USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume IV > Part 5
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G. LEE MCCLENDON. From the viewpoint of successful participation in business affairs as a merchant G. Lee Mcclendon is one of the leading men of Sanger, but his right to such a title does not rest alone upon his achieve- ments in a commercial way it more rightly be- longing to him because of the part he has played in the development of his locality. its
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interests and institutions. While his personal success has been marked and deserved it has been as a public-spirited supporter of worthy movements that he has contributed most con- structively to the advancement of Sanger.
Mr. Mcclendon is a native of Collin County. Kansas, born eight miles west of McKin- ney, January 16, 1874, a son of John M. Mc- Clendon. His grandfather, James McClendon, a native of Georgia, moved to Wilson County, Tennessee, where he became a slave-holding planter. When the war between the states came on he was a warm southern sympathizer. and lost his life at the hands of Federal sol- diers who made a raid on his plantation dur- ing the invasion of Tennessee by the armies of the north. The education of John M. McClen- don was restricted to attendance at the coun- try district schools, but he inherited good busi- ness judgment and splendid ability and in time became a man of worth and substance. He was eighteen years of age when he left his native Wilson County, Tennessee, and came to Collin County, Texas, where he engaged in farming, later being a tiller of the soil in Den- ton County. In 1901 he engaged in general merchandising at Sanger, and continued therein until his death in 1917, when he was aged sixty-six years, and six months. Mr. McClendon never forgot the injuries done to his family by the soldiers of the North, and for many years refused to even wear a blue suit for fear of imitating the northern garb. He always voted the democratic party ticket, but never sought office on his own account. In Collin County Mr. Mcclendon married Miss Kate Smith, a daughter of Captain Smith, who brought his family from Greene County, Ten- nessee, to Texas just before the war between the states and settled in Collin County. He was a captain in the Confederate army during that struggle, after the close of which he de- voted himself to farming and owned, devel- oped and improved a nice farm west of Mc- Kinney, at the old Walnut Grove Church, where still stands the old chimney of the resi- dence, one that he sawed out of white rock with a handsaw. He and his wife are buried at the old Walnut Grove Church. She was two years younger than her husband, who died January 20, 1917, she passing away July 1. 1920. Mr. and Mrs. McClendon were the parents of the following children: Dennis, who died unmarried at Sanger in 1920; Jennie D., the wife of A. C. Habern, of Denton County; George Lee; Annie, who married
Joseph Kelley, of Kearney, Oklahoma; Min- nie, who is now Mrs. Robert L. Saling, of Hot Springs, Arkansas; John Alexander, of Denton County ; William E., of Gainesville, Texas; Lou H., the wife of E. H. Bates, of Denton County ; James, of Sanger; Miss Josie, of Sanger ; and Ike, who is also a resi- dent of this town, and who married Miss Flora Morris on June 24, 1917. She is a native of Marietta, Oklahoma, and they have one child, Katherine Jeanette.
G. Lee Mcclendon spent his boyhood north- west of Sanger, where his parents settled when they came to Denton County. The re- gion about them was almost a wilderness of prairie, there was grass everywhere, the black lands, then unoccupied, were to be bought for $2.50 per acre, the ranges were open and unobstructed by fences, and it was an ideal point for stock, which was the determining factor in the elder Denton's locating here. G. Lee Mcclendon has witnessed the land's rise in value to more than $300 an acre, and has seen also almost the last blade of prairie grass turned under by the plow, something that he gravely regrets. The family still owns the old Mcclendon home and has main- tained it to date with improvements to the building and property and by cultivating the land. The old Duck Creek School was avail- able for the education of the younger Mc- Clendons, and there G. Lee Mcclendon was a pupil. The old district was about ten miles square, as he remembers it, and the scholars came from afar by foot, on horseback and by vehicles-anyway in order to reach the school- room. John Kelley, the well-known Fort Worth doctor, was one of the teachers, as were Messrs. Donahue and Atchison, whose work had much to do with the education of the children of that locality and period. Lee McClendon wound up his schooldays in Good- view district school No. 6, and finished his farm experience when eighteen years of age.
Leaving the old home at eighteen, Lee Mc- Clendon followed his own inclinations and went into West Texas, running cattle for Jerry Cash of the old Flag Ranch over Wil- barger, Foard, Hardeman and nearby coun- ties. The chuck wagon was the headquarters, and when the stock was ready for market it was driven over the old trail to Kansas, Lee McClendon making this trip with two bunches of cattle. When the M. K. & T. extension connected with the region beyond Wichita
F. W. Tuy tell
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Falls cattle shipments from Texas were made without a drive over the old northern trail.
Mr. Mcclendon was married in Cooke County, Texas, December 15, 1898, to Miss Maggie Cason, born in Wilson County, Ten- nessee, February 11, 1874, a daughter of W. J. and Tennie (Williams) Cason, who left Ten- nessee for Texas in 1888 and settled near Valley View. Mr. Cason later moved to Burns City, and is still engaged in farming in that locality. During the war between the states he was a soldier of the Confederacy, and dur- ing his service was numerously wounded, being shot through the body four times and at the battle of Chickamauga was shot through the head, the ball passing just below his brain. Through life he has suffered some inconveniences from the head wound, but is still physically fit at the advanced "age of eighty-five years. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Cason are : Jerry, of Burns City, Texas; Mrs. McClendon, who was educated in the schools near Valley View ; Charles, who died unmarried in Cooke County ; and George, of Clinton, Arkansas. Mr. and Mrs. Mc- Clendon have the following children: John, who is engaged in general merchandising with his father; and Pearl, May, Fay, Ray, Ruby Lee and Alma.
Mr. McClendon is descended from a demo- cratic family and has always supported the principles of that party since casting his first presidential vote in favor of W. J. Bryan and the Free Silver movement. He is a Blue Lodge Mason and in his church connection is a Baptist, although his parents were of the Christian faith. He has had much to do with the upbuilding of the rural region where he formerly lived, and along with road building and other rural improvements served his school district, No. 6, for ten years as a trustee. This was the school which he had at- tended himself, and his interest in it has re- sulted in the development of one of the best of the country schools, with a splendid build- ing with two teachers and state features, and the establishing of a second class high school with two teachers. Instead of the old starva- tion salaries of his boyhood the teachers today receive around $200 per month. When he came to Sanger his worth as a booster of public schools had given him a reputation that preceded him, nd he was urged to take a place on the Sanger School Board, an offer which he accepted. He is now chairman of the board and is doing much to elevate the stan-
dard of education here. Mr. Mcclendon is a stockholder in the First Guaranty State Bank of Sanger. His interest in religious work has been manifest always, and at the present time he is one of the deacons of the Baptist con- gregation, in addition to serving as a teacher in the Sunday school.
FRED W. AXTELL is president of the Axtell Company, a manufacturing and distributing business which has had a steady growth since Mr. Axtell founded it at Fort Worth twenty years ago, in 1901, and handles a tremendous volume of machinery and equipment used in oil districts. The firm from the beginning has handled pumping apparatus, both for water and other purposes.
Mr. Axtell was born in Morrow County, Ohio, September 1, 1862, son of Dr. O. C. and Elizabeth (Wythe) Axtell. His parents were natives of Ohio, and his father spent his active life as a practicing physician. Fred W. Axtell was ten years of age when his parents moved out to Kansas, and after finishing his educa- tion in the common schools he entered the Kansas State Agricultural College at Manhat- tan.
On coming to Texas in 1891 Mr. Axtell located at Fort Worth, and soon afterward established an agency and a house for the handling and distribution of windmills, gas engines, well equipment and water supplies, also gin and cotton machinery. The business has been enlarged from time to time, and for a number of years a large volume of the trade has been in oil well supplies. They also handle plumbing supplies and manufacture a complete line of windmills, pumps and well drilling ma- chinery. The business is one employing about 125 people, including ten private salesmen. When Mr. Axtell engaged in the manufacture of windmills, in 1906, he became the pioneer in that line in the South.
He is also a director of the F. & M. National Bank of Fort Worth. At different times he has had some important interests as a Texas rancher and stock man, and only recently he sold a ranch of 6,200 acres. He is a member of the Congregational Church. In 1881 Mr. Axtell married Miss Mattie Clark of Kansas, and the six children born to them are : Earl C., a physician at Fort Worth; Jay M., who has been closely associated with his father in busi- ness and as vice president of the Axtell Com- pany. is an active factor in the promotion of the business ; Fred W .. Tr., is one of the lead- ing merchants of Granbury, Texas; Helen is
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the eldest daughter; Josephine is the wife of C. C. Mitchell, secretary of the Axtell Com- pany ; Herbert, the youngest of the children. is an overseas veteran of the World war. He entered the service as a volunteer, and served in France as a member of the Third Division, A. E. F., participating in the second battle of the Marne, and subsequent engagements, his company receiving special citations and decor- ations for gallantry in battle. He also served as a member of the American Army of Occu- pation.
JOHN R. CADE. Almost the entire history of the Roanoke community in Denton County has passed in review before the eyes of John R. Cade, who came here as railroad station agent in 1884, and after resigning from the railroad entered merchandising and is now the oldest merchant of the community in point of years of continuous service. His time and in- terests have been placed at the disposal of every worthy movement effecting the growth and welfare of the vicinity.
Mr. Cade was born in Georgia in 1854, son of John B. and Clara Eliza (Wells) Cade, the former a native of Georgia and the latter of Florida. They were married in Florida, but lived in Georgia until 1869, when they moved to Texas and settled in Cass County. After many years in the eastern part of the state they moved to Keller, Texas, where John B. Cade continued his business as a mechanic and building contractor. He died in 1900, at the age of sixty-eight. The widowed mother passed away at Watauga, Texas, in 1919, at the age of eighty-seven. Their children were: Joseph H., who died at Watauga in 1916; John Robert ; Miss Mary, who died at Queen City, Texas; Fannie, who became the wife of J. W. Smith and died at Snyder, Okla- homa, in 1906; Andrew B., who is joint agent at Watauga for the Missouri, Kansas & Texas and the Texas & Pacific Railways. John B. Cade, the father of these children, was for four or five years in the railroad service, and the fact that he was in that line of work kept him out of the army during the war between the states. He was the son of a slaveholder, and while the Cades were people of southern sentiments it happened that none of the mem- bers bore arms as soldiers.
John R. Cade was about fifteen years of age when brought to Texas. He acquired a public school education, finishing in Cass County. He gained some knowledge of teleg-
raphy from his father. On leaving Queen City, Texas, he began his career as a railroad man at Durant, Indian Territory, and later at Bells, Texas, and in 1884 was assigned to Roanoke as agent for the Missouri, Kansas & Texas. There were three predecessors as railroad agents at Roanoke, their names being Duncan, Daniels and Storrs. Mr. Cade repre- sented the railroad company for eight years, and when he left the station he took up the hardware business and now for a number of years past has had the leading dry goods store.
Roanoke in 1884 was a little village which only a few years before had been brought into touch with the outside world by means of the railroad. Its population was probably not over fifty. Of those original settlers only one, James Smith, still answers the roll call of pioneers. The personnel of the merchants has frequently changed, so that Mr. Cade is the oldest active dealer. He has accepted many opportunities to express his interest in the town and the community, has contributed to the building of churches, first the Union Church, then the Methodist house of worship and to others as they came along. He has served many terms as trustee of the local schools. He took stock in the first bank pro- moted at Roanoke, and also in the Farmers Gin Company and the Roanoke Grocers Com- pany. Mr. Cade is affiliated with the Indepen- dent Order of Odd Fellows, and his two sons are Masons. Mr. Cade has been one of the stanchest democrats in this precinct, and has never voted any other ticket, even in 1920. He has attended state conventions as a delegate. Many years ago during the free silver discus- sion he was an advocate of Silver Dick Bland for president. He has never been in politics for the sake of office. He is a Methodist.
On December 23, 1885, Mr. Cade married Miss Ida B. Patterson, who was born in Hodgensville, Kentucky, in July, 1869. Her father, William G. Patterson, built the first store and the first residence at Roanoke, coming here before the railroad. He was in the lumber business and also a grocery mer- chant, and in 1910 removed to Wise County, Texas, and died at Boyd, May 5, 1919, at the age of eighty. William G. Patterson was a native of Kentucky and married Mary Russell Smith, of the same state. After the Civil war they moved to Missouri and from Meadville came to Texas. They reared the following children: Ed Patterson, who died in Mis- souri when a young man ; Lillie, wife of C. H.
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Fee, of Cisco, Texas ; Mrs. Cade ; Maud, wife of J. T. Foster, of Grapevine, Texas; Ira, of Pauls Valley, Oklahoma; Will, of Boyd, Texas; and Mabel, wife of Olin Karkalits, of Wynnewood, Oklahoma.
Of the children of Mr. and Mrs. Cade the oldest is W. Hinton, born January 21, 1887. He is now Roanoke agent of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Company and the Texas & Pacific Railroad Company. He married Bernice Provine, of Whites- boro, Texas, and has a son, W. Hinton, Jr. The second child is Vivian wife of J. Carl Terrell, a farmer and stockman of Roanoke. Minnie Cade was married to L. B. Horton, a banker at San Angelo, Texas, and they have two children, Bomer Cade and L. B., Jr. The two youngest of the family, still at home, are Miss Nina and John R., Jr. John R., Jr., was a volunteer for service in the World war, and when the armistice was signed was in training at Taliaferro Field, Texas, in the en- gineering department, with the Two Hundred and Seventy-fifth Aero Squadron.
LEE FLOWERS is one of the most successful young oil operators in the Wichita district, and has achieved practically all his success and fortune since leaving his service as an aviator during the World war.
Mr. Flowers was born in Kentucky in 1893, and came from his native state to Wichita Falls in 1916. The following year he began following the fortunes of the petroleum in- dustry. Though he drilled a number of wells in Wichita County fortune was unresponsive, and he had accomplished nothing distinctive in the business before he answered the call of patriotic duty.
Mr. Flowers in December, 1917, enlisted as a private at Call Field in Wichita Falls. Later he was transferred to Sacramento, California, where he spent the remainder of his service in the aviation department. Some other young comrades in aviation testify that he made a splendid record at Sacramento both as a student and later as an instructor. His efficiency and skill brought him, promotion from the ranks and he was commissioned a second lieutenant and was in the service until honorably discharged in January, 1919.
Mr. Flowers returned to Wichita Falls and re-entered the oil business, and this time with the young man's traditional luck. In less than a year he made a notable success as a producer and has brought in some of the very profitable
wells in the Burkburnett field. He is a resi- dent of Wichita Falls and has his offices on the seventh floor of the Commerce building.
THOMAS M. HOXIE has been a Texan for forty years, coming to the state when a boy, and in point of residence and business contact is one of the real pioneers of that rich and important little city of Electra in Wichita County. He was a banker of the city for sev- eral years, and his chief interest at the present time is with the Farmers Elevator Company.
Hoxie is a name associated with many in- teresting distinctions and achievements, and has long been well known in Texas. The Hoxies had their original home in Virginia. They have become widely dispersed, some of them becoming pioneer settlers in Iowa. A cousin of Thomas M. Hoxie's father was the late H. M. Hoxie, who built and was an early president of the St. Louis, Iron Mountain & Southern Railway. Another cousin was the late John R. Hoxie, who built the first pack- ing house in Fort Worth.
Thomas M. Hoxie was born at Mitchellville, Polk County, Iowa, July 28, 1869, a son of Mortimer R. and Anne (Mitchell) Hoxie. The Mitchells were pioneer settlers in Polk County, the town of Mitchellville being named for them. Mortimer Hoxie brought his family to Texas in 1881, first locating at Taylor. Thomas M. Hoxie was twelve years of age at that time, finished his education in Taylor, and acquired some of his early business training in that section of the state.
On coming to the village of Electra in 1907 his first employment was in the private bank of W. T. Waggoner, founder of the town. It was three or four years later that the first great oil discoveries were made in the Electra field. About 1910 the First State Bank was organized to take over the Waggoner institu- tion, and Mr. Hoxie became assistant cashier of the new bank, serving two or three years. For another period of two or three years he was cashier of the First National Bank of Electra. He left banking to become city sec- retary, an office he held two years, and since then has been office manager for the Farmers Elevator Company of Electra. He has ac- quired some important oil interests in the local field.
Mr. Hoxie married Miss Anne Kennedy, and they have two sons, Thomas M., Jr., and William Robert Hoxie.
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DOUGLAS TOMLINSON. While his residence and business headquarters are in Fort Worth, Douglas Tomlinson has made his mark as a reporter and correspondent both in New York and in England, but his devotion to his home state and its people has been expressed chiefly through the All-Church Press, of which he is founder and president. The All-Church Press, owning and operating papers in all the chief Texas cities, was established in 1912, and now has the distinction of being the largest weekly newspaper organization in Texas.
Mr. Tomlinson was born at Sparta, Bell County, Texas, March 3, 1888, a son of J. D. and Sarah (Hand) Tomlinson, the former a native of Texas and the latter of Alabama. The family moved early to Hillsboro, where the father is now assistant tax collector and was at one time mayor. Douglas Tomlinson, oldest of five sons, completed his public school work at Hillsboro. Two of his brothers are associated with him in the All-Church Press, Homer being general manager while Roy G. is advertising manager of the Fort Worth Tribune, one of the All-Church Press publica- tions.
Douglas Tomlinson was reared and educated in Texas. After four years' study he grad- uated with the A. B. degree at Texas Chris- tian University, representing that school suc- cessfully in inter-collegiate oratorical contests and debates, as well as on the several college publications. The next year was spent in newspaper and magazine feature writing, partly on the Mexican border, earning money for further education. During the summer of 1913 he was employed as a special writer on the San Antonio Express, and was offered one of the highest salaries ever paid to a Texas reporter. Mr. Tomlinson was for three years a student in the University of Texas Law Department, where he received his law degree, besides doing local newspaper work and repre- senting Texas against other states in the inter- state debates during each of the three years, the last year winning highest honors in Texas. For one year he was in the Pulitzer School of Journalism at Columbia University, New York City, paying his way by his work as a reporter He won one of the highest university debat- ing honors in America when he was made captain of Columbia University's debating team, which that year was victorious in every contest in the north and east.
Mr. Tomlinson then went abroad, and while in London his abilities attracted the attention of Lord Northcliffe, who later was head of
Allied Publicity during the war against Ger- many. He received from Lord Northcliffe an unsolicited offer to go around the world as feature writer for his chain of forty British newspapers and magazines, including the cele- brated London Times. This offer Mr. Tom- linson refused, and after completing his studies in newspaper work in Europe, returned home to carry out his plans for the establishment of the All-Church Press chain of newspapers.
Having entirely earned his own way through the highest university training of America and Europe, Mr. Tomlinson was not only wholly without capital or financial back- ing. but also was slightly in debt. Neverthe- less, he at once set out to launch the Dallas World, which was followed by the Fort Worth Tribune, the Houston Times and half a dozen allied enterprises now owned by the corpora- tions of which Mr. Tomlinson is president. With business headquarters at Fort Worth the All-Church Press has made good its claim to being the largest weekly newspaper organiza- tion in Texas and is constantly growing. More than a hundred people are employed in the home office alone.
On March 20, 1917, Mr. Tomlinson married Miss Mary Elizabeth Capers, of Dallas, widely known for her church work. They have one son, Douglas, Jr. Mr. Tomlinson is a member of the Fort Worth Rotary Club, the Adver- tising Men's Club, the Salesmanship Club, and is an elder in the First Christian Church of Fort Worth. His method of judging others, by which he would himself prefer to be judged, is that sincere service to humanity is the only standard by which to measure a man's place in the world.
JOHN W. STUART, now retired at Denton, has lived in the county over forty years. He came here without capital, has acquired sev- eral farms and homes, reared and provided for his family, and he can credit Denton County with being the scene of his most productive years. His experiences and achievements make up an interesting and instructive story of how a man could achieve prosperity in the face of adverse conditions.
Mr. Stuart was born in Haywood County, Tennessee, October 17, 1852. His father, Arington Stuart, was born and reared in Vir- ginia, finished his education in a college at Petersburg, and was a man of exceptional in- tellectual attainments and for many years taught school in connection with farming. Shortly after his marriage he moved to Ten-
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nessee and there combined farming and teach- ing in country schools until his death in Feb- ruary, 1861, at the age of forty-seven. His wife was Mary F. Rochelle, who survived her husband many years and passed away in Ten- nessee in 1905. Of their four children Thomas C. served as a Confederate soldier, in early life was a farmer and later a public official and died in Hardeman County, Tennessee. Madaline became Mrs. Leon Minter and died in Hardeman County. The other two sons, John W. and James A., have both been iden- tified with Denton County.
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