USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume IV > Part 23
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On November 6, 1894, Mr. Shannon mar- ried Mrs. Marie Hill. They have three sons and two daughters, named Juanita, S. D., Jr., Oliver, Marvin and Elsie. Mr. Shannon is a member of the Kiwanis Club, is a Scottish Rite Mason and Shriner, a Knight of Pythias and an Elk.
HORACE K. JONES, of Valley View, repre- sents the second generation of a family that has been in North Texas since pioneer times. His own career has been successfully identified .with farming and civic interests in Cooke County for many years, and has been one of the most substantial achievements and good citizenship. Horace K. Jones is the father of Hon. Marvin Jones, a Texas congressman from Amarillo.
Horace K. Jones was born in McMinn County, Tennessee, in 1849. His grandfather was a native of England who died in Virginia. In his family were four sons and two daugh- ters. Of these Thomas reared his family and died in Columbus, Ohio; James W. was a ship · carpenter and died in Washington, D. C., where he reared his family; Joseph was an early settler in California, where he spent the rest of his life; Mrs. Elizabeth Parsons lived in Washington City, and Mary married a Mr. Angel and reared her family in the national capital.
The father of Horace K. Jones was Robert D. Jones, who founded the family in North Texas. He was a native of Maryland, was reared in old Virginia, and as a young man 'went to Tennessee, where he married. He . learned the trade of saddle tree making. In Tennessee he maintained shops at Athens, Riceville and McMinnville, and after coming to Texas he continued to work at his trade, · letting his sons run his farm; In Texas he i had a shop as a wheelwright and loom-maker.
P. D. Shannon.
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- The Jones family came from Tennessee to
Texas in 1855. Their first home was near Garland in Dallas County, where Robert D. Jones entered a pre-emption and secured land at 50 cents an acre. He lived out his life in that community. He was past the age of military service when the war between the states broke out, but three of his sons went into the Southern army, and his sympathies were strongly enlisted for the Confederacy, and he did what he could at home, running his shop and keeping up production on his farm as patriotic duties. He was a man of modest ambitions, was satisfied with the suc- cess of his business and with the ownership of about 200 acres. He began voting as a whig, but was a democrat from war times until his death. He was a member of the Methodist Church. For many years he suffered the affliction of deafness, and that accounted in part for his quiet and unobtrusive career as a citizen. He died January 15, 1881, at the age of sixty-seven. Robert D. Jones married Martha E. King, who died in 1859. She rep- resented an old family of East Tennessee, and her father, William King, was connected with the rolling mill near Knoxville, while her brother, John King, became prominent in public life in that state. The children of Robert D. Jones and wife were as follows : James W., who died at Wetumke, Oklahoma ; Ellen M., who died at Ardmore, Oklahoma. wife of B. F. McDaniel ; John T., of Garland, Texas; Joseph A., who died in Greer County, Oklahoma; Mary E., wife of Charles S. Newton and lives in Valley View, Texas ; Horace K. : Martha C., Mrs. G. W. James, of Garland; Lou A., wife of Frank Houstead, of Duncanville ; Amanda, who died at Valley View, the wife of J. T. Murrell; Robert H .. of Hedley, Texas ; and George W., who died at the age of sixteen.
Horace K. Jones was six years of age when brought to Texas, and he grew up in the rural community near Garland in Dallas County. It was a new locality and the un- settled state of the South during war times placed an additional limit upon the educa- tional opportunities open to him when a boy. He attended the old Duck Creek school, and was a factor on the home farm until past his majority.
Mr. Jones came to the Valley View section of Cooke County in 1881 and began farming on new land within three miles of the little village. His career as an active farmer con- tinued until 1912, when he moved to Valley
View. He had his share of the adversities that afflicted the agricultural settlers of Cooke County during the eighties and a portion of the nineties, but altogether for more than thirty years of consecutive effort he achieved a success that marks him as one of the ablest men in that region. He was pri- marily interested while on the farm in the production of grain and cotton. His first home was a box house, and later he erected a splendid residence, which was subsequently destroyed by fire. Though now retired from business, he is an interested participant in community affairs at Valley View, is active in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and for a third of a century was a steward of the church. Outside of his farm and home one of his chief interests was in furnishing good educational advantages for the children of the community. He took part in the organ- ization of School District No. 41, known as the Elm Grove School, and his own children - acquired their first advantages there, supple- mented later by the schools of Valley View and other higher institutions.
While Mr. Jones became a permanent resi- dent of Cooke County in 1881, he had been in the county some time prior to that, and it was within the limits of Cooke County that he married, in November, 1875, Miss Docia Hawkins. She was born in Bradley County, Tennessee, daughter of John and Sarah (Gaston) Hawkins, both natives of South Carolina, her mother having been born in Spartansburg. John Hawkins brought his family from middle Tennessee to Texas in 1869, settling in Cooke County. Two of his sons were Confederate soldiers, James and William, the former being killed in battle. The children of the Hawkins family were: Janie, who became the wife of G. H. Norman, of Amarillo, Texas ; Georgie, Mrs. A. J. Nipple, of Valley View; Mrs. Jones, who was born July 6, 1856 ; and Gaston P. Hawkins, a resi- dent of Cooke County.
The oldest of the children of Mr. and Mrs. Jones is Nola, wife of James I. Lane. of Valley View : Maud is the wife of W. C. Moss, of the same locality, and she is the mother of Robert, Lucile, Horace, Ernestine, William C. and Mary Maud. The oldest son is Robert Delbert Jones, a prominent lawyer of Dallas, Texas. The next son is Hon. Marvin Jones, of Amarillo. The third son, Horace E., is a farmer at Queen City, Texas, and his younger brother, Herbert K., is a banker at Queen City, married Ida McCollum, and has a daugh-
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ter, named Billie Bob. The next child is Frank P. Jones, a farmer of Valley View, while the youngest of the family is Metze Jones. The son Frank P. Jones enlisted in July, 1918, and was first sent to Camp Travis and later to Fort Benjamin Harrison, In- diana, where he finished his service and re- ceived his honorable discharge.
Marvin Jones was born near Valley View, received some of his early education in the Elm Grove public schools, attended South- western University in Georgetown, where he graduated in 1905, and received his degree in law from the University of Texas in 1907. He has since practiced at Amarillo, is a former member of the Board of Legal Examiners, and in 1916 was elected a member of the Sixty-first Congress and was re-elected in 1918, first representing the old Thirteenth Dis- trict and during his second term the Eight- eenth District. Though a member of Con- gress, he volunteered his services in the World war during the summer of 1918 in the Tank Corps, and was in training at Camp Raleigh, North Carolina. He was offered a commission, but declined and served his time as a private. He took his turn on duty as a kitchen police. At his personal request he was transferred to the Heavy Tank Corps because this con- tingent was going overseas before the whippet tanks to which he was first assigned. He was a member of Company A, Three Hundred and Eighth Battalion, Heavy Tank Corps.
WALKER H. PUETT. Those who claim that Central West Texas is the garden spot of the world have many reasons for such a state- ment, and it would be difficult to gainsay it, especially since the discovery that beneath the soil of its broad acres is stored one of the greatest of natural resources, oil. One of the substantial men of Eastland County, who has gained wealth and prestige in this remarkable region, is Walker H. Puett, merchant, large landowner and oil operator of Carbon.
Walker H. Puett was born in Coryell County, Texas, in 1878, a son of M. and Eliza- beth Puett, both of whom are now deceased. M. Puett was born in Texas. His home in Coryell County was a ranch twelve miles from Gatesville, and on it Walker H. Puett was born. Later the family moved to Temple, Bell Countv. and in 1894 they came to Carbon, Eastland Countv. Here M. Puett and his two sons, Walker H. and J. E. Puett, embarked in a mercantile business, and here he died. The brothers continued together for a time,
and then J. E. Puett withdrew and moved to Gorman, where he established himself in a drug business, and later acquired drug stores at Desdemona and Breckenridge, which he is operating, but lives at Waco.
Since 1894 Walker H. Puett has been a resident of Carbon, and his general store in this city is one of the large and substantial mercantile establishments of Eastland County, with a rank of high favor in the commercial world. The Puetts are builders, and have grown up with and have been potent factors in the development of the rich agricultural section in the southern part of Eastland County, which Carbon is the center.
During 1920 considerable progress was made in developing the oil resources in the Carbon vicinity, and in July of that year an oil well was brought in on Mr. Puett's farm, a few miles south of Carbon, which had a production for some time of considerably over 600 barrels per day. This well is 2,296 feet deep and was drilled by the Pittsburgh Western Oil Company. The well has given the name of "Puett Field" to this section of the oil terri- tory, and various drilling enterprises have been inaugurated and continued since the "Puett" was brought in. Mr. Puett has other interests and is an extensive landowner, farmer and cattleraiser of Eastland County, confining his operations to its southern portion. He is ac- cepted as one of the county's wealthy and sub- stantial men and influential citizens.
Mr. Puett was married to Miss Maggie Poe, who was born in Arkansas, a daughter of Doctor Poe. Mr. and Mrs. Puett have one daughter, Annie Pearl. By training, instinct and inheritance Mr. Puett is a man capable of managing large affairs. His efficiency, trust- worthiness and absolute dependability are un- questioned, and these qualities will carry him far on the road to fame, and he is fast be- coming the moving spirit in the affairs of his neighborhood. Even before the discovery of oil on his land he had attained the full measure of popular confidence in his abilities and sound judgment, and this addition to his worldly goods will but give him a broader scope of usefulness.
1
CAPT. WILLIAM HUDSON TYLER, an ex- service man who was overseas with the 36th Division, is president of the Tyler & Simpson Company of Gainesville, one of the leading wholesale firms of North Texas. He became president of this company on succeeding his honored father, the late Fisher Ames Tyler.
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and the Tylers have been prominent factors in business and citizenship of Cooke County since 1872.
The family originated in three English brothers who came to America in early Colo- nial times, and the family subsequently was represented almost equally in numbers as Ply- mouth, Massachusetts, and at Jamestown, Vir- ginia. A later branch of the family was rep- resented by John Tyler, whose son, Nathan Tyler, of Massachusetts, was the great grand- father of Captain William Hudson Tyler. Nathan Tyler died at Providence, Rhode Island, in 1837.
The grandfather of Captain Tyler was Fisher Ames Tyler, Sr., a publisher and min- ister of the Gospel. In early life he was con- nected with the noted southern journal, the Memphis Appeal, and spent many years as a minister in Mississippi. During the war be- tween the states he was in the department of the quartermaster general, with the rank of colonel, was a stanch Confederate, and his son and namesake was in the same service. Fisher A. Tyler, Sr., died in January, 1902, at the age of eighty-eight, and is buried at Holly Springs, Mississippi. In May, 1840, he married Miss Virginia Ann Townes. Of their six children three reached mature years.
The late Fisher Ames Tyler, Jr., was born near Holly Springs, Mississippi, in December, 1847, and was a boy when he enlisted in Com- pany K of the Third Mississippi Cavalry, in Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest's command, and was a soldier until the close of the war. After the war he spent several years in mer- chandising at Memphis, and in 1872 came to Texas, but after a brief stay at Sherman and Tyler located at Gainesville, where he entered the wholesale and retail grocery business with W. B. Worsham of Memphis, Tennessee. They constituted the firm of Tyler & Wor- sham. About 1886 Mr. Tyler and John L. Simpson consolidated and formed the firm of Tyler & Simpson, and they remained closely associated, devoting their energies and abilities to the building up of this extensive house, and at their deaths their places were taken by their respective sons. The main building of the Tyler & Simpson Company was erected by the original partners in 1888. This is one of the wholesale houses of high and honorable tradi- tions in North Texas, and is one of the lead- ing distributing agencies for groceries in the Southwest. Fisher A. Tyler was president of the company until his death, which occurred in April, 1918.
He always regarded himself strictly as a business man, especially when politics was con- cerned. He was probably never a candidate for a public office. However, he reserved a generous share of his time and abilities for church interests, was active in the United States Presbyterian Church and one of the real builders of the present Presbyterian Church of Gainesville, which he served as a trustee. He was also a member of the United Confederate Veterans.
After coming to Gainesville he married Miss Eva May Hudson. Her father, General Wil- liam Hudson, came to Texas from Tennessee prior to the war-between the states, and during that war had charge of all the Confederate troops in the north part of Texas for defense against the Indians. Mr. and Mrs. Tyler had four children : Lelia, wife of Dr. M. B. Por- ter, a member of the faculty of the University of Texas; Ethel, wife of William D. Garnett, of Gainesville ; Captain William Hudson ; and Miss Ruth.
Capt. William H. Tyler was born at Gaines- ville July 19, 1888, and has spent practically all his life in his native community except while away at college and at war. He fin- ished his education in the University of Vir- ginia, and at once became connected with his father's wholesale house at Gainesville, con- tinuing to assume increasing responsibilities in its management until he entered the World war in June, 1917, as a Texas National Guardsman. He was promoted to the rank of captain of the Machine Gun Company of the Seventh Texas Infantry. This regiment was later designated as the 142nd Infantry in the National army. He continued his command in the Machine Gun Company of that regiment until transferred to the headquarters of the Thirty-sixth Division as an aide de camp to Major-General E. St. John Greble. In the capacity of an assistant in the department of operations of the Thirty-sixth Division he sailed with the command to France July 18, 1918. Overseas he was transferred to the command of an infantry company, but after a few days at Bar-sue-Aube was sent as ad- jutant to the train commander of that divi- sion, and continued in this line of duty until the armistice, and until he returned home at the end of January, 1919, sailing from Mar- seilles as a casual on the Italian transport Duca Degla D'Abbruzzi. He landed at New York February 12, was sent to Camp Dix, New Jer- sey, and received his honorable discharge there February 15.
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On resuming civil life Captain Tyler took his place at his desk with the Tyler & Simpson Company, having been chosen president to succeed his father. At Ardmore, Oklahoma, June 30, 1915, Captain Tyler married Miss Pauline Gladney. Her father, Thomas Glad- ney, was an early settler in Cooke County and North Texas. Mrs. Tyler was born at Gaines- ville and was educated in the schools of that city and also in Chicago.
HARRY A. LOGSDON, M. D. In the ten years of his professional career Doctor Logs- don has had a varied and most successful experience. He was in practice for several years at Fort Worth and was general assist- ant to the eminent surgeon Dr. Bacon Saun- ders. For almost two years he was a surgeon with the rank of captain in the National army both in this country and in France. Doctor Logsdon soon after leaving the army located for practice at Ranger, and is one of the lead- ing professional men of that remarkable oil city.
Doctor Logsdon was born at Sherman in Grayson County, Texas, in 1884, a son of J. E. and Alma (Dickerman) Logsdon. His mother, who is still living, was born in Mis- souri, of English ancestry. His father, the late J. E. Logsdon, was a native of Grayson County, Kentucky, and descended from Joe Logsdon. a Virginian of Scotch-Irish ances- trv who came with Daniel Boone through the mountains of Western North Carolina and East Tennessee to Kentucky. The Logsdons were one of the very oldest families of Ken- tucky. J. E. Logsdon came to Texas when a youth, and at the age of eighteen volun- teered in the Confederate army. He saw four years of active service with Ector's Ninth Texas Brigade in Hood's army. The war over, he returned to Texas, and for many years lived at Sherman in Grayson County, but subsequently located at Gainesville.
In June, 1913, Doctor Logsdon was mar- ried to Miss Willie Mae Conner, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Conner, of Fort Worth, Texas.
.. In July, 1917, Doctor Logsdon helped or- ganize the Fort Worth Company of the Red Cross Ambulance Corps. Later at Camp Travis, this company was assigned to the 90th Division, becoming Ambulance Company No. 359 of the 315th Sanitary Train. With the organization Doctor Logsdon remained on duty at Camp Travis until June, 1918, when he went overseas. In France he had charge of the front line evacuation for his organ- ization in the major operations of the 90th Division at St. Mihiel and the second Meuse- Argonne. He was gassed during the St. Mihiel fighting, September 14, 1918, but re- fused to be evacuated and went back into action forty-eight hours later, for which he received the Accolade of the wounded after his discharge. He was assigned to the com- mand of his company in February, 1919, with the Army of Occupation in Germany. Cap- tain Logsdon left Germany with his company for America May 20, 1919, and received his discharge at Fort Worth June 3, 1919, nearly two years after he gave up his practice to enlist.
In August, 1919, Doctor Logsdon located at Ranger, and has since had a large and suc- cessful general practice as a physician and surgeon. He is vice president of the East- land County Medical Society and is a member of the State and American Medical Associ- ations. He is also president of the Ranger Medical Society, a local organization that has been of great value in this city of unexampled growth and development, where it is difficult to classify and discriminate among the var- ious elements represented in the citizenship. The society was formed for the purpose of mutual protection of the ethical medical pro- fession, and has also cooperated with the gen- eral work of civic welfare. For the latter purpose the society is actively affiliated with the Ranger Chamber of Commerce. Doctor Logsdon is a member of the Chamber of
It was in the City of Gainesville that Dr. . Commerce and an earnest booster for Ranger. Harry A. Logsdon grew up, and he attended the grammar and high schools. He studied SAMUEL J. KENNERLY has been a merchant and · business man at Gainesville forty years. medicine in the medical department of Fort
Worth University. After graduating with the . Gainesville had been put on the map as a rail- class of 1910 Doctor Logsdon was for one : road town only a short time before his arrival, year an interne in St. Joseph's Infirmary in Fort Worth, following which he practiced medicine and surgery until 1917. and he was one of the early merchants in what might be considered the modern era of the city. Mr. Kennerly is a hardware mer- chant of a half century's fame, and his hard- . ware and implement store at Gainesville is one of the oldest and largest concerns of the kind in North Texas.
Harry A. Logs don
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.He- was born in . Franklin County: middle Tennessee, June 6, 1850. His father, Samuel J. Kennerly, Sr., was descended from a Scotch-Irish family of Colonial settlers, and was taken to Tennessee by his parents when a boy. He acquired a limited education, but de- veloped extensive interests as a large planter near Winchester, Tennessee. He owned nu- merous slaves, and has plantation was almost a self-sufficing enterprise, including a store and blacksmith shop and other local and home in- dustries. Two sons of this Tennessee planter entered the Confederate army. Samuel J. Kennerly, Sr., died in Tennessee in 1900, at the age of eighty-five. His wife was Helen Taylor, daughter of another slave holding planter. She died at the age of eighty-three. Of their eight children seven came to mature years : William, who died in Tennessee ; Letha, who married Clem Featherston and died in the same state; John and George, twins, Tennessee farmers near Winchester; James, a physician of Batesville, Arkansas; Samuel J .; and Reynolds, of Winchester, Ten- nessee.
Samuel J. Kennerly grew up on his father's .
plantation. He was there during war times and witnessed the destruction caused by the war, including a reduction of family fortunes that made it necessary for him to become de- pendent upon his own energies. After having a limited common school education he left home when about sixteen to achieve a busi- ness career. Going to Huntsville, Alabama, he clerked a few years, and then with a partner engaged in business on borrowed capital. He was a merchant at Huntsville eleven years, and after dissolving his association with his -partner he brought his limited capital to Texas, joining in a rather spirited tide of im- migration to this state. Though he had no acquaintances in this section, he determined upon Gainesville as an eligible place to resume business, and has been continuously identified with that North Texas city since 1881. In the same year he opened his first stock of hard- ware, valued at hardly two thousand dollars, on East California Street, where the big store of J. R. M. Patterson is situated today. After being in business for himself he took as a partner J. B: Spraggins, now of Ardmore,
Oklahoma. They formed a stock company with C. N. Stevens, known as Stevens-Ken- nerly-Spraggins & Company. On the death of Mr. Stevens, Kennerly and Spraggins bought the business, dissolved the corporation, and for a. few years; continued their partnership. On
dissolving this association Mr. Kennerly re- turned to the original plan of running his business alone. The old corporation erected the business house where he is today, a one-story building, furnishing floor space 100 x 200 feet. The stock of the S. J. Kennerly store today, including shelf and heavy hardware, imple- ments and blacksmith supplies, is probably twenty-five times the value and quantity of the stock with which he began business forty years ago.
In addition to this business Mr. Kennerly is one of the stockholders of the Lindsay Na- tional Bank, and is president of the Hesperian Building and Loan Association of Gainesville, an institution that has proved an invaluable asset to the building development of the city. He has been a sincere friend of public educa- tion, served as a member of the school board twenty years and was president of the board part of the time. For one term he was an alderman, and during that term the East Public School building was erected. He is a demo- crat in politics, he and his family are members of the Christian Church and he is a Royal Arch Mason and past chancellor of Lodge No. 117, Knights of Pythias.
At Gainesville June 6, 1883, Mr. Kennerly married Miss Callie M. Bird. She is a native of Gainesville, where her father, George I. Bird, was a merchant, having come originally from his native state of Tennessee. George Bird married Miss Elizabeth Gossett. Mrs. Kennerly is the second of six children, and her five brothers are William, Thomas, George, Edgar and Jesse.
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