USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume III > Part 42
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After his marriage Mr. Robinson settled on a portion of the Wakefield estate, and has since been busy in the cultivation and improve- ment of five hundred and thirty acres of rich black soil owned by him and Mrs. Robinson in this fruitful prairie region. His chief en- terprise as a farmer has been grain growing. Of wheat crops grown by him during the last twenty years he has had eighteen harvests, and his acreage yield has been as high as thirty bushels and as low as six. Prices have fluctu- ated in an equally wide range, as low as sixty- five cents a bushel and during the war period at two dollars and a half a bushel. In spite of the heavy expense of production Mr. Robin- son realized better profit from the high price than from the crops harvested under pre-war conditions. His experience as a wheat grower has convinced him of the value of the Mediter- ranean seed in this soil and climate, though he also appreciates the value of the Fulcaster wheat.
Mr. Robinson is a practical farmer, using such methods as get the best results. A score of years' experience has taught him many of the secrets of both seed and soil. He comes of an agricultural family, his forefathers as far as the record goes having been sturdy and staunch rural people. The Robinsons as a
family have also been democrats, and Mr. Robinson has cast his vote that way since reaching his majority. He is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World. Mr. and Mrs. Robinson have a family of six children : Thelma, Velma, Travis, Maurine, Cowan and Bert. The daughter Thelma is the wife of Horace Gotcher, a farmer on the Robinson place.
EDMOND MCWILLIAM RUCKER has been a progressive and enterprising factor in the region about Krum in Denton County for over thirty years. As one of the men who have gained prosperity there and likewise con- tributed to the community prosperity his career is worthy of historical record, and his expe- rience also reflects some phases of develop- ment in that locality.
Mr. Rucker is a native Texan, born near Paris in Lamar County, April 1, 1867. His ancestors were English, three Rucker brothers coming to America in Colonial times. One of them reared his family in the South. A de- scendant was Samuel B. Rucker, father of the Krum citizen. He was born in Mississippi, was reared an orphan in that state and in Ala- bama, and in 1858 came to Texas by wagon, settling eight miles south of Paris. For a time he was a stock farmer, but the greater part of his life was spent in the county seat. He invested in the cheap lands of that county and accumulated several hundred acres during his lifetime, much of it improved under his direction. He was a democrat and a member of the Baptist Church, and he died at Paris during the present century, having survived his wife, whose maiden name was Martha McGaughey, some four years. Their children were: Trennie, wife of J. A. Gose, of Paris ; Mollie, who died in January, 1921, wife of H. A. Bland, who was prominent in Paris banking circles until his death; Luna, who died at San Antonio, where her husband, John H. Clark, was a leading attorney ; Miss Emma, of Paris; Ida, wife of R. R. Turner, of Denton; S. Jack, who settled on the Red River in Lamar County and was assassinated in his own field, leaving a wife and four chil- dren; Edmond McW., of Krum; Oscar, of Paris ; and Miss Gussie, a practicing physician in New York.
Edmond McWilliam Rucker acquired his early education at Paris and left that section of Northeastern Texas about the time he at- tained his majority, reaching Denton County in the fall of 1888. He settled on North
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Hickory Creek, and with determination and energy entered upon his task of making a farmi from the grass roots, and his business inter- ests were solely those of an agriculturist until he moved into the village of Krum.
He was a bachelor when he came to Den- ton County, and he lived alone in a two-room box house two years, and after his marriage this humble home sheltered his wife and family for ten years. Along with other im- provements that were the fruit of his labor his house expanded to meet the needs of its occupants, other buildings were erected from time to time, and his farm property now con- tains three sets of building improvements. He paid ten dollars an acre for his first quarter section, and successive purchases enlarged this to more than a section. In rounding out this domain he paid, in 1900, about twenty dollars an acre for land, then considered a high price. His enterprise is chiefly grain and stock raising. He passed through lean as well as prosperous years, but in a dozen years the greenbugs took his crop only once. In two other years com- plete failure confronted him. As a stock man he concentrated his interest in mules. There was a time in his experience when a pair of three-year olds sold with difficulty at a hun- dred and twenty-five dollars. Later the same grade sold for five hundred dollars a pair. The price of small mules was stimulated by the Boer war in Africa and by the Spanish- American war, so that altogether this indus- try when continued over a period of years was profitable to the man who conducted it with energy and good judgment.
Mr. Rucker has always been a citizen with the welfare of his community as well as his own household at heart. He has contributed something to every church in his part of the county, including those in Krum. When he moved to Krum he was made a member of the School Board, and was on the board when the new good schoolhouse was erected. He took stock when the second bank organized, the First State Bank, and when that was merged with the Continental Bank, resulting in the Farmers & Merchants Bank, he con- tinued as a stockholder and director.
In politics he was reared a democrat, and has cast a ballot true to that allegiance at every national election, beginning with Mr. Cleve- land in 1888. He was a delegate to the first convention to name delegates to the national convention when Senator Bailey and Cone Johnson were rivals, and then and since he has been a loyal supporter of Mr. Bailey. He
supported Governor Hogg against George Clark in 1892 for governor. At the primaries of 1920 he again supported Senator Bailey.
After coming to Denton County Mr. Rucker married Miss Mollie Batis, a native of Saline County, Missouri, who came to Texas when three years of age. Her father, C. Morgan Batis, was born in Augusta County, Virginia, in 1828. His father, Charles Batis, was a native of Ireland, and was one of the early sheriffs of Augusta County, where he married Miss Nutty, an English woman. Charles Morgan Batis married in 1850 Miss Susan Coffman, who was born in Augusta County, Virginia, November 13, 1828. About 1854 they started for Illinois, going partly by rail and partly by stage coach, and settled near Jacksonville, where Morgan Batis worked as a carpenter and then located on a farm. In 1870 he moved overland into Central Missouri and was a farmer in Saline County five years. Then, in 1875, he started for Texas, and reached his permanent settlement on Hickory Creek in Denton County in the spring of that year. He was one of the honored pioneers of this section and his memory is treasured as that of a useful and influential citizen. He hauled the lumber for the first home from Dallas and, being a carpenter, did much of the construction work. He also helped found a new school district in his neighborhood. C. Morgan Batis died at the age of eighty and of his children Mrs. Rucker is the youngest. Mr. and Mrs. Rucker have three children : Reuben B., Mae and Miss Bonnie. Reuben is a farmer in Wise County, and by his mar- riage to Reta Wilkirson has two children, Frances and Mary Alice. Mae is the wife of J. M. Barnett, a farmer west of Krum, and has a son, Ray.
H. F. LUBIN is one of Fort Worth's very successful merchants, and is also a progres- sive citizen in every sense of the word, deeply interested in causes of charity and philan- thropy, and his liberality and public spirit are as much appreciated as the individual success he has gained during his residence in this city.
Mr. Lubin was born in Russia, March 15, 1882. In 1888 the family came to America and established a home in Massachusetts, where his parents spent the rest of their days. H. F. Lubin was the eighth in a family of eleven children, only two of whom are now living. He acquired his education in the public schools of Massachusetts, and at the age of thirteen
0
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was a boy worker in Massachusetts cotton mills. He thus earned his living until he was seventeen, when he came west to East St. Louis, Illinois, and for eight years was con- nected with mercantile houses in that section of the Mississippi Valley.
From East St. Louis Mr. Lubin came to Fort Worth, and for three years was clerk in a local clothing house. In 1916 he opened up Lubin's, the progressive men's store for clothing, hats and furnishings at 806 Main Street. He began modestly with a small capital, increased from month to month and year to year, and now has a splendid establish- ment with an annual business of a quarter of a million dollars. He has a large force of salesmen.
Mr. Lubin is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, a member of the Kiwanis Club, Yacht Club, Salesmanship Club and a director in the Fort Worth Golf Club. He has been closely associated with charitable and other work of the Jewish Synagogue, and one expression of his humanitarian instincts was donating the camp buildings for the children's sum- mer home known as Camp Ruth Lubin, under the auspices of the Fort Worth Welfare Association.
CAPTAIN ZEBULON VANCE NIXON. The 4,000,000 young men under arms at the time the armistice was signed were gathered from every walk of life and represented the very flower of young American manhood. The lawyer and the day laborer; the man who traced back through honorable ancestry to fore-fathers who helped to establish American Independence, and the one who knew not his own grandfather's name or place of birth, marched under the same flag and were ani- mated by the same principles. No sacrifices were too great for those heroic young men, and the memory of their devotion and gallan- try will live in the hearts of their fellow coun- trymen and the record of their deeds brighten the pages of the history of their own times. One of these veterans of the Great war, now actively engaged in the practice of law at Wichita Falls, left a well-established law prac- tice to enter the service of his country, and rendered very effective service at Camp Travis, San Antonio, Texas, and was dis- charged with the rank of captain, March 7, 1919.
Capt. Zeb V. Nixon was born in Gauda- lupe County, Texas, in 1887, a son of Cap- tain R. T. and Fannie (Andrews) Nixon, and
a member of the well-known Nixon family for whom the Town of Nixon, Texas, was named, and which, for a number of years was one of the most prominent ones in Southwest Texas, especially in that section embracing Gaudalupe, Gonzales and Caldwell counties. The late Capt. R. T. Nixon, father of Capt. Zeb V. Nixon, was born in the western part of North Carolina, and came to Texas in the late '50s, and with his brothers, John and J. K. Nixon, became a pioneer of the above named section. He bought large tracts of land in Gaudalupe County, and in later years was rated as one of the largest and most sub- stantial planters and landowner in the south- ern part of that rich county. His home place, which the family still own, is about sixteen miles south of Seguin, the county seat, and not far distant from Luling, which is in Cald- well County. During the war between the sections he served as a captain in the Con- federate army, enlisting from Texas. His wife was born at High Point, North Carolina. On his father's side Capt. Zeb V. Nixon was a kinsman of Gov. Zebulon Vance, for whom he is named.
After attending the public school at Luling Capt. Zeb V. Nixon entered Coronal Insti- tute at San Marco, Texas, and then took four years of both law and academic work in the University of Texas, being graduated from the latter with the degree of Bachelor of Laws in 1912. In that same year he went to Kings- ville, Texas, as assistant general attorney for the St. Louis, Brownsville & Mexico Railroad, which position he held for two years, and then embarked in a general law practice and served Kingsville as city attorney. Until May, 1917, he was occupied with his professional duties in that city, but then volunteered in the First Officers' Training School at Camp Funston, Leon Springs, Texas, where he received his commission as second lieutenant August 15th of that year. He was assigned to duty at Camp Travis, San Antonio, and attached to the One Hundred and Sixty-fifth Depot Bri- gade, a part of the Ninetieth Division, and was engaged mainly in training recruits for a time, but was later made a member of the first general court martial at Camp Travis, and still later was made trial judge advocate for the camp, and promoted to the rank of captain, having been previously raised to that of first lieutenant. He remained on duty at Camp Travis until his discharge.
Within a few days following his severance of army obligations Captain Nixon came to
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Wichita Falls and made arrangements to en- gage in a general practice of his profession, and has continued in it ever since with remark- able success. He is recognized as a lawyer of great talent and trained skill in his calling. In addition to his general private practice he is attorney for the American National Bank of Wichita Falls.
Captain Nixon was married to Miss Flor- ence Anderson, of San Antonio, Texas. He belongs to the Wichita Chamber of Commerce.
JOHN W. YANCEY, M.D. A physician and surgeon who has long enjoyed an extensive practice at Fort Worth, Dr. Yancey has de- voted much of his time to the educational and public side of his profession.
He was born in Tarrant County, Texas, Jan- uary 19, 1878, a son of C. D. and Martha (DeLong) Yancey. His father, a native of Alabama, came to Texas as a young man, first locating on a farm near Mansfield. He after- wards moved to Young County, Texas, and is still living at Eliasville in that county. The mother died at the age of fifty years, leaving nine children, all of whom are living except the youngest son, who was killed in France during the World war.
Doctor Yancey, the fourth child and second son, grew up at Eliasville in Young County, attended the common schools there, also the high school, and as a young man started out to make his own way in the world. He paid all his expenses while getting a medical educa- tion. For three years he served as a non- commissioned officer in the Medical Corps with an army hospital at Washington and at Fort Robinson, Nebraska. He completed his course and was the honor graduate and valedictorian of the class of 1909 in the medical department of Fort Worth University. Since that year he has been in active practice at Fort Worth, his offices being in the Wheat Building. For two years he was an instructor in the Fort Worth Medical College. During the World war he helped train five classes of Red Cross nurses, and he had the satisfaction of seeing everyone in his training courses pass the examination. Doctor Yancey is a member of affiliated with the Knights of Pythias.
CHARLES E. McPHERSON. The McPher- the County and State Medical Societies and is . son family has been one of established prom-
FRED M. BOTTORFF. For a long number of years the name Bottorff has been prominently associated with distinction and success in the legal profession in Denton County, and from that county Fred M. Bottorff moved to Breck-
enridge a short time before that town became the center of one of the greatest oil booms in history. He is a busy lawyer of the new oil metropolis and has also been very successful in his ventures as an oil operator.
He was born at Denton in Denton County in 1886, son of J. T. and Hattie ( Mayfield) Bottorff. The late J. T. Bottorff was a native of Smith County, Texas, and had a notable career during the many years he practiced law in Denton. He was county attorney and for a short time was on the district bench.
Fred M. Bottorff accepted and made the best possible use of opportunities to acquire a very liberal education. He attended the public schools of Denton, the North Texas State Normal at Denton, spent two years in the famous Bingham Military School at Asheville, North Carolina, and another two years in the academic and law departments of the Texas State University. He graduated with the LL.B. degree in the class of 1908, and at once took up practice with his father at Den- ton. Besides his work as a lawyer he served as county judge of Denton County four years, from 1914 to 1918.
Soon after retiring from this office, Judge Bottorff came to Breckenridge, in January, 1919, and opened a law office. With the sud- den transformation of Breckenridge from a country town to a city of nearly ten thou- sand and the enormous production of wealth from the surrounding oil fields, Judge Bot- torff soon found himself burdened with the cares of an immense law practice, and at the same time has been very successful in his personal ventures in oil, and has some valu- able and profitable production. He is also a director of the Guaranty State Bank.
Mr. Bottorff is a member of the present Board of City Commissioners of Brecken- ridge, having been elected to that office in the spring of 1920. He is a member of the Masonic Order, Knights of Pythias, and of the Christian Church. By his marriage to Miss Luda Cunningham he has one son, Fred Tom Bottorff.
inence in the Joshua community of Johnson County for half a century. They have been home makers, farm developers, friends and workers in behalf of education, and Charles E. McPherson has long been prominent in commercial affairs, not only with interest at Joshua but also as a commercial salesman
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who travels a wide territory in this section of the state.
This branch of the McPherson family goes back to Jacob McPherson, who was one of four brothers who came out of Scotland, three of whom located in Virginia, while the fourth moved to the West. Jacob McPherson spent the rest of his life in Craig County, Vir- ginia, where he reared a large family. His son, Adam McPherson, also spent his life in Craig County, and was a slave-holding planter. He married Miss Susan Ross, of an old Vir- ginia family. Adam McPherson was a suc- cessful farmer and stockman, was represented in the official records of his county, and fur- nished four sons to the Confederate Army, three of whom served from the beginning to the end, and the other in the latter years of the war. Adam McPherson and wife had eight sons and two daughters. Those to grow up were Matthew, Thomas Benton, James R., Jacob M., William B., Paris, Lou, who mar- ried Dandridge Straley, a Confederate veteran and prominent citizen of Eggleston, Virginia, and Bettie, who became the wife of a well known educator, Penn Johnston. John Floyd and Robert Preston died in infancy.
The founder of the family in Johnson County is Thomas Benton McPherson, now living retired at Joshua. He was born in Craig County, Virginia, January 20, 1841, and was reared on his father's plantation, acquir- ing a rural school education. He left school to go into the Confederate Army in May, 1861, and served with Company C, 28th Vir- ginia Infantry, under General Lee, in some of the hardest campaigns of the war, such as battle of Williamsburg, battle of Seven Pines, seven days battle at Richmond, Gettys- burg. and Fredericksburg. With the general impoverishment that followed the war Mr. McPherson sought opportunities in the new country of Texas and on the 28th day of December, 1867, reached Dallas. He soon afterward went to work on the farm of Col. T. C. Hawpe in Dallas County and in Jant- ary, 1870, married the daughter of his em- ployer, Miss Lizzie Hawpe. The next sum- mer the young couple came out to Johnson County and bought a tract of new land in the cross timbers near old Lane Prairie. In December of that year they took possession of their purchase and ever since then Thomas B. McPherson has been a factor in the devel- opment of the community. He had been trained to the stock-raising feature of farm- ing and that has been the chief source of his
enterprise as a farmer. He was one of the first settlers of Lane Prairie, there being only three others there when he came, J. E. Odom, W. F. Sims and A. M. Shuler, but has out- lived all of them so far as Johnson County residence is concerned. Thomas B. McPher- son has always been in advance of his pro- fession as a breeder and improver of stock. He took a leading part in the establishment of a rural school, being one of the first mem- bers of the board of the Lane Prairie School, where Dr. S. Palmer Brooks, now president of Baylor University, received his first edu- cational advantages. Thomas B. McPherson has conducted his politics as a real and sturdy democrat, though he has no public record beyond his work for the school district. Without taking membership in any church, he has been a church-goer and a contributor to religious causes, and Mrs. McPherson has spent her life largely in the Methodist denom- ination.
Miss Elizabeth Hawpe, wife of Thomas B. McPherson, was born in Dallas County in 1851. Her father, Col. Trezevant C. Hawpe, moved to Dallas in 1845 from Boydsville, Kentucky, and was therefore one of the real pioneers of Dallas County. The first child of Thomas B. McPherson is Charles Edward. Henry, the second, died in infancy. Walter Adam is a farmer at McAdoo, Texas. Lou- ella is the wife of T. B. Toler of Randlett, Oklahoma. Mollie married J. T. Officer of Long Beach, California. Frank E. lives at Dawson, Texas. Fannie is Mrs. Ben L. McGee of Fort Worth; Carrie is the wife of C. E. Lawrence of Kansas City, Kansas. Oliver B., the youngest, is a deputy internal revenue collector at Tyler, Texas.
Charles E. McPherson was born at Dallas, November 2, 1870, and only a few weeks later his parents came out to take possession of their lands in Johnson County. Some years later he entered the old Lane Prairie school when Rev. S. E. Brooks was its teacher. He was a schoolmate of Dr. S. Palmer Brooks and later attended Joshua High School and fin- ished his education in the Dallas Business College.
Soon after leaving school Mr. McPherson became first deputy postmaster of Joshua and served fourteen months under Postmaster Campbell. After that he was a local merchant until 1897, and in the fall of 1898 entered the drug business. In the spring of 1904 he sold his local store and then went into the service of Wadsworth-Cameron Company,
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wholesale druggists at Fort Worth. The plant of this company was burned March 30, 1906, and the business was taken over by the Texas Drug Company of Dallas, Mr. McPher- son remaining in the employ of the Dallas house. For seventeen years he has covered practically the same territory, and is the old- est drug man calling on the retail trade in this part of Texas. He is financially interested in the Texas Drug Company.
Mr. McPherson grew up on the farm and has always had a keen interest in farming affairs and owns interests in agricultural lines in Johnson County and also in Oklahoma. He was one of the organizers and is a director of the Home National Bank of Cleburne. For twenty years he has conducted a local fire insurance agency at Joshua. At the time of his marriage he built a comfortable home in Joshua, and has lived there since 1894. Mr. McPherson cast his first ballot in 1892, supporting James S. Hogg for governor and Grover Cleveland for president. He is affili- ated with the Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows and Woodmen of the World and since early manhood has been a Baptist, which is the church of Mrs. McPherson.
At Brownwood, Texas, February 21, 1894, Mr. McPherson married Miss Rena M. An- derson. Her father, Col. A. B. Anderson, was a Confederate soldier with an Arkansas regiment, rising to the rank of colonel, and after the war came to Johnson County, Texas, lived for some years in Brown County, and spent his last days at Lane Prairie. Mrs. McPherson is the youngest daughter of her father's large family.
HUGH M. LARKUM as a youth entered the railroad business, and was regarded as an expert on tariffs and traffic management when he left the service to answer a larger call in the oil refining and oil operating business.
Mr. Larkum, who is treasurer of the Sun- shine State Oil & Refining Company at Wichita Falls, was born at Clarksville, Texas, in 1885, son of N. R. and Mary Ella ( Sport) Larkum. His mother is deceased. His father, who was born at Plymouth, Massachusetts, came to Texas in the early '70s, when a young man, and for many years was one of the leading members of the Clarksville bar. He is now retired and living at Dallas.
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