A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 95

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

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views he was a Primitive Baptist and he always took an active interest in church matters. In politics he was an unfaltering Democrat but never sought office as the reward for party fealty. He married Miss Betsie Hood, who was a na- tive of North Carolina and in their family were eleven children, of whom five sons and five daughters reached adult age. The sons are all yet living and are now well situated in life, be- ing prosperous residents of Texas.

David Nation was born October 6, 1854, in Blount county, Alabama, was there reared and made his home in that locality through the period of strife between the north and the south, during which time he learned many valuable lessons of life that have been a source of profit to him in later years. His educational privi- leges were limited to three months attendance at school, for the fortunes of war made it impossi- ble for the schools of the locality to be main- tained. He was about thirteen years of age when the family removed to Texas and he made his home with his father until he had reached the age of twenty-two years, when he was mar- ried, the lady of his choice being Miss Linnie Banks, a native of Texas, born in Cherokee county.

Mr. Nation started out upon his business career with only a saddle and pony. He en- gaged in farming in Ellis county upon rented land for two years, and then with the money that he had been able to save during this period he bought land upon which he lived until 1890. In that year he came to Scurry county, where he has since made his home and he has been closely identified with its growth and development to the present time. Here he first purchased a section of land in the southeastern part of the county and was engaged in farming for three years. He then removed to Snyder, where he purchased a livery stable but after conducting it for a brief period he sold out. He next bought a half interest in a dry goods and grocery store, becoming a partner of I. H. Nelson under the firm style of Nelson & Nation. This firm after- ward erected the building now occupied by the Paxton Hardware Company on the southwest corner of the public square, making their head- quarters there for some time. In 1901 the part- nership was dissolved, Mr. Nelson taking the dry goods and Mr. Nation the groceries. In 1901 the latter erected the brick building on the northwest corner of the square and con- ducted a grocery business alone for about a year. In the fall of 1902 the Snyder Mercantile Com- pany was organized with J. E. Dodson as presi-

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

dent and C. T. Ghrand vice president and general manager. A year later Mr. Nation was elected president of the company, and two years after its organization was chosen general manager, and has since been the chief executive officer of the corporation. The company is capitalized at thirty-five thousand dollars and deals in gen- eral merchandise of every description save farm implements. This is one of the largest commer- cial concerns of Snyder and derives its trade from a large territory. The patronage is now extensive and the house sustains a splendid rep- utation for its honorable methods, straightfor- ward dealing and reasonable prices.

Mr. Nation, an enterprising man, has taken an active interest in the upbuilding of the county and has been a generous contributor to the erec- tion of every church and school house in Scurry county and some in Kent county. Since he en- tered business life here he has been eminently successful. He possesses the keen insight, strong purpose and indefatigable energy so necessary to success in a business career, and in the management of his affairs displays sound judgment. He has been a member of the Meth- odist church for the past twenty-five years and has labored earnestly and effectively for the wel- fare of the church and for the promotion of its various activities. He likewise belongs to the Masonic fraternity, in which he has attained the Royal Arch degree.

Mr. and Mrs. Nation have become the par- ents of five children, of whom two are living : Viola and Rural. The family home is noted for its generous and warm-hearted hospitality and both Mr. and Mrs. Nation have a very wide circle of friends in this part of the state. He is a gentle- man of strong purpose, alert and enterprising, carrying forward to successful completion what- ever he undertakes and his labors have already been crowned with successful accomplishment.

WILLIAM S. KELLY, one of the old and honored residents of San Angelo, Texas, was born in Autauga county, Alabama, in 1847, his parents being John and Martha (Cherry) Kelly, the former a native of Ireland and the latter of North Carolina. After coming to Amer- ica the father located in Alabama, and his death occurred when his son William was but a lad. The mother joined her son in Tom Green county, Texas, and her death occurred in this county. William S. Kelly was practically reared by his friend, Colonel Frank C. Taylor, whose sketch will be found below. When fourteen years of age he began work for the Colonel in

the stage and mail carrying business in Alabama, this being at the beginning of the Civil war period, and as all able-bodied white men of suit- able age were required for the Confederate army, Colonel Taylor, who had Confederate govern- ment contracts for carrying mail, etc., by stage in northern Alabama and Georgia, was com- pelled to operate his lines with such help as he could obtain. It was in this emergency that Mr. Kelly was pressed into Colonel Taylor's service, first as a messenger boy and later in driving and more serious work as a mail carrier, and among his treasured documents of earlier days is a commission as mail carrier issued to him by Hon. John H. Reagan, postmaster general of the. Confederacy under President Davis, while another interesting one is his commission as postmaster of Greensboro, Alabama, issued by President Andrew Johnson, he being the first postmaster of Greensboro after the war.

In 1871, retiring from his postmastership, Mr. Kelly came to Tom Green county, Texas, ar- riving on the 27th of December, to join Colonel Taylor, who had come to this state from Ala- bama and engaged in the stage business on a more extensive scale. The headquarters of the western lines of stages in Texas were then at Ben Flickin, and Mr. Kelly worked for about a year and a half on the El Paso mail line. Aban- doning the stage business, he then engaged in freighting and contracting around the govern- ment posts in western Texas, especially Fort Concho in Tom Green county. He was the first postmaster of Ben Flickin after its establishment by Colonel Taylor, and later, on removing to Sherwood, now the county seat of Irion county but at that time a part of Tom Green, became the first postmaster of that place. He was also instrumental in establishing additional mail routes in western Texas. He erected the first frame dwelling in Ben Flickin, hauling the lum- ber, for which he paid one hundred and ten dollars per thousand feet, all the way from Bren- ham, Texas, by ox team and wagon. While residing at Sherwood Mr. Kelly, in partnership with John Lackey, for many years the county and district clerk of Tom Green county, opened in 1877 a finely irrigated farm known as the Kelly and Lackey Farm, which was cultivated with excellent success by Mexican tenants. In 1874 he was one of five commissioners, Colonel Taylor, Captain Mullens, Colonel Millspaugh, and G. W. DeLong, appointed by the governor to organize the Tom Green county and receive the registered vote at the first election, Colonel Taylor having been the author of the petition.

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

The organization of the county was completed on the 5th of January, 1875, and then extended to the Pecos river. At that time there was an interesting contest for the county seat between Ben Flickin and San Angelo, but the former won and remained the capital until 1882, when the flood of the Concho washed away the entire town and the county seat was then removed to San Angelo, where it has ever since remained. Since September, 1883, Mr. Kelly has been a resident of that city, and in October, 1883, he entered the lumber business, thus continuing until September, 1888, when he sold to Cameron & Company, and served as manager of that firm until February, 1904, at which time the firm sold to the Burton-Lingo Lumber Company and Mr. Kelly retired from the business. He has been engaged in the cattle industry almost since his advent into Tom Green county, owning a ranch of five and a half sections on Lapan creek, seventeen miles south of San Angelo, about two hundred and fifty acres of which is under culti- vation, the remainder being pasture land.

By his first marriage Mr. Kelly became the father of three children, one of whom, John S., was drowned in the San Saba, on the 22nd of September, 1900; the two surviving being Charles R. and Mrs. Annie Taylor Jackson. Mr. Kelly's present wife was Mary A. Van Court, a daughter of Alex. Van Court, who came with his family from St. Clair county, Illinois, in the early 'zos and located at the head of Devil's river in Gillespie county, thirty miles from Fredericksburg. During the early years of their residence here this part of Texas was for several years greatly harrassed and often terrified by the bad characters of those days as well as by the Indians, who made that neighborhood, whose physical features gave them better protection than others, the scene of many of their most atrocious raids. Mrs. Kelly comes from a prom- inent family of Macoupin and St. Clair counties, Illinois. Her uncle, B. J. Van Court, was a prominent citizen of O'Fallon, that state. Her father made the trip overland to California in 1849, also going on other pioneering trips to the west, and later was proprietor of the old St. Louis Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri, well known to many of the old residents of that city. One of his pleasant reminiscences was purchas- ing wood from U. S. Grant, whose home was near St. Louis at that time. After his removal to Texas, Mrs. Kelly's father assisted in organ- izing Kimble county. Eight children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Kelly, namely: Mrs. Grace Herring, Van Court, William S., Jr.,

Catharine, Marie, Benjamin, Blakesley and Samuel. Since his original appointment as com- missioner at the organization of the county Mr. Kelly served as county commissioner in 1879 and was one of the commissioners to build the court house at Ben Flickin in 1880, also served one term as county commissioner from San Angelo, representing Precinct No. I. He is the oldest director of the First National Bank, formerly the Concho National, in which position he has served since early in 1889, and is now vice president of the institution. 'He is a trustee and member of the Methodist church, and a member of the building committee for the new church of that denomination in San Angelo. He is also a member of the city school board and has been for several years, and is one of the best known and most honored citizens of that city.

COLONEL FRANK C. TAYLOR will be well remembered as the prominent government mail contractor and stage proprietor in Georgia, Alabama and Mississippi, before and during the period of the Civil war. After the close of that struggle, however, his fortunes were greatly re- duced, and early in 1869 he came to Texas, this being before the advent of the railroads here with the exception of a few miles in the eastern part of the state. He located at what later be- came the settlement of Ben Flickin, four miles south of Fort Concho, in what is now Tom Green county, the county receiving its name from Colonel Tom Green of Confederate fame. Fort Concho had been started by the Federal government at the forks of the Concho shortly after the close of the war, and its substantial and costly stone buildings, the remains of which are still standing at San Angelo, were in course of construction at the time of Colonel Taylor's arrival. Purchasing an interest in the company then operating government mail stages over Texas and west to New Mexico, he took charge of the El Paso mail line from San Antonio to El Paso, also the lines to Eagle Pass, Fred- ericksburg, and Austin, and the line from Fort Concho to Fort Arbuckle, Indian Territory, by way of Forts Chadbourne, Griffin and Richard- son. The stage business as carried on in those days required large capital and brought large re- turns. For some years the company conducted a twice-a-week mail stage line all the way to El Paso, charging seventy-five dollars for each pas- senger, a guard of two United States soldiers accompanying each coach for protection against Indians, robbers, etc.

The mail station one mile north of the town

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

of Ben Flicken was the headquarters for the western portion of the El Paso mail line, and there were located the repair shops and a large supply station. In his operations after coming to Texas, Colonel Taylor was associated with Major Ben Flicken, a not- ed frontiersman and mail contractor, he having assisted in establishing the pony express between St. Joe, Missouri, and Sacramento, California, himself carrying the first message from the first governor of California to St. Joe. Previous to this time, like Colonel Taylor, he had been in the stage business in Alabama and Mississippi, and shortly after the war came to Texas. Major Flickin died in 1870, and Colonel Taylor then became proprietor of the west Texas lines, being a member of the firm of C. Bain & Company, the owners of the business. In 1873 he became by purchase the proprietor of the business, which was conducted under the name of Taylor & Company, and in 1874 he established a town where for so long he had had his headquarters, naming it Ben Flickin in honor of his old friend and asso- ciate. The first court house erected in Tom Green county after its organization in 1875 was donated by the Colonel, as was also the county jail and all grounds for public buildings, and he took an active and progressive part in the settlement of the county after being the means of having it organized. At the time Ben Flickin was washed away by the flood of 1882 it had become a substantial little town of about five hundred inhabitants, with court house and other public buildings, stores, residences, etc.

Colonel Taylor and his wife, who was a brave and courageous woman and a great help to her husband in his business, both died in the sum- mer of 1880. He was a remarkable character, and deserves an enduring place in the history of the west. He was a man of the finest character and of a generous disposition, his home at Ben Flickin being always open to the wayfaring stranger, a home of typical western hospitality, and it is recalled that there was scarcely ever a meal eaten there at which there were not one or more guests present, every one being made welcome. Although he made money and be- came wealthy, he spent it lavishly, often caring for many of his men when business was dull and there was no work for them until an opening occurred. No memories are more respected in Tom Green county and western Texas than those of Colonel Frank C. Taylor and his wife by all the early settlers of the Concho country.

While there are only a few of the old timers left, still these two good people will ever be re- membered by those that had the good fortune to know them. There still remains of his fam- ily Colonel C. B. Metcalf, his wife, Mrs. Joseph Spence, Jr., Mrs. Aurila Horsh, J. B. and S. H. Taylor and Mrs. Felix Probaudt, also Corbet and Walter Spears, his nephews and nieces.

THOMAS J. HOLLAND, a contractor of El Paso, where are seen many splendid evidences of his skill and handiwork, is a native son of Texas, his birth having occurred at Seguin, Guadalupe county. His parents were W. B. and Rebecca Jane (Evans) Holland. The father was a native of Tennessee and in 1849 came to Texas, settling in Guadalupe county, where he spent his remaining days, his death occurring in San Antonio in 1860. His wife, who was like- wise born in Tennessee, long survived him and died in March, 1903, in Yancey, Texas.

Thomas J. Holland was reared in his native city and after completing his education there be- gan learning the carpenter's trade. In 1879 he joined the large concourse of people that were attracted to Leadville, Colorado, in the mining boom; but after remaining there for some time he returned to Texas, locating at Hillsboro, where he did the construction work on the First National Bank built in that town. In 1886 he came to El Paso, where he has since made his home, and as a contractor has erected many of the prominent buildings of the city, beginning with the old Masonic hall at the corner of San Antonio and Mesa avenues, while during the present unprecedented period of building opera- tion in the city he is and has been engaged on the construction of many of the subtsantial structures, including the new Sister's Academy on North El Paso street. He also built the col- lege building at Las Cruces, New Mexico, and is justly regarded as one of the leading con- tractors of this city with a business that has con- stantly increased in volume and importance.

While in Luling Mr. Holland was married to Miss Jennie Hatchett and they have a daughter, Edna Earle Holland. Mr. Holland served as city marshal of Seguin in his early manhood and since coming to El Paso has been prominently identified with the general growth and the busi- ness and political interests of this city. He was chief of the volunteer fire department in 1898, and upon his retirement from that office was pre- sented with a very handsome gold medal badge. For many years he has been either directly con- nected with or interested in the fire department,

THOMAS J. HOLLAND

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

and has taken just pride in its advancement to its present efficiency. Whatever tends to bene- fit the city along any line of progress is of in- terest to him and in his own business career he has made an excellent record for fidelity and capability.

ALFRED L. SHARPE. Beginning his ca- reer of activity as a boy in the telegraph and rail- road service, then going into mercantile trade, thence to cattle ranching, and, while still main -. taining his interests in the latter, engaged in. affairs of public nature, Mr. Sharpe has recently taken the important post of collector of customs at the port of El Paso, one of the most respon- sible positions in the Federal service of Texas.

Mr. Sharpe was born in Ravenna, Ohio, No- vember 21, 1858, a son of John E. and Lavinna (Kellogg) Sharpe. He studied his first lessons in the schools of his native neighborhood. Though a mere boy, he was accepted as an em- ploye of the Erie Railroad, did his work in a commendable manner and from increasingly important grades, and for twelve years remained in railroad and express service. From the Erie road he went with the Cleveland, Lorain & Wheeling, and then employed with the Gould System. He has been in Texas since 1882. In 1892 he embarked in the hardware, implement and vehicle business at Georgetown, Texas. Seven years later, on his removal to West Texas, he engaged in the cattle business. At the pres- ent time owning one of the best ranches in the vicinity of San Elizario, he has gained his posi- tion in the business by the skill of management of affairs and men which he has learned to em- ploy from youth up.

With success in business has come leisure to indulge his inclination for political and public service. He was elected a member of the twenty-ninth legislature to represent the one hundreth district- El Paso county. This is, as regards the amount of effective and beneficial legislation accomplished, one of the notable leg- islatures during the years of Texas' political his- tory. Of the enactments bearing upon the wel- fare of El Paso and the state of Texas, no meas- ures were more important than the irrigation bill and the famous anti-gambling bill, both of which were introduced and passed by the efforts of Mr. Sharpe, and it is proof of his legislative skill that the supreme court of the state upheld the latter measure and thereby placed a most effective instrument in the hands of executive officers for controlling public gambling. The content and purpose of the law is explained in

its title, viz .: An act to prevent, by means of the writ of injunction, at the suit of the state, or any citizen thereof, the habitual use, actual, con- templated or threatened, of any premises, place, · building, or part thereof, for the purpose of gaming or keeping or exhibiting games pro- hibited by the laws of this state. Mr. Sharpe also took an active part in obtaining the revision of the present land law. Mr. Sharpe resigned his position in the legislature, December 22, 1905, to accept the office of collector of customs at the port of El Paso, district of Paso del Norte, this appointment being received from President Roosevelt.

Mr. Sharpe was married in 1895 to Miss Kate Leavell, of Georgetown, Texas. They have two children, John O. and Holland Sharpe.

JAMES FLORENCE GIBSON. It has been nearly a score of years since the subject of this review came into Montague county, lame in purse but with ambitious nature, and dropped into the settlement at Denver, on Denton creek, where the few years required to get a fair hold on matters, and the first anchor in his subse- quent career firmly grounded were passed. The few years of his independent career which had elapsed had not been years of bountiful harvest with him, and he had done nothing more than drift along with the current and keep his head just above the waves. En route westward from his native state he spent four years in Crawford county, Missouri, on track work for the Frisco railroad, and next sampled Arkansas, but he was soon convinced that that was not the place to find prosperity and to bring up a family as it should be.

Two months after his stop in Franklin county, Arkansas. Mr. Gibson appeared in Montague county, Texas, with a wife and three children, fourteen chickens and a twenty-dollar bill. The few household goods he possessed, added to this, constituted his earthly property, and in view of the situation it is not wonderful that he cropped on the shares while fortune was casting her first smiles toward him. In the vicinity of Denver he tarried two years and then started north, locating at different places along the way and buying and selling little tracts as he climbed the ladder, until he finally reached a point five miles south of the county seat where he pur- chased, largely on time, two hundred and sev- enty-three acres in the post oaks, with scant improvements and but little under plow. Good substantial buildings took the place of the primi- tive ones, and the farm was fenced and cleared.

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HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS.

Cotton and corn have yielded him his best re- turns and, after nearly twenty years, his man- agement and the family industry placed him among the leading upland farmers of his county.

James F. Gibson was born in Pickens county, South Carolina, November 15, 1859. John B. Gibson, his father, was born in the same county July 4, 1841, a son of John Gibson, who settled in the Palmetto state at a date when hickory- bark trace chains were in use, and when the power of the aristocracy in the old state was in its prime. Grandfather Gibson was a Virginian, served in the Mexican war, passing his indus- trial life as a planter, reared a family of three sons and five daughters and died about 1876 at seventy-four years of age.

John B. Gibson, who resides on a farm near Bowie, came to manhood on his father's planta- tion and his majority found him in the ranks of the Confederate army, a member of the Thirty- eighth Georgia Regiment. He had married very young and moved into Georgia, but when the war ended he moved back to South Carolina, and left there again only when he came to Texas in 1887. While he was a man of industry, he was by nature a rambler in his earlier life, and consequently the fruits of the best years of his life were not harvested until near his decline. His first wife was Jane Boyd, a daughter of Robert Boyd. Mrs. Gibson died in 1891, being the mother of: James F., our subject; Martha ; Henry L .; Nancy; Georgia ; Warren R .; Saman- tha; and Jacob C. For his second wife John B. Gibson married Mrs. Nannie Rinkle.

From the foregoing record it will be inferred that the life of James F. Gibson was a rural one in childhood and that education was not a factor in his preparation for life's duties. When he came to Texas he could neither read nor write. This condition so thoroughly aroused him and awoke him to the necessity of some learning for the safer conduct of the family af- fairs, that he "burned midnight oil" in becom- ing master of reading and writing and placing himself beyond danger in competition with his fellow man.

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A twentieth century history and biographical record of north and west Texas, Volume II, Part 95

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