in the city. One of his main busi- ness enterprises is the Troy Steam Laundry Company, which he organized in 1898 and of which he is the president. He is likewise presi- dent of the Union Overall Company, manufac- turers of overalls, treasurer of the E. B. Welch Company, wholesale and retail dealers in furni- ture, and one of the owners of Altura Park, a beautiful subdivision of El Paso, where much building is now being carried on. He is likewise interested in other real estate business enterprises here.

Mr. Baum was married in Manhattan, Kan- sas, to Miss Nannie Foy, and they have an at- tractive home in El Paso. Although a Republi- can, and thus representing the minority party in El Paso, Mr. Baum was elected a member of the city council, representing the third

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 77

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