A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 91

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 91

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While not a native Texan Mr. Matthews has

been a resident of the state since 1871, at which date his parents settled on a farm, and amid rural surroundings he grew up. The accumula- tion of wealth was not one of the family peculiarities and our subject faced the world at the age of seventeen with little learning, poor in body and poor in purse. He was bent on winning his way in the world and it is strange that the first permanent position which he secured was with a company whose influence so markedly shaped the course of his life and guided it into channels of usefulness. From his Grayson county home he went to Gaines- ville, in 1879, and applied there to the lumber firm of Lyon & Gribble for work. He was hired and made wagon man, lumber piler and all-round yard helper, and at once felt, no doubt, that his star of empire was about to rise. He had so applied himself and mastered the essen- tial details of the business that when the com- pany established its yard in Bowie he was placed in charge of it. From 1882 to 1890 he made his employers' interest his own and was rewarded the latter year by being taken into the firm and Lyon and Matthews then began doing business in Bowie. In 1900 this partnership decided to go into the hardware and implement business, as it is broadly understood in Texas, and the business of Lillard & Company in Bowie was purchased and this, with its various enlargements and extensions, has come to be the most extensive and important mercantile house in the city. Branch lumber yards have been established in Bellevue, Texas, and Ho- bart, Oklahoma, and in the latter city a branch of their mercantile house was also founded.

Forsythe county, North Carolina, was Mr. Matthews' native place and his birth occurred June 14, 1861. As an active business man, in early life, his father, James E. Matthews, was a merchant. The latter was born in Henry county, Virginia, in 1830, and accompanied his parents into North Carolina in boyhood. He grew up in the latter state where he acquired a fair education in the common schools. His father, William Matthews, was a farmer and saw mill and grist mill man who died at about fifty-six years of age, and his mother was a Miss Staples who passed away after rearing a large family of children.

In early life James E. Matthews got into poli- tics, being elected to the lower house of the North Carolina legislature, as a Whig, before he was twenty-one years old. He entered mercantile pursuits in the town of Stokesburg, but retired from it before the outbreak of the rebellion. During the war he was a colonel of

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a Confederate regiment and was in the service throughout the struggle.

The issues of the war and its results changed his political views and he became a Democrat and as such was elected to the state senate of North Carolina. He was repeatedly returned to the senate, a fact of sufficient moment to insure us of his reliability and usefulness as a legislator. When he came to Texas he soon got into politics and was elected from Grayson county to the popular branch of the Texas legislature, where he served two terms.

In 1853 James E. Matthews and Miss Susan Cole were married. Mrs. Matthews resides with her son in Bowie, while her husband passed away January 13, 1894. He was a Ma- son and an Odd Fellow and member of the Meth- odist church. Of their many children George W., of Temple, Texas, was the oldest; then James F., of El Reno, Oklahoma ; Robert F., of Grayson county ; John H., our subject; Chris- topher C., of Kansas City, Missouri ; Mrs. E. K. Flenor, of El Reno; Mrs. Ida Adkinson, of Grayson county ; Mrs. Ella M. Wilson, of Dye Mound, Texas; Walter R., of Bowie, and Thomas J., of Montague county.

May 7, 1883, John H. Matthews and Miss Mary Lucia Hubbard were married in Bowie. Mrs. Matthews was a daughter of Dr. Socrates Hubbard, a New York man who, some years later, took his family to California and at Pasa- dena himself passed away. Mrs. Hubbard was a Snowden and of her six children Mrs. Mat- thews was her only daughter, and was born at Quincy, Illinois, in 1861. September 26, 1904, Mrs. Matthews died, leaving two surviving, Robert Leslie and Erminie, a son and a daughter.

Mr. Matthews' identity with Bowie dates from its inception. He was one of its organizers and held some position in the city government for sixteen years. He was mayor for ten years and actively promoted its waterworks, school houses, etc., and held out a welcome hand to everything calculated to benefit and further the welfare of the town. He donated a year's time and a few thousand dollars in cash as a mem- ber of the committee selected by the corpora- tion to visit Topeka, Kansas, in the interest of securing the Rock Island railroad for Bowie. He is a Royal Arch and Knight Templar Ma- son, served long as master of the lodge and as high priest of the chapter and has several times attended the State Grand Lodge as a delegate. He is an Odd Fellow and a Pythian Knight, and a Methodist. For twenty years he has been superintendent of the Sabbath school and is

steward and district steward of the church and was a delegate to the Methodist General Con- ference at Richmond, Virginia, in 1886.

REV. CHARLES E. BROWN, pastor of the First Methodist church of Cleburne, Texas, was born in Macon, Georgia, in 1848, son of John T. and Mary (Ousley) Brown, both of whom were descended from distinguished ancestry.

John T. Brown was a life-long resident of Georgia, living at Macon and at Cuthbert in Randolph county, was a prominent and wealthy business man of great energy, and was among the first volunteers in the Confederate army, in which he served throughout the Civil war. He died in Macon in 1897. His ancestors came to Georgia as early as 1769. His grandmother Brown was before her marriage a Miss Talli- ferro, a member of the noted Georgia family of that name. Governor James A. Smith, of Georgia, married a sister of John T. Brown.

The mother of Charles E. Brown died in Macon in 1905. She received a classical educa- tion at Barnesville (S. C.) College and at Salem College, and was a most estimable woman, loved by all who knew her. Her people, the Ousleys, trace their ancestry back to an ancient Shrop- shire (England) family, of which Sir Richard Ousley was a member. The American founder of the family was Thomas Ousley, who landed in Virginia previous to the year 1700, and lo- cated in Stafford county, where he subsequently became known as Major Ousley on account of his rank in the militia. His sons, John, Thomas and Jonathan Ousley, were soldiers in the Revo- lutionary war. Robert Ousley, the great-grand- father of the subject of this sketch, came from Virginia to Georgia, and his son, Newdigate Ousley, our subject's grandfather, married Sallie Flournoy Davis, of the family from which Jeffer- son Davis sprang. Newdigate Ousley built the first brick warehouse in Macon, was the founder of the firm of Ousley & Son, and was for many years a prominent cotton merchant in that city.

Charles E. Brown was reared chiefly in Cuth- bert. He attended school at the Georgia Mili- tary Institute, Marietta, and was a cadet there when, at the age of fifteen years, in 1863, he en- tered the war as a member of the Georgia, Cadets, State troops, in the battalion commanded by Major Capers, who was commandant of the Georgia Military Institute. Mr. Brown's ser- vices lasted until the close of the war, principally in Georgia and Tennessee, and among the en- gagements in which he participated were the siege of Savannah and the siege and battle of

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Atlanta. After the war he turned his attention to mercantile pursuits in Cuthbert, which he followed for a time. Since early boyhood he had. been a member of the Methodist church and, desiring to enter the ministry, he studied to that end, and was admitted as a preacher of the Georgia Conference at Albany in 1868. His first charge was Morgan Circuit, Calhoun county, on which he was engaged two years, and from whence he went to Thomas county, where he spent another two years. In 1872 he was trans- ferred to Texas, joined the Northwest Texas Conference and was assigned to charges at Cal- vert and Hearne. During the terrible yellow fever epidemic of 1873 he was the only minister that remained at Culvert, and was a victim of the fever. Since then he has held some of the most important charges in the Northwest Texas Conference, such as Abilene, Brownwood and Cleburne. He was pastor of the church at Wax- ahachie for four years, also for years was presid- ing elder of the Waxahachie District. In 1902 he was assigned to First Church, Cleburne, one of the strong churches of the state, with a membership of one thou- sand, and owning and occupying a fine church edifice. Here, as elsewhere in his labors, Mr. Brown has met with signal success, both in his ministerial work and in the management of church business affairs. He is interested in the movement for providing homes for superan- nuated ministers, and is active in the work of the board organized for that purpose ..

At this writing Mr. Brown is building a beau- tiful home about four miles east of Fort Worth, on the Interurban Railway, which will be his permanent home when he retires from the active work of the ministry. He was married, at Americus, Georgia, to Miss Lou Elam, and they have three children: J. T., Charles E., Jr., and Mary, wife of Royal A. Ferris, a prominent and wealthy business man and banker of Dallas. Fraternally Mr. Brown is a Knight of Pythias.

WILLIAM OLDHAM MOBERLEY was one of the first men to take part of the range land at the present town of Iowa Park and turn it into a beautiful, fertile and profitable farm. Iowa Park is now one of the growing and pros- perous towns of North Texas, with all the rich territory around, through development and good farm management, contributing its wealth to this center, and it is difficult to realize that less than fifteen years ago the region was almost un- inhabited range and only at the beginning of its era of progress and upbuilding. Mr. Mober-

ley is one of those who have persevered through several discouraging seasons, placing his judg- ment in the fertility of the soil against droughts and other evils that beset the agriculturist, and he has been successful to a high degree and is owner of as fine a farm as any in the neighbor- hood. He is an industrious, public-spirited and popular citizen, is a veteran of the rebellion, hav- ing fought throughout the war, and has made himself useful in all relations of life.

He was born in Howard county, Missouri, in 1838. His parents were Ichabod and Elizabeth (Oldham) Moberley. His father was born near Richmond, Madison county, Kentucky, and was one of the early settlers of Howard county, Mis- souri. In 1840, when William O. was two years old, he left there and went to Talladega county, Alabama, where he continued to make his home until his death, in 1882. He was a farmer by occupation.

Mr. Moberley lost his mother in 1855. He was reared on his father's farm, and when the war came on he was living in Talladega county, and from there enlisted, in 1862, in a battalion of cavalry which later became a part of what was known as the Eighth Confederate Battalion, so called because composed of cavalrymen from a number of different southern states, who met in Alabama and organized. This battalion was in General Joe Wheeler's division and General Martin's brigade and Colonel Prather, now of Atlanta, Georgia, was one of their gallant offi- cers. Mr. Moberley was in the fighting at Cor- inth, also at Blackland and a number of other places in Mississippi, and then followed Bragg into Kentucky, whence they had to fight all the way back into Tennessee; later at the battles of Murfreesboro, Shelbyville, Chickamauga. This cavalry battalion was engaged mostly in danger- ous scouting duties, and were sent all over the conflicting places of the south. Mr. Moberley came out of the army on his birthday in May, 1865, and like so many of the brave southrons who fought for the lost cause he returned to his home in Talladega county and took up the bur- dens of civil life, continuing the farming career which had been broken into by war. There were three other boys in the family who had been in the Confederate service, and they all returned home.

In 1872 Mr. Moberley moved from Alabama to Milam county, Texas, and for the following six years was engaged in farming near Mays- field ; his next location was on a farm six miles south of Waco, in McLennan county, where he lived about eight years. In 1886 he came to

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Wichita county, and on a tract of land adjoining the town of Wichita Falls he made one crop. In the next year he came to his present farm, eleven miles west of Wichita Falls, and the place that he selected adjoins the now beautiful vil- lage of Iowa Park, but which was not laid out until 1888. Mr. Moberley's was one of the first farms to be located here, and the land at that time was all range. His estate comprises four hundred acres, on which he carries on general farming operations, and is making and has made a good success.

Mr. Moberley is a member of the Presbyterian church. While living in Alabama he was mar- ried to Miss Myrtle Wilson, who was born and reared in Georgia. She died at Iowa Park, May 6, 1899, leaving two children, namely : William Cunningham Moberley, of Iowa Park; and Mrs. Katie May Crites, of Wichita Falls.

JUDGE JOHN H. GLASGOW, of Seymour, is a popular and exceedingly able legist in Bay- lor county, and his business also extends into a number of the surrounding counties. His resi- dence in North Texas covers more than a quar- ter of a century, and throughout nearly all that period he has been active in the practice of law. Judge Jack Glasgow, which is his well known title over a large territory, is a born leader of men and a potent influence in affairs. At the outset of his career and while struggling to ac- quire admission to the bar, he taught school, in this state and elsewhere, and he has in every locality of his residence identified himself with public progress and activity.

Judge Glasgow was born near Jackson, Cape Girardeau county, Missouri, in 1851. He was a son of John W. and Mary (Mayes) Glasgow. His father, who was a native of Pennsylvania, was one of the very early settlers of the Com- promise state, taking up his residence in the northwest portion at the site of St. Joseph as early as 1824, only three years after the state was admitted to the Union. He lived at St. Joseph a number of years, and afterward moved into the southeast part of the state, in Cape Girardeau county. For about fifteen years of his later life he made his home in Colorado, where he died in 1888. He was a tanner by trade. His wife was born and reared in Mis-' souri, and died there in 1864.

Judge Glasgow was reared in southeast Mis- souri, and while getting his education he taught school in Cape Girardeau county and vicinity. He began to wage the battle of life on his own account when he was seventeen. While yet in

his teens he had formed the definite purpose to become a lawyer, and was reading law while teaching in his native state. When twenty-four years of age, in 1875, he moved to Texas, and since that year has been thoroughly identified with the growth and prosperity of the northern part of the state. His first location was in Young county, when the county seat of Graham was a mere settlement, of three or four houses. All the country was new, and mainly given over to cattle range. It is his credit that he taught the first school in the county, with about eigh- teen pupils, some of whom had to come four miles. At that time none of the counties west or northwest of Young had been organized. Mr. Glasgow taught for one term at Graham, and then entered seriously upon the study of law at Graham, where he was admitted to the bar in 1877. In the meantime a considerable influx of settlers, mainly cattlemen, had occupied the lands in the county, and from the very beginning of his legal career he had a good practice. In the fall of 1878 he was elected to the office of county judge, and served two terms in that posi- tion. In May, 1886, he moved somewhat far- ther to the northwest and made location at Sey- mour, which has proved his permanent home and center of activity to the present time. His large and lucrative practice extends over Bay- lor and also the western counties of Haskell, Knox, King, Dickens, Cottle and others. He is well known all over this region, and as he makes his legal trips through the counties with his team and buggy he is everywhere welcomed as a good, genial, whole-souled gentleman of the true western type. He is, moreover, a pleas- ing public speaker, has fine address, and as he is especially well versed in Democratic politics he is often called upon for public speeches. Fra- ternally he is associated with the Knights of Pythias order.

Judge Glasgow was married in Colorado county, Texas, to Miss Mantie Cummings, of that county. They have two children: Jim Jack Glasgow is eleven years old, and his sister Kittie Gail is six.

NATHAN L. JONES. The extensive busi- ness interests of Quanah and Hardeman county place Nathan L. Jones among the leaders in industrial circles, and he has achieved that suc- cess which is the logical result of enterprise, systematic effort, resolute purpose and straight- forward methods. There are no other qualities absolutely essential to development, and upon the ladder of his own building he has climbed

JAMES A. MCNUTT AND WIFE

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

to prominence and prosperity. Arkansas claims him as her native son, for his birth there oc- curred in Howard county in December, 1856, his parents being Samuel and Paulina (Ches- sire ) Jones. The father was called upon to lay down his life on the altar of his country during the Civil war, in which he served as a member of the Confederate army, and during his business career he was a farmer and cotton planter. His widow still resides in Arkansas.

On the old home farm in Arkansas Nathan L. Jones spent the days of his boyhood and youth, and throughout the greater part of his life he has been connected with the cotton industry. In 1886 he came to Texas, and is numbered among the old pioneers of Hardeman county. On his arrival here his possessions consisted of but a yoke of oxen, journeying here from Erath county, Texas, in search of a favorable location in the northwest, which was then just beginning to attract attention through the impending com- pletion of the Fort Worth & Denver Railroad. Deciding to locate in Hardeman county, he erected a small house on the present site of Quanah, which place had been started that year, and secured school section No. 292 at Gypsum. For several years thereafter he was successfully engaged in farming and stock-raising, and in addition thereto was for three years a contractor and builder in Quanah during the boom days here, during which time he erected several build- ings and dwellings. In 1899 he sold his ranch- ing interests to embark in the cotton ginning business. Previous to coming to this state he had been for six years in that industry in Arkan- sas, thus being thoroughly familiar with the business, and here his interests have grown in a gratifying manner. It is only within recent years that cotton ginning has been attempted ex- tensively as far northwest as Hardeman county, but it is now an important industry, and Mr. Jones is serving as president of the Quanah Gin & Feed Mill Company, which operates gins at Quanah, Chillicothe and Paducah, the last named' in Cottle county. Besides these owned by the company Mr. Jones has individually two gins in Greer county, Oklahoma. In 1891 he suffered the terrible misfortune of having both legs cut off below the knee by a railroad train at Vernon, but resolution, faithfulness and capa- bility triumped over this affliction, and to-day he stands facing the future undaunted and as a leader in the business, political and social circles of the community.

He was united in marriage to Miss Sarah Ann White, and they have thirteen children. In 1894

he was elected to the office of county treasurer, to which position he has been reappointed at each succeeding election, and at the present time is a candidate for the position. He is a promi- nent and worthy member of the Christian church, in which he has long served as a deacon.

JAMES ALEXANDER McNUTT. This biographical sketch deals with the history of a family which pioneered to the Lone Star state about the time it laid aside the mantle of a re- public and since 1844 its representatives have, like a great mass of thorough-going Texans, been concerned with the state's domestic de- velopment. James A. McNutt, the only surviv- or of the original family, has served his state as a farmer and his southland as a soldier and, in whatever other civil capacity his services could be utilized, he has stood ready with the tender.

In 1881 Mr. McNutt settled on Briar creek in Montague county, bringing hither many cattle, his horses and other property common to the farm. The quarter section of state school land which he purchased, in section 3, possessed a pole cabin and in this he housed his family until good, comfortable quarters were provided. So long as he had free range he was conspicuous- ly in the cattle business, but with the curtail- ment of this and the final closing-up of the wild lands he turned off his stock and dropped positively into the path of agriculture. His farm lies on the Bowie and Jacksboro road and he has made it one of the desirable places along that highway.

James A. McNutt was born in Lawrence county, Alabama, June 2, 1834. William Mc- Nutt was his father and William McNutt was his grandfather. William McNutt moved his family from North Carolina into Alabama and located near Decatur when William was a boy and there the latter was reared and married. William McNutt, Sr., had sons, Davison, Ham- ilton, Alexander, and William and a daughter Mary.

William McNutt, Jr., married Elizabeth, a daughter of Samuel Irvin, and soon after the family came to Texas she died in Upshur coun- ty. The children of their union were: Alfred, who died at Coffeyville, Mississippi ; Harvey, who passed away in Upshur county, Texas ; Samuel, who departed life in Lafayette coun- ty, Mississippi; James A., our subject, and Hiram, who was killed in battle at Bayou Tesche, a soldier in the Confederate army.

About 1842 William McNutt took his family

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

into North Missouri where he bought Ponta- tauk Indian land, intending to settle, but after trying the country a year or so he found the winters too severe and he returned south and before he settled again he found himself in Gregg county, Texas. He seems to have been undecided, or dissatisfied, for a few years, for hc tried Webber's Prairie in Travis coun- ty and then back to Gregg and, finally, to Tar- rant county, where he first settled on the Toombs and Catlett land, but afterward moved into Dozier Valley and there died on his farm in 1840 at the age of seventy years. When he went into Tarrant county, in 1853, Fort Worth was only a military stronghold and there was only one farmhouse along the road between there and Decatur, and by his vote his son James A. helped locate the county seat at the Fort before the war.

James A. McNutt learned little in books while growing up and nothing of the world be- yond his frontier experiences. He had taken his station in life in an humble way before the war but when that contest came up he joined Sibley's command and helped take all the west- ern military posts from the Federal govern- ment and when he returned he enlisted in Capt. Moody's company, Steele's regiment, and saw all his service in the Trans-Mississippi Depart- ment. He helped capture Galveston and was in battle with Banks at Bayou Tesche, Louisi- ana. He fought at Pleasant Hill, Mansfield, Yellow Bayou and Fort Donelson. Toward the end of the war he was detailed to the Bra- zos river country to impress mules into the army and was so engaged when Lee surren- dercd.

At once upon shedding his uniform Mr. Mc- Nutt got down to the business of civil life. He bought up some wild cattle, broke them to work and began freighting between Jefferson and Houston and followed this with good profit for five years. He then began farming and re- maincd in Tarrant county until 1875, when he removed to Wise county and pursued the same vocation until his final settlement, in Mon- taguc county, six years later.

November 6, 1868, Mr. McNutt married, in Tarrant county, Georgiann, a daughter of John and Elizabeth (Brown) Simmons, who were the parents of eight children. The mar- riage of Mr. and Mrs. McNutt was productive of issue, as follows: Robert Lee, of Vernon, Texas, married Maria Rogers; Laura, wife of J. H. Stone, and Minnie, wife of Amos Pipkin, both near the family home, and James Rufus, who yet adheres to the old home.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 91

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