USA > Texas > Tarrant County > Fort Worth > History of Texas : Fort Worth and the Texas northwest edition, Volume IV > Part 9
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in eastern Texas, engaging in the merchandise business, later conducting a livery, sale and feed business, and also operated a stage line between Marshall and Shreveport.
In 1870 Abram H. Montgomery moved to Pilot Point, Texas, and then changed his busi- ness to farming and the raising of fine stock on his ranch two miles east of town. Credit belongs to him for having shipped in the first registered Durham cattle to Texas. He raised fine stock on his farm, and kept up that fea- ture of his business the rest of his life. He was also a pioneer in having developed his land from the grass roots, broke out and planted the first area to crops, and gave it buildings that marked it as a home of comfort as well as enterprise. He always advertised his stock and the Montgomery Durhams be- came widely known over the southwest. He was a regular exhibitor at stock shows and fairs, and just a year before his death he took a bunch of cattle to the Grayson County Fair and won the first prizes in every class in which he showed. He also raised horses and mules, and was for years one of the leading breeders of the state.
Abram Montgomery, who died in 1886, enjoyed many influential associations and con- nections with the prominent men of his time, although he was not officially interested in politics, and most of his time and energies were bestowed on his home and his individual business. He knew what was going on in pol- itics. He was a warm friend of Dave Cul- berson, father of present U. S. Senator Cul- berson. He had a practical education, pos- sessed an interesting personality, was a good visitor and conversationalist, was an active worker in the Methodist Church and his home always afforded a welcome to ministers and presiding elders. He was one of the charter members of the Pilot Point Lodge of Masons.
At the close of the war he went back to Kentucky, and in Garrard County in 1866 married Miss Mattie Burnside, who was six- teen years his junior. She was born in Ken- tucky in 1840, daughter of William Burnside, a native of Virginia. She survived her hus- band over thirty years, passing away in April, 1920. Her only son is William B. Montgom- ery, and her three surviving daughters, now living in San Antonio, are Mrs. D. W. Light, Mrs. O. E. Cooper and Miss Bess.
William B. Montgomery was born at Jef- ferson, Texas, May 29, 1870, but shortly after his birth his parents moved to Denton County, and in this locality he has found interests and
occupations well calculated to satisfy a man of ambition and energy. He finished his edu- cation in old Franklin College, then known as the Pilot Point Seminary, conducted by Dr. M. B. Franklin. On leaving school he man- aged the home farm, and for a number of years continued his father's standards in the cattle industry. He finally sold the Montgom- ery herd of Durhams to Colonel Jot Gunter, thus terminated the long association of the Montgomery name with this stock. He is still interested in agriculture, but on leaving the farm he engaged in the cotton gin business at Pilot Point, that being one of his interests.
He is manager of the extensive D. W. Light properties in this locality, including farms and the business relations involved in many tenant holdings. He is a stockholder and secretary of the Pilot Point Roller Mills and is manager of the Light Brothers gin.
Much could be said of his record as a public spirited citizen. He has been a member of the Board of Education and the City Council of Pilot Point. While in the Council the Pub- lic Square was paved and the old town water works plant was purchased preparatory to rebuilding and making a modern plant. A democrat. he cast his first presidential vote for Grover Cleveland in 1892. At times he has attended state conventions of the party. In the famous campaign of 1892 between the rival candidates for governor he supported George Clark. In the primaries of 1920 he was campaign manager for Senator Bailey in the Pilot Point precinct, and is one of the loyal friends of the Senator. During the World war he was a member of the Denton County Council of Defense, chairman of one of the Red Cross drives, was interested in the success of all the activities for war funds, and his home workers did their share of knitting and other labor under the auspices of the Red Cross. Mr. Montgomery is affiliated with the Lodge and Royal Arch Chapter of Masons, the Knights of Pythias and several insurance societies.
At Pilot Point, December 18, 1889, he mar- ried Miss Hollie T. Harper, who was born in Georgia July 4, 1870, daughter of John E. and Harriet A. (Harkness) Harper. The Harper family moved to Texas in 1873, and after liv- ing for a time in Dallas County moved to a farm near Pilot Point. Her father was for several years a merchant there and died in 1900, at the age of sixty-four. He was a cap- tain in the Commissary Department of the Confederate army during the war. His widow
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is now living at Dallas, and her children are : Carrie M., wife of Dr. H. L. Kyle, of Dallas ; John B., who died in Pecos County, Texas, leaving a family of four children : James E., of San Antonio; Mrs. Montgomery; Hugh, representing the San Antonio Drug Company at Monterey, Mexico; and Kate, wife of Rob- ert E. L. Knight, of Dallas.
Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery are the parents of four children: Harry H., who finished his education in Baylor University, lives at Hous- ton, and by his marriage to Miss Annie Cup- ples, of San Antonio, has a son, Harry, Jr .; Margaret graduated with the A. B. degree from Baylor University in 1921 : William B., Jr., is a high school student at Pilot Point ; and Katherine, born in 1912, is in the third grade of the public schools.
JOHN L. HEARD. While he began his career as an educator, John L. Heard could not justify himself in remaining in a profession which was so ill paid. in spite of the evident success of his labors otherwise, and about twenty years ago he came to Texas and has applied his talents and energies with a very interesing degree of profit and success to farm- ing in the Valley View community of Cooke County.
Mr. Heard was born near Malvern, Hot Springs County, Arkansas, January 29, 1881. His grandfather. Hiram Heard, spent his early life in Alabama, and then moved to Arkansas, and was a farmer in the rugged districts around Hot Springs and died and is buried near Malvern. His sons were Hiram, John, Luna, Andrew Jackson and Stephen, while his daughters were Nancy, who became Mrs. Levi Styles ; Mary, who married Andrew J. Davis, and Martha, who became the wife of A. T. Elliott.
Stephen Heard was born in Alabama and was a child when taken to Arkansas. He grew up in Hot Springs County. He was born in 1831 and is now living retired at Los Angeles, California, in his ninetieth year. Vigorous in both mind and body, his life has been one of worth and more than ordinary attainments. He acquired a liberal education for his day. and for a number of years was a teacher in the country schools of Arkansas, his precepts and example undoubtedly influencing his son John to take up the same profession. In later years he devoted his time to farming, and since 1912 has lived on the Pacific Coast. When the war broke out between the states he went into the Confederate army and remained until the
final surrender, seeing much hard service as a buck private, though escaping both wounds and capture. When the struggle was over he forgot the cause as fast as he could and never connected himself with any veteran post. In a very active life he has always been devoted to intellectual diversions, acquired a wide acquaintance with literature, and when neces- sary could deliver himself of a public address. For many years he was active in the Masonic order.
Stephen Heard married Caroline Smirl, a native of Dallas County, Arkansas, whose parents came from Mississippi. She died near Malvern in 1885. Her children were: Joseph, of Redlands, California ; Nannie, who died at Seligman, Missouri, wife of Bishop McCann; Charles A., of Los Angeles: Thomas Z., of Clayton. New Mexico; John I .. and Isaac Stephen, of Los Angeles.
John L. Heard spent his boyhood days on an Arkansas farm. He attended public schools and completed his sophomore year in the Uni- versity of Arkansas, in Fayetteville, the presi- dent of which was then Doctor Buchanan, one of the ablest educators the state ever had. After leaving university he taught his first school near Malvern, and later was in grade work and finally principal of the schools of Lono. The highest salary his services com- manded as principal was sixty dollars a month. Being satisfied there was no real future in educational work, he determined to become a farmer. In 1900 he came by railroad to Texas, being influenced no doubt in his choice of loca- tion by the presence of a brother at Gaines- ville. He was then unmarried, and his first experience in farming was as a tenant in Cooke County. He worked hard, made some headway and gained some property, and after he had been in the state two years bought a hundred acres on time. The improvements of this farm, of a most substantial nature, are largely of his own creation and handiwork. After he married he lived in a two-room frame house which he built as carpenter, and which became the nucleus of the larger and more commodious residence of subsequent years. Other improvements followed, and his farm now has the appearance of an old settled place. Mr. Heard a number of years ago put up one of the early silos of the county and has been satisfied that it has contributed many dollars to the profits of his farm. For a number of years he was a breeder of Poland China hogs and was one of the leaders handling this strain in the county.
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His early experience as a teacher commended him as a proper person to aid in the manage- ment of district schools and at different times he has been on the local board for twenty years. He is a democratic voter, but not a factor in local politics.
In Cook County, December 7, 1902, Mr. Heard married Miss Lula A. Dickenson, daughter of Albert G. and Christiana (Hal- bert) Dickenson, who came to Texas in 1878 from Washburn, Missouri, and settled near Valley View, where her father lived out his life as a farmer. Mrs. Heard has a brother, Elmer, of Loraine, Texas. She was born in Cooke County, May 25, 1879, the year after the family settled there, and acquired her edu- cation in the Valley View schools. The chil- dren in the home circle of Mr. and Mrs. Heard are Eureka Puella, Elsie, Vera, Golda, Mary, Iris and Arabella.
IRWIN T. WARD, who is presiding on the bench of the Eighteenth Judicial District of Texas, has the distinction of being the youngest District Judge in the State of Texas as well as that of being a native son of the Lone Star commonwealth. He is one of the representative lawyers and jurists of the younger generation at Cleburne, county seat of Johnson County, and represented this county as one of the young patriot soldiers with the American Expeditionary Forces in France at the time of the great World war.
His father is the honored Pierce B. Ward, for thirty years a leading member of the Cle- burne bar. He began practice there in the same year that his son, Judge Ward, was born. Pierce B. Ward came to Texas as a boy of fourteen in 1874 from Mississippi. He was born in Clark County of that state. He finished his education in Texas, was a student in Granbury College, and began his law prac- tice in Breckenridge. He was County Attor- ney of Stephens County one term and subse- quently elected District Attorney of Bosque, Johnson and Hill counties, the only man who ever held that office in these counties. Since moving to Cleburne early in 1891 he has had a . in the practice of law at Cleburne until a higher busy practice. In matters of politics he has always been a factor of influence. He was chosen to represent the district of Johnson, Ellis and Hill counties in the Thirty-first and Thirty-second Legislatures.
Aside from the other substantial work he accomplished while a member of the Senate, there is one matter should be referred to as a matter of patriotism and history. After com-
ing to Texas Pierce B. Ward settled at Acton, in Hood County, and in that locality he attended school and became acquainted with some of the grandchildren of Davy Crockett, one of the heroes of the Alamo. He also visited the grave of Davy's widow buried in a neglected spot in the Acton cemetery. He came to manhood impressed deeply with the idea that Texas was not showing proper respect for the memory of one of its chief patriots in neglecting to mark the grave of his wife and the mother of his children. He decided that if ever placed in a position that made it possible he would make an effort to induce the commonwealth to erect a suitable monument over her grave. His election to the State Senate offered that opportunity. He introduced a bill appropriating funds from the public treasury, secured its passage and the signature of the Governor making it a law. In 1911 the shaft was erected, bearing the life- sized figure of a woman looking anxiously with hand over her eyes for the coming of him that had gone away to battle for the liberty of a new nation and had never returned. The slab over her tomb shows that Mrs. Crockett was born in Buncombe County, North Carolina, in 1788; that she married Davy Crockett in Lawrence County, Tennessee, in 1815, and that she died in Hood County, Texas, in 1860.
Judge Irwin T. Ward was born at Cleburne, November 24, 1891, within a few months after his parents here established their home. He profited fully by the advantages offered by the excellent public schools of Cleburne, there- after pursued a higher course of study in the Polytechnic College of Fort Worth, and in 1912 graduated in the law department of the University of Texas, his reception of the degree of Bachelor of Laws having been virtu- ally coincident with his admission to the bar of his native state. Soon after leaving the law school he was appointed private secretary to Speaker Terrell of the Texas House of Rep- resentatives, and in this capacity he served during the legislative session of 1913. There- after he was actively associated with his father
duty called him when the nation became involved in the World war. In May. 1917. Judge Ward entered the first Officers' Train- ing Camp at Leon Springs, Bexar County, and there he received in due course his commis- sion as Captain of Infantry. At Camp Travis he organized and became commander of Com- pany D, Three Hundred and Fifty-ninth Infantry, Nineteenth Division, and later he
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was promoted to Major of Infantry and ordered to service overseas. In France he was assigned to the First Battalion of the Thir- tieth Infantry, Third Division, and with this command he continued in active service until January, 1919, when he was assigned to the First Battalion of the Eleventh Infantry, sta- tioned in the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, where it was his privilege to see frequently the gracious young Grand Duchess when she appeared in public in the little principality over which she had reign. In February, 1919, Major Ward attended the School of Fire at Chatillon-sur-Seine, France, where American Ambassador Davis formally dined with mem- bers of the European nobility and with other distinguished guests in the special observance of the birthday of Gen. George Washington. At that place Major Ward was assigned to duty as musketry instructor, and he had just effected the completion of his target range when he was ordered back to the United States with the Seventy-eighth Division. He had command of all the troops on the army transport "Panaman" on the return voyage. as he had been in command of the transport "Northern Pacific," which conveyed his regi- ment and other troops to France Major Ward was mustered out at Camp Dix. New Jersey, on the 30th of May, 1919. and arrived at his home in Cleburne on the 5th of the following month. His interest in military affairs and in his former comrades has not waned, and he has been actively and prominently identified with the affairs of the American Legion since his return to Texas. He was one of the organizers of Cleburne Post No. 50, and in the summer of 1919 he went to Gatesville to attend a reunion of the soldiers who had entered the nation's service from Corvell County. On this occasion he made a spirited speech in the interests of the American Legion and started a movement to organize its work in that county.
Upon his return. from France to his native city Judge Ward resumed the active practice of his profession. and by his professional confreres and other friends he was urged to become a candidate for the office of District Tudge. He decided to respond favorably. defeated his opponents in the primary. was elected without opposition in November. 1919. and succeeded Judge O L. Lockett on the bench of the Eighteenth Judicial District. His administration has fully justified the electoral choice which placed him in this important office, for he has the true judicial temperament
and poise and has a broad and exact knowledge of the science of jurisprudence. From the time of attaining to his legal majority he has been a staunch advocate and supporter of the cause of the democratic party, and his religious faith is that of the Methodist Church, in which he has been specially zealous in the work of the Sunday school.
Vital and progressive, Judge Ward naturally takes deep and loyal interest in all things touching the welfare of his home city, county and state, and exemplification of this has been given through his connection with the Cleburne Chamber of Commerce and the local Rotary Club, in the former of which he is chairman of the street paving committee. In the Masonic fraternity he has received the chivalric degrees and is a member of the Commandery of Knights Templar in his native city, as is he also of Moslah Temple of the Mystic Shrine at Fort Worth. His name is still enrolled on the list of eligible young bachelors in Cleburne.
.THOMAS RICHARD ALLEN, M.D. About the time the military forces established Fort Worth as a garrison to defend Northwest Texas from the Indians the Allen family came into this section of Texas, Thomas Richard Allen being an infant at the time. His subsequent life has coincided in many particulars with the growth and development and history of this part of the state. He was a Confederate sol- dier, was an Indian fighter on the plains, has been a cattle man in the days of the unfenced range, and for the past thirty years has regu- larly practiced medicine, and is still active in his profession at Justin.
Doctor Allen was born in the town of Cali- fornia, Moniteau County, Missouri, October 23. 1846. He is of Scotch ancestry. His grandfather, Richard F. Allen, Sr., with three brothers came from Scotland to the United States before the Revolutionary war. All of them lived in North Carolina for a time. One of them, Robert, remained in Texas. Of the other three, one, Jesse, removed to Mississippi and was the ancestor of the distinguished Congressman John Allen of that state. Another, Frank G., went to Louisville. Ken- tucky. Richard F. Allen moved out of North Carolina to Bedford County, Tennessee, where he spent the rest of his life as a farmer. His widow subsequently went to Missouri when her son Richard F. was a man of thirty-five. In their family were five daughters and three sons : Matilda, who became the wife of Charles Medlin and died in Denton County,
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Texas, leaving a number of descendants ; Mrs. Ranes Neese, who also left descendants in Denton County ; Mary, who became the wife of Daniel Barcroft, after whom Bear Creek is said to have been named, and left descend- ants in Tarrant County ; Mrs. Owen Dunham, who lived in Tarrant County, where some of her family survive; Mrs. John Freshour, who died in Missouri: Jesse, who died in Tarrant County ; Thomas, who died near Roanoke. Texas; and Richard Franklin, Jr. Richard Franklin Allen, Jr., who is buried in the Med- lin cemetery near Roanoke, married Rosa Linda Brown, a niece of Governor Aaron V. Brown of Tennessee and a daughter of George W. Brown of Irish ancestry. The year fol- lowing the birth of Doctor Allen his parents joined a colony of fifteen related families emi- grating to Texas. The Allens settled in Tar- rant County, near the Denton County line, where Richard F. Allen died in 1851. His widow then moved into Denton County, to a point a mile and a half northeast of the pres- ent site of Roanoke. There she became the wife of Jesse Eads and lived in that locality until 1859, when she moved her cattle and her home into Wise County, locating thirteen miles northeast of Decatur. There her children grew up. These children were: Mrs. Elizabeth McDonald, who died in Tarrant County; Mary, who became the wife of Thomas Calla- way, and they crossed the plains to California in 1855, then went north to Idaho and lived out their lives near Boise; Sabrina, who became the wife of J. J. Eads and died at Barksdale, in Edwards County, Texas ; Serena P., living at Porum, Oklahoma, widow of W. H. Shumate; Miss Malinda, who died in Wise County ; Hugh B., who went to Cali- fornia with his sister, also to Idaho, where he married Miss Scooller and finally returned to Texas and died in Wise County ; Thomas Rich- ard, the youngest son of the family.
Thomas Richard Allen has some recollec- tions of frontier days in North Texas before the war. He attended private and public schools until he was thirteen, when he entered the Aynes School at old Elizabethtown. He remained a student there until he entered the Southern army, joining Captain Scantlin's Company of Cooke County, a part of Wells' Battalion, made up of seven companies. This battalion rendezvoused at old Fort Arbuckle. in Indian Territory, spending the winter of 1861 there. In the spring of 1862 they went into Arkansas, joining Price's army, and under Gen. Albert Pike fought in the battle of Pea VOL. IV-4
Ridge or Elkhorn. The battalion had experi- ence in other minor engagements and skir- mishes, including Prairie Grove. The com- mand was captured at Fort Gibson, in the Cherokee Nation, and was sent to Fort Smith, then to Little Rock, Memphis, and then to Leavenworth, Kansas. Doctor Allen was never placed in prison in any of these places for the reason that he had a friend high in the councils of the Union Army. General Reynolds, who was a schoolmate of his father. When the Confederates were capured General Reynolds noticed in the list of prisoners the name of Allen and discovered the boy of his old friend, furnished the necessary influence to have him treated well and the third day after reaching Fort Leavenworth he was released. Unable to return home because of the unsettled conditions, he accepted a neutral service, in charge of a train of wagons from Kansas City, Missouri, over the route to Santa Fe. New Mexico. There were sixty-five wagons in the train carrying government stores for the fort, and seventy men made up the drivers and escort. At one time they were threatened by an attack from savage Comanches and on another occasion a band of mounted Indians numbering some five hundred demanded from Doctor Allen that he divide his supplies, since they were at war with the Comanches and were destitute and hungry. Doctor Allen after some discussion agreed to give them flour and meat. On returning east from Santa Fe the next spring the train was held at Dodge City waiting for re-enforce- ments, until four hundred wagons were gathered, constituting a large and formidable force that started east in two columns through the hostile territory. The only loss sustained by the caravan was a man driving the extra oxen. He was surprised and killed and scalped by two Indians.
When young Allen left Kansas City for home he made the trip on horseback, his com- panion being Calvin Speers. He began gather- ing up the family cattle scattered during the war and continued in the cattle business until 1878, when he sold out. During that time he was a resident of Wise County and in 1880 was elected county sheriff, filling that office four years. It was at the conclusion of his official term that he settled down to complete his medical education. He had previously studied medicine for two years. March 10, 1891, he graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at St. Louis. He had previously practiced two years with a
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state license at the old town of Greenwood, and he returned there wtih his medical diploma and continued his professional work in that com- munity for sixteen years. Since 1904 Doctor Allen has practiced medicine with his son, Dr. J. H. Allen, in the Justin community.
Doctor Allen has kept in close touch with Texas politics for a great many years and has also been deeply interested in the cause of public education. He cast his first presidential vote for Horatio Seymour in 1868 and has never failed to participate in the general national elections since then. He has been a delegate to nearly all state democratic con- ventions since the war, frequently has been precinct chairman, was a partisan of Governor Hogg in the Hogg-Clark political fight, and while previously a warm supporter of Senator Bailey, he kept his allegiance within the regular faction in 1920. He is a Master Mason and Odd Fellow and for years has been an elder in the Christian Church. His interest in edu- cation led him to organize the Greenwood College in Wise County and for a number of years he was president of the college company. When he began practice at Justin he recognized a great need for popular education and under his leadership an association was organized which established Pennington College, an insti- tution that performed the service of a first-class high school until the Independent district was organized, when the college charter was sur- rendered and the facilities turned over to the public school.
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