USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume III > Part 44
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To the union of Mr. and Mrs. Gresham four children were born. The only survivor is William Henry. The youngest child, Miss Ida Bewley, died at the age of twenty-three while finishing her course in vocal music at the New York Conservatory of Music. The son, William Henry, throughout his active career has been identified with title examining and abstract work, and is in the abstract busi- ness at Waurika, Oklahoma, owning the ab- stracts of title for Jefferson County, that state. He married Mabel Cobb and they have one daughter, Elizabeth.
DOUGLAS WADE. In the Rio Vista com- munity of Johnson County no citizen is better known by reason of his half century of resi- dence, by his honorable business activities and staunch citizenship than Douglas Wade.
Mr. Wade was born in Southern Texas in Fort Bend County, June 26, 1862, and comes of the old time planting and slave holding element of the South. His grandfather, Wil- liam Wade, was a native of Mississippi and in 1837, the year after Texas achieved independ- ence moved to the Republic, bringing his negroes, and opened up an extensive planta- tion in Fort Bend County where he owned a great body of land and cultivated it as one of the great plantations of the ante-bellum period. He is buried on his old home farm about midway between Fulshear and Brookshire. One of his old slaves now owns much of the old Wade land and is rated as one of the wealthiest colored men in Texas. William Wade had three wives and was the father of twenty-one children, Joseph Wade being one
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of his first marriage. Among the children who grew up were: Mrs. Bolinger who died in Fort Bend County; James, who also died in that locality ; Mrs. Amanda Pitts, who lived out her life in Fort Bend County; Tucker, who was a Confederate soldier but otherwise lived in Fort Bend County; Joseph O .; Alex- ander, who was all through the war as a Confederate soldier and died recently at Brookshire, Texas; Robert, who was also a youthful volunteer in the Southern army and lived out his life in Fort Bend County ; Ruth, wife of Judge Wesley Parker of Fort Bend County, was the heroine of the Woodpecker element in the battle between the Wood- peckers and Jaybirds, South Texas feudists.
Joseph O. Wade was born in Mississippi in 1834 and was appointed administrator of the large estate of his father, duties that kept him from active service in the Civil war. How- ever, he organized a company and was elected its captain. Prior to the war he had studied medicine in Louisville, Kentucky, and was a graduate physician. After the war he moved to Hill County and engaged in merchandising at old Dyer's Mill on the Brazos River. This business proving unprofitable he then, moved to Parker County, where he invested heavily in the cheap land of that day and for a brief time practiced medicine. He died soon after- ward. Doctor Wade married Miss Mary Har- ris, daughter of Lud William Harris of Ala- bama. Her mother was a member of the old Bates family of that state. Doctor Wade left three sons: Joseph F., Lud W. and Douglas, all farmers in Johnson County.
Douglas Wade was a child when his parents moved to Hill County and was still a boy when he came to Johnson County. He acquired a country school education and remained with his mother until his marriage. Then for a few months he lived in Palo Pinto County, the former home of his wife, after which he returned to Johnson County. He has lived here ever since except for three years while he was experimenting with agriculture in Bris- coe County, where he was the first to break as much as ten acres of land, while Mrs. Wade was the fifth woman in that plains county. While there Mr. Wade established his home near Silverton before Briscoe County was formally organized. He supported the move- ment for organization and was one of the judges of election on the day the question was decided. He was both a. stockman and farmer and the first year there the season was ideal and everything prospered. The next
two years no rain fell, the prairie burned up, all his cattle died in the winter, and he left the country and returned to Johnson County with all his accumulations swept away.
Mr. Wade then resumed his part in the affairs of the farm four miles west of Rio Vista, and there he continued active until he retired and moved his home into the village. While in the country he instituted and com- pleted the improvements on a section of land. His first home was one of the typical dugouts then so common, built half in the ground and roped with boards, while the kitchen was practically all under ground and was covered with dirt. In this pioneer habitation Mr. Wade and family resided for some years. He developed a deep well windmill and had his section of land entirely fenced with cedar posts and wire. Mr. Wade had a part in the founding of the Guaranty State Bank of Rio Vista, and is its vice president.
He has always shown his willingness to carry his share of public duties in the community. He was for four years trustee of the village school and president of the board three years of that time. He is now in his eighth year as a justice of the peace and for three years was deputy to Sheriff J. J. Rogers. He is an old school democrat and a member of the Bailey- Poindexter wing of the party. For nine years he was manager of the telephone system of Rio Vista, owning a half interest in the plant. Most of his investment was lost during the big fire of 1914.
In the Word war Mr. Wade was leader of one of the war saving stamps drives at Rio Vista, and took a helpful part in all the other patriotic campaigns. He is a past noble grand of the Rio Vista Lodge of Odd Fellows. is a member of the Masonic Order and for six years was council commander of the Woodmen of the World.
January 8, 1882, Mr. Wade married Miss Lela Austin. She was born near Glasgow, Kentucky, daughter of W. R. and Maggie (Holder) Austin. The Austin family moved to Texas about 1875, first locating near Sher- man and then moving to the vicinity of Min- eral Wells in Palo Pinto County. W. R. Austin developed the noted Austin wells in that water- ing place, and he operated them for a number of years. Mrs. Wade is one of ten children, seven daughters and three sons, nine of whom are still living. Mr. and Mrs. Wade had six children : Bonnie, wife of G. W. Schmidt of Albany, Oregon; Willie, wife of John Alford of Cleburne; Mary, Mrs. W. V. Chap-
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man, of Brownfield, Texas; Bernice and Eu- nice, twins, the former dying as the wife of W. C. Landry and the latter is the wife of John Thoman of Cleburne; and Jody who is the wife of T. V. York of Lyon, Texas.
D. D. PITTS has been one of the most in- fluential factors in the steady upbuilding of Grandview's commercial importance. His chief business has been cotton ginning, and it is claimed that more cotton had been ginned in his plant and under his supervision than can be credited to any other one man in the com- munity. He has given the full force of his enterprise and influence to every undertaking calculated to make Grandview a better and larger town.
Mr. Pitts, whose first Christian name is Doctor, was born April 15, 1867, near the town of Cherry Creek, Mississippi. His father, Capt. Robert B. Pitts, was born in the same Mississippi locality. He belonged to a family of considerable wealth and influence, and ac- quired a college education before entering the Confederate army. He was for four years in the military service in Stonewall Jackson's command until the death of that great leader. He escaped wounds and capture, and after the war he resigned himself to the results and settled down to a career as a school teacher, farmer and stock raiser in Mississippi. In 1884 he moved to Texas and located on a farm near Cleburne, but had hardly made a begin- ning of his enterprise in this locality when death overtook him a few months later. In politics he always acted with the dominant party of the South. He was a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and never missed attending a lodge meeting while he was phys- ically able. From young manhood until he left the state he was clerk of his Baptist church in Mississippi.
Captain Pitts married Miss Mattie Pegues, who was born in the same locality of Missis- sippi as her husband, daughter of Charles Pegues, an extensive land owner and farmer in Pontotoc County, where he died just before the war. Mrs. Pitts soon after her husband's death moved to Grandview, and died there in 1900 at the age of sixty. From Grandview her sons and daughters went out into life and established their names and their modest fame among men. Her children were: Rev. Charles, pastor of the North Cleburne Baptist Church ; Doctor D .; Mrs. J. W. Ross of Grandview, who died in December, 1919; Mrs. Claude White, wife of the Johnson County auditor ;
Oliver A., who died at Cleburne in 1917; Richard Edward, a loan and insurance man at Cleburne; Mark, who died unmarried at Grandview in 1910; Mrs. A. E. Kerr of Houston ; and Mrs. J. A. Ingle of Cleburne.
Doctor D. Pitts was seventeen years of age when he came to Texas. His teacher in early life was his father, whose instruction amounted to a common school education. He lived with his mother until reaching his majority and then started his career as a mer- chant at Grandview. He and one other man remain as representatives of the mercantile life of the town some thirty-five years ago. He was for ten years a hardware and imple- ment dealer, and left that to take up cotton ginning. His first plant at Grandview was a small two-stand gin propelled by a gasoline engine. It was successively replaced by a four-stand plant, then by an eight-stand plant, which was destroyed by fire in 1920, and in 1921 he erected a five-stand fireproof plant. He owns also an electric as well as a steam ginning plant. His ginning operations have been responsible for the ginning and wrap- ping of approximately 80,000 bales of cotton.
Hardly less prominent among his activities have been those of threshing. He began threshing grain with a "peanut machine" in 1915, and since then has extended his scale to wholesale operations, with four machines propelled by gas tractors. The annual amount thre hed by these machines is approximately 50,000 bushels of grain.
Mr. Pitts installed the first water system in Grandview. He drilled the first soft water well in the city or in this part of the country and while the service was limited to his own needs at the beginning it was gradually ex- tended and became a public utility and in 1903 he sold his plant and all its connections to the city of Grandview. For about ten years he also owned the light and ice plant of Grandview. All of this constitutes public service and besides he has held an official place on the City Council and Board of Education.
Mr. Pitts helped organize the First Na- tional Bank of Grandview and is now a direc- tor of the Farmers and Merchants Bank of the city. He responded promptly to all the demands of the Government at the time of the war, and carried his share of burden as buyer of Liberty Bonds. He was chairman of the Relief Committee in Grandview fol- lowing the big fire of March, 1920. Mr. Pitts in politics is a clean-cut prohibitionist and has supported all the democratic presi-
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dential nominees since voting for Mr. Cleve- land in 1888. While a young man be began attending and working in the Baptist Church, and kept up that interest steadily for thirty years, but more recently has become a Metho- dist and is president of its board of stewards and board of trustees and superintendent of the Sabbath School.
At Grandview June 28, 1892, Mr. Pitts married Miss Robbie L. Wade. She was born in Johnson County, daughter of the well- known pioneer Col. John T. Wade. Mrs. Pitts died in April, 1920. Of her children Robert B. attended the officers' training school at San Antonio, was commissioned a lieutenant, and was detailed as an instructor. He is now in the garage business at Grandview and in 1916 married Miss Ruth Hill. The second child of Mr. Pitts is Ruth, wife of Jack Keitt of Hubbard, Texas; Hawthorne W. was in the students' army training corps during the war; D. D., Jr., died at the age of three; and the youngest is Derrell Dick.
BRYANT WESLEY OWENS. While his early progress was measured by what he was able to accomplish through his individual efforts, with the aid of capital B. W. Owens in the course of thirty years has become one of Texas' leading lumber merchants, and for many years has conducted an extensive busi- ness in that line at Fort Worth.
Mr. Owens was born in Monroe County, Alabama, March 11, 1863, son of Samuel and Martha (Jordan) Owens. His mother was born in Alabama, and is still living with her son in Fort Worth at the age of ninety. Sam- uel Owens was a native of Alabama, entered the Confederate army and died while the war was in progress and when his son B. W. Owens was a year old. B. W. Owens is the youngest of a family of six sons and two daughters.
In 1873, when he was ten years of age, his mother brought the family to Texas, and he grew up on a farm in Limestone County. While there he had some advantages in the country schools. At the age of twenty-one he left home and went to live with his brother, Rev. G. W. Owens, at Lancaster in Dallas County, and while there supplemented his school advantages. His first knowledge of the lumber business was gained at Lancaster under J. T. Elliott and G. W. Owens. He continued to sell lumber at Lancaster for fourteen years, and then removed his headquarters to Fort Worth, where his business has continued to
grow and expand. He is now proprietor of two yards, one at 2721 Lipscomb on the Santa Fe tracks and the other at 2000 Ellis Avenue. It is a business representing a large investment and requiring a large force of men in his employ.
Mr. Owens is one of the. popular business men of Fort Worth and is a thirty-second degree Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner. In 1892 he married Cora Hammon, of Lancaster, Texas. The six children to survive her are George H., Bryant W., Jr., Shelby, Bessie May, Phil and Richard. In 1911 Mr. Owens married Mamie Trigg, of Amarillo, Texas. They have two children, William Howard and Mary Elizabeth.
JUDGE EDWARD W. SMITH, associate justice of the Court of Civil Appeals at San An- tonio, began his career as a lawyer in west- ern Texas, and is a member of one of the old and historic families of the state, one that has given several distinguished men to the bench and bar and public affairs.
Judge Smith was born and reared on a farm in Smith County, Texas, son of Edward W. and Jonnie (Robertson) Smith. His pa- ternal grandfather, Aaron Stuart Smith, a native of South Carolina, was a pioneer of Smith County in eastern Texas, having located on a plantation there soon after Texas became an independent republic. Edward W. Smith, Sr., and six of his brothers were Confederate soldiers, and his own active career was that of a planter. He was also in politics and at one time represented Smith County in the Twenty-third Legislature.
Judge Smith's mother was the daughter of Col. John C. Robertson, who commanded a regiment in the war between the states and distinguished himself in law, serving as dis- trict judge for sixteen years and leaving a name and record still highly honored in eastern Texas. One of his sons was the late Judge Sawnie Robertson, who at the age of thirty- five gave up his career as a practicing lawyer to become a judge of the Supreme Court of Texas.
Judge Edward W. Smith was reared in the old Noonday community of Smith County, and was educated in the local schools there. While studying law he had an experience of several years in the newspaper business with the Tyler Dispatch and Tyler Telegram. Judge Smith was admitted to the bar at Tyler in 1900, but did not begin practice until 1905, when he re- moved to Colorado, Texas. In 1910 he moved
12 W Owens,
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to Sweetwater, and in 1914 located at San Antonio, where he still resides.
In November, 1920, Governor Hobby ap- pointed him associate judge of the Court of Civil Appeals of Texas, which position he still holds.
Judge Smith married Miss Helen Kennedy, whose father, Judge William Kennedy, was for many years judge of the District Court at Colorado. Judge and Mrs. Smith have one son, Kennedy Smith, a student in the Terrill School at Dallas.
HENRY THOMAS WILKINSON one of the old and prominent families of Johnson County is that of Wilkinson, one of whom "Tom" Wilkinson has been one of the sturdy, forward looking and enterprising farmers in the Grand- view community during the past half century, and no citizen is better esteemed for the in- tegrity of his character, his wholesome in- fluence and the work he has done and the results he has achieved.
He was born Aprill 7, 1853, in Calhoun County, Mississippi. His father, Henry Wil- kinson was born near Macon, Georgia, one of the eight children of Abner Wilkinson, a Georgia farmer. Henry Wilkinson as a youth had only the advantages of an old subscription school. After going to Mississippi he married Sarah Ann Weldon, who was born in Florida, daughter of S. O. Weldon who moved from Florida to Mississippi and spent his last years south of Pittsboro in Calhoun County. Henry Wilkinson on account of physical affliction could not serve in the Confederate army though he was called out and did field duty for seven days at the end of the struggle.
Not long after the war he and his family and others started from Calhoun County bound for Texas. The Wilkinson family traveled with two wagons, each drawn by two yoke of oxen. The journey continued for sixty-two days, crossing the Mississippi at Helena, traversing Arkansas, and reaching Texas in Titus County. In January, 1867, the Wilkinsons arrived in Johnson County, Tom Wilkinson then being a boy of fourteen. For the following season Henry Wilkinson rented land from W. J. Hurley, located about two miles below where his son now lives. After two years as a renter he settled on and began the improvement of his own land and contin- ued farming there the rest of his life. He . came to Texas somewhat better equipped finan- cially than many of the pioneers. His cash capital was in the form of gold. He paid for
his land in cash, and it was his first intention to engage in the stock business. He purchased 400 head of cattle in Hood County without seeing the stock, but only twenty-one head were ever delivered to him. That misfortune doubtless deterred him from becoming a cattle man, and his efforts were rather directed to corn and cotton. He was a man of progressive principles, and helped in the upbuilding of the new country. He sent his children to school first in a little cabin schoolhouse and later in the public schools. He was a staunch member of the Missionary Baptist faith and helped erect the first church of that denomina- tion at Grandview. He was only a voter in elections. Henry Wilkinson died May 26, 1879. His widow survived him until No- vember, 1920. A brief record of their chil- dren is as follows: Virgil A. who lived in the old home community in Johnson County and left a family there; John Q. A., whose life was also spent in that community and who never married; Mary E., who married T. Y. Adams and is now deceased; Henry Thomas; Robert S. who died leaving children in Johnson County; Sarah T., wife of W. E. Stroble of Apache, Oklahoma; and Mahala Elizabeth who is the wife of B. F. Stone and lives at Fort Cobb, Oklahoma.
Henry Thomas Wilkinson attended a sub- scription school in Mississippi and had very little schooling after coming to Texas. The first school at attended in this state was known as the Rock Tank schoolhouse, a log house 14x16 feet, equipped with split logs for benches, a big fireplace in one end, two logs left out for windows, and a plank door at the other end. The plank door was fre- quently unhinged and used as a writing table. The teacher was a man of little learning but strong discipline and never spoiled the child by sparing the rod. In that school Mr. Wil- kinson got as far as cancellation in arithmetic and gained the fundamentals of knowledge as presented in the blue back speller and Mc- Guffey's reader. He never studied history or geography.
His home was with his parents until he was twenty-two, and when he married he and his bride rented for two years near the old home. They then bought forty acres included in their present magnificent country estate. Part of it was prairie and part of it timber, and no effort at agricultural production had ever been made on the land. The purchase price was four and a half dollars an acre. One of the proud- est days of his life came when he had this
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small tract paid for. On the land Mr. Wil- kinson set up a box house 14x16 feet with a side room and gallery, and for many years he and his wife enjoyed this as their home. A new and more generous home was erected in 1887. Among other improvements there is a deep well and also a fine well of shallow water for house use.
As a farmer Mr. Wilkinson has raised grain crops, though cotton has been his mainstay. His individual experience reflects the wide range and fluctuations in prices paid for agri- cultural crops. In former years he hauled cotton to Dallas and sold it for four and a half cents a pound. During the recent war period some of his cotton staple sold for thirty-four cents a pound. Wheat prices have ranged from seventy cents to as high as two dollars and sixty-five cents a bushel. Most of the corn grown on his land has been used on the farm. Beginning with forty acres Mr. Wilkinson has increased his domain to almost eight hundred acres. In recent years, seek- ing some relief from the heavy responsibility of conducting such a large place he gave much of the land to his children who had helped him in the accumulation of so much property.
Mr. Wilkinson has been a factor in the organization of two banks, the Alvarado State Bank of which he is director, and the Home National Bank of Cleburne, in which he is a stockholder. For many years he owned and operated a gin at Conley. His home school district is No. 16, the Greenfield School, and in former years he served as a trustee of the old Greenbriar school. He is a member of the Missionary Baptist Church and helped build both of the Greenbriar and the Antioch churches, his membership being in the latter. In politics he merely votes his sentiments, and though a temperance man has disapproved prohibition. He was made a Mason at Alva- rado in 1903 and is a member of the Lodge and Royal Arch Chapter.
May 21, 1876, Mr. Wilkinson married Mary Frances McCain, who was born in Alabama, daughter of DeWitt Clinton and Elizabeth (Walker) McCain, who came to Texas two years after the Wilkinsons and bought land from the same headright, so that the Wilkin- son and McCain children grew up together. Mrs. Wilkinson was born October 28, 1859. The family of Mr. and Mrs. Wilkinson com- prise five children and there are now a number of grandchildren. The oldest son, Henry Clin- ton, a farmer near his father, married Maggie Parker, who died survived by children named
Ida May, T. J., Zollie, Howard and Evelyn. The second of the family, Ada Myrtle, is the wife of J. S. Lowe, a farmer in the home community and their children are Clint, de- ceased; Suzie, who married Claude Allen ; Marvin and H. T., Thomas S., while a farmer, is also interested in banking as bookkeeper of the Farmers & Merchants Bank of Grand- view, and married Bessie Hopper, and has a daughter, Laura Frances. John Grady, a a farmer at the old homestead, married Hal- lie Muckleroy, who died during the influenza epidemic. Stanley M., youngest of the family, is a farmer in the Greenbriar community ; he married Ruth Goen and has a son, Stanley Mack.
JOHN A. HARMONSON, a resident of Justin, has been a lifelong resident of Denton County, and has played a successful part in the county's affairs and as a practical farmer and rancher and also in official work.
Harmonson is one of the oldest and most honored names in this section of Texas. It was established here when settlement was gaining a foothold in the northern counties. The founder of the family was Peter Har- monson, grandfather of John A. Peter Har- monson was born in Marion County, Indiana, about twelve miles north of Indianapolis. He acquired an education like that of most boys of the time in the Middle West, and in Indi- ana he was married. On leaving that state with his family he spent a time in Missouri, lived for several years in Arkansas, and on reaching Texas established himself near Lewisville, then a part of Fannin County. He helped organize the new county of Denton and his name is permanentaly recorded in the history of the county by reason of his ap- pointment as the first sheriff. He served until the following election. At that time old Alton was the county seat. Prior to the Civil war Peter Harmonson sought active interests in the still newer and more frontier district of Young County, where he located a cattle ranch. He was living there during the war period and was captain of a company of vol- unteers for the protection of the region. His sons carried on ranching between Fort Belk- nap and Murray, and continued there and in Denton County, where their first holdings were located. In 1857 they located another prop- erty on Denton Creek, three miles north of old Elizabethtown, and this they regarded as their home while other members of the fam- ily continued ranching in Young and Archer
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