USA > Texas > Burleson County > History of Texas, together with a biographical history of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson counties. Pt.2 > Part 35
USA > Texas > Travis County > History of Texas, together with a biographical history of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson counties. Pt.2 > Part 35
USA > Texas > Bastrop County > History of Texas, together with a biographical history of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson counties. Pt.2 > Part 35
USA > Texas > Lee County > History of Texas, together with a biographical history of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson counties. Pt.2 > Part 35
USA > Texas > Williamson County > History of Texas, together with a biographical history of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson counties. Pt.2 > Part 35
USA > Texas > Milam County > History of Texas, together with a biographical history of Milam, Williamson, Bastrop, Travis, Lee and Burleson counties. Pt.2 > Part 35
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occupied by the town of Elgin, where she died in 1870. The family consisted of five children, all of whom are now deceased but Mrs. Reynolds and a half sister, Mrs. Charles Brooks, of Georgetown, Texas.
Martha A. Christian was married near Bas- trop, Jannary 21, 1847, to Sherman Reynolds, a native of Fishikill, New York. He came to Texas at the age of twenty-three years, land- ing in Galveston in 1840. He remained there one year, spent the following year near Ans- tin, and in 1843 became the first dry goods merchant in the new town of La Grange. In June, 1844, he came to Bastrop, where lie condneted a large and successful business many years. His death ocenrred January 29, 1879. Mr. Reynolds was a man of pro- gressive mind and good business judgment, and for several terms was the custodian of the county funds, but eared little for public office. As a eoineidence in his life it may be mentioned that his birth, marriage and death occurred in the month of January, and the old home in which he raised his children, was also burned in that month. Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds were the parents of eight children, namely: A. B., of Bastrop; Ange- vine, who was drowned at the age of two years; Hiram G., of Bastrop; John B., de- ceased; Hattie, now Mrs. Frank Petty, of Louisiana; Mary, wife of Don G. Petty, also of that State; Libbie, wife of Will Paris, of Haskell, Texas; and Adelia and Matt A., at home.
A. B. Reynolds, the eldest child, was born in Bastrop, Jne 13, 1848, and was edneated at the Emory & Henry College, Virginia. After completing his education in 1870, he continned in business with his father in this eity until 1876. In that year he was elected Tax Collector, held the office one year, fol- lowed farming nutil 1884, and since that
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time has been engaged in the livery business. lle still owns his farm of 300 acres, located near Bastrop, and is also interested in a gin.
Mr. Reynolds was married in this city, April 22, 1874, to Frances M. Green. They have four children,-Allie G., Lulu L., Sid- ney D. and Arthur J.
P ROF. J. W. CLARK .- "Thank God there are no free schools in this province, nor printing press; and I hope we shall have none these hundred years," wrote Berkeley, the royalist Governor of Virginia in 1671, and his wish, unnatural as it may seem now, was almost literally fulfilled. But this sentiment never found lodgement with the colonists, and was uot tolerated by them after they came to see clearly their rights and privileges, the estal). lishing of newspapers and the founding of schools being among the earliest objects of their fostering care. Each of these forces has grown to be a mighty factor in the development of this country, and the story of civilization in the western world is largely the story of the evolution of the printing press and the free school system. From the public schools of the States men and women have gone to fill all ranks, all spheres, in life. The press has been gratefully called the "Palladium of our Liberties;" the public school is no less the nursery of public virtue and public intelligence.
The subject of this sketch, Professor John W. Clark, Principal of the public schools at Rockdale, is one whose labors in behalf of education entitle him to the grateful recogni- tion of all who have at heart the elevation of the minds and morals of the young, and is especially deserving of notice in connection
with the public schools of that place,- confessedly among the best in the State, their superiority being in a large measure dne to his untiring efforts.
He is a native of Washington county, Virginia, born September 13, 1851, and is a son of Peter G. and Parmelia A. Clark, natives of the same State. Ilis father is a planter, residing now in Washington county, Virginia, where he has passed most of his life, and where he is extensively and favor- ably known. He was a soldier in the Confederate army during the late war, serving with credit as Lieutenant of Company F, Twenty-first Virginia Cavalry, in which he fought under those distingnished generals, Jubal A. Early and Fitzhugh Lee, taking part in all the campaigns and engagements in which the army of northern Virginia participated from Manassas to Appomattox. He has been a life-long member of the Presbyterian Church, and faithful to every duty as a citizen and member of the com- munity in which he resides. The inother, who is also yet living, bore the maiden name of Parmelia Ann Cunningham, being a daugliter of George and Marthia Cunning- liam, natives of Virginia, and descendants of early settled families of that State, originally of Scotch and Irish extraction. The two children of the marriage of Peter G and Parmelia A. Clark are Rev. Peter C. Clark, a regularly installed minister of the Presby- terian Church, now filling a charge at Fin- caster, Virginia, and Prof. John W. Clark, of this article.
The last named was reared in his native connty, and in the schools of that county received his early education. He began teaching at the age of sixteen, and in this way earned the money with which to defray his expenses through college. IIe attended
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Emory and Henry College at Emory, Virgi- nia, and the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington. graduating from the latter, July 4, 1875. Hle resmed teaching as a profes- sion immediately on graduation, securing a school at Lebanon, Virginia, where he tanght for one year. He then came to Texas, in October. 1876, and tanght in the public schools at Bastrop for twelve months, after which he located in Austin, where he remained for two years, during which time he had charge of the seven graded schools of that city. Ilaving been made Adjunct Professor of mathematics in the Agrienltural and Mechanical College at Bryan, he went to that place in 1880, where he taught for one year. He was then offered the superinten- deney of the schools at Navasota, which he accepted and there labored for four years. In the meantime, Jannary 9, 1882, he mar- ried Miss Lncy W. Brown, a daughter of Robert Brown, of Navasota, Mrs. Clark being a native Texan and a lady of excellent attainments, graduating with the first honor in the first class that graduated from the Houston high school, in May, 1879. She has since shared her husband's labors, and ren- dered him most efficient aid. In 1884 Prof. Clark was called to Rockdale, where he took charge of the public schools, which position he has since held. Ilis life has thus been taken up with teaching, a calling for which he possesses a natural aptitude and for the successful pursuit of which he has qualified himself in an eminent degree. Ilis work in this line has always been of a high order, and has given almost universal satisfaction. His specialty is mathematics, but he is proficient in all branches, and as an organizer possesses ability equalled by but few. lle knows a good school as soon as he sees it, and he can take a poor one and in short time
make a good one of it. In the last seventeen years that he has been in Texas he has done a vast amount of labor in behalf of the State schools as well as in behalf of the general cause of education, and he has established himself securely in the estimation and good will of the people where he has taught, and in the opinion of leading educa- tors with whom he has been brought in con- tact. His class-room work is marked for its breadth and thoroughness, particularly as respects those things of practical need. Hle believes, as one has said, that the "primary problem with a lad is to teach him to take care of himself and to cling to that which is sincerely lucrative" and with this in view he refrains from loading his scholars with a knowledge of the ways and enstoms of fairy- land, the nnintelligible jargon of numerical formulae, and the vagaries of occult sciences and metaphysical speculation. He teaches thiem, instead, their duties and relations to society as it is now constituted, and prepares them to handle problems of industrial de- velopment, finance, civil government and such matters of practical import which are ever calling for invention, novelty, freedom of mind and readiness to respond to external changes and circumstances. He goes about his work with a solemn sense of its gravity and seeks to impress npon those under him the saine feelings of responsibility. His management in general is characterized by the same high sense of duty, his relations with teachers and trustees being inarked by the ntmost harmony and by mutual helpfulness and mutual esteem.
The Professor has taken some interest in matters outside of his school work, but has never allowed any pursuit or diversion to iu . terfere with the objects of his calling. Ile has served as City Engineer of Rockdale,
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and while a resident of Austin he was identi- fied with some local organizations of a civil and social nature. Ilc is a member of the Knights of Honor, and he and his wife are both members of the Presbyterian Church. They have a family of three living children. Coral, May Cunningham and John Vincent, their third child, Robert Gilbert, being de- ceased.
Ko
OHN L. MITCHELL, of Clarkson, Mi- lam county, Texas, is the subject of the present sketch. This vicinity is one of the finest and most fertile parts of the State of Texas. Although not more than a decade has passed since it began to be settled, many of its farmers show that thrift and enterprise which might reasonably be expected in a country of twice its age. Our subject is one of the successful men of the locality men- tioned, and, strictly speaking, he came to Milam county withont means. He came from Robertson county, where in conjunction with his father and brothers he conducted a farm for eight years in the Brazos bottoms. They liad come to Robertson from Lavaca county, where they resided only eight months, it being their first point of location in Texas. Tilling the soil has always been the occupa- tion of our subject. He learned to raise cot- ton and corn early in life, but did not prosper much at it until he reached old Milam county, and here year after year he found his bank account increasing, and in 1879 he felt able to own a farm and in consequence bought 100 acres, and since that time he has reposcd un- der his own vine and fig trec.
Before selling out in 1885, our subject had added seventy acres to his original purchase. The same year he bought 143 acres of his present tract and his success has enabled him
to increase it to 500 acres, all fine, black, fertile land. He is cultivating 200 acres chiefly in cotton, and in 1891 his crop was eighty bales, and in 1892, it was ninety-five bales. Mr. Mitchell utilizes his cotton-seed in the feeding of beef-cattle every year, from fifty to seventy-five head selling on the local market each year, and he is looked upon as one of the rising young men of this connty.
Our subject was born in Union county, Arkansas, in 1851, but obtained only a lim- ited school training. The Civil war was re- sponsible for the unhealthy condition of both public and private cdncation, and thousands of boys were launched into manhood with untrained minds as a result. At the age of eighteen Mr. Mitchell came to Texas with his father, making a stop in Lavaca county. Jolin A. Mitchell, the father of cur subject, was born in South Carolina in 1814 and had emigrated with his father, Thomas Mitchell, born in Ireland, to the State of Alabama, and there lie grew to man's cstate. He learned the trade of carpenter, but used it only as a convenience in after life. His father followed blacksmithing in middle life, but later settled down to farming. J. A. Mitchell was not subject to military duty, having lost one of his arms in a saw-mill a few years before, but during the Rebellion served in the commis- sary department of the Confederate army. Mr. Mitchell moved to Arkansas about 1840. Four years before, he married Martha, the danghter of Joseph Holloway, who married a Miss Newton.
The children of Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Mitchell were: James, deceased; Elizabeth, wife of T. F. Johnson, a merchant of Waco; Eliza, deceased, wife of T. E. Mitchell, leav . ing one child; Maggie first married Benson Kelley and then J. W. McGowen of Waco; Edward J., a resident of Clarkson; John L.,
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our subject; William, deceased; and Mattie, Justice of the State of Texas, and was ad- the wife of R. O. Thomas, of Montague county, 'mitted to the bar in the latter part of 1860. Texas. The mother died in 1883, and the father seven years later. In 1882 Jomm L. married Alice, the danghter of Perry Wim- berly, of Milam county. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Mitchell are as follows: James Louis, Loyd, Rodney F. and Rex. The family belongs to the Baptist Church, holding a membership in the Clarkson Church. lle opened an office in Austin and practiced there a year, when he enlisted in Company D, Terry's Rangers as a private, in August. Ile served through the entire war, serving under Albert Sidney Johnston, Bragg and then Joseph E. Johnston. He was in a nut- ber of the heavy engagements of that depart- ment and was in the cavalry. One time he was taken prisoner, but escaped only to be obliged to surrender in North Carolina, un- der Joseph E. Johnson when that General surrendered his army.
UDGE JOHN B. RECTOR, United States Judge of the Northern District of Texas, was born in Jackson county. Alabama, November 24, 1837. His parents were L. L. aud Agnes (Black) Rector, the former a native of Tennessee, the latter Geor- gia. The father was a merchant in Bellefonte, Jackson county, Alabama. He came to Texas in 1847, settling in Bastrop county, where he engaged as a planter. His advent iu Texas was after this State was admitted into the Uniou and he ever proved himself a good, true citizen: Ile lived and died in the faith of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Sonth, dying in July, 1888, aged nearly ninety years, having been boru in 1799. His wife died in 1852, aged forty. She was also a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church and proved herself a devoted wife and mother through all the privations that they were forced to endure as pioneers of this great State. There were five children in this fam- ily that lived to maturity, two having died in early childhood.
John was the second child. He was edu- cated at Yale College, Connecticut, and grad- nated in the class of 1859, being one of 105 graduates. Hle returned to Texas and studied law with Judge Royal T. Wheeler, Chief
After the war was over he returned to Bastrop, opened a law office and became a member of the law firm of McGinuis & Rec- tor, which lasted but a short time as he was elected District Attorney and served in that capacity until the latter part of 1867, when he returned to the practice of law, at the same place, continuing there until the latter part of February, 1871, when he was ap- pointed by Governor E. J. Davis, and con- firmed by the Texas Senate, Judge of the Thirty-first Judicial District of Texas, coul- prising the counties of Robertson, Leon, and Freestone, and served in that capacity for inore than five years, when, in 1876, he re- turned to the practice of law in Austin. He remained in that city practicing his profes- siou until he received his present appoint- ment, March 24, 1872. This was a presi- dential appointment confirmed by the United States Senate. Ile is the snc- cessor of Judge A. P. MeCormick, who was appointed United States Circuit Judge. In 1884 Judge Rector ran ou the Republicau ticket for Cougress in the Tenth Congressional District of Texas against Major Sayers, the Democratie uomi- nee, who was successful and succeeded Judge
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Hancock in that office. The campaign was interesting and exceptional in the fact that it was perhaps the only canvass for Congress in Texas since the late war in which a Demo- crat and Republican canvassed together and spoke from the same stump. Judge Rector has been twice elected as a delegate at-large to Republican National Conventions to nominate President and Vice-President. In 1888 he was Chairman of the Texas delega- tion at the Chicago convention. From 1886 to 1888 lie was Chairman of the Republican State Executive Committee of Texas.
C OLONEL G. W. JONES, a lawyer of Bastrop, Texas, is of Weish extraction. The family located in this country in Colonial days, in King and Queen county, Virginia, where the great-grandfather of our subject, James Jones, died at the opening of the Revolutionary war, leaving one son, also named James. The latter married, and in early years of the present century, with a family of children, moved to Giles county, Ten- nessee, where he afterward died. In 1820 the children settled in different parts of the country, but in 1872, after having been separ- ated fifty-two years, hield a reunion in Tennes- see, at which time the group was photographied. One of the pictures still hangs in Colonel Jones' liome, and is a much prized relic. The father of onr subject, William D. C. Jones, the eldest of the children, was born in 1799. He was married in Marion connty, Alabama, in 1822, to Rachel Burleson a member of the family of that name so intimately connected with early Texas history. She was a cousin of General Edward Burleson, in honor of whom Burleson county was named. Her father, Joseph Burleson, came to Texas in | B., deceased at the age of four years.
1833, participating in the " runaway serape." and located in Bastrop county. After spend- ing eight years in Marion county, Alabama, Mr. and Mrs. Jones Located in Tipton county, Tennessee. The fame of Texas spread rapidly throughont the East after the return of the armies that carried the Mexican war to a successful close, and long lines of wag- ons wended their way toward the Lone Star State. Among the emigrants of 1848 was the Jones family, who located in Bastrop county, on the Colorado river, ten miles below the city of that name, where members of the family have ever since lived. The mother died here February 19, 1866, and the father died April 13, 1893, aged ninety-three years and four months. Mr. and Mrs. Jones were the parents of ten children, viz .: Naney J., who died at Woodville, Texas, in 1881, was the wife of Dr. S. B. Johnson; James, deceased in 1868, was a prominent and respected resi- dent of Bastrop county, where he served as Justice of the Peace and County Commiss- ioner a number of years; Elizabeth, deceased in 1867, was the wife of Lonis Hancock; G. W., the subject of this sketch; Maria M., wife of Joseph Rogers, of Hays county, Texas; Charles H., who located in Tyler connty, served his State during the late war as Captain of a company in Burnet's Regi- ment, was a member of the first Legislature after the close of the hostilities, and died in 1880; William H. studied law, was admitted to the bar in Bastrop county, represented his county in two Legislatures, and has followed farming all his life; Benjamin F., who re- mained until deathi, in 1887, on the old home- stead, represented Bastrop county in the Legislature in 1880, and was a popular and respected gentleman ; Patsy, deceased in 1869, was the wife of John S. Wilson; and Joseph
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Colonel G. W. Jones, the subject of this later, defeated Jolin Hancock, of Anstin. Mr. sketeli, was born in Marion county, Alabama, Jones served in the forty-sixth Congress, was re-elected in 1880, and during these sessions his attention was given to financial matters. In 1882 he was the candidate of - the independent Greenback party for Gov- ernor, but was defeated by John Ireland, and again defeated in 1884, but since that time .- he has declined to allow his name to be nsed for any office. In addition to his extensive law practice, Mr. Jones, also owns 325 acres of land in the suburbs of Bastrop, 200 acres of which is cultivated, and he has lived on this place since 1856. He is also extensively engaged in cattle raising, having a ranch of abont 3,000 aeres in Runnels comty.
September 5, 1828. His boyhood days were passed on a farm in Tipton county, Tennes- see, and February 16, 1849, he located on the Colorado river, in Bastrop county, where he followed farming two years. He then studied law, withont a preceptor, was ad- mitted to the bar, and since the fall of 1851 has been a prominent and successful law practitioner of Bastrop. For a number of years he was in company with the present Congressman for this district, Colonel Say- res, but for the past few years has been as- sociated with H. M. Garwood. In 1853 Mr. Jones was a candidate for legislative honors, bnt was defeated by a small majority. In 1856 he was elected District Attorney over A. H. Chalmers, and at the end of his first term voluntarily declined a re-election, and returned to private life. The following year he was an unsuccessful candidate for the State Senatorship. During the campaign of 1860 Mr. Jones esponsed the cause of Doug- las, and fonghit against secession, but, when a large majority of the votere declared in its favor, he conformed to the situation. In April, 1862, he entered the Confederate serv- ice, before the organization of the Seventeeth Texas Infantry, was elected Lieutenant Col- onel, and after the battle of Milliken's Bend, was promoted to the Coloneley, vice Colonel Allen, resigned. After returning from the war Mr. Jones was a member of the Consti- tntional Convention of that year, and in 1866 was elected Lieutenant Governor on the Throckmorton ticket. After the days of reconstruction onr subjeet became dissatis- fied with the Democratic party, and in 1876 became an independent Greenback candidate for Congress in the fifth district, but was defeated by D. C. Geddings, but, two years
Angust 1, 1855, in Fayette county, Texas, onr subject was united in marriage with Miss Ledora Ann, a daughter of Ira and Ann (Doak) Mullin. She came to Texas with her parents from Mississippi at the age of ten years. Mr. Jones is independent in his poli- tical views, and socially, is a member of the Masonic and Odd Fellows orders.
M V. TYSON .- For five or six years following the close of the late war Texas received large accessions to her population from the army of dis- charged Confederate soldiers from the older Southern States, mostly young and middle- aged men, who, broken in fortune and dis- conraged by the dismal prospects around them, came West to begin life anew. One of this number was M. V. Tyson, the subject of this sketeh, a native of Tennessee, but for some years before his removal to Texas a resident of Arkansas. Mr. Tyson comes of good, strong Sonthern stock, the families from which he is descended being among the
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earliest settlers of Tennessee. Ilis paternal grandfather was Uriah Tyson, a native of North Carolina, who emigrated to Tennessee early in this century. Noah B. Tyson, the father of the subject of this notice, was born in Montgomery county, Tennessee, in 1814. He married Mary Morris, a daughter of Nathan Morris, of Stewart county, that State, abont 1832, and for a number of years en- gaged in farming in his native State. In 1848 he moved to Arkansas, settling in Onachita connty, where he prospered in his chosen pursuits until the opening of the late war. Like hundreds of others, he lost heavily by the ravages of that great conflict, and in 1865 he came to Texas, settling in Milamn county, where he died in 1876. His wife was born in 1816 in Stewart county, Tennes- see, where she was also rearcd. She died in Milam county, Texas, in 1876. Noah B. and Mary Tyson were the parents of ten chil- dren: Martha, Urialı, William, Martin Van Bnren, Sallie, Samuel, Noah, Jeptha, Mary and Charles. Of these bnt three are now living: Martin Van Buren, the subject of this sketch; Noah and Jepthia, the last two being residents of Mills connty, this State.
Martin Van Buren Tyson, the subject proper of this sketch, was born in Henry county, Tennessee, June 27, 1840. He was eight years old when his parents moved to Arkansas, and his boyhood and youth were passed in Ouachita county, that State. IIe was reared on a farm, where his time was spent in the labors and diversions common to farm life. He received only a limited edu- cation. Stepping out to meet the current of life for himself at the age of twenty-one, he found the country making active preparations to go to war, and, his patriotism being stirred by the appeals made to it, he entered the Confederate service early in 1861, enlisting
in Company F, Third Arkansas Infantry, from which he was discharged after twelve months' service on account of rhenmatism. In the spring of 1863 he enlisted in the Fifth Missouri Cavalry, commanded by General Price, with which regiment he served both east and west of the Mississippi, and was actively engaged on the skirmish line till the close of the war, his regiment disbanding at Shreveport, Louisiana, in May, 1865.
Mr. Tyson reached home May 25 after the surrender and immediately turned his atten- tion to farming, and was so engaged in Qua- chita connty, Arkansas, until 1868, when he came to Texas, settling in Milam county. Here he invested what little means he had in fifty acres of land lying on Little river, being part of his present farm, on which he settled and went to work. By industry and econ- omy he accumulated from year to year, and as he grew in wealth he invested in lands ad- joining his first purchase. At this writing he owns 1,500 acres in one body lying on Little river, 600 acres of which are under cultivation, and on which reside seventeen families and out of the proceeds of which are supported 103 persons. In 1892 the yield of his place was 225 bales of cotton, besides the usual amount of grain and stock products. Mr. Tyson has converted his primitive patch into a farm of broad acres, well cultivated and well improved. His log cabin has given away to a comfortable home, surrounded by necessary out-buildings for stock, and neat, well-kept grounds, all showing the industry, skill and good management which have wronglit so marked a change in his affairs since he took np his residence in this county twenty-five years ago.
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