USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume III > Part 47
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Outside of his farm Mr. Poindexter has been an interested participant in the financial and civic affairs of Cleburne. He was one
of the leading stockholders when the Texas State Bank & Trust Company was founded, with Cato Sells as president. Later for sev- eral years he was vice president of the Trad- ers State Bank.
He is a very quiet citizen so far as politics is concerned, though he votes the national democratic ticket, and has had no time and perhaps no inclination for public office. Mr. and Mrs. Poindexter are active members of the Episcopal Church and Mr. Poindexter for many years was senior warden and lay reader of the Church of the Holy Comforter at Cle- burne and has frequently been a delegate to the Episcopal Council.
At Richmond, Virginia, in 1880, Mr. Poin- dexter married Miss Isabel Cottrell. She was born in Henrico County, Virginia, daughter of Samuel Cottrell who married a Miss Denton. Her father was a planter, and pursued the old Virginia custom of educating his daughters by private teachers in his home. Mrs. Poin- dexter is the youngest of four daughters and two sons. Her brothers were both Confed- erate soldiers. She and her sister, Mrs. Henry Hill of Washington, D. C., are the only sur- vivors. Mr. and Mrs. Poindexter lost their three children, two sons and a daughter, in infancy.
LAWRENCE C. HEYDRICK. In Lawrence C. Heydrick and his brother, Thomas G. Hey- drick, of Wichita Falls, the petroleum district of North Texas is linked historically and technically with the beginning of oil produc- tion in America, in the fields of Western Pennsylvania. From the first discoveries of petroleum in that section sixty years ago the Heydrick family has taken a role that makes the name synonymous with all the practical operations involved in this great industry. It is literally true that the detailed story of the Heydrick family would involve a notable his- tory of petroleum in America. Members of the family have participated in oil operations almost from coast to coast.
In other respects the Heydricks are a his- toric family of Pennsylvania. Originating in Lower Silesia, Germany, its ancestors were identified with the reformation movement of the latter part of the seventeenth and early part of the eighteenth centuries. They came to Pennsylvania from Holland about 1720, locating in the country around Philadelphia. They were and still remain a strong, vigorous race of people of sturdy manhood and inde- pendence of thought and action.
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The original Pennsylvania home of this branch of the family was at Chestnut Hill. The great-grandfather of the brothers at Wichita Falls was Christopher Heydrick, who moved from Eastern Pennsylvania to North- west Pennsylvania in 1802, and was associated with other conspicuous representatives of the Holland Dutch as pioneers in several counties of Western Pennsylvania. Christopher Hey- drick located on land in Venango County, in- cluding "Custaloga town" an Indian village on the banks of French Creek. His son Charles H. Heydrick, who was born at Ches- ter Hill, took possession of this land in 1826, and part of the property is still in the posses- sion of his descendants. Charles H. Hey- drick died in 1883, a graduate of the Uni- versity of Pennsylvania, and was an engineer and mathematician of distinction, being author of several works on geometry, trigonometry and higher mathematics. He served as county surveyor of Venango County and also as county auditor. At his death he left records and documents of his own compilation that preserve a great deal of history and authentic information as to land titles. One of his sons, an uncle of the Heydrick brothers of Wichita Falls, was Hon. Christopher Hey- drick. The University of Pennsylvania con- ferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. He was a lawyer of much ability, served one year as judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania by appointment of Governor Pattison, and declined reappoint- ment for a full term.
Jesse A. Heydrick, father of Lawrence C. Heydrick, with his three brothers constituted what was known as the "Big Four" in the old petroleum industry of Northwest Pennsyl- vania. The striking of the original Drake petroleum well in 1859 appealed to the enter- prise and adventurous spirit of the Heydricks. Jesse A. Heydrick and his brothers formed the Wolverine Oil Company, the second company ever organized to drill for petroleum, and forthwith became pioneers in the industry and from Western Pennsylvania the operations of the family have extended to nearly all other sections where petroleum is produced. It was on some of Heydrick lands that notable oil discoveries were made in 1859. Jesse A. Hey- drick was born in the famous oil districts of Pennsylvania. The Wolverine Oil Company had thirty shares of stock with a capitaliza- tion of $10,000. As early as 1859 they were producing oil in paying quantities, and the brothers continued in the business of oil de-
velopment for a long number of years. The productive territory spreading to surrounding counties, Jesse A. Heydrick about 1870 moved to Butler County, making his home in Millers- town. He had received a classical education in Allegheny College at Meadville, and sub- sequently became professor of mathematics in Iron City College at Pittsburgh. The family have a natural bent for higher mathematics and engineering. Jesse Heydrick originated and wrote the first form of oil lease that had permanence under the laws, and this form of lease remained a standard for a long number of years. Jesse Heydrick, who died in 1911, was one of the pioneers of the old Oklahoma oil field, having brought in the first producing well at Red Fork in the Creek Nation near Sapulpa. He married Lizzie W. Nellis, and she is also deceased.
Lawrence C. Heydrick was born at Millers- town in Butler County, Pennsylvania, in 1875, and when he was ten years of age his parents removed to Butler, the county seat. He at- tended school there, but from the age of fif- teen his experience has been continuous in the oil industry. At the early age he helped his father make maps and surveys. While always prominent as producers, the Heydricks have also been famous as expert map makers of the oil regions, a work the family has per- formed continuously for half a century. Law- rence C. Heydrick left Pennsylvania in 1898 and followed the oil development through West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illi- nois and Oklahoma, and in 1911 came to the newly discovered oil field of Wichita County, Texas, soon after the bringing in of the first well at Electra. Since that date he has lived at Wichita Falls and has always been num- bered among the active and successful opera- tors not only in the fields of Wichita County but in the Panhandle and other sections of Texas and Southern Oklahoma.
He and his business associate, Thomas G. Heydrick, continue as one of their important enterprises the Heydrick Mapping Company, which compiles, prints and issues maps of all the oil regions in Texas, Oklahoma, Pennsyl- vania, Ohio, Illinois and other petroleum re- gions. These maps are official and noted for their accuracy and for the detailed information they contain for the oil man.
Lawrence C. Heydrick in his prosperity has not been neglectful of his home city, in the splendid future of which he has shown abundant faith by the expenditure of large capital in building operations. He is a builder
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and owner with W. Newton Maer of three important commercial structures known as the Maer-Heydrick Buildings Nos. 1, 2 and 3. He also built and owns the Brooke-Manor Apartments, a sixteen apartment building of the first class on the corner of Brooke and Eighth streets. He owns much other valuable business and residential property. Mr. Hey- drick is a member of the Industrial Com- mittee of the Chamber of Commerce.
BEN H. TURNER, M. D. A physician and surgeon of Cleburne, where he has practiced for the past seventeen years, and is founder and superintendent of the Meadow Lawn Sanitarium, was born in Johnson County and represents a family that has been in this sec- tion of Texas for more than half a century, since the close of the Civil war.
His father is the honored old time citizen Green Brantley Turner, who was born near Macon, Georgia, and was a physician and also a Southern planter and slaveholder. Green B. Turner, one of several children, acquired a common school education and entered the Confederate army the first year of the war. He was in service until the end. He was in the artillery branch and part of the time was under the command of Gen. Joseph E. John- ston. Though in many engagements he was only once wounded, with a minie ball on the right elbow. Since the war he has acted with his comrades in veteran meetings and is one of the surviving members of Cleburne Camp.
In the unsettled condition of affairs all over the South following the war Green B. Turner determined to begin life anew in the compara- tively new country, and in 1865 moved from Georgia to Texas, spending the first year at Fairfield, where his wife was principal of the college. In. 1866 the Turners came on to John- son County and bought land five miles east of what is now Cleburne. At that time the county government was at old Buchanan and the only other towns in the county were Alvarado, old Wardville and Grandview. In Johnson County Green B. Turner found a diversity of interests, farming, raising stock, and establishing one of the first cotton gins in his section of the state. He continued his work of development and accumulated a ranch of fifteen hundred acres, substantially im- proved with many tenant houses and splendid ranch homes and other generous equipment. At one time he was one of the large tax payers in the county. Misfortune eventually over- took him through security debts, and he is now
living on a modest property two miles north- west of Cleburne on the Granbury Road, where though past eighty-three he still retains fairly good health. All his life has been a demon- stration of sympathy for humanity and will- ingness to help those in need. Seldom if ever did he refuse to extend his credit to a neigh- bor, and while financial misfortune resulted from his generosity, they did not embitter him. He has helped all the churches of his county and contributed of his means toward enter- prises that promised good in other directions for Johnson County. He was never tempted by a public office, has always been a demo- crat, was a warm friend of Governor Hogg and an active supporter of President Wilson's administration. He is a Methodist and a mem- ber of the Masonic fraternity. Green B. Turner married Miss Mattie J. Scott, whose father was Judge John Scott of Cedartown, Georgia. She died in Johnson County in 1907 at the age of sixty-eight. Her five children are Dr. John S. of Dallas, James R. of Cle- burne, Charles Walter of Cleburne, Miss Eliza- beth of Cleburne, and Dr. Ben Hill.
Ben Hill Turner was born in Johnson County May 19, 1877, and his early environ- ment was his father's ranch. While there he attended common schools, finished his literary education in the Polytechnic College at Fort Worth, and at the age of twenty-three in 1901, entered the medical department of Baylor Uni- versity at Dallas. He was graduated in medi- cine in 1904 from the Louisville Medical Col- lege of Kentucky and at once returned to Cle- burne to begin practice. Besides the routine of a large private practice he has performed many professional services of general interest and importance. Since 1907 he has been health officer of Johnson County, is former president of the Johnson County Medical Society, a former member of the Board of Medical Legis- lation and Public Instruction for the Texas Medical Association. Meadow Lawn Sani- tarium which he established and is conducted under his direction is a splendidly equipped surgical hospital, with two large buildings affording accommodations for seventy beds, and the buildings stand upon a site of twenty acres. During the World war Doctor Turner was examiner of most of the recruits in this district and also volunteered and was assigned to the Medical Reserve Corps.
Doctor Turner has been successful in busi- ness as well as in his profession. He was a pioneer in the Desdemona oil field, leasing fifty-two hundred acres of land there in 1917.
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He and his associates organized the Hog Creek Oil Company, and after testing the field and opening one of the good wells in that wildcat territory, the company sold its holdings to the Magnolia Petroleum Company for six million dollars. Doctor Turner is also a practical farmer and stockman. He is a democrat, casting his first presidential vote for Grover Cleveland. He supported Senator Bailey's aspirations for governor in the cam- paign in 1920.
September 4, 1904, in Johnson County, he married Miss Ahta Griffin, a native of this county. Her father, T. H. Griffin, was a Con- federate soldier who lost a leg in the battle of Elkhorn, Arkansas, and in after years served as tax assessor of Johnson County. T. H. Griffin married Ellen Robinson, and of their nine children Mrs. Turner is one. She and Doctor Turner have two children, Gean Harold and Ben Griffin Turner.
ALBERT J. BASKIN is one of the older members of the Fort Worth bar and has been sustaining his share in the professional activi- ties of the city for a quarter of a century. He grew up in Texas, and was a farm boy who felt a well defined call to the opportunities and duties of a professional career, and has earned a dignified and successful position therein.
Mr. Baskin was born in Carroll County, Mississippi, December 14, 1872, son of Reuben and Susan P. (Works) Baskin, the former a native of Georgia and the latter of Alabama. The Baskin family moved to Tarrant County, Texas, in January, 1879, locating on a farm and developing some of the new land around Fort Worth. Both parents spent their last days in Fort Worth.
In 1899 Albert J. Baskin married Olive V. Jackson. Their five children are Samuel S., Nettie V., Edwina, Juanita and Albert J., Jr.
JOSEPH S. STANLEY grew up in Northwest Texas and for a quarter of a century has been a well known and highly esteemed business man at Fort Worth, where he still conducts one of the oldest blacksmithing establish- ments of that city.
Mr. Stanley was born at Franklin, Simpson County, Kentucky, December 22, 1873, son of Solomon D. and Fannie (Turner) Stanley. His parents were native Kentuckians and in 1882 moved to Texas and located at Aurora in Wise County. There his father, who com- bined merchandising and stock ranching, died
at the age of sixty-five while the mother passed away at seventy-four. Three of her children reached mature years and two are still living, Joseph S., and his sister Phoebe, wife of R. L. Hamilton of Alvord, Texas.
Joseph S. Stanley was about eight years old when the family came to Texas, and he grew up on his father's ranch in Wise County. He attended the common schools there and at the age of sixteen began an apprenticeship at the blacksmith's trade under the veteran T. J. Weems, who is now living retired at Rome, Texas, at the age of eighty. Joseph Stanley served his time and was then taken into partnership by Mr. Weems. He remained at Aurora for three years and for two years at Alvord and in 1894 moved to Fort Worth. After a brief period as a journeyman worker at his trade he went into business for himself, and has continued it as a continuous service for a quarter of a century and out of the business has made his prosperity.
November 15, 1895, Mr. Stanley married Mrs. Lena (Smith) Dunlap. They have three sons, Robert G., Lawrence W. and William Ross. Mr. Stanley is a past chancellor of Red Cross Lodge No. 14 Knights of Pythias.
E. STANLEY FIELD. With one exception all the larger cities of Texas have been building and rebuilding for at least half a century. That exception is Wichita Falls, where build- ings twenty-five years old are something of an historic landmark. With the tremendous concentration of wealth and business during the past ten years, and with few obstructions in the line of old and unsightly construction, has been afforded the opportunity for the evo- lution of an imposing program of "city beau- tiful" and of an architecture in keeping with the most advanced ideals of the modern art.
Wichita Falls is fortunate in having as a citizen one of America's most experienced architects in modern commercial construction. Mr. E. Stanley Field has made a specialty of the building of skyscrapers and commercial buildings, and his work evidences a har- monious combination of the efficiency de- manded in commercial buildings with a beauty of outline and detail that fits in well with any scheme of city planning.
Mr. Field is a native of Kansas City, Mis- souri, and began his apprenticeship with the noted architectural firm of Van Brunt & Howe of Boston and Kansas City in their Kansas City offices in 1901. Subsequently he practiced architecture in his native city until
E. Stanley Field
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1908, in which year he first came to Texas, locating at Fort Worth. While there he was a member of the architectural firm of Waller & Field. In 1916 he returned to Kansas City for two years, but since 1918 has been a citi- zen of Wichita Falls.
During these years he has been architect of many prominent buildings both private and public all over Texas. With the opportunities in Wichita Falls affording the freest scope for his genius, his work has attained a rare dis- tinction. He has been the architect of the most distinctive buildings in the new Wichita Falls, and outside visitors have many times expressed favorable and admiring comments on the architecture of the new city.
One of the most notable of the modern of- fice and commercial structures he has designed is the new home of the American National Bank Building, erected in 1920. It is a twelve story steel and concrete structure, faced with dark red tapestry brick and trimmed with cream terra cotta, the entire building being absolutely fireproof. There is no office build- ing in Texas of higher grade construction and finish. Mr. Field to a remarkable degree has solved the complicated problems of giving beauty of outline to the building bulk, while in the interior he has contrived a harmonious adjustment . of the mechanical equipment re- quired in a modern office structure to satisfy all the great canons of beauty. The building has a lavish use of marble and other deco- rative materials, but everywhere Mr. Field has laid a restraining hand upon the gaudy and meretricious. Another building of which he is the architect is the Bob Waggoner Build- ing, originally known as the Clint Wood Building. This is one of the finest archi- tectural monuments in Texas, truly a beauti- ful structure, a modern office building seven stories high, faced with golden tapestry brick with terra cotta to match. The terra cotta is very rich and full of beautiful detail.
Of another class of building should be men- tioned the First Baptist Church, completed in 1921. This is probably the largest and most costly church in the state of Texas, con- structed at a cost of over $300,000. In it was installed a $25,000 Austin pipe organ with an echo organ. Mr. Field also drew the plans for the recently let contract for the Floral Heights Methodist Church, to cost a quarter of a million dollars. This is built with classic massive portico in pure Greek classic design. Among other buildings in Wichita
Falls which are pointed out as examples of Mr. Field's work are the T. B. Noble Theater and the private residences of M. J. Bashara and G. Clint Wood.
Since coming to Wichita Falls Mr. Field has taken a very public spirited part in civic affairs. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects, American Society of Heating and Ventilating Engineers, and of the local Chamber of Commerce and the Open Shop Association, and various social organ- izations.
WALTER F. PAFFORD of Justin has been a resident in North Texas for nearly half a century, grew to manhood here, and the greater part of his active life has been spent in Denton County.
He was born in Washington County, Vir- ginia, in 1861. His grandfather, Jesse Pafford, was a mechanic,: farmer and orchardist in Virginia and a slave holder who lost his slave property as a result of the war. He was also prominent as a class leader of the Methodist Church. He reared a family of three sons and a daughter and the daughter is now Mrs. Marion Arnold of Justin, Texas, the last sur- vivor of her generation. M. Wesley Pafford, father of the Justin business man, was a native of Washington County, Virginia, and married there Martha Kelley, a daughter of Claiborne L. Kelley. Both the Kelleys and Paffords were old time families of Virginia. M. Wes- ley Pafford entered the Confederate army at the beginning of the Civil war, and continued in service until Appomattox. Two of his brothers were also soldiers, one of them being killed, and two of his wife's brothers were in the army and one of them gave up his life for the cause. After the war M. Wesley Pafford returned home and resumed his work as a mechanic and farmer. In 1872 he started with his family to Texas, taking the long journey from Virginia by wagon. They were a month and twenty-eight days on the way, reaching Texas in November. The country looked wild after they crossed the Mississippi, and Arkan- sas was practically a wilderness in appearance in the east as well as the western portion. there was no incident of special interest on the way. Arriving in Collin County, Texas, the family settled at Weston, where the father con- tinued to follow his trade as a cabinet maker until well burdened with years. Outside of his home and work he was deeply interested in the religious affairs of his community, and served as a steward, class leader and Sunday
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School superintendent of the Methodist Church. He did most of the Mechanical work in constructing the permanent edifice at Cot- tage Hill and contributed liberally to its main- tenance as well. The Cottage Hill church had the first self-supporting roof ever built in Collin County. The life of this old Collin County pioneer terminated in October, 1911, when he was seventy-three years of age. His wife died in March, 1888, at the age of forty- four. The oldest of their children, Walter Fulkerson, was named for Colonel Fulkerson, one of his father's army officers. The other children were: Sam K. of Collin County ; Mollie, who died at Davis, Oklahoma, the wife of John Caraway ; Rachel, who died in Collin County and rests beside her parents at Cottage Hill; Joseph L. of Claude, Texas; Robert J., of Salina, Kansas; John B., of Claude; and Lawrence Britton, a railroad man with the Trinity & Brazos Valley Railway.
Walter F. Pafford was eleven years of age when the family reached Collin County. He grew up in the western community and in 1895 moved out of that section to the old Drop community of Denton County. He started there with a small supply of cash, a wagon and team and implements, and filed on a tract of public land which had been covered up and smuggled along for several years, until court action declared it to be state land. He filed on a hundred and sixty acres of the section in dispute, erected the first good house on it, and cultivated the soil there three years. He then leased this quarter section, and leased for him- self a ranch upon which to run his stock. He made grain growing an important feature of his industry and during the five year term of the lease made considerable money on this venture. In the meantime he subleased and bought a farm in Wise County, bringing a hundred acres under cultivation. In 1905 Mr. Pafford bought a quarter section adjoining his claim in Denton County, built a house on it and remained there until 1908. Then leasing all his holdings he went out to Claude, Texas, bought and stocked a ranch with horses and cattle and had four interesting and profit- able years as a West Texas stockman. He returned to Denton County on account of Mrs. Pafford's health. He then bought an- other farm just west of Justin, but with a home in the village itself. After a year he turned his attention to merchandising, opening a hardware store, being the first enterprise of the kind at Justin handling a general line of hardware and implements. After two years
of selling goods he resumed his place on the farm near town and gave it his personal and active supervision four years. He then built his present home at the city limits on Pafford Avenue, and from that residence still looks after his farming interests. While most of his revenue has come from grain growing Mr. Pafford has experimented in horticulture and the growing of truck crops, and these ex- periments have convinced him that such pro- duction can be carried on with a fair reg- ularity of success sufficient to justify opera- tions on a commercial scale. While on the farm he had a flock of registered Shropshire sheep, and this department too was not without profit.
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