USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume III > Part 39
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CHARLES B. STONE has lived in the south part of Denton County since March, 1883, and his activities as a farmer, stockman and trader have made him widely and favorably known all over that section of northern Texas.
Mr. Stone, who is now living retired at Roanoke, has an interesting life record of seventy-seven years. He was born in Wash- ington County, Virginia, February 11, 1844, son of James M. and Sarah (Hagy) Stone, natives of the same county in Virginia, where they lived out their lives. They reared three sons, all of whom became identified with Texas, and of these only Charles B. married. The other two, Thomas and Daniel, lived for many years at Fort Worth, where they died, Thomas being a grocer and Daniel a dentist.
Charles B. Stone grew up in the town of Abingdon, where he completed his education. He learned the carpenter's trade from his father, and about the second year of the war. between the states he entered the Confederate army in the Twenty-second Virginia Cavalry, in McCausland's Brigade, under Captain Stan- field and Colonel Bowen. His regiment was on raiding and scouting duty most of the time, covering the Valley of Virginia, and in Mary- land and Pennsylvania. He was with the troops under Gen. Jubal A. Early when
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they met General Sheridan's army in the valley. The regiment was in Virginia when the war ended, and Mr. Stone, while for nearly three years in almost daily contact with hazard and danger, came out without a wound.
Following the war he became a Virginia farmer and stockman, a business he followed as long as he remained in the state. In Vir- ginia he married Miss Mary Fuqua, who was born at Salem, that state, daughter of Charles Fuqua and member of an old Virginia family. Mr. Stone lost his wife in 1883, and their two children had died previously. It was the loss of his family which saddened and dis- couraged him and caused him to dispose of his interests in Virginia, and the presence of his two brothers at Fort Worth led him into the southwest, and his first location was near Krum, where he did some business as a buyer and shipper of livestock. For upwards of forty years his business headquarters have been at Roanoke. He came to be one of the best known dealers and traders and shippers in this section, and he also gave close atten- tion to the fundamentals of farming, partly as a means of supplementing his facilities as a stock trader. He has been extensively iden- tified with farming affairs in that locality. He acquired lands already improved, and his Denton County farm near Roanoke has some 300 acres under cultivation. He has been a grain grower and has always kept land in use for feeding purposes. The immediate operations of the farm have been conducted by tenants. Mr. Stone has never made any claim to scientific or intensive methods of agricul- ture. For a number of years he favored the higher grades of Shorthorn cattle, and con- tinued active in the stock business for over thirty years.
Roanoke was only a country village when he came to Denton County, without a rail- road. Its banking facilities were in Fort Worth and from that city goods were freighted to the local merchants. Many years ago Mr. Stone became a stockholder in the Bank of Roanoke, was for several years its vice presi- dent, and is still on the board of directors. He has concerned himself with politics as a matter of good government in county and state, and is a democrat and an anti-prohi- bitionist. He was a partisan of George Clark against Governor Hogg in the campaign of 1892. In 1920 he was an ardent supporter of Senator Bailey for governor. Mr. Stone is a Master Mason.
WILLIAM BENJAMIN HAMILTON. Just as in 1849 and the latter part of the '90s people became enthusiastic over the development of the gold fields in California and Alaska, so, today, is attention focused in the Southwest, where lie riches in oil deposits so much more valuable than of the yellow metal as to beggar description. Just as in the days of the gold excitement, towns spring up overnight, com- panies are organized, men acquire vast wealth and many are borne onward in the wave of good fortune. There is also an undertow, now, as then. Some of these towns last only for a short period ; here and there a company's assets are not worth more than the paper on which their prospectus is printed, and for- tunes vanish as rapidly as they were acquired. But, fortunately, the oil industry is stable ; there are countless sane, sound and depend- able men engaged in its development ; and real fortunes can be made from the proper devel- opment of oil fields. There are some of the most flourishing cities of Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas today which owe their beginnings to the "bringing in" of a paying well.
The recognition of the important part played by oil in industrial expansion, and the increased necessity of further development of the fields and facilities for the marketing of the product, both crude and refined, have attracted to the business in all of its branches men of strong personality, forceful character and splendid executive ability, whose energies, enthusiasms and capabilities are being utilized for the good of the country as well as for the enrichment of themselves. One of these men of state-wide repute is William Benjamin Hamilton, president of the Texhoma Oil & Refining Company of Wichita Falls, who is an excellent type of the modern oil producer and refiner. He is a man of education and culture, broad vision and varied experience, who brings to his new duties a mind enriched by study and practical knowledge of his work, and an understanding of human nature not always found in the head of great corporations.
William Benjamin Hamilton was born in Coryell County, Texas, November 22, 1887, a son of W. F. and Sarah Jane (Wilson) Hamilton.
W. F. Hamilton, who is now a retired busi- ness man and capitalist living at Fort Worth, Texas, was born at Hamilton, Alabama, a town which was named for his father. In 1882 he came to Texas, settling in Coryell County, where he developed farming and cattle interests and became one of the lead-
MB Hamilton
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ing men of that part of the state. There he continued to live for many years, his home ranch being located near the town of Jones- boro. Mrs. Hamilton is also a native of Ala- bama, and she was brought to Texas by her parents when still an infant and was reared in Coryell County.
After he had completed the courses of the rural schools of his native county William Benjamin Hamilton attended the public schools of Jonesboro, and then entered the Polytech- nic College at Fort Worth, from which he was graduated with honors, magna cum laude, in 1908, and for the three subsequent years was engaged in teaching school, one of them being passed at Itasca, Texas, and the other two as instructor of mathematics and coach of athletics in the Fort Worth High School. At the completion of his third year he entered the University of Missouri, where he took post- graduate work in advanced English history. In the fall of 1911 he entered the University of Texas, where he studied law and continued his academic work toward his Master's degree, which he received there on the thesis "Social Survey of the City of Austin, Texas," which was published by the University in a bulletin. While he was engaged in this work he acted as special health officer of the City of Austin. He also finished his law studies in the uni- versity, but only took up this study so as to gain a knowledge for use in his own business, and has never been admitted to the bar. While in the university in 1912 he was assistant in the department of public speaking, and in 1913 was a Fellow in the School of Govern- ment in the university.
Although he spent some years as a student and educator, and being possessed of special qualifications for scholastic work, he had all the while the idea of preparing himself for a business career, and from early youth dis- played a keen knowledge and appreciation of 'the value of property, and acquired unusual skill in the matter of investing in realty and disposing of it so that it would bring exceed- ingly profitable returns. On leaving the uni- versity in 1913 he went to Dallas, Texas, and there embarked in the business of developing high-class residential property, particularly the Mount Vernon section of Highland Park, the most beautiful residential section of Dallas. These enterprises brought him large returns, and as his resources had by this time devel- oped very considerably he felt he was justi- fied in engaging in the oil business, and came to Wichita Falls in 1916 with the avowed
intention of developing interests upon an ex- tensive scale. His success in the oil business has been remarkable, but is in line with what he has accomplished along other directions, for he is a man who does not undertake any- thing until he knows something about it and the best way to carry it on, and then uses his great natural shrewdness and astuteness in bringing about the best possible results.
In June, 1920, Mr. Hamilton was elected president of the Texhoma Oil & Refining Com- pany, a $6,000,000 concern, of which he had been vice president and general manager since its organization in 1916. His father-in-law, Judge A. W. Walker, of Dallas, is in this company, as are a number of other men promi- nent in various lines as well as in the oil in- dustry. Mr. Hamilton succeeds his father-in- law, Judge Walker, whose energies are needed at the head of the Walker Consolidated Com- pany of Dallas, a large oil corporation re- cently organized in the latter city.
The present size and holdings of the Tex- homa Oil & Refining Company, which include a large refinery, with pipe lines, storage, tank car lines and valuable producing properties, among them being large holdings in the South Burkburnett or Texhoma pool and a new pool of oil in Archer County which was opened up and largely developed by this company, is the outgrowth of very small beginnings. This company was founded four years ago by Mr. Hamilton, his father and Judge Walker, who brought in one small well. Mr. Hamilton was given charge of the project of expand- ing the small holdings, and with his customary zeal and energy kept on adding to the territory and equipment, and has the pleasure and satis- faction of knowing that the present remarka- ble expansion is the legitimate outcome of his foresight and astute knowledge of conditions.
At the time Mr. Hamilton was placed at the head of the corporation the capitalization was increased from $3,000,000 to $6,000,000, this being based on the re-valuation of the capital assets of the company. In addition to his heavy holdings in this corporation Mr. Hamil- ton has other interests, and is a director of the City National Bank of Wichita Falls.
Since coming to Wichita Falls he has taken the place in the community to which his talents entitle him, and has been one of the moving figures in all of the late development work in the city. At present he is chairman of the com- mittee on public health of Wichita Falls Cham- ber of Commerce, and a member of the Wich- ita Falls City Board of Health. All of his ma-
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ture years he has been active in the work of the United Charities, and he is especially inter- ested in sociological questions, having given much time and attention to them, investigating personally many cases brought to his atten- tion. Regular in his attendance upon the serv- ices of the First Methodist Church of Wichita Falls, he is now serving as superintendent of its Sunday School, and is making that organ- ization one of the most popular, effective and largely attended of any in the city. He re- cently gave $50,000 to endow the chair of geology in the Southern Methodist University at Dallas, Texas.
Mr. Hamilton was married to Miss Pearl Bass Walker, a daughter of Judge A. W. Walker of Dallas, Texas, and they have two children, William Walker and John Martin.
It would be difficult in an article of so limited a length as this one to give a really adequate appreciation of the life, character and accomplishments of this untiring young oil magnate, social worker and Christian citizen.
His remarkable success is all the more to his credit inasmuch as he has never felt the stern urge of economic necessity prodding him to further exertion. While reared in a home of reasonable comfort, where his needs were amply provided for by his father, he was taught to be thrifty and energetic. From his youth up Mr. Hamilton has felt it incumbent upon him to develop his talents, not to hide them, and works for the love of it, and takes pleasure in bringing about results a man double his age might be proud to have accom- plished. It is such alert, enterprising and compelling young men of affairs who are de- veloping the great Southwest, and putting to shame the lack of zeal displayed by other and older portions of the country.
LORENZO DOW COOPER, former sheriff of Johnson County, has as a farmer, farm devel- oper, public official and business man played an active part in this section of the state for a number of years. His life is of interest both for what he has achieved and for the difficul- ties he has overcome.
He was born in Ittawa County, Alabama, April 3, 1866, a son of Edward and Mary (Mays) Cooper. He was about fourteen months old when his mother died and was fifteen when his father passed away in Jack- son County, Alabama. Edward Cooper was a farmer, but for two years served as a Con- federate soldier. He was survived by two
children : Dora, widow of William Arledge, in Ittawa County, and Lorenzo Dow.
Lorenzo Dow Cooper, everywhere known as L. D. Cooper, learned to struggle with circumstances when a boy, and the longest term of school he ever attended was three months. From the time his father died he was making his own way, frequently a hard one, and though only seventeen when he came to Texas in 1884 he knew something of the world and of toil and labor. He came to Texas in company with an Alabama neighbor, who brought his family to Delta County, where L. D. Cooper soon went to work as a hired farm hand. The same spring he rented land and made a crop between Cooper and Ben Franklin. There was some money from his summer's work and he next went up to the frontier district of Wilbarger County, where he broke sod near the county seat in Ver- non. He then hired out to a large syndicate ranch outfit, and for several years was a range rider under Bill Curtis. the manager. Many Indians roamed over this frontier district and frequently invaded the camp of the line riders and took whatever they wanted for food and occasionally stole a horse, so that the cowboys had to be on the lookout against their in- cursions. Once a bunch of a dozen or more Indians rode up to Mr Cooper and his "buddy" while they were cooking dinner. His pal suggested that the first Indian that reached for any grub should get a taste of rough treatment. The Indians came up goose style, and the first one to the skillet in which the steak was frying stuck a stick into the meat. Just at that time the cook struck him with the skillet of hot grease and steak, after which the cowboys beat it for their dugout and their rifles. They felt sure a fight was due, but the Indians without seeming to resent the affront gathered up their greased companion and made off with him.
During the two or three years he spent around Vernon Mr. Cooper took and entered a ten-acre mining claim in Greer County, but never prospected nor proved at up. Thence, going over into the Choctaw Nation, he stopped at Cameron, not far from Fort Smith, and finding nothing else to do he cut cordwood and during the summer put in a crop on the halves. The year 1894 was a dry one, and cotton went down to five cents a pound, and after spending a year and a half there he barely had enough money to get him out of the country.
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When Mr. Cooper returned to Texas and reached Johnson County he had only forty cents and a saddle, but no horse. Two days later he hired out to Uncle Sam Davis, a farmer near Grandview, at fourteen dollars a month. After a short time he rented thirty acres from his employer and raised a corn crop on the halves. He got a good yield, though corn was worth only fifteen cents a bushel. He sold enough of it to pay for his marriage, his bride being a niece of Uncle Sam Davis. He remained in that community, renting the Bill Davis place for two years and. then four years was a tenant on Uncle Sam Davis' place, following which he moved to Grandview, where for two years he operated the Maston and Davis gin. He was then ap- pointed city marshal of Grandview, and in that capacity proved his ability as a peace officer for eight years. With this record be- hind him and a large following of loyal and appreciative citizens he became a candidate for sheriff, winning the nomination against four competitors, one being the incumbent sheriff, Whitson, and another one of the strongest men of the county. Of the Law and Order League in the county five mem- bers were for Mr. Cooper, while the others were for his competitor and against Whitson. While they were fighting over the nominations Mr. Cooper and his friends stepped in and won the race and he was elected in 1912 and in 1914 was re-elected without opposition. It was the first time in Johnson County that a sheriff succeeded himself without a fight. The Cooper administration had to deal with bootleggers as defenders of the law, though there was some safe-blowing and a few murders committed. Several offenders were sent to prison from Johnson County. There was one jail-break and one prisoner that was badly wanted escaped and was never retaken.
On retiring from office in December, 1916, Mr. Cooper resumed business at Cleburne, where he operates a wagon yard and conducts a farm near town. He has the facilities and the organization for house moving and also operates a threshing outfit during the season. He has always been a staunch democrat, is a Royal Arch Mason and a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
Near Grandview August 11, 1895, he mar- ried Mrs. Mary Haden, daughter of William Davis and a niece of Uncle Sam Davis. She died, leaving no children. At Paris, Texas, August 30, 1916, Mr. Cooper married Mrs. Etta (Kinser) Scott, who was born in John-
son County, Texas. Mrs. Cooper's children are: John O. Scott, of Cleburne, who was one of the hard fighters of the 90th Division in France; Ersie, wife of Frank Force; Jessie, wife of Homer McCollum, of Cleburne ; James and Velma Scott.
L. ERIC OLSON, of the Elizabethtown com- munity of Denton County, whose postoffice is Roanoke, can almost claim half a century of residence in Texas, and much the greater part of that period has been spent in the locality that he knows as home and which knows and esteems him as one of the suc- cessful and honored old timers here.
Mr. Olson was born close to the city of Stockholm, Sweden, February 26, 1844. He was only four days old when his father, Oloff Olson, died, leaving a widow with three chil- dren. The other two were daughters. Anna married a jeweler named Lilliabeck. Mar- garet accompanied her brother to the United States and died at Lawrence, Kansas, as Mrs. Nelson, leaving four children, one son being a graduate of the Kansas Agricultural College.
Eric Olson finished his education in the capital city of Sweden, and as a youth there learned the mason's trade. He became a skilled worker but eventually he determined to avail himself of the better opportunities of America, and in 1868, when he was twenty-four, ac- companied by his sister, he left Sweden, sail- ing from Gothenborg on the City of Glasgow, and passed through old Castle Garden at New York en route for Lawrence, Kansas. In that historic town of Kansas he found work as a stone cutter and later was employed in railroad construction, taking contracts for building abutments for bridges, at first on the branch of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas be- tween Paola and Ottawa. He remained in Kansas four years and then started for Texas, starting by wagon through Indian Territory. He passed through Denison, then the terminus of the new railroad from the north and a village of tents, and went on to Sherman, the county seat of Grayson County. From Sher- man he worked on the Continental division of the railroad as a grader for a few months between Paris and Sherman. He then re- sumed his trade as a stone cutter at Sherman, and in the fall of 1873 rented a farm in the district between Sherman and Pilot Point. The two years he spent there brought him some profit and was a important influence in de- termining him to devote his energies to farm- ing. It was in the fall of 1875 and when still
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a single man that he came into Denton County. He had bought from a "land shark" in Sher- man a tract which he subsequently discovered was school land, and to protect his first im- provements he immediately entered it at the State Land Office, and there began building his first permanent home. The price of the land was five dollars an acre, and he finished his payment in twenty-one years instead of forty, the maximum allowed by the contract. Later he purchased a hundred acres more, giv- ing him a farm of a 198 acres. He began work on absolutely virgin soil, and his efforts alone made it productive and the site of a good home and other improvements. For building his first house he made several round trips covering three days to and from Dallas to haul lumber, and the road was only a meandering trail without a single bridge or culvert over a stream. This house contained one room and a little shed, and from time to time he added to its facilities and remained domiciled there for twenty years. Grain raising was a department of agriculture upon which he re- lied chiefly for his profit. Mr. Olson, as he reviews the past, recalls many failures due to drought, greenbugs and hail, yet out of his forty years of experience as a farmer he has lost more crops because of too much rain than because of too little.
On January 1, 1878, in Denton County, Mr. Olson married Caroline Peterson, a daugh- ter of John Peterson, who died near Justin, and sister of Andrew G. Oloff, Fred and John A. Peterson constituting one of the prom- inent pioneer families of the Justin community in Denton County. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Olson are: Edward, a farmer at the old homestead, who married Addie Underwood; Bettie, wife of Jesse Lee, of Randlett, Okla- homa; Ella, wife of Russell Lee, of Rand- lett ; Annie, a teacher for many years in Texas and now representing an educational concern in this state; Nora, employed in a store at Justin ; and Roxie, wife of S. J. Harmon- son, of Alpine, Texas.
Mr. Olson took every step to adapt himself to American citizenship, and while in Kansas went through the naturalization process. He began voting as a republican and supported General Grant in 1872, but since coming to Texas has been aligned with the Democratic party, while in religious views he is a Metho- dist.
ATKINSON GRIFFITH. Forty-five years of continuous residence and activity as a farmer
make Atkinson Griffith one of the most widely known and respected residents of the Roanoke community of Denton County. Mr. Griffith, who is familiarly . known as "Uncle Dick," paid his first visit to Texas in the capacity of a Union soldier during the Civil war, and more than ten years later came to Texas to find a permanent home. He arrived in no degree of material fortune, and to this state he is grateful for the opportunities that hard work and good management have permitted him to turn into a reasonably comfortable for- tune, sufficient for all the remaining days of his life.
Mr. Griffith represents a pioneer family of southern Illinois and was born in Fayette County, that state, February 13, 1840. His father, Benjamin Griffith, was a native of North Carolina, as a young man removed to Tennessee, and at McMinnville married Mary Jennings, of a well-to-do family. During the thirties Benjamin Griffith, accompanied by his wife and several children, went to Illinois and became a well-to-do farmer in the southern half of that state. Both he and his wife died in Effingham County, but their bodies are at rest in the Bob Doan cemetery in Fayette County. Their children were: John, who died in Illinois; Obediah, who died at Denison, Texas; Tolbert, who died in Denton County, Texas; Miss Rachel, who died in Effingham County, Illinois ; Cassie, who became the wife of James Gilstrap and died in Illinois; Irvin and Shelby, both of whom removed to the State of Washington, where they died; Silas, who died in Fayette County, Illinois; Atkin- son; and Eveline, who was married to Pell Burton and died in Shelby. County, Illinois.
Atkinson Griffith spent his youth on an Illinois farm and attended the common schools in that state. During his boyhood he saw many evidences of pioneer conditions, when deer were still numerous, his father having settled there when bears and panthers had to be driven out to make conditions favorable for domestic animals. Atkinson Griffith was still living at the old home when the war broke out.
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