USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume III > Part 15
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Mr. Edwards was born in Marion County, South Carolina, February 18, 1868, a son of Leonard M. and Martha (Lewis) Edwards, both of whom were born in South Carolina. He lived to be seventy-six, and she survived him, not dying until she was eighty-two. They had seven children, of whom Patrick H. Edwards was the fifth child and second son.
Growing up in his native place, Mr. Edwards attended its public schools and then completed his education at Wofford College, Spartans- burg, South Carolina, from which he was grad- uated in June, 1894. For a time after his graduation he was in the educational field, and became superintendent of a graded school
in his native county, but after four years moved to Florence, South Carolina, and there went into the insurance business, coming to Fort Worth in 1903, as he saw that in this city he would find better opportunities for his business. After he became established here he sent for his family and they joined him in 1904. With the exception of a period when he was cashier of the Western National Bank Mr. Edwards has devoted himself to the in- surance business, and is now doing a general insurance business and represents some of the most reliable old line insurance companies in the country.
In October, 1896, Mr. Edwards was married to Mamie Ford, of South Carolina, a daugh- ter of the late Dr. C. T. Ford, of Mullins, South Carolina. Mr. and Mrs. Edwards have three sons, namely: Paul H., Lawton F. and Donald B. Mr. Edwards belongs to the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Fort Worth, in which he is much valued. His long connection with the insurance business has made him an authority in all matters per- taining to it, and his advice is sought and taken upon many occasions. He is accepted as one of the representative men of this section, and while his energies have been utilized prin- cipally in his own business, he has taken the interest of any intelligent man in public affairs, and always been on the side of law and order and modern progress. He is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and the Lions Club.
SAMUEL AUGUSTUS TEAS. One of the most successful general insurance organizations in Fort Worth is the firm of Head, Teas & Com- pany. Mr. Teas has been identified with the insurance business practically throughout his mature career, and is one of Fort Worth's live and progressive citizens.
He was born in Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas, September 10, 1882, and represents two pioneer families of the state. His parents were T. A. and Ruth (Riggs) Teas, both native Texans. His father was a merchant and died at the age of sixty-five, and the mother is still living. T. A. Teas was a Con- federate soldier. Mr. Teas' maternal grand- father was Col. J. M. Riggs, who served with the rank of colonel in the Confederate army. A son of Colonel Riggs, Stephen, lost his life in the cause.
The fifth in a family of six children, Sam- uel A. Teas was well educated in public schools and in a business college, and while he had
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some other employment during his youthful years he acquired a knowledge of the insur- ance business as clerk in an insurance office. In 1910 the firm of Head, Teas & Company was organized, and they have handled a large amount of the insurance business originating in Fort Worth since then. Mr. Teas is also a stockholder in several enterprises of the city.
He is a York and thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, and is one of the governors of the Fort Worth Club. He is also a member of the River Crest Country Club.
In 1912 Mr. Teas married Miss Martha Cantey, daughter of S. B. and Italia (Brooks) Cantey, her father being one of the older and most prominent members of the Fort Worth bar. Mr. and Mrs. Teas have one daughter, Italia Elizabeth Teas.
ROBERT C. MARTIN, cashier of the First National Bank of Fort Worth. is one of the conservative and representative men of this region who have won approval and confidence by their dependable actions and upright lives. Mr. Martin was born at Jefferson, Texas, December 29, 1881, a son of Thomas P. and Corrie (Taylor) Martin, natives of Virginia and Texas, respectively. Thomas P. Martin was a banker, and served as cashier of the old Jefferson Bank during the period when Jeffer- son was the metropolis of the state, but later he came to Fort Worth and in association with A. B. Smith organized the Merchants National Bank of Fort Worth. His death occurred when he was about sixty-four years of age, his wife having passed away at the age of fifty-two years. They were the parents of nine children, six of whom survive, namely : Mamie, who is the wife of J. U. McAllester ; Thomas P., Jr., president of the Oklahoma Stockyards National Bank of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; Corrie, who is the wife of H. A. Allen, of Texas; Alberta, who is the wife of James Hubbard, of New Austin, Texas; Vir- ginia, who is the wife of C. H. Walton, of Fort Worth ; and Robert C., who is the young- est of the family.
Mr. Martin was educated in the public schools of Fort Worth, and his first connec- tion with the business world was obtained with his present bank, with which he has remained, with the exception of a few months, for twenty-four years. He began with the bank in a humble capacity, his duties being the seal- ing of the envelopes of the bank's correspond- ence. Later he became a runner for the
bank. When he first went with the bank it had but seven employes, but now there are 125 officials and employes connected with it. From time to time Mr. Martin has been pro- moted, rising from one position of responsi- bility to another until he has reached his pres- ent one, and it is an accepted fact that there is no more efficient man in the banking busi- ness than he. Mr. Martin has other interests in addition to being cashier of one of the larg- est banking institutions of Texas. He is in- terested financially in several other enter- prises, and his money and business sagacity have aided materially in the development of some of the leading industries of Fort Worth. He was one of the organizers and is today vice president of the Ballard & Martin Elec- tric Ice Company, one of the largest and most completely equipped ice factories in the South. He has long been an active member of the Fort Worth Club, the River Crest Country Club, the Forest Addition Club, the Chamber of Commerce and the Credit Men's Associa- tion. He is a Knight Templar and thirty- second degree Mason and a Noble of the Mystic Shrine. With the exception of three years he has spent his entire life at Fort Worth.
In 1913 Mr. Martin was united in marriage with Alice Harris, a daughter of G. H. Harris, of Azle, Texas, and they have one daughter, Alice Virginia. Mr. Martin is possessed of that distinct impulse toward activities of the best sort, and his actions oftentimes serve to stimulate others to renewed endeavor. He has looked into the future with the trained man's keenness of vision, has seen the future of Fort Worth and has never failed in his support of the city and its highest interests. However, although he has always been anxious to bring about improvements, he is too sound a business man to advocate careless expenditure of the taxpayer's money, and must be convinced of the advisability of a movement before he will give it his support.
ANDREW JACKSON LONG. With the ad- vancement and development of every com- monwealth there are certain individuals who stand forth in favorable light and whose names are synonymous with the upbuilding of the community in which they have made their abode, and in a history of the state of Texas the name of Long finds easy and grace- ful place.
For more than twenty years A. J. Long has been a resident of Fort Worth, and while in
Long
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that city he may be best known as a banker and a leader in civic affairs, it is also true that for many years he has held a prominent place among the cattle men of Texas, owning and operating large ranches and an active figure in the livestock markets of the Southwest and in the conventions of the Texas Cattle Raisers Association.
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Mr. Long was born in southern Texas, in Lavaca County, October 23, 1848, and prac- tically grew up on the cattle ranges of the state. From his earliest childhood he rode the range and followed the trail, becoming schooled in that practical experience which was later to bring him both fortune and prom- inence as an individual operator. He is also a representative of those pioneer times when Texas was, in large part, an untracked wilder- ness, and privation and danger was the com- mon heritage of those sturdy men and women who had braved the perils of the frontier in search of a home for themselves and their families.
Samuel A. Long, a Tennessean by birth, had come to Texas in 1835 and served as a soldier in the struggle for independence, under the command of Sam Houston, a dis- tant relative. Later, when the war between the states became an actuality, he served with credit in the Confederate army, having espoused the cause of his adopted state. He had in the meantime established himself in the cattle raising business and had acquired prominence as a rancher, operating in the vicinity of San Antonio. In Texas he met and married Louisa McCrea, who also was a native of Tennessee, and had come as a girl with her parents to Texas in those early times when the state was still in its formative period. Samuel A. Long died September 16, 1866, and his wife, Louisa, passed away May 5, 1905.
Andrew Jackson Long is the third in the order of birth in a family of eight children. His boyhood days were spent amidst such sur- roundings and environment as confronted the youth of that period. He assisted his father in the work of the range, herding cattle and performing such other duties as were com- patible with his age. A tragic incident of his boyhood, one indicative of the dangers which constantly surrounded those pioneer families, stands forth in his memory with vivid clear- ness. When but a lad of thirteen years he was herding the cattle on the range, when suddenly a band of Indians came charging over the hill. Without waiting to bridle his pony, which had
been grazing near by, the boy hurriedly jumped onto the pony and then began a race for life. The boy reached the corral first and thus es- caped, but a younger brother, who had been at play a short distance from the corral, was killed by the savages ere they rode away, and thus another innocent life was given as a sacrifice in the winning of the wilderness.
For a number of years Mr. Long continued his operations in the vicinity of San Antonio, and at the age of twenty-six went to Nolan County, where he established his headquarters and grazed his cattle for a quarter of a cen- tury. He is one of those few remaining cat- tlemen who, in order to find a market, drove their cattle overland to northern market in Kansas and elsewhere.
In August, 1899, he came to Tarrant County, making Fort Worth his home, Since that time he has had active part in the ad- vancement of the city, being identified with nearly every movement tending toward civic betterment and the welfare of the community at large. He became interested in banking and served as first vice president of the American National Bank of Fort Worth until that institution was consolidated with the Farmers and Mechanics Bank. when he was elected a vice president and director of that bank, which he continues to serve. He is also financially interested in other banking insti- tutions and is a director of the Fort Worth Life Insurance Company. He is a thirty-sec- ond degree Scottish Rite Mason and a Noble of the Mystic Shrine.
In 1881 he was united in marriage with Miss Queen Boren, a native of Bell County, Texas, and the three children born of this union are: Lawrence Ivan Long, now vice president of the Guaranty State Bank of Fort Worth, and one of the representative younger business men of the city; Mabel, and Lenore.
JOHN HOWELL MCLEAN, M. D. With some special distinctions as a surgeon that have earned him a Fellowship of the American Col- lege of Surgeons, Doctor McLean began prac- tice at Fort Worth seventeen years ago with a training and preliminary experience acquired in some of the best medical schools and insti- tutions of the country.
Doctor McLean was born in Titus County, Texas, June 11, 1877, son of . W. P. and Mar- garet (Batte) McLean, his father a native of Mississippi and his mother of Virginia. Doc- tor McLean, the eighth child and fifth son of his parents, grew up in Eastern Texas, at-
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tended the grade schools of Mount Pleasant, and had a thorough literary education as a student of the Southwestern Presbyterian University at Clarksville, Tennessee, from 1892 to 1896. He graduated with the A. B. degree and the following three years, until 1899, was a student in the medical depart- ment of Fort Worth University. He grad- uated, but supplemented his diploma with advance work in the Medical School of Cor- nell University at New York City from 1899 to 1901. During 1902-03 he was an interne in the Belleview Hospital of New York. Doc- tor McLean established himself in practice at Fort Worth in December, 1903, and for sev- eral years past has confined his work largely to surgery and to diseases of women. He is examiner for a number of life insurance com- panies, and is also local surgeon for the Texas & Pacific Railroad Company. Besides his membership in the American College of Sur- geons Doctor McLean belongs to the county, district and state medical societies and the American Medical Association. He is a mem- ber of the Fort Worth Club, and his offices are in the Fort Worth Club Building. He is also an Elk, a thirty-second degree Mason and Shriner and a member of the college fraternity Kappa Sigma and the Phi Alpha Sigma medi- cal fraternity. In 1907 Doctor McLean mar- ried Anita Hunter, of Fort Worth. They have two children, William Hunter and Anita Jean.
GEORGE W. HALTOM has in the city of Fort Worth an establishment that in every depart- ment is metropolitan in equipment and serv- ice, and figures as the headquarters of his large and prosperous wholesale and retail jewelry business, this well ordered mercan- tile house being situated at the corner of Sixth and Main streets.
Mr. Haltom was born in Nevada County, Arkansas, August 29, 1872, and as a citizen and business man he fully exemplifies the vital and progressive spirit of the West. He is a son of E. and Mary (Staggs) Haltom, the former of whom was born in North Caro- lina and the latter in Arkansas. He whose name initiates this review gained his youthful education in the schools of his native county, and was twenty-one years of age when, in 1893, he came to Texas and engaged in the retail jewelry business at Bowie, Montague County. He built up a substantial and profita- ble business and continued his residence at Bowie until 1907, when he found a broader
field by removing to Fort Worth and estab- lishing his present wholesale and retail jewelry business, which has signally prospered under his vigorous and resourceful management. He also established a branch house at Wichita Falls. In connection with his business he re- tains a corps of thirty-five employes at all times, and his wholesale trade extends through- out Texas and into the State of Oklahoma. Mr. Haltom is a stockholder in the National Bank of Commerce, of which he is a director, and is the owner of business buildings and other real estate in Fort Worth. He is actively identified with the Fort Worth Club and the River Crest Country Club, and is one of the city's most alert and progressive business men. He initiated his independent career by open- ing a little shop and engaging in the repair- ing of watches and clocks, his capital upon his arrival in Texas having been summed up in forty dollars. Through his own ability and enterprise he has developed the largest whole- sale and retail jewelry business in the South- west, and the same has been a valuable addi- tion to the commercial activities of Fort Worth.
In 1896 was recorded the marriage of Mr. Haltom to Miss Maude Friedly, and they have four children: Evanda P., Ruth, Esther and Chester.
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LAWRENCE IVAN LONG has been associated with the banking interests of Fort Worth for thirteen years, and is vice president of the Guaranty State Bank of that city.
He was born in Western Texas, at Sweet- water, May 1, 1884, and his father, Andrew J. Long, was for many years prominently identi- fied with the cattle industry in West Texas. Andrew J. Long was born in this state Octo- ber 23, 1848. He married Queen I. Boren, who was born in Texas in 1860. Both the Long and Boren families came to Texas from Tennessee and are of Scotch-Irish ancestry.
Lawrence Ivan Long in 1899, at the age of fifteen, came to Fort Worth with his par- ents, who moved to the city to afford their son better educational advantages. He was educated in the public schools of Fort Worth, and in 1904 graduated from the Virginia Military Institute. Mr. Long acquired his first banking experience with the Exchange National Bank, beginning in 1907. In 1909 he transferred his services to the North Texas State Bank, was made assistant cashier in 1910, and five years later became vice presi-
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dent of that bank and now holds the same office in the Guaranty State Bank.
Mr. Long is a Knight Templar Mason and Shriner, a member of the Knights of Pythias, and belongs to the Fort Worth Club.
W. C. FORBESS is a veteran of the transpor- tation service, for many years was actively identified with steam railroads in various capacities, but practically from the beginning of its operation has been connected with the Northern Texas Traction Company, of which he is now assistant manager, with headquar- ters at Fort Worth.
Mr. Forbess was born in Huntington, Ten- nessee, son of S. A. and A. F. Forbess, who several years later moved to Colorado, where W. C. Forbess grew up on a farm. He acquired his education in the public schools and a business college. His first employment after leaving home was with the Denver, Utah & Pacific Railway Company. He was an expert telegrapher and also served as sta- tion agent and operator with the Burlington & Missouri River Railway. After several years he joined the Canyon Coal Company of Lafayette, Colorado, as assistant secretary.
Mr. Forbess first came to Texas in 1891 and for nine years was connected with the Weatherford, Mineral Wells & Northwestern Railway Company, first as local agent and then as general freight and passenger agent. In 1900 he went to St. Louis, Missouri, and for a brief time was chief clerk to the general manager of the St. Louis, Kansas City & Col- orado Railway.
However, he returned to Texas the same year and was general superintendent of the Gulf & Brazos' Valley Railway until 1902, when he joined the Northern Texas Traction Company, then operating its pioneer line. He was general passenger agent, subsequently the duties of claim agent were added, and since 1910 he has been assistant manager of the corporation.
Mr. Forbess is known as one of Fort Worth's most public spirited citizens. He is vice president of the Fort Worth State Bank and is a member of the River Crest Country Club, the Elks and Knights of Pythias, Rotary Club, the Chamber of Commerce, Lions and Fort Worth clubs.
GEORGE T. REYNOLDS, of Fort Worth, is one of the few remaining links to connect the modern day Texas with that time and period, infinitely remote to the average man,
when all the country west of Fort Worth was an unrivaled domain for the Indians, buffaloes and the cattle outfits of an adventurous van- guard of white men.
Mr. Reynolds was born at Montgomery, Alabama, February 14, 1844. His father was B. W. Reynolds, long conspicuous among the pioneer cattlemen of West Texas. The family came to Texas in 1847, when George was three years of age, and lived in Shelby County, in the eastern part of the state, until a year or so before the beginning of the Civil war when they moved to old Fort Griffin in West Texas. Schools and books played only a nominal part in the real education of George T. Reynolds, one of whose first achievements as a boy was the ability to retain a secure seat in the saddle of a cattle pony. The first money he ever earned was carrying the United States mail between Palo Pinto and Weatherford, a distance of thirty or forty miles. As a safe- guard against Indian attack he made this journey by night. In 1862 when he was eighteen years of age he enlisted in Company E of the Nineteenth Texas Cavalry, under Col. Nat Buford. He saw some service with his command under General Marmaduke in Missouri and Arkansas until wounded in hat- tle in 1863, after which he was granted an honorable discharge. His soldier pay was three hundred dollars in Confederate money, but actually worth only thirty dollars. A young man of enterprise and ability in West Texas at that time needed little money. For a period of ten years or more Mr. Reynolds lived as a true frontiersman, ever ready to protect himself and his property against hos- tile raids, and he is one of the few men still living who actually fought the wild Indians of West Texas. In June, 1864, he and his brother-in-law, Sam Newcomb, and five others, started south seeking a more favorable location. They had some encounters with Indians, in the course of which they captured a number of stolen horses. The party under- took to drive this stolen stock to Fort Mason, where they planned to restore them to their proper owners. In some way the report got out that the Reynolds party had stolen the horses from the Confederacy, and Texas Rangers encamped at San Saba arrested Mr. Reynolds and his companions, and for several days they had to endure the confine- ment of a room 8 by 10 feet and the com- panionship of innumerable "cooties." Finally one of the Rangers who had been at one time an employe of B. W. Reynolds recognized the
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son of the old time cattle man, and through his intercession the party was released. Mr. Reynolds at one time fought the noted war chief Satanta and his son Satonka.
One of his first important independent un- dertakings as a cattleman was made in 1865, when he drove a hundred head of steers into New Mexico and sold them profitably. The next year brought him a reversal of his good fortune. He had rented the old stone ranch in Throckmorton County, and in June, 1866, the Indians drove away all the cattle and horses, to the number of five hundred, leaving only one horse on the ranch. The most nearly fatal of his experiences with Indians occurred in the spring of 1867, more than fifty-three years ago. In the course of a fight with some Indians Mr. Reynolds' body was pierced with an arrow. While lying on the ground he re- moved the wooden shaft, but the head was buried and it seemed a fatal wound. His brother, W. D. Reynolds, riding up asked him which Indian shot him, and Mr. Reynolds replied it was the one "with the red shirt." W. D. Reynolds shortly afterward returned with a scalp saying, "Here is your man with the red shirt." Suffering much pain from his wound, Mr. Reynolds was carried back to his home, sixty miles away, and five days elapsed before the nearest doctor, living at Weather- ford, could be summoned to attend him. Re- enforcing the general expectation that the young plainsman was in the shadow of death was a dream confirming such an event dreamed by his father. But a little more than a year later Mr. Reynolds was on his way to Mexico with a herd of cattle and again had to fight Indians and most of his stock was stolen. An interesting reference to the encounter he had in the spring of 1867 is in the form of a doctor's certificate signed by W. M. Lewis, M. D., and dated at Kansas City, August 1, 1882: "This is to certify that on Tuesday, July 17, 1882, at St. James Hotel, Kansas City, Missouri, with the assistance of Doctor Grif- fith of Kansas City and Doctor Powell of New York City, I successfully removed a steel or iron arrow head from the back of G. T. Reynolds of Fort Griffin, Texas, and that said arrow head entered his body in front and passed directly through his abdominal cavity and lodged in the muscles of his back on the third of April, 1867."
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Mr. Reynolds and his brother W. D. Reynolds for several years had their ranch headquarters in Eastern Colorado and found a market for their stock in Salt Lake City.
They personally participated in many of the notable stock drives out of Texas over the trails to the north and west, and eventually their interests became so extensive that they gave over the detailed duties of riding the trails to their managers and foremen. Mr. Reynolds for many years was president of the Reynolds Cattle Company, and either person- ally or through his business became known in livestock circles all the way from the Rio Grande to the Canadian border. For many years he maintained a large ranch in North Dakota, has had many ranches in Oklahoma as well as in West Texas, and his capital has gone into many lines of constructive enterprise in his home state. He is interested in a nun- ber of cotton seed oil mills in the Southwest, was at one time president of the First National Bank of Oklahoma City, and was organizer and is still president of the First National Bank of Albany, Texas, and has many impor- tant financial holdings in Fort Worth. Mr. Reynolds married Miss E. L. Matthews, daughter of J. B. Matthews.
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