USA > Texas > Tarrant County > History of Texas, together with a biographical history of Tarrant and Parker counties; containing a concise history of the state, with portraits and biographies of prominent citizens of the above named counties, and personal histories of many of the early settlers and leading families > Part 41
USA > Texas > Parker County > History of Texas, together with a biographical history of Tarrant and Parker counties; containing a concise history of the state, with portraits and biographies of prominent citizens of the above named counties, and personal histories of many of the early settlers and leading families > Part 41
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Mr. Cooper is the seventh born of eight children in the family of Newton and Mar- tha A. (Slayton) Cooper, of Georgia. His maternal grandfather, Joseph Slayton, of that State, was the owner of a plantation and of slaves, and was a prominent citizen. Mr. Cooper's brothers and sisters are: Mary. who died at the age of eighteen years; John, who died at the age of twenty years; Alexander, who served in the army, and was killed in Virginia; Sarah Amelia, who first married attorney J. W. Kelsoe, who died, leaving one son, and afterward she married Judge Hilliard, at Troy, Alabama, and they are both living there yet; Samuel, who was killed in Virginia; the subject of this sketch was the next in order of birth; Martha A., who became the wife of James A. Ray, now deceased; and the last born died young. The mother of these children died when our subject was but eight years old, and a small estate was left him. He
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first married Miss Luna A. Dickson, daugh- ter of Creighton Dickson, a prominent farmer of Alabama, who came to Texas in 1880, and is yet living in the eastern part of the State. By this first marriage there were five children, one of whom died young. The others are: Dixon D., who died at the age of twenty-two years; James N., Will- iam D., and John M.,-all at home. Mrs. Cooper died in 1879, a sincere member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In 1881 Mr. Cooper married Miss Mary C. Thomas, born in 1861, a daughter of William S. Thomas, of Georgia, who served through the war, and came to Texas in 1873, lo- cating upon a farm in Tarrant county. By this marriage there are two sons, -Oscar T. and Horace W. Mr. and Mrs. Cooper are respected members of the Methodist Epis- copal Church.
a APT. WILLIAM M. HARRISON, late president of the State National Bank, Fort Worth, Texas, was born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, April 26, 1819, the son of John Harrison. The ancestral record shows that John Harrison descended from Irish and English blood, and emigrated in an early day from Ireland to Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia, where he married a Miss Carlysle, an English lady of rare accomplishments. Ten children were born to them, following in the order named: Hugh, James, William, Hettie, John, Mary, Robert, Carlysle, Josepli and Thomas. John
Harrison emigrated to Kentucky, where he married Elizabeth, daughter of William and Elizabeth (Newman) McClanahan, both of whom were natives of Virginia. After his marriage, John Harrison, owing to limited means, engaged in various kinds of manual labor, and after he had accumulated some money he turned his attention to distilling. In 1819 he moved to Howard county, Mis- souri, and settled near the present town of Glasgow. John Harrison was born in Penn- sylvania, April 15, 1775, and died in Mis- souri, February 14, 1827. His wife, born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, April 15, 1785, died January 23, 1857. Their child- ren were: James, born October 10, 1803, now deceased; Margaret, born September 21, 1805; John, born January 29, 1808, died May 30, 1875; Elizabeth, born February 14, 1810; died April 22, 1853; Carlysle, born May 8, 1812, died in childhood; William, born August 20, 1813, died in infancy; Mary E., born January 20, 1817, died January 20, 1855; William M., born April 20, 1819; Joseph, born October 3, 1823, died Novem- ber 9, 1855; and Lucy Agnew, the widow of a Mr. Billingsby, resides at Glasgow, Missouri. Margaret also resides at Glasgow. She is the wife of William Jackson. Captain Harrison's brothers, of whom the late well- known James Harrison, of St. Louis, was one, all became wealthy.
The Captain was reared to farm life in Howard county, Missouri, from the age of three or four years, and received his educa- tion in the common schools of that county.
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At the age of sixteen he started out for him- self, leaving Missouri for Arkansas, and en- gaged as clerk in his brother James' store in Washington, Hempstead county. After re- maining in this position eighteen months, he went, in the fall of 1836, to Jonesboro, then in Miller county, Arkansas, now Red River county, Texas, where he commenced mercantile business on his own account, on a capital of about $1, 500, and credit for any amount he wanted, which has never been abused from that day to this. In 1841 he left Jonesboro and went to Clarksville, where he continued merchandising until the breaking out of the war. He purchased a plantation of 1, 500 acres in Red River coun- ty in 1849, which he operated in connection with his mercantile business, and continued farming until the close of the war. He served as Quartermaster in the Confederate army for about eighteen months, with the rank of Captain. When he returned from Corinth, where he had been stationed, he was elected to the Legislature from Red River county, and served one term. The accumulations of his life up to the beginning of the war, which were not less than $150, - 000, consisting largely in negro property and amounts due him in his mercantile business, were all swept away by the results of the struggle. After the surrender he sold his plantation for $10,000, in gold, not half its value prior to the war, and on this capi- tal, and $20,000 which he borrowed, he commenced the warehouse, wholesale gro- cery and commission business, as financial
partner in the firm of Wright, Harrison & Company. Afterward Mr. Wright retired, having sold his interest to his partners, when the style of the firm was changed to J. W. & J. R. Russell & Company. In this com- pany and business he continued until the partnership was dissolved by the death of J. W. Russell. Captain Harrison then be- came one of the charter members of the National Bank of Jefferson.
The National Bank of Jefferson began business in March, 1871. He was elected its first president, a position which he held by successive elections for many years. The bank began business on a capital of $100, - 000, and the amount of dividends declared and paid to stockholders from the time of its organization up to July 30, 1881, was $165,400. In addition to this the bank car- ried to the surplus fund $63,090. 11, making a total net profit of $248,490. 11 on a work- ing capital two-thirds of the time of $100,- 000. The capital operated in 1881 was $163,000. The annual dividends averaged twelve per cent. The average deposits from organization to 1881 were $200,000. There was nothing peculiar in the methods of do- ing business. It was a regular, straightfor- ward, legitimate banking business. The correspondents of the bank were the Ninth National Bank of New York city, the Louisiana National Bank of New Orleans, Boatsman's Savings Bank of St. Louis, and the National Bank of Texas, of Galveston.
Captain Harrison was president from its organization of the East Line & Red River
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Railroad Company, the initial points of which were, in 1881, Jefferson and Green- ville. After languishing for several years as a corporation in name only, it was by him taken in hand, and to his untiring energy is mainly due the existence of the road as a fixed and paying institution.
The Captain owned shares in the bank amounting to $27, 500, a very fine residence, several business houses, and unimproved lots in Jefferson, as well as lands in several counties, and was estimated in commercial circles in 1881 to be worth not less than $250,000. All this accumulation was the result of his own efforts.
Subsequent to 1842 Captain Harrison was identified with the Masonic fraternity. He was then made a Mason in Friendship Lodge, No. 16, at Clarksville, and later took the chapter and council degrees. He was also a member of the Legion of Honor. He was reared as an ardent Henry Clay Whig, but after the war affiliated with the Demo- cratic party. While he was opposed to se- cession, he went with his people, feeling it his duty to aid them by his money and his service.
Captain Harrison was first married, in Clarksville, Texas, July 1, 1845, to Miss Elizabeth Shields, who was born in Giles county, Tennessee, September 7, 1829, a daughter of William Shields and a niece of Colonel Ebenezer J. Shields, at one time a member of Congress from Tennessee. She died September 11, 1853, Their children were three in number,
all born in Red River county, Texas, and as follows: Medora, born September 12, 1848, died September 17, 1864; Mary E., born December 20, 1850, died October 25, 1851; Elizabeth Louisa, born October 17, 1852, is the wife of S. D. Rainey, Jr., a merchant of Jefferson, Texas, and their children are: Medora, Elizabeth, William and Mary. January 18, 1855, the Captain wedded, in Clarksville, Miss Elizabeth Ann Epperson, a native of Tennessee, born October 11, 1835, daughter of Cairo Epper- son, a planter and a member of a South Carolina family. This second marriage re- sulted in the birth of six children, viz .: Mary, born March 19, 1856, is a graduate of Hill's University, Kentucky; William B., born January 13, 1858, was married in Gal- veston to Miss Mattie Blassingame, and is now a merchant of Greenville, Texas; John C., born June 28, 1859, married a Miss Ward, of Jefferson, Texas; Sallie, wife of C. A. Culberson, Attorney General of the State of Texas, born July 25, 1861, is a graduate of Ward's Seminary, of Nash- ville, Tennessee; James, born September 17, 1863, married a Miss Martin, of Fort Worth, Texas; and Amanda, born Septem- ber 27, 1865, died June 21, 1866.
Mrs. Harrison and two of her children, Sallie and Mary, are members of the Cum- berland Presbyterian Church, as was also Captain Harrison. While the Captain's business career was one of marked success, and while he succeeded in accumulating a large fortune, he was ever free from any-
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thing like a sordid nature; indeed, he was directly the opposite of that. His gener- osity was unbounded. Thousands of dollars were given by him for charitable purposes, and the poor and needy were never turned empty-handed from his door. He was genial and unassuming in manner, and, in short, was one of those whole-souled, typi- cal Southern gentlemen whom it was a pleasure to meet.
Captain Harrison died September 16, 1894, at Eureka Springs, Arkansas.
ILLIAM P. BREWER, living four miles northeast of Arlington, Texas, is one of the prosperous and highly respected farmers of Tarrant county. A brief sketch of his life is as follows:
William P. Brewer was born in Tate county, Mississippi, October 19, 1850, the fourth in a large family, his parents being William and Polly (Swanner) Brewer, natives of North Carolina. From North Carolina they moved to Mississippi at an early day, and in 1878 they came to Texas and located in Tarrant county. The father was engaged in farming and ginning, which occupations he followed here up to the time of his death, which occurred in 1881. The mother of our subject died when he was quite small and the father was afterward married again, his last wife passing away in 1887. Following is a record of William Brewer's children: Sarah, wife of B. G.
Collins, both deceased; Phillip H., a resi- dent of Mississippi; Mattie, deceased; Will- iam P., whose name heads this article; Mary, married and living in Oklahoma; Josephine, wife of J. F. Mabre, of Missis- sippi; Emma, wife of D. Sharp, also of Mississippi; Thomas, a resident of that same State; Ella, wife of John Damron, of Oklahoma; James L., Dallas county, Texas; and Jesse R., engaged in farming in Tarrant county. James L. and Jesse R. are chil- dren of his second wife.
William P. was reared to farm life and has always followed that occupation. He sold his farm in Mississippi previous to his coming to Texas in 1878, and upon his ar- rival in Tarrant county bought a small tract of land here. After the death of his par- ents he bought out the interest of the other heirs and thus came into possession of the home place. He now has two farms and has 120 acres of his land under cultivation, his crops being diversified. One place he has rented, while the other he cultivates himself. Mr. Brewer has for some years been interested in improving the breed of horses in this vicinity. He is now the owner of a fine Norman stallion.
In 1871 Mr. Brewer married Miss Allie Murphy, daughter of John Murphy, of Ten- nessee. Mr. Murphy was a veteran of the war of 1812, spent his life on a farm in Tennessee, and died in that State. Mrs. Brewer died in March, 1876, leaving two children, namely: J. C., who is now en- gaged in farming in Tarrant county; and
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Willie M., wife of James Johnson, a Tar- rant county farmer. In 1878 Mr. Brewer was again married, this time to Miss Susie Lasater, who was born in January, 1861, daughter of James and Mollie (Bond) Lasa- ter. Her father came from Tennessee to Texas in 1858 and located in Dallas county. The following year he removed to Tarrant county and here spent the rest of his life and died, his death occurring in March, 1882. His widow still resides at the old homestead, now being seventy years of age. This sec- ond marriage has resulted in the birth of eight children, two of whom died in infancy. Those living are Vida, James B., Fanny, Reese, Web, and Bessie, all at home except Vida who is the wife of Walter Patton, a farmer of this county.
Mr. Brewer takes a commendable inter- est in public affairs, but has never aspired to official position. He votes with the Democratic party. He also takes a deep interest in educational and religious matters, and is recognized as one of the leading men of his community.
O ANIEL D. HARTNETT, a retail grocer of Weatherford, Texas, is a brother of C. D. Hartnett, and is one of the substantial young merchants of Parker county.
He was born in county Limerick, Ire- land, June 9, 1862, and received a meager education. For many years he was engaged with his father and brothers in railroad con- 0
tract work in Texas. Upon quitting this work, he made a brief stay in Kansas, and after his return to Texas he was employed at Weatherford by A. F. Starr & Company, wholesale grocers. Soon afterward he set up in business for himself, opening a stock of goods on North Main street, at first be- ginning in a small way. In a few years he established a lucrative business and received many orders for job lots, and now he has stocked up preparatory to meeting all these demands. He carried a $5,000 stock and his annual sales now reach nearly the $75,000 mark. Mr. Hartnett is also interested in a feed business in this city, in this being in partnership with Mr. Shick, they being the leaders in their line. He is a stockholder in the First National Bank of Weatherford, and also owns considerable improved and . unimproved real estate in Weatherford and Parker county.
September 28, 1886, Mr. Hartnett mar- ried Eliza Neighbors, whose father, George Neighbors, was a mechanic of Osage Mis- sion, Kansas. They have three children : Eva May, Veronica Cornelius, and Frankie. Both he and his wife are devout Catholics.
F. WRIGHT, a merchant of Weatherford, was born in Jeffer- son county, Georgia, in December, 1848, a son of C. A. and Rachel (Low- rey) Wright. The father was born near Raleigh, North Carolina, and moved with his parents to Georgia at the age of ten
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years. His father, Ezekiel Wright, was born in Delaware, was a sailor in his younger days, later learned turning and chairmaking, and afterward became a farmer. Mr. and Mrs. C. A. Wright had seventeen children, nine of whom grew to years of maturity, and eight are still living, viz .: Elizabeth, widow of W. P. S. Pool, and a resident of Jefferson county, Georgia; James, of Wise county, Texas; W. A., a resident of Weath- erford; R. A., a resident of Parker county; L. F., the subject of this sketch; J. E .; C. R., also of Jefferson county; and Julia, wife of George Barrow, of that county.
L. F. Wright grew to manhood on his father's plantation. At the age of twenty years he left the parental roof and went to southwestern Georgia, residing there one year, and for the following four years was engaged in farming and carpentering at Colorado and Lavaca, Texas, having learn- ed the latter occupation at Dawson, Georgia. Mr. Wright has been a resident of Parker county since October, 1873, and for fourteen years was a prominent farmer six miles northeast of Weatherford, where he still owns a tract of land. From 1877 to 1880 he followed the same occupation in Palo Pinto county, and from that time until 1893 was engaged in the stock business in Weath- erford. He then embarked in the grocery trade, to which his time is now largely de- voted.
January 29, 1874, in this county, Mr. Wright was united in marriage with Mattie, a daughter of A. M. Green, a retired farmer
of Weatherford. He located in Fayette county, Texas, in 1849, but afterward re- moved to Lavaca. Mr. and Mrs. Wright have three children, -Willie, Ada, and Della. The family are members of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
B. ROGERS, Tax Assessor for Tarrant county, was born in Christian county, Kentucky, De- cember 20, 1846, and reared on one of the blue-grass farms of that historic old State, meanwhile gaining a fair knowledge of the king's English at the log cabin school-house, since passed into history as the primitive college of our republic. The Rogers fam- ily is of North Carolina stock. Robert Rogers, the grandfather of our subject, was . born in the old "Tar Heel" State. He married a Miss Baker, and had the follow- ing named children: John H., the father of W. B .; Elizabeth, who married S. W. Gray, and is deceased; Ann, who became the wife of W. D. Lander, and B. F. Robert Rogers moved into Kentucky at an early date, settling in Trigg county, where all his children were born and brought up. John H. was born there May 21, 1823, and married Elizabeth Hicks, whose father, Joseph Hicks, was once Sheriff of Robert- son county, Kentucky, was a merchant in early life, and later a farmer. The children of John H. Rogers were Lucy, Sallie, John H., Robert B., Josiah D., Mollie, and Willis. At the age of twenty-one, Mr. W. B.
Walter A. Huffman.
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Rogers rented a farm in his native county, and followed agricultural pursuits until March, 1875, when he came to Tarrant county, locating ten miles north of Fort Worth. He resided there, following his occupation for twelve years, before a diver- sion came to him in the way of a change of business. In 1879 he was appointed Dep- uty Tax Assessor by J. W. Robinson, de- ceased, and he succeeded to the same posi- tion by appointment from Captain E. Hard- ing. He is now the nominee of the Democracy of Tarrant county for the posi- tion of Assessor, defeating in the primaries two popular competitors.
In Christian county, Kentucky, Novem- ber 15, 1866, Mr. Rogers married Miss Fannie Johnson, daughter of Willis W. Johnson; the latter, a native Kentuckian, married Nancy Hardy, and had the follow- ing named children: G. C., a resident of Decatur, Illinois; J. W., of Kingman, Kan- sas; Fannie; Willis E., residing at Decatur, Illinois; Belle, wife of J. M. Massey, of Tarrant county; and .T. H. Johnson, of Taylorville, Illinois. For his second wife Mr. Johnson married a Miss Morris, and the children by this marriage are: Mattie, now the wife of Thomas Dunning; Pernecia, who married A. Renshaw; and Sallie, who became the wife of a Mr. Woolsey, -- all of the old Kentucky State. Mr. W. B. Rogers' children are: Walter E .; Dora, wife of W. K. Walker, a Tarrant county farmer; Laura, Alva, Mertie, and Essie. Mrs. Rogers died August 27, 1875.
Mr. Rogers is a Royal Arch Mason, and the family are Baptists in their religious predilections.
ALTER A. HUFFMAN, deceased. -Probably to no other one man does Fort Worth owe as much for her present position and standing among the leading cities of the South as she does to Walter A. Huffman, deceased. Mr. Huffman was born in Bourbon county, Kentucky, on October 16, 1845, and was the son of Mr. P. A. Huffman, one of Fort Worth's highly honored citizens of to-day. With his parents Mr. Huffinan came to Texas in 1857, while quite young, and with them lived in Collin county until 1860, and then with them came to Tarrant county. Subsequently he, together with the family, resided in Fort Worth and Galveston.
When eighteen years of age the young fellow decided to strike out for himself, and leaving his parents in Galveston he returned to Fort Worth. Here a friend of his father's, Mr. Samuel Evans, furnished him with means to establish himself in business, and he engaged in the dry-goods business, con- ducting it alone, making a success of it, and laying the foundation for his subsequent brilliant and successful career. In 1873, in partnership with M. G. Ellis, he established an agricultural implement warehouse in Fort Worth. This business soon grew to large proportions and became the leading one of its kind in the State, and, Mr. Ellis
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dropping out, Mr. Huffman became the sole owner, but later merged it into a stock company, known as the W. A. Huffman Implement Company.
His energies and capital were not con- fined to any one line of business, however, but were interested in the general develop- ment and building up of the city. As an evidence of the diversity of his wide inter- ests, it may be stated that on his death, which occurred in Chicago, on July 29, 1890, he was president of the North Side Street Railway Company, president of the Fort Worth City Company, president of the W. A. Huffman Implement Company, president of the Fort Worth Gazette Company, director of the Merchants' National Bank of Fort Worth, and director and stock- holder in flouring mill companies at Baird, Witt, Cleburne and Nacogdoches, Texas. He owned the entire frontage on Main street, between Fifth and Sixth streets and block after block on Main street between Sixth and and Twelfth streets, beside vari- ous other pieces of valuable real estate, im- proved and unimproved.
His life was a grand success, and his achievements so great as to be almost wonder- ful. His estate was vast, the official appraise- ment of its value at his death being $1,420, - 000, with an indebtedness of only $300,000, -and all this was accumulated by strict business methods inside of twenty years time.
The following tribute of the Fort Worth Gazette to the memory of Mr. Huffman tells of his worthi as a man and citizen, and
of the universal loss of such a man to the community for which he accomplished so much during his life:
Confronting, as does the Gazette at this moment, so great a calamity as is occasioned by the death of Mr. W. A. Huffman, it is hardly to be expected that thought can frame itself into words suited to an expres- sion of the feelings that crowd the heart. The loss of such a man is irreparable; others have passed away, and their places have been filled, but the place Walter Huffman occupied will be vacant, when, it may be, he is remembered no more. There has been no enterprise, business or social, to which he has not lent his influence and lib- erally forwarded by his means. Always in the vanguard of progress, Fort Worth to- day owes much of its advance to this master mind who, with a ken far exceeding that of common men, saw possibilities and pos- sessed the courage to reach out for them.
The loss of such a man is not circum- scribed by the circle of his friends and rela- tives. The effect reaches out in every direc- tion, and a check is felt wherever enterprise within the State has known his quickening touch. Fort Worth must grieve for him as for a man who ever carried nearest his heart her best and truest interest. No plan that looked to her advancement was ever presented to him in vain. His name was upon every list, and any one ap- proaching him for any purpose of de- velopment was sure of consideration, and if the plan accorded with his judgment, of active and valuable support. While a man of strong convictions, he did not incase himself in the armor of prejudice, but frank- ly met his fellow workers, and by gentleness and sound argument often overcame strong opposition. The voice of philanthropy within his hearing never sounded in vain; so ready to attend was he, that it seemed as if his ear was ever turned to catch the call, and his hand as ever ready to respond. Whatever presented itself, whether churches,
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schools or charitable institutions, all alike, received his lavish contributions. His private benevolences were not heralded, for Walter Huffman was not a man to proclaim, or to allow others to proclaim, the good his right hand had wrought. There are, however, for him in this city tablets in many heart- sanctuaries commemorative of kindnesses of which he took no note. Tears to-day will gather in eyes that some act of his in the past had caused to brighten, and sighs will be breathed for him whose gentle tones and generous deeds have helped to lift a burden from breasts now aching at the thought that he is with us no more.
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