USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume IV > Part 35
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73
Andrew J. Fouts was twenty years old when the war ended. He then resumed freighting, and continued in that business until long dis- tance freighting became obsolete when the first railroads were built to Dallas, Denison and other points in North Texas. It was a business of hard work and long hours, but was quite profitable. It is interesting to recall that rates for hauling freight from Shreve- port and Jefferson to Denton were $2 a 100 pounds.
With the end of the transportation business Mr. Fouts turned his attention and capital to farming and stock raising. During the war his grandfather had given him a heifer, and he also had a gift of a colt from his father, and with the normal increase from his first stock he continued the industry until his cattle and horses, under the familiar brand AJ, ran over the prairies by the hundreds. As a stock- man Mr. Fouts found his chief and most profitable business enterprise, and continued it up to within recent years. In the early days he broke a great deal of prairie sod with oxen at $3 an acre. He bought his first land on the installment plan about 1870, and by 1874 was owner of 500 acres, the nucleus of his
present model stock ranch of 750 acres on Big Elm Creek. On that farm he erected the first building, broke the first prairie, and raised the first real crop, and continued active in its affairs and in various outside relations while he retained his strength and vigor, and he built substantial house and barns and made it one of the highly productive centers of agricultural prosperity, both as an agricultural proposition and for its cattle and horses.
Some of his outside activities have a special historic interest. In 1874 he was awarded the mail contract for four years, carrying the mail from Dallas to Denton, until the con- struction of the railroad to Denton terminated the contract. Dallas was then a very small city and Denton only a country town. Mr. Fouts was appointed agent for the old Dallas and Wichita, now part of the Missouri, Kan- sas & Texas Railway, at Trinity Mills in Dallas County, and he held that post for six years and at the same time was the postmaster and merchant of the town, and for some time operated a cotton gin. When he left Trinity Mills he returned to his farm about three or four miles away.
For several years the school situation in his locality was unsatisfactory. He paid his taxes for the benefit of half a dozen school districts without corresponding benefit. He therefore helped organize his home district, the Midway School. He was induced by the people of Lewisville to erect the first schoolhouse in the town, and put up the building on four acres of land given him by the town. He prac- tically conducted this school for three years, at the end of which time he sold the property to the town and deeded it to the county.
In politics Mr. Fouts has been a regular democrat through all the years of his voting. He is a member of the Christian Church, and he and Mrs. Fouts have given liberal financial aid to the First Christian Church of Denton, in which they now have their membership.
The first wife of Mr. Fouts was Ellen Perry, a native of Dallas County. Her father, Western Perry, came to Texas from Illinois and spent the rest of his years as a farmer in Dallas County. Mrs. Fouts died in 1878. She was the mother of two children. Beulah is now Mrs. John Key, of Garza County, Texas, and among her children are Ethel, Rodney, Raymond, Jessie and Pete. Andrew Fouts, the other child, lives at Texhoma, Oklahoma, and has a family by his marriage to May Brummit, one of his sons being
550
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
Clinton. In July, 1884, Mr. Fouts married Miss Mamie Key, whose father, Henry Key, came to Texas from Alabama. She died in November, 1903. One daughter survives her, Edith, who is the wife of Dolphus Wither- spoon, of Henderson County, Texas, and among her children are Leonard, Ewing and Mary.
On June 18, 1905, Mr. Fouts married at Temple, Texas, Mrs. Ella (Jones) Powell. She was born in Henry County, Kentucky, March 7, 1861, daughter of George W. and Sarah (Kelley) Jones. She was reared and educated in Kentucky, married Mr. Powell there and made her first visit to Texas and to Denton in 1895, visiting her sister, Mrs. S. D. Perkins. During one of her subsequent visits she met Mr. Fouts. Her first husband died in Kentucky, leaving a daughter, Virginia Powell, now Mrs. Selby Thomason, of Shelby- ville, Kentucky. Mrs. Fouts' parents had six children : James W., who died in Kentucky ; Henry G., of LaBelle, Missouri; Edward, of Eminence, Kentucky ; Mrs. S. D. Perkins, of Waco; Mrs. Fouts ; and Lewis M., who died as a young man.
The many years of hard work, with ac- complishment of much good as a community builder, has been varied in the lifetime of Mr. Fouts by extensive travel. He has long practiced the slogan, see America first, and has traveled through thirty-two different states and he and Mrs. Fouts have traveled along the entire Pacific Coast. He was on the grounds of the Exposition at Buffalo when President Mckinley was shot. Mrs. Fouts attended the St. Louis World's Fair, and both made a trip to Washington state, and travels make up a part of each year's program. Mr. Fouts has also crossed over the line into Canada at several points. While on these journeys he has written many entertaining letters to his friends and to the local papers. Of all the wonders of America none attract him so much as the Mammoth Cave, and he has written many pages of interesting descrip- tion of this natural phenomenon. Mr. and Mrs. Fouts have a very accurate knowledge of the National Capital and its surroundings, and they visited the tomb of General Wash- ington just after General Foch placed a wreath there. Mr. Fouts has been properly impressed by the dignity and splendor of the great public buildings at Washington, though, like many others who have earned their for- tune as the result of many hard years of toil
and have found taxes at some times burden- some, he recognizes a tendency to extrava- gance in some expenditures, notably in his case in the Congressional Library.
MERCER L. HENDERSON was born and reared on his father's fruit farm in Denton County, but since early manhood has been identified with the cotton business and is now a member of one of the chief firms in North Texas handling domestic cotton.
His father, the late James A. Henderson, was a resident of Denton County forty years, and a man whose activities had more than ordinary distinction, though he practically avoided public life and politics. He was born in Somerset County, Kentucky, in 1844, grew up in the country and had a limited education, and was about seventeen years of age when he entered the Confederate service. He was a private in the Trans-Mississippi Department. In later years he took considerable interest in his old comrades and attended some of the veteran meetings. After the war he re- sumed farming in Kentucky, and in 1874 came to Texas, traveling by rail as far as Sherman and thence by freight wagon to Denton. He bought land near Pilot Point, and his first home was on the scene of some partial improvements of earlier settlers. The rest of his life he lived in that community. While he raised grain on his farm, his specialty was fruit, and his orchards were successfully managed and developed until they contributed an important share of the apples, peaches and pears of the Dallas market. Many say that he was the most successful apple grower in that region. He was inti- mately acquainted with Texas' distinguished nurserymen and horticultural authority, T. V. Munson, and also with Colonel Ross, a noted student and authority on horticulture. James A. Henderson added many substantial im- provements to his home farm, and lived there just forty years, passing away, honored and respected, in 1914. He voted as a democrat in national elections, but his chief interests outside of home and business was in behalf of popular education. He took some part in the management of the school affairs of his home district, and several of his children were educated in high school. He was a member of the Masonic Order and was a reader and investigator of subjects not connected with his practical affairs. In 1876, two years after coming to Denton County, he married Miss
.
E. H. Heth
.....
٠٠٠٠
4
551
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
Annie McGee, who is still living at Pilot Point. She was born at Pulaski, Tennessee, March 17, 1854. Her father came to Texas after the war, was a teacher by profession, and because of that vocation was exempt from military duty. He taught school the rest of his life. James A. Henderson and wife had the following children: Mercer L., of Denton ; Hubbard C., of Pilot Point ; Dr. Willie B., of Dallas; James A., a student in the North Texas Normal College at Denton.
Mercer L. Henderson was born on the farm near Pilot Point January 27, 1881. He fin- ished his education in the public schools there, lived on the home farm until after reaching his majority, and for two years was in the northwest, a worker in the shingle and lumber mills at Sumas and Bellingham, Washington. Soon after his return to North Texas he entered the cotton business as an employe of Hubbell, Slack & Company of Dallas and Houston. He managed the Pilot Point gin for this round bale ginning concern. On leaving Pilot Point and moving to Denton Mr. Henderson became an office and road man for what is now the firm of Witherspoon & Sons. He took up cotton for the firm and also handled some of the office details. During the eight years with that concern he acquired considerable knowledge of the foreign export business. Mr. Henderson withdrew from the Witherspoons to engage in the cotton business for himself in association with John Gerlach. The firm of Gerlach & Henderson has been a well known organization in Denton since 1918, and has made an important record as handlers of domestic cotton, buying the staple in counties all over North Texas.
Mr. Henderson is an interested and public- spirited citizen of Denton, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, is affiliated with the Elks, and as a democrat cast his first presi- dential ballot for Judge Parker.
At Denton, December 1, 1911, he married Miss Ida Williams, who was born in Henri- etta, Texas, in 1894, but was reared in Denton County. Her parents were Darwin Herbert and Ida (Cessna) Williams, natives of Ohio, who married at Pittsburg, Texas. Her father was a photographer and later for a number of years a traveling salesman for a photograph supply house, and while still in his business travels died at Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1918. The sister and brothers of Mrs. Hen- derson are: Charles, Ed P., Mary, wife of Woodson Harris, Ida, Samuel and Fred. Mrs.
Henderson is a graduate of the North Texas Normal School, and married soon after leaving that institution. Mr. and Mrs. Henderson have four children: Mary Annette, Charles, Samuel and Mercer L., Jr.
ELISHA H. WEBB. Years before Stephens County became a center of oil production Elisha H. Webb was one of the leading mer- chants of Breckenridge, a staunch and sturdy pioneer citizen, now giving much of his time to his public duties as a county commissioner. He is one of the best known men in that sec- tion of West Texas.
Mr. Webb was himself a pioneer of Stephens County and he comes of a family of pioneers, men of enterprise, courage and daring, ever ready to take upon themselves the obligations and discomforts of life in a new country. His grandfather was of Scotch ancestry and went out to the far west, as it was then known, in the country around lower Lake Michigan. He hunted over land on which the city of Chicago is now built. His home for several years was in Northern Indiana, where was born E. L. Webb, father of Elisha H. Webb. E. L. Webb accompanied the family to Northwestern Arkansas when the country was new, grew up there and married, and during the forties moved to Texas and was one of the early set- tlers of Burnett County, where he engaged extensively in the cattle business. His sister became the wife of Captain Isaac Spencer, a captain of the Texas Rangers during the days of Indian warfare. In 1876 E. L. Webb brought his family to Stephens County. His son Elisha was then sixteen years old. E. L. Webb continued running his cattle on the open range in Stephens and Shackleford counties, and in 1884 established his family home per- manently in Stephens County. E. L. Webb died in Oklahoma. He married Elizabeth Put- nam, a native of Fayetteville, Arkansas.
Elisha H. Webb, who was born in Burnet County, Texas, in 1860, practically grew up on the cattle ranges and ranches of West Texas and had the experiences of a cowboy and cat- tleman. Since 1894 his home has been at Breckenridge, and for nearly twenty-five years he was actively engaged in business there as a jeweler and photographer and then for a short period as a hardware merchant. Mr. Webb retired from merchandising about the time oil discoveries were started in Stephens County. in the latter part of 1917. As the result of this development occurred the remarkable boom on the Breckenridge townsite, beginning
552
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
in the spring of 1920. Mr. Webb as one of the substantial citizens of the community has made investments that have proved highly profitable in the oil district, and still owns some valuable production.
As one of the older citizens, whose character and integrity are well known, he has been counted a leader in the forces of morality and civic progress in Breckenridge, and in 1920 he was elected a county commissioner repre- senting Precinct No. 2. He began his duties in December, 1920. He is a member of the Christian Church.
Mr. Webb's first wife was Jennie Stephens, of Comanche County, Texas. She is survived by one daughter. Mrs. Bertha Howser, of Dallas. For his present wife Mr. Webb mar- ried Mattie Murphy, and they have three chil- dren. Loyd. Velma, wife of W. H. Jones, and Murphy Webb.
NOAH M. PETERS, present mayor of Pilot Point, has spent upwards of half a century in North Texas, his progressive labors bring- ing him substantial results in the business and commercial field and a position of honor in- the good citizenship of the several localities with which he has been identified.
Mr. Peters was born December 29, 1849, at Bristol, Sullivan County, in East Tennes- see. His grandfather founded the family in that section of Tennessee, but died in early life and his name cannot be recalled. His wife was of German ancestry and survived to the age of ninety. Their children were Philip, Isaac, Adam, Daniel, John, Elen, Cath- erine, Hughey, Susan, who became the wife of David Booher, and Mrs. Vance. Isaac Peters, father of Noah, was also born in East Tennessee. Noah M. Peters grew up in the country near Bristol attended country schools, and about the time of his majority left home and worked as a merchant's clerk in Blountville and later with the well known business man, W. W. James, at Bristol. He then returned to the farm and made two more crops in Tennessee, teaching school in winter. His services as a rural schoolmaster covered a period of twenty months altogether.
Several years before he left Tennessee Mr. Peters had married, and in 1875 he and his wife and their one child set out for Texas, traveling by rail from Bristol to Grapevine. The first year he lived on a farm in Tarrant County, and then for eleven years was at Decatur, Wise County, spending some twelve
months at day labor and then on a farm. He learned the carpenter's trade and followed that occupation in Wise County five years. While at Decatur he became manager of a lumber yard, and his service for the lumber company continued altogether for a quarter of a cen- tury. From Decatur the company sent him to Henrietta in Clay County, and he was in charge of the business there until 1909, when he resigned and moved to Pilot Point, thus becoming a citizen of Denton County.
In this new location Mr. Peters engaged in business as a hardware, grocery and im- plement dealer, under the firm name of Peters, Jones & Company. He continued his active connections with the business until 1918, when he retired, leaving one of his sons as his representative with the firm. The follow- ing three years Mr. Peters took his first real rest since coming to Texas, and then resumed business as manager of a garage and oil station Station. He is also one of the directors of under the name City Supply and Service Sta- tion. He is also one of the directors of the First State Bank of Pilot Point.
Mr. Peters was for two years a member of the Pilot Point Council. During that time the city built the waterworks plant, at a cost of $13,000, and since then $5,000 have been expended for benefits and improvements. Mr. Peters was elected mayor in April, 1920, as the successor of F. W. Hayden. In politics he is a democrat in national affairs, and for years has been a stanch and uncompromising prohibitionist. He became a member of De- catur Lodge of Odd Fellows in 1883, and is a past noble grand of that lodge. He joined the Masons at Pilot Point in 1911, and is a past master of the lodge and has attended the Masonic Grand Lodge. He represented the Odd Fellows in Grand Lodge frequently, being a delegate to the grand convention in which originated the movement for the Odd Fellows Home subsequently built at Corsi- cana. Mr. Peters was reared a Lutheran, but since coming to Texas he and Mrs. Peters have been affiliated with the Cumberland Pres- byterian Church.
On June 27, 1872, Mr. Peters married Miss Amanda E. Akard, who was born November 20. 1856, also in Sullivan County, Tennessee. Her parents, William and Rebecca (Geisler) Akard, were natives of the same section of the state and farming people there. Mrs. Peters was one of a family of four daughters and one son. Of the children of Mr. and
553
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
4Mrs. Peters the oldest, Abel Eugene, is a member of the Pilot Point business house of Peters, Jones & Company, is married, and his son, E. R., is one of the five grandchildren ; of Mr. and Mrs. Peters. Ida R. Peters is the wife of W. A. Wagner, of Sherman, and has two daughters, Eugenia and Lena. Mabel was married to Hugh Dunn, of Pilot Point. N. Carl lives at Los Angeles. E. Bittick, of Duncan, Oklahoma, is married and has two sons, E. B., Jr., and Paul. Daisy is the wife of W. B. McShan, of Dallas. D'Troy lives at Gunter, Texas. Vivian, the youngest sur- viving child, is the wife of Lee Massey, of Pilot Point. Four other children, now de- ceased, were Claud and Maud, twins, Roland and Wilbur.
JOHN C. HEATH celebrated his seventy- second birthday at Denton, where for several years he and his good wife have enjoyed the comforts of an attractive city home as one of the rewards for long years of sustained labor and energy on their farm in Denton County.
Mr. Heath is a native Texan and was born in Rusk County April 19, 1849. His grand- father was of English birth, settled in North Carolina, and both he and his wife died when their oldest son, Thomas J., was eight years of age. There were three younger children : Burrell, who came to Texas and died in Co- manche County, where he left a family ; Kensy, whose life was not known to his Texas relatives after the Civil war ; and the youngest, a daughter, remained in North Carolina.
Thomas J. Heath was born in North Caro- lina in 1817, but after the death of his parents was reared by his "uncle Dickie Heidelburg" near Nashville, Tennessee. He had work on the farm, had very little attendance in school, but was a man of practical energy and good intelligence and made his way through life. In 1838, after his marriage, he joined a party of Tennesseans bound for the new republic of Texas. One member of the party was his father-in-law, Larkin Caison, also the latter's brother, Jesse Caison, and a family named Chism. The Heaths and Caisons stopped in Rusk County, and in an almost unlimited wilderness began the task of making new homes and clearing farms. Thomas J. Heath spent the rest of his life in Rusk County, where he died June 6, 1889. He had no mili- tary record, but sent three of his sons into the Confederate army, one of whom was
wounded at Shiloh and lay so long on the field that he contracted tuberculosis and soon afterward died. The wife of Thomas J. Heath was Mary Caison, who was born in 1821 and died at the age of fifty-two. She was a member of the Christian Church, while Thomas J. Heath was a Presbyterian. Their children were: James L. E., who was the soldier son who died after the battle of Shiloh ; Burrell, who died at the old home- stead in Rusk County, at the age of seventy- five, leaving a family ; William C., who was also a soldier and died in the home neighbor- hood and left a family ; Susan and Sarah, twins, the former marrying Richard West and the latter Jesse Foreman, both of them spending their lives in Rusk County; Mary, who was Mrs. Frank McMillien, and died in the old home neighborhood; John Caison, of Denton ; Thomas J., who lived out his life in Rusk County ; Richard Franklin, who lived near New Salem in Rusk County and was survived by a family ; Henry Clay, who never married ; and Mattie, who is Mrs. Dallas Connor and lives at Troup, Texas.
John C. Heath attended district school in Rusk County near the old home. He helped work the farm for several years, partly owing to the fact that several of his sisters were yet unmarried, and he remained until they went to home tasks of their own. His first independent business venture was as a retail liquor dealer at Troup, Texas, and he con- tinued that business for a number of years. This gave him the capital with which he bought his land near Argyle in Denton County. This was in 1882, and he paid $5 an acre for 400 acres. He had been married then two years and his bride accompanied him and joined heartily in the task of making a home 011 the prairie. Mr. Heath avoided the woods because of the difficult and disagreeable ex- periences he had in grubbing and clearing in Rusk County. Though his first house con- tained a single room, it had the dignity of a real home and some of their happiest days were spent amidst those rude comforts. Later they put up a better home of four rooms, at which time the original house was used for stock shelter and was subsequently burned. .
Another fire destroyed their seven-room country home. In farming Mr. Heath slighted cotton and favored grain. Out of the money and profit he and his children won from the soil he bought 400 acres more near Ponder. and later another tract of half a section, giving
554
FORT WORTH AND THE TEXAS NORTHWEST
them a total of 1,209 acres. Mr. and Mrs. Heath remained on the homestead until August, 1913, when, owing to the burdens of age and strenuous work, they moved into Denton and bought their generous home at 1819 West Maple Street, where they have every material comfort during the evening of their lives and also the rich esteem of many friends. While living in the country Mr. Heath was one of the promoters of the Citizens Mill and Elevator Company at Justin and was a director during its existence.
He is a democrat in principle, though he could not agree with the administration during the World war and did not support the demo- cratic nominee in 1920. He has never sought public honors .or public service. Mrs. Heath was reared in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and is still loyal to that training.
On October 10, 1880, Mr. Heath married Miss Emma Donald, who was born five miles west of Lewisville, in Denton County, Septem- ber 23, 1861, daughter of Robert H. and Frances (Rowe) Donald. Her parents came to Texas from Alabama, living for a time in Smith County, and were among the very early pioneer settlers of Denton County in 1854, locating near Lewisville, where they spent the rest of their years. Her mother died February 24, 1905. Mr. Donald was a Confederate soldier and also did hospital service as a nurse. He was practically educated, a man of leadeship in his community, and was twice elected a member of the Lower House of the Legislature. He and his wife were active mem- bers of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The children of Robert H. Donald and wife were: Mary Ann, who married John Craft and died at Lewisville; James Henry, of Lewisville; Nannie, who became the wife of H. Frank Wakefield, and she is survived by her daughter, Mrs. Nannie Owens, of Ponder ; Benjamin F., who died in Fort Worth; D. Stephen, of Plainview, Texas; Martha, wife of Dr. Pennington, of Mineral Wells; Fannie and Mrs. Emma Heath, the former a resident of Lewisville; Bettie, Mrs. Fred Wilson, of Pilot Point ; and Robert L., of Lewisville.
Mr. and Mrs. Heath have four children and five grandchildren. Their oldest child is Dora, wife of W. W. Hampton, of Ponder. Mr. and Mrs. Hampton's children are Oakley, Herman, Littleton, Mary Louise and Emma Ruth. Miss Annie Heath lives at Denton. Larkin, a farmer and stockraiser at Roanoke, Texas, married Emma Waldrup. J. Penn
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.