USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume III > Part 69
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Mr. Leonard's first newspaper work was done in Oconee, Illinois, with the Oconee En- terprise, the first copy of which was issued April 25, 1885. He was connected with that journalistic enterprise for about a year.
Mr. Leonard was induced to come to Texas by the presence in Cooke County of a teacher friend, who secured him a place in the Gaines- ville schools. Having had charge of schools himself it was difficult for him to work under another, and he resigned his position after a month and went to the Fairplains district, four miles south of Gainesville. There he spent seven months of the happiest days of his life, in charge of the school. He built up a real educational institution, trained several of the older pupils for teachers, and of the thirteen who applied for certificates to teach many remained in the work for years, and it is believed that one of them is still so en- gaged. One of these former pupils is Mayor Blackburn of Gainesville, another is a suc- cessful merchant in the same city, and still another is a well known railroad man of Texas.
While teaching south of Gainesville Mr. Leonard had his first Texas experience in newspaper work. He was a correspondent for the weekly Hesperion at Gainesville. His writ- ing attracted the favorable notice of its read- ers, and at the close of his school term he was asked to take the position of its editor. About a year later Mr. Leonard bought the Gaines- ville Register. This paper was brought to Gainesville from Sherman by Senator Martin, but Mr. Leonard bought the plant from Mr. Darwin. His first issue of the Daily Register came off the press August 30, 1890, and for thirty consecutive years it has been the lead- ing daily and weekly in this section of North Texas.
Mr. Leonard cast his first presidential vote for Samuel J. Tilden in 1876, and has never failed to vote at each presidential campaign since. He is a state's rights democrat, and always opposed restricting personal liberties and the curtailing of the rights of others. He arrived at Gainesville the same year as did Senator Bailey, and was one of the men who urged him to become a candidate for the House of Representatives in the year that
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Mr. Bailey won the nomination from Mr. Hair. He has continued the friend of Mr. Bailey because of the sincerity and greatness of this eminent Texan, and has written and spoken in the Senator's behalf on every and all occasions. In the recent contest for gov- ernor in which the senator participated, the Register was a leading factor in presenting the important issues involved in the guberna- torial battle.
Besides his achievements as an editor and publisher the Gainesville community pays a special respect to Mr. Leonard for the im- portant work he did as mayor of the city. He had also served as an alderman, and for eight consecutive years was head of the city admin- istration. His term as mayor was thoroughly progressive. The current expenses and debts of the city were paid and the fiscal affairs of the municipality were constantly improved. Mr. Leonard is known as the father of the city park of Gainesville. He planned it orig- inally as a zoo, perfecting the design himself, and went directly to private citizens for the money to develop it instead of levying taxes for the purpose. He also stimulated interest in planting trees in the park, and the labor of maintenance was largely supplied by the use of "hoboes" temporarily internes in the city bastile. Thus he made the park a veritable Garden of Eden without burdening the public with the expense. The first paving in Gaines- ville was laid under his administration, that on California Avenue. Other improvements included the erection of the City Hall, the building of the fire station, improvement of school buildings. System was introduced into the city accounting, and when he retired from office the city balance was still on the favor- able side.
Mr. Leonard became a member of the Masonic Order at Oconee, Illinois, and is a past master of Gainesville Lodge and past district deputy grand master of the district. It was at Oconee, Illinois, March 1, 1876, that he married Miss Mary Elliott. She was born at Higginsport, Ohio, and finished her educa- tion in the high school of Quincy, Illinois, and was a teacher just before her marriage. Her father, Captain William N. Elliott, served with the rank of captain in the Union army during the Civil war, and for many years was a river steamboat man. He was a native of Ken- tucky, of Virginia parentage. Captain Elliott married Catherine Shinkle, a native of Ohio and of a Pennsylvania Dutch family. Mrs. Leonard's brothers and sisters were Wesley,
Mrs. Amanda Jansen, Mrs. Sue Roberts, Mrs. Cora Casey, William and Clarence.
Mr. and Mrs. Leonard have a very inter- esting family of children. The oldest, Mrs. Sue Bush, died at Deming, New Mexico, wife of Granville Bush. Clarence H., now busi- ness manager of the Gainesville Register, married Miss Bevie Bass, daughter of J. N. Bass, of Gainesville. Eugene R., a traveling salesman with office at Sioux City, Iowa. married Miss Esther Roberts, of Illinois. Joe M. assistant manager of the Gainesville Regis- ter, married Miss Phoebe Myers, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. George Myers of Gainesville. The youngest living child is Mrs. May Kirby, of Red Oak, Iowa, while Blanche, the other daughter, died at the age of seven years.
JOHN LETCHER MORTER. Now a retired citizen of Gainesville, the career of John Let- cher Morter is a record of experiences that have a direct bearing upon the history of Northern Texas. He first came to Cooke County in 1874, nearly half a century ago, and subsequent years brought him an intimate acquaintance with many of the pioneer person- alities and pioneer events of both North and West Texas.
Mr. Morter was born in Boone County, Mis- souri, November 5, 1858, a son of John R. and Aria Adna (Stokley) Morter. His parents were born and married in Rockbridge County, Virginia, and in 1856 settled in central Mis- souri. They lived as farmers there until they came to Texas in 1874, making the journey by wagon in company with other members of a Missouri colony, including the Quisenberry family. The pioneer home of the Morters in Cooke County was established six miles from Gainesville, near the Mount Pleasant School- house. John R. Morter lived there, quietly engaged in farming and stock raising, from 1874 until his death in 1894, at the age of seventy-four. His widow passed away in 1913, at the age of ninety. John R. Morter during his youth had little opportunity to acquire an education, and was a man of retiring disposi- tion so far as politics and public affairs were concerned. He was a Democratic voter and a Presbyterian. He had only one brother. David Morter, who spent all the seventy years of his life in Rockbridge County, Virginia. These brothers had a number of sisters, some of whom went west to Indiana and settled near Terre Haute in Vigo County. The family names of some of the men these daughters married as now recalled were Strain, Temple.
IL Monter
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Shoulder and Morgan. John R. Morter and wife had seven children: Bettie, who died in Cooke County in 1884, wife of James S. Bush ; Fannie, who is the wife of Harvey Hulen and lives in Chickasha, Oklahoma ; William B., of Norman, Oklahoma ; David C., of Gainesville, Texas; D. Q., a farmer near Lawton, Okla- homa; John Letcher; and Virgie, of Gaines- ville, widow of Bony J. Apperson.
John Letcher Morter was sixteen years of age when he came with the family to Texas. All his education was the result of attending schools in Missouri. He came to manhood on his father's farm in Cooke County, and on leaving home he took up an interesting work as a contractor of fence building in western Texas. He fenced some of the largest ranches in that region, including the old Ninety-Nine Ranch of John H. Stone, the T. Fork Ranch of the Stone Land and Cattle Company, and the Frying Pan Ranch, including the present site of Amarillo. This Frying Pan Ranch was the property of Glidden and Sanborn, the for- mer an Illinois manufacturer and a vender of barbed wire, while Sanborn was the chief agent introducing barbed wire into Texas. Mr. Morter had a large force of men employed in fence building. The wire for the Glidden and Sanborn Ranch was hauled from Dodge City, Kansas, the nearest railroad point. The wire for the other ranches was hauled from Gaines- ville. The posts for the Glidden and Sanborn Ranch were all of cedar and were taken out of Paladuro Canyon. The posts for the other ranches were native mesquite and obtained on the tracts fenced.
After this work, which has a peculiar inter- est in the development of western Texas, Mr. Morter in 1885 took up farming for himself in Hardeman County. He opened a new farm on Groesbeck Creek, and the following year he received the first registered package ever sent to the Quanah Post Office. He remained on his farm seven years, being eventually starved out. In 1886 he planted two hundred acres to crops, and never harvested his "pock- ets full of grain." That was the dryest year he ever knew in Texas, and many of the mesquite trees did not even bud. A number of the scattered families in that region actually suffered for lack of food. Aid came to them in the shape of two carloads of flour, which was stored in the jail at old Margaret and dis- tributed in fifty-pound sacks as needed to each member of a family. Considering these con- ditions it is not strange that when Mr. Morter left Hardeman County he was wrecked finan-
cially. Returning to Gainesville, he gave his time either to carpenter work or to day labor for many years.
Then, in 1916, he located at Burkburnett and engaged in the fuel oil business, establishing a station there. He continued this business until 1920, when he closed out. He is now associated with his sons in the Morter Drill- ing Company of Ardmore, Oklahoma, the firm that has been responsible for much of the development of that field.
At Valley View, Texas, January 1. 1884. . Mr. Morter married Miss Nellie Weaver. She was born near California, Missouri, daughter of David and Susan Bess Weaver, and was brought to Texas in 1875. The Weavers first lived near Whitesboro and then near Valley View, where her father was a miller. The children of the Weaver family were: Frank. of Gainesville ; Lizzie, wife of John Ward and a resident of Arbuckle, California ; Dink, who became the wife of John Lynch and both are now deceased: Alfred P. and Ben W., of Eldon, Missouri ; Mrs. Morter, who was born April 4, 1859; Cornelia, wife of J. F. Morris, of Gainesville; Emma, who died at Henrietta, Texas, as Mrs. John F. Conn ; and Rosa, wife of A. D. Chapman, of Sulphur, Oklahoma.
Mr. and Mrs. Morter have four children : Lois, the oldest, is the wife of L. J. Jones, of Ardmore, Oklahoma, and has a son, Francis ; the second is Miss Ruby; Luther Clark, also of Ardmore, married Ethel Betts and has two children, Howard and Wilber Letch: Eugene H., the youngest, lives at Ardmore.
In politics Mr. Morter has always followed the fortunes of the Democratic party, cast his first presidential vote for General Hancock. and has voted for every party candidate for president since. He is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World. During the World war he gave to the extent of his ability to the various funds, and he also had the honor of having a soldier son, Eugene H. Eugene H. Morter received his training at the officers training camp at Leon Springs. Texas, and subsequently became major in command of Camp Martin at New Orleans, a training camp for enlisted men. He married Fannie Dee Davis, of Moran, Texas.
WILLIAM J. PRICE, M. D. Of the thirty years in which Dr. Price has practiced medi- cine and surgery he has spent twenty of them at Gainesville. His professional associates in Cooke County have always held him in especially high esteem, and his professional
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work has been accompanied by a high degree of self sacrificing devotion to his home and his calling and the best interests of his com- munity.
Dr. Price was born in Jackson County, Ala- bana, January 19, 1861, but has lived in Texas since early boyhood. His paternal grandparents were Martin and Mary (Moore) Price. Martin Price was a native of Vir- ginia, was married in Jackson County, Ala- bama, where he was a farmer, stockman and merchant, and late in life came to Texas and died at Paris at the age of eighty-two. By his first marriage he had three sons and a daughter and by his second wife there was another son. These sons all served in the Confederate army during the war between the states. His only daughter became the wife of Henry Hobbs. Martin Price was of Irish ancestry and was a man of striking ap- pearance erect in carriage, even when four- score, and his persistent cheerfulness and cor- diality made him a popular figure in any com- munity where he lived.
Sidney Moore Price, father of Dr. Price, was also a native of Jackson County, Alabama, and devoted his active years to the vocation of farming. He died in Gainesville in 1908, at the advanced age of eighty-four. He had served as a soldier in the Mexican war, with an Alabama command, and in the war be- tween the states was in the Confederate army under General Lee. He married Mary Jane James, who died at Petty, Texas, in 1907. They were the parents of a large number of children, as follows: Malinda E., who be- came the wife of Joseph A. Smith and died at Gainesville; Rebecca Ann, who married Henry R. Miller and died in Paris, Texas; Mary J., wife of David C. Lesnitt, of Enid, Oklahoma ; the next daughter was named Paris Texas, and she is now Mrs. J. F. Hem- bree, of Honey Grove, Texas; Dr. William J. is next in age; Sidney Alexander died in Petty, Texas, in 1897; Catherine died at Honey Grove as Mrs. Robert Baker; Virginia Bell is Mrs. W. W. Vauter, of Paris, Texas ; Samuel Martin died at Honey Grove ; Minnie M. is the wife of Samuel McKee; and Rosa Lee, the youngest, is married and lives at Marianna, Arkansas.
Dr. Price was nine years of age when the family came to East Texas and settled in Lamar County on a farm. He grew up in that locality, finished his literary education in the Honey Grove High School, and for
one session was a country school teacher. He began the study of medicine in the office of Dr. J. G. Smith of Petty, Texas, and in 1886 entered the school of medicine of the Uni- versity of Tennessee at Nashville. He re- mained during the school year 1886-87 and spent a year doing junior or undergraduate professional work, and in 1888 returned to college and graduated in the summer of 1889.
Dr. Price did the work of a regular physi- cian and surgeon at Petty, Texas, for about twelve years. He left there and came to Gainesville in November, 1901, and in this new field has enjoyed the success merited by his experience and exceptional ability. Dr. Price has always kept abreast of the advance made in his profession, and has had five periods of post-graduate work in the New Or- leans Polyclinic. He is a member of the various medical societies, is a former presi- dent of the Cooke County Medical Society, and for one term was county physician. Dur- ing the World war he was a member of the Medical Reserve Corps, and volunteered his active services to the government, but on ac- count of age they were declined. He busied himself with patriotic duties at home, and besides the contribution of his personal means he helped in the various campaigns for the raising of funds. Dr. Price as a voter has been true to his democratic rearing, is an ardent prohibitionist, and a member of the Christian Church. At Gainesville April 19, 1898, he married Miss Norine Wooldridge, daughter of J. C. Wooldridge, formerly of Lamar County, Texas, where Mrs. Price was born in 1874. Dr. and Mrs. Price have two living children Alexander and Jerry Clay.
LEA R. ELLIS. The career of Lea R. Ellis, head of the Ellis Petroleum Interests, a leas- ing and production company of the Texas oil fields, has been one in which Mr. Ellis, still a young man, has covered much of the coun- try in his various wanderings and has en- gaged in several out-of-the-ordinary enter- prises. In each of his fields of endeavor his energy, resource and determination have been factors which have contributed to his success, and his good judgment and foresight have given his company control of some valuable properties which bid fair to make the concern one of the leaders of its kind at Fort Worth.
Mr. Ellis was born January 31, 1891, at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is a son of Robert Ellis, a native of that state who still
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resides there and is engaged in the contracting business. The eldest in a family of eight chil- dren, Lea R. Ellis attended the graded and high schools at Somerville, Massachusetts, and his first employment was as a clerk in a gro- cery store in the same community. The prosaic business of wrapping groceries did not appeal to this youth, however, who possessed an ad- venturous spirit and much ambition, and after about a year he broke home ties and made his way to the Canadian West, where he en- gaged in the real estate and contracting busi- ness and spent about four years in different parts of Alberta. While there he took ad- vantage of his opportunities and engaged in the silver black fox business, transporting many live foxes from the wilds of Northern Alberta to the fox ranches of Prince Edward Island. This business, until the outbreak of the World war, proved very prosperous. It was in Alberta that Mr. Ellis had his intro- duction to the oil business, and there operated .
as a broker and organizer of one of the north- ern development companies. The entrance of the United States into the World war brought him back to this country, and later he en- listed in the Flying Corps of the United States Navy, remaining in the service until 1919.
Immediately upon his discharge Mr. Ellis came to Texas, where he spent his first year at Ranger and in the surrounding oil fields. Here he became interested in seven wells, six of which were drilled in the Sipe Springs field and proved very successful. Represent- ing eastern capital, in addition to these opera- tions he made heavy investments in the pros- pective oil fields of the Trans-Pecos district of Western Texas, acquiring many thousands of acres of land in fee, together with the royalties and other minerals. This field is already producing shallow oil, and, accord- ing to the favorable opinions of many emi- nent geologists, stands a very good chance of duplicating the great, deep wells of Tampico, the formations being the same. The Ellis Pe- troleum Interests are also interested in the great Stephens County oil fields, and, as Mr. Ellis feels that Texas offers the greatest of oil opportunities and that its future in this direction is very bright, it is the intention to keep on adding to its holdings from time to time. This concern has back of it some well- to-do and substantial men, mostly connected with the legal profession and capitalists. Mr. Ellis since locating at Fort Worth has shown a public-spirited interest in its welfare and
has shown himself ready to support worthy movement. He has a number of social, fra- ternal and civic connections, and is very popu- lar among a wide circle of friends and ac- quaintances.
GLADSTONE WARDLAW, who holds the dual position of credit man and secretary and treas- urer of the wholesale grocery house of A. E. Want & Company in the city of Fort Worth, has been fortified by varied and effective ex- perience in connection with business affairs of broad scope and importance and is one of the popular business men of Fort Worth. He was born at Shelbyville, Tennessee, on the 14th of June, 1877, and is a son of Dr. Thomas DeLacy Wardlaw and Louise Ward- law, the former a native of Ireland and the latter of the state of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Wardlaw became not only a success- ful physician and surgeon but he also became a clergyman of the Presbyterian Church, in which he achieved distinction, as shown by his having received the degree of Doctor of Divinity. Of his nine children, all of whom attained to maturity, the subject of this review is the youngest.
Gladstone Wardlaw gained his early edu- cation in the public schools of his native place, and supplemented this by attending Washing- ton College in Tennessee. He was sixteen years of age when he came to Texas and en- tered the employ of the Fort Worth Packing Company, and thereafter he was for two years employed by the great packing concern of Nelson Morris Company in the city of St. Louis, Missouri. He was residing in Mis- souri at the time of the inception of the Span- ish-American war, and he promptly subordi- nated all other interests to tender his service as a soldier in the conflict. He enlisted in Battery A, First Missouri Artillery, and with this command was in active service in Porto Rico. Mr. Wardlaw returned to Fort Worth in the year 1898, and here he was engaged in the brokerage business until 1900, when he became associated with A. E. Want & Com- pany in the capacity of bookkeeper. With the expansion of the business of this representa- tive wholesale house he was called upon to assume increasing executive responsibilities, and he is giving characteristically effective service as the concern's credit man and secre- tary and treasurer. He is actively identified with the Fort Worth Wholesale Credit Men's Association, and holds membership in 'the
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Fort Worth Club and the Kiwanis Club. Both he and his wife are active members of the Methodist Episcopal Church.
The year 1903 recorded the marriage of Mr. Wardlaw to Miss Anna Lee Ransom, of Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and they have two children, Elizabeth and Margaret.
BURT J. SHAW. Some of the men who are numbered among the wealthiest citizens in the oil industry in the Wichita Falls district have had a long and varied experience extending back to the oil fields of Pennsylvania and covering many phases of this very important business. One of these with a name well known throughout the southwest is Burt J. Shaw. an extensive oil producer and superin- tendent of production for the Panhandle Re- fining Company of Wichita Falls.
Burt J. Shaw was born at Salamanca, New York, in the later '80s, and he has been in the great petroleum industry of the United States actively and to the exclusion of any other busi- ness since his early youth. He began his con- nection with the industry in Warren County, Pennsylvania, and has been engaged in it as a driller or producer in practically all of the states where oil is produced, including Penn- sylvania, West Virginia, Indiana. Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas. Immediately prior to coming to Texas he was located at Tulsa, Oklahoma, for two years. Upon com- ing to Texas he continued his operations in the oil fields, and then, in 1918, located perma- nently at Wichita Falls, the oil metropolis of northwestern Texas, where he has erected a beautiful residence at 1705 Huff street.
While a resident of Lawrenceville, Illinois, Mr. Shaw organized the Shaw Oil Company and also the Illinois Torpedo Company, the latter being a manufacturing corporation that does business in seven or eight states. While in Oklahoma he was a member of the firm Shaw & Morrisey. Most of his Texas opera- tions as a producer are conducted by the firm Morrisey. Heydrick & Shaw. He is superin- tendent of production. as before stated. for the Panhandle Refining Company. of which he is one of the largest stockholders. His thorough knowledge of the business has made him one of the leaders of the industry in the south- west. He is also a director of the Wichita Bank and Trust Company.
Mr. Shaw has long been actively identified with the Masonic Order, is a member of the Lodge at Lawrenceville, Illinois, the Royal Arch Chapter at Sumner. Illinois, the Knight
Templar Commandery at Olney in that state. the Scottish Rite Consistory at East St. Louis, and is a member of the recently organized Maskat Temple at Wichita Falls.
At Montpelier, Indiana, Mr. Shaw married Miss Susie E. Arnold. They have three chil- dren, named Howard A., Mabel V. and Roberta. Mr. Shaw is a man of broad vision who is able to look into the future and see and plan for developments. His faith in this region is unbounded, and he is ready and willing to do everything in his power to assist in devel- oping it and making it the wonder city of the world.
JOHN R. O'BRIEN came to Cooke County forty-five years ago, was one of the pioneers and one of the very oldest residents of the Wolf Ridge community. and the varied for- tunes and incidents of his life here reveal some of the real and interesting history of progress and development in this section of north Texas.
The O'Brien family is one of the oldest in . north Texas, having established a home in Collin County more than sixty years ago. John R. O'Brien was born in Gentry County. Missouri, June 20, 1851. His great-grand- father came from Ireland and founded this branch of the O'Brien family in Virginia. His grandfather, Henry O'Brien, was a Vir- ginia farmer. David O'Brien, who brought the family to north Texas, was born in Buck- ingham County, Virginia, in December, 1806. lived for some years in Henry County, Ken- tucky, and about 1845 moved to Gentry County, Missouri. He was a plain farmer citizen and died at Mckinney, Texas, Feb- ruary 14, 1884. He was past military age during the Civil war but three of his sons became Confederate soldiers. He was always a democrat and was a member of the Chris- tian Church. By his first marriage he had the following children: James, who went to Cal- ifornia in 1849 and died on the Pacific Coast : Patrick, who also went to California, in 1854. and died there; Jacob, who was a Confed- erate soldier and was killed in Tennessee; David, Jr., who lived in Mckinney, Texas : Benjamin, who was also a Confederate soldier and died in Collin County ; and Ann Eliza. who lives in Missouri. The second wife of David O'Brien was Permelia Edmundson, who was born in North Carolina June 15, 1827. and died May 5, 1877. A brief record of her children is as follows: George, who died in Texas; John R .; Kittie, wife of A. C. Varner, of Gainesville; Frank, who died in
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Collin County ; and Minnie, who became the wife of W. W. Lewis and was accidentally killed by a car in Dallas in 1920.
John R. O'Brien was about six years of age when the family came to Texas in 1857 and located in Collin County. He grew up in a pioneer locality, acquired a common school education, and outside of school his training was entirely that of a farming com- munity.
Mr. O'Brien left Collin County and moved to Cooke County in 1875, being then twenty- four years of age. He made the journey by wagon, and he enumerates his resources as consisting of a wagon, team and two dogs. He stopped on Wolf Ridge, eight miles north- west of Gainesville, rented a house for a time. and subsequently constructed a box-like struc- ture of two rooms. He paid two dollars an acre for raw land, and for several years on account of drought he was hardly able to make interest from the lean crops. In these diffi- cult circumstances he maintained himself by going East and trading in livestock, bringing cattle to pasture on the range and marketing so as to bring him some profit. In the early days he had to haul water for domestic use. At that time no one thought of deep wells. He recalls that the first deep well drilled in his neighborhood was by Jo Rogers about 1887. Everyone in that section is familiar with the fine quality and quantity of water obtained from deep wells, but it was a number of years before the farmers became educated to the value of such investment. When the seasons became right Mr. O'Brien was pre- pared to reap some substantial returns from actual farming. and grew wheat, oats and corn. His community did not take up cot- ton as soon as the river country north of him, partly because there was no gin for the Wolf Ridge farmers. Mr. O'Brien first settled and lived for fifteen years two miles south of his present farm. He started with 160 acres, and on leaving that came to his present loca- tion on top of the ridge, eight miles north of Gainesville. His industry and management for many years have been responsible for bringing under the plow some 400 acres, and as an active farmer for forty-five years he has contributed a large and important share to the permanent development of that section.
Mr. O'Brien recalls many interested and startling variations in the price of farm prod- ucts during his experience. He sold wheat as low as four bits a bushel, corn at two bits and cotton as low as four cents a pound.
Of the starvation years for the farmers of north Texas Mr. O'Brien has as large a share as almost any others, but taking a great many years in the aggregate he has prospered, and his material holdings classify him as one of the well-to-do farmers and land owners in Cooke County. His country home of eight rooms was built seven years ago, and in size and comfort contrasts markedly with the pio- neer box shanty, while the other building im- provements on the farm are of corresponding substantial quality.
In the early days Mr. O'Brien hauled his cotton to Sherman to market, and while liv- ing in Collin County it was customary to haul cotton to Jefferson in east Texas. Mr. O'Brien had only a few neighbors when he came to Cooke County and of those who settled in the Wolf Ridge locality with him he and George Ball are the last survivors. The locality wa's without schools and Mr. O'Brien helped establish District No. 77, has served as trustee at different times and is now a member of the board. The Presbyterian church of Wolf Ridge was organized by Rev. Mr. Russell about 1900, and the O'Briens have been active in its support, Mr. O'Brien being an elder of the congregation. He has always been a democrat, cast his first pres- idential vote for Horace Greeley in 1872, and has attended several conventions as a delegate, though he has never accepted a formal candidacy for office.
During the World war, with one of his sons fighting in France, the O'Brien home was an active center for Red Cross and other patri- otic efforts, and Mr. O'Brien lent his per- . sonal resources and also the influence of his leadership to the success of the several cam- paigns in his district for funds.
In Collin County in March, 1875, the same year that he came to Cooke County, Mr. O'Brien married Miss Mary Robertson. She died at Gainesville in August, 1890. She was born in the state of Iowa, daughter of Jeff Robertson. Mr. O'Brien's children by his first marriage were : Leroy, a farmer of Sivells Bend, Cooke County, married Ila Bell and has two children, Weldon and Mildred ; Carrie died as the wife of Mr. Childress. leaving a son, Cecil ; Carl, a resident of Hills- boro, Texas, married Ella Mason, and their children are Roy, Carl and Eloise; Earl wife of Walter Newton, of Fort Worth, has three children, Louis, Louise and Mary; Marvin, also a farmer of Sivells Bend, married Mabel Burns, and has two children, Randolph and
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Kenneth; and Mamie, the youngest, who died unmarried. On September 28, 1892, Mr. O'Brien married Miss Vesta Colville, daughter of Elmore and Vesta ( Waterhouse) Colville, who were natives of Tennessee and died in Ray County, that state. Mrs. O'Brien was one of ten children, and the others who grew up were named Richard. Young, Elizabeth, War- ner, Ella, Frank and Callie. Mrs. O'Brien came to Texas in 1887. Five children were born to their marriage, John C., Franklin, who died at the age of five years, David Elmore, Dorothy and Marjorie. The son David Elmore also registered under the draft law but was not called to the army. John C. O'Brien went to France with the Thirty-sixth Division. He was overseas from July, 1918, took part in the fourteen days' battle of the Argonne, was never wounded, and was subsequently de- tailed from the ranks to attend an officers training school in France and was in that training when the armistice was signed. He returned home in March, 1919, and is one of the popular ex-servicemen of Gainesville, and a member of the Dennis Anderson Post of the American Legion in that city.
LEWIS P. CARD. The number thirteen fig- ures prominently in the significant dates mark- ing the career of Lewis P. Card, and he has always regarded that as a lucky number. Mr. Card is one of Fort Worth's most suc- cessful bankers and has been identified with the Exchange State Bank of the city from the time it opened for business.
Mr. Card was born in the rural district north of Fort Worth in Denton County on Friday, April 13, 1883. son of A. T. and
Elizabeth ( Pattillo) Card, the former a na- tive of northern Georgia and the latter of Alabama. His father died at the age of sixty and his mother at fifty-five. Of their eight children Lewis P. is the sixth and the third son.
His boyhood days were spent on his father's farm and his education came from the com- mon schools in Denton County. At the age of fourteen he was doing practically a man's work on the farm and his interests and asso- ciations were those of a farmer until 1905.
Coming to Fort Worth in that year, Mr. Card was employed in the Swift packing plant until July 9. 1906, the date of the opening of the Exchange State Bank. He went on the working force as errand boy, but suc- cessively was promoted to bookkeeper, teller. assistant cashier in 1911, and on the 13th of January, 1920, came to his present responsi- bilities as cashier of this, one of Fort Worth's most substantial financial institutions. The number thirteen again recurs in the date of Mr. Card's election as a trustee of the Fort Worth public schools, which occurred Decem- ber 13, 1915.
Mr. Card since coming to Fort Worth has accepted various opportunities to promote the welfare of the city. For five years he was a member of the school board. He is a steward in the Methodist Episcopal Church, is a Knight Templar Mason, a member of Moslah Temple, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine and treasurer of several of the Masonic bodies. In 1907 he married Miss Henrie Davis, a daughter of E. O. Davis, of Fort Worth.
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