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 49
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 49
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Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74
Mr. Bryce was born in Lanarkshire, Scotland, February 14, 1861, and removed with his father to Canada in 1868. In 1880 he left home and prospected over Minnesota, the Dakotas, Manitoba and Chicago, but found no point so much to his liking as Fort Worth, to which city he came in 1883. At Arlington he manufactures 25,000 brick daily, employing a force of twenty men. He owns a fine residence on Arlington Heights; is vice-president of Drum Seed and Flower Company, a corporation with a 9
capital stock of $50,000; is a stockholder and director in the Workmen's Building and Loan Association, and owns much im- proved city property, -all of which indicate a good degree of thrift, considering that eleven years ago he came to Fort Worth with only willing hands and an honest pur- pose.
March 14, - 1887, is the date of his mar- riage to Miss Catherine Roberts, a young lady whom he met in Manitoba years be- fore. They have had but one child, John William, who is deceased.
Mr. Bryce is a member of the order of the Knights of Pythias, and is an intelli- gent, upright and enterprising citizen.
J OHN W. WRAY, one of the most prominent and successful members of the bar of Fort Worth, and one of the most brilliant commercial and corpora- tion attorneys of Texas, was born in Janu- ary, 1854, at Beaver Court House, Pennsyl- vania. His grandfather, Joseph Wray, was a native of Belfast, Ireland, born in 1756, and emigrated to the United States in 1786, settling in the Keystone State, where he fol- lowed farming, and where he married Eliza- beth Corley. He was the father of two sons, Reuel, who died in 1869, and Joseph, Jr., father of our subject. Joseph Wray, Jr., was born in Beaver county, Pennsyl- vania, in 1825, and received a classical edu- cation at Beaver, Pennsylvania, where he was a fellow student of Judge Agnew, of the
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Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and where he was graduated in 1849. He enlisted in the civil war, joining the Tenth Regiment of Pennsylvania Reserve, and with the Army of the Potomac, participated in the battles of Antietam, Gettysburg, and other important engagements. He removed to Moberly, Missouri, in 1866, where he engaged in farming, a vocation he had followed in Pennsylvania from the time of his gradua- tion at college until the breaking out of the war. He was married in Pennsylvania to Miss C. W. Rae, the daughter of John Rae, a well-to-do farmer and trader of Pennsyl- vania. The following children were born to this union: John W .; Wilhelmine, de- ceased, who married William Ross; Reuel, a locomotive engineer on the Wabash Rail- way; Rosy, wife of John Hennings, of St. Joseph, Missouri; Julia, wife of A. L. Wood- son, foreman of the shops of the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf Railroad Company at Springfield, Missouri; Joseph, who grad- uated at Tulane University, at New Or- leans, Louisiana, and is now a practicing physician at Dallas, Texas; and George, a promising young attorney of Fort Worth ..
John W. Wray obtained his literary edu- cation at Wabash College, situated at Craw- fordsville, Indiana; which is the great West- ern denominational school of the Presbyter- ian Church, and ranks as one of the leading educational institutions in the West. In recognition of his high scholarship young Wray was made historian of his class. He subsequently attended lectures in the law
departments of the Ohio and Iowa State Universities, and also read law under the Hon. G. F. Rothwell, member of Congress from Missouri, and was admitted to the bar before Judge Burkhart in Randall county, Missouri.
In 1881 Mr. Wray came to Texas, locat- ing in Fort Worth, and began the practice of law, and the following year formed a partnership with F. B. Stanley. This part- nership continued until 1887, when on ac- count of ill health Mr. Wray was compelled to withdraw from the firm and retire from active practice for a time. Following this he spent two years in continuous travel in all parts of the country, and was greatly bene- fited in health and experience thereby. In 1891 he resumed his practice in Fort Worth, in which he has since been wholly engaged.
Upon his coming to Fort Worth Mr. Wray took rank with the leading attorneys of the city, a position he has ever main- tained and ever advanced. His practice has constantly increased from year to year, the volume of business coming to him tax- ing his capacity and health to their utmost, all of which he disposes of by constant ap- plication and unremitting toil. His practice has been confined exclusively to commercial and corporation law, and in this line he has enjoyed great success and built up a reputa- tion second to none in the State. He is a close student of his profession, and is the owner of one of the largest and finest libraries in the State, which comprises over 2,000 volumes, carefully selected, among
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which are reports from twenty-three dif- ferent States. Since coming to Fort Worth Mr. Wray has been closely identi- fied with the growth and development of the city and her industries. Broad and liberal in his views, progressive and enter- prising, he has now a place as a citizen equal to that of an attorney.
In politics Mr. Wray is a Republican, but only once in his life has he consented to make a political speech, notwithstanding which he takes an active interest in politi- cal affairs.
Mr. Wray was married at Fort Griffin, Texas, in 1878, to Miss Lettie J. Baird, daughter of Dr. W. T. Baird, Post Surgeon at that fort.
6 C. TARKINGTON, Ex-County Treasurer of Parker county, was born in Hickman county, Tennes- see, July 31, 1835, a son of Burwill W. Tarkington, who died at Mount Pleasant, Titus county, Texas, April 3, 1888, aged eighty years. He married Maria W. Char- ter. The following was said of her at her death:
" Mrs. Maria W. Tarkington, after an illness of three weeks, died with pneumonia, at her son's home in this city, at seven o'clock P. M., January 20, 1894. Mrs. Tarkington was not a member of any par- ticular church, but inclined strongly to the Cumberland Presbyterian denomination. She lived in the belief of Jesus and of the
resurrection, and said just before her de- parture that all trouble was over, and that she expected to meet in the happy land loved ones who had gone before.
" Mrs. Tarkington was born in David- son county, Tennessee, near Nashville, June 16, 1810, and at the time of her death was in her eighty-fourth year. Her father, Major Thomas Charter, a native of Vir- ginia, served in the Continental army during the Revolution of 1776; took part among others in the battles of Trenton and Cow- pens, and was at the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. She was united in marriage with . B. W. Tarkington at Franklin, Ten- nesee, February 3, 1834, and they moved to Texas with their family in 1846, settling where now stands the little city of Pittsburg, Camp (formerly Upshur) county. They had ten children, of whom eight reached years of maturity, and five survive, namely: Mrs. Mary A. Crawford, of Christian, Texas; Mrs. Virginia Butler, of Forney, this State; Mrs. Nannie Bailey, of Quanah; T. J. Tarking- ton, of Springtown; and B. C., Treasurer of Parker county.
'"Mr. Tarkington died April 5, 1887, in his eighty-first year, at Mount Pleasant, Titus county, while on a visit to his widowed son-in-law, T. A. Jackson. After his de- cease, Mrs. Tarkington gave up housekeep- ing, and lived first with one of her children and then another. In early days her home was a place of rest for the weary traveler . and emigrant seeking a home in the then wilderness of Texas. She lived to see the
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coming of railroads, the remote places of the State populated, and cities rise where not even villages had stood before. Her life was filled with good deeds. The un- fortunate never appealed to her in vain. Her sympathetic nature was quick to re- spond to their sorrows and her hand to per- form for them acts of charity and mercy. That the munificence of God to all should teach us to be kind to one another she firmly believed and devoutly practiced. Her days were as a gentle benediction to those that were about her, and her memory sits en- shrined in many loving hearts where it will be cherished as long as the spark of earthly life endures, and then burn with brighter lus- ter in the grander and freer life that lies beyond the grave."
B. C. Tarkington, the subject of this sketch, came with his parents to Texas in 1846, settling near Pittsburg, Upshur coun- ty. In 1865 he came to Parker county and engaged in cattle trading; in the following year was employed as clerk for Bell & Mil- ler, of Weatherford; subsequently secured employment with J. L. Oldham & Company; in 1866 he retired from that occupation and opened a general mercantile establishment at Veal Station, Parker county, which he continued fourteen years; from 1882 to 1888 was engaged in agricultural pursuits, and in the latter year was elected County Treasur- er.
Mr. Tarkington is a stanch Democrat, and has been honored by his party with two re-elections, in 1890 and 1892, an evidence of public appreciation and efficient service.
In April, 1861, in Upshur county, Mr. Tarkington enlisted for service in the late war, entering Company H, Third Regiment of Texas Cavalry, General Ross' Brigade. After the battle of Oak Hill, in Missouri, he was transferred to the Eastern Department, and began his long series of battles and hard service at Corinth. He participated in the Vicksburg and Atlanta campaigns, returned to Nashville with General Hood, and then to Canton, where Captain Russell's Com- pany was paroled, with B. C. Tarkington as First Sergeant.
December 24, 1869, in Parker county, our subject was united in marriage with Sarah J., a daughter of S. Crawford, a resi- dent of Christian, Palo Pinto county, but formerly from Kentucky. The children born to this union are: S. B. engaged in business in Northwestern Texas; Flora, wife of F. L. Hutchinson, of Weatherford; Thomas, Ern- estine and Owen C. Mr. Tarkington affili- ates with the Odd Fellows' order, and is a member of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church.
R OBERT E. MADDOX, capitalist, land and live-stock dealer at Fort Worth, was born at Bienville parish, Louisiana, January 18, 1849, was reared there, on his father's plantation, and on his coming to Texas, in March, 1870, he found an advantageous location on the ranch of a Mr. McConnell at Bolivar, Den- ton county, where he arranged to invest his
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surplus of $500 in cotton and look after his cattle at the same time, for the privilege of being housed and fed. In three years he sold out his growing herd for $5,000, went to Denison and engaged in shipping fat cat- tle to market. The panic of 1873 laid him low, however, and the spring of 1874 found him in Fort Worth penniless, having to bor- row $5 to pay his stage fare from Denison! Here he hired himself to J. W. Armstrong to clerk in his grocery, for $25 a month and board, and was thus employed for six months, during the last month of which time he obtained $100, and then he was too independent to remain any longer. With the $400 he had accumulated he began trad- ing in anything and everything, including the purchase of notes for collection; and every- thing to which he turned his hand yielded him a good profit, and he found his bank account growing rapidly.
In 1876 he was elected City Tax Asses- sor and Collector, and the small proceeds of the office aided him very materially in the days of his financial straits. While he did the office work, however, he continued to do considerable trading for the first few years; but the growth of Fort Worth increased the business of the office to such a degree, both in extent and importance, that at length it required all his time during the latter por- tion of his nine-years' term. Investing his ready cash in vacant city property in the '70s, he held it until an opportunity came to sell it at a great advance. Lands which he purchased at $6 or $7 an acre he sold at
$150 per acre. His money was reinvested in desirable inside lots, many of which he improved, and are now yielding a good re- turn. He also owns the Richelieu Hotel building, occupied by George E. Bright, on Main street, and five other impor- tant business lots on the same street, be- tween Fifteenth and Sixteenth streets; and six lots as follows : 50 x 100, corner of Main and Fifteenth streets; 50 x 100, cor- ner of Rusk and Fifteenth; 100 X 100, corner of Fifteenth and Colham; and one 50x 100 at the intersection of Jones and Fifteenth streets. Also he owns the trian- gular building on Front street; the old Com- press block on Front street, and residence lots too numerous to mention. He owns and has improved the Madoxia Park farm of 900 acres, where he breeds his fine horses, which he sells when colts, at $200 to $500 in the Fort Worth market. In 1890 he built the best horse barn west of the Mississippi river, costing $23,500. Water is supplied to this establishment directly from the Trinity river and Sycamore creek. He has also put in a system of water works supplied by artesian wells with a good pressure. His live stock consists of 100 head of fine-bred running, trotting and sad- dle horses, Jersey cattle and Poland-China hogs. His horse, Bret Harte, he sold in 1892 for $2, 500 cash. He is a fine racer, with a good record.
Mr. Maddox assisted in erecting the first electric-light and ice plant in Fort Worth, and he owns the Lampasas street railway,
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and city property in Rockport, this State. Mr. Maddox is a gentleman highly regarded by his business associates, and he has been a prominent factor in the advancement of Fort Worth.
October 2, 1882, in Fort Worth, he married Miss Anna Higbee, daughter of the late C. H. Higbee. She died in 1883.
ON. S. W. T. LANHAM, who has been a resident citizen of Weath- erford for the past twenty-five years, was born in Spartanburg district (now county) July 4, 1846. He is an ex-Con- federate soldier, having entered the army when a boy as a private; served principally in Longstreet's corps, and, at the surrender at Greensboro, North Carolina, was Second Sergeant of his company, Third South Caro- lina Regiment. He was married in Union county, that State, September 4, 1866, and in the following month left his native State with a few other emigrants and came to Texas, making the entire trip in a two-horse wagon, reaching Red River county in De- cember, 1866. Mr. Lanham taught a country school near Clarksville. From there he moved to Bowie county and taught school at old Boston, then the county seat of Bowie. In 1868 he came to Weatherford, where he also taught school, studying law at the same time, and was admitted to the bar in this city in 1869. During his professional career he served as District Attorney for some years. As a lawyer he has been in
partnership with A. J. Hood, A. T. Watts, I. N. Roach, Albert Stevenson, I. W. Stephens and H. L. Mosely. He was also associated with J. N. English, of Cleburne, in the practice of law in. Johnson county at one time. He was chosen Elector on the Hancock-English ticket for the old Third Congressional district.
In November, 1882, Mr. Lanham was elected to Congress from the Eleventh ("Jumbo") district of Texas, serving ten years, and voluntarily retired at the close of his last term, March 4, 1893. His majority at his last election was nearly 38,000 votes. While in Congress much of Mr. Lanham's attention and public service were necessarily devoted to local and State measures, of which there were many, owing to the large territorial extent of his district (ninety-eight counties). The cattle industry was large and important, and he sought to conserve the interest of his constituents engaged therein by preventing unfriendly discrimina- tion and hostile quarantine regulations. His first speech in Congress was on this subject. The claims of Texas citizens on account of Indian depredations received his, earnest consideration. Having lived on the frontier, he was personally cognizant of the nature of very many of these claims, and labored faithfully to secure a recognition of their merits and to obtain their adjudication and final payment. He made several speeches in behalf of these claimants in the House of Representatives, and was closely identified with the legislation enacted in this measure.
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Important boundary questions claimed much of his time, as Greer county, the line be- tween Texas and New Mexico, and the inter- national boundary trouble between the United States and Mexico, arising from changes in the channel of the Rio Grande. Owing to the fact that several hundred miles of his district bordered on that river, there were many international complications and commercial controversies which de- manded his efforts, such as the Free Zone controversy, irrigation on the Rio Grande, the importation of silver-lead ores, the rights of American citizens in Mexico, etc., which received his careful attention, and his efforts in these respects are to be found in diplomatic correspondence, reports from committees, resolutions, speeches in the House, etc. Mr. Lanham secured the loca- tion of the Federal Court at El Paso, and also the erection of a public building for a courthouse, customhouse and postoffice, and the establishment of a large military post at the same place. He did much departmental work in the promotion of mail facilities and affording postal service for his constituents.
Notwithstanding these and other local measures which came within the sphere of his Representative engagements, Mr. Lan- ham carefully studied and participated in the discussion of great public questions. He made several speeches on the tariff and silver questions, and secured the passage of the law for the retirement and recoinage of the trade dollar. His record on these and other important subjects, as well as his
faithful attendance upon the sessions of the House and the discharge of his official du- ties, is well known by those who have watched his course in Congress. He served on the Committees on Territories, Coinage, Weights and Measures, Claims (of which he was Chairman), Revision of the Laws, Mili- tary Affairs, Pacific Railroads, and Irrigation of Arid Lands in the United States, of which last he was also Chairman, and from which he made an elaborate report in favor of the cession of arid lands to the States in which they are situated.
Colonel Lanham's first vote was cast in Parker county. He has always been a working Democrat, and a champion of the rights and liberties of the people. He has discharged with ability every duty with which he has been entrusted. Between himself and his former constituents there subsist ties that were forged in early life and that have been tested and grown stronger with the flight of years. He en- joys, as well, the respect and confidence of all Texas.
a W. McGEHEE .- This family is an historical one. Their ancestry is distinctly Southern, and extends through a long line of prominent planters and business men, having their origin most probably in Virginia, where one of three McGehees effected a settlement over 200 years ago. One of the descendants, and the most remote ancestor of whom data can
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be obtained, is George McGehee, a promi- nent land and slave owner of Madison coun- ty, Alabama, having located there in 1779. He was a Captain in the Seminole war, and most probably took part in the battle of Horseshoe Bend. He married Mary Gil- more. In his old age he came to Bastrop county, Texas, and there died about 1844. Mr. and Mrs. McGehee had the following children : John and Thomas G., deceased in Bastrop county; Sarah, who married Par- son Whipple, a pioneer Texas Methodist minister, and her death occurred at Bastrop in May, 1854; Jane, wife of Rev. Driskill; and Mildred, now Mrs. Acklin, and a resi- dent of Travis county, Texas. Judge Ed- ward McGehee, a brother of George, locat- ed at Woodville, Mississippi, and built the Woodville & Bayou Sara Railroad, and was a banker and large planter and cotton manu- facturer. . He was an intimate friend of General Zachary Taylor, and was offered a place in his cabinet on his election to the presidency.
Thomas G. McGehee, the father of our subject, was born on the Alabama planta- tion in 1808. Ile emigrated to Washing- ton county, Texas, in 1833, and ten years afterward removed to Rutersville, to be near a small academy where he might edu- cate his children. Soon afterward, how- ever, he moved to Hayes county, where he was the first white settler, and located two leagues of land, on one of which the pretty city of San Marcos is situated. During the first year of his sojourn in that county he
made a crop in Travis, the nearest point where cultivated land could be obtained. Mr. McGehee was a typical frontiersman, sharing all the hardships of Indian warfare with his widely scattered neighbors. He took part in the battle of Pluin and Brushy creeks, etc. He commanded a company in the war for Texas independence, was in view of San Antonio when the Alamo fell, was ordered by Sam Houston to notify the neighboring companies of the disaster, and took part in the final battle of San Jacinto. Mr. McGehee resided in San Marcos until 1876, when he married his second wife, a Paris lady, and spent the remaining years of his life between the cities of Paris and San Marcos, dying in 1889. His first wife, née Melissa Hunt, was born in Talladego coun- ty, Alabama, and a daughter of John Hunt, in honor of whom Huntsville, Alabama, was named. Mr. Hunt died in that State, and his widow, née Campbell, moved to Texas, and died at LaGrange. They had three sons, -William, J. D. and Alexander, all of Bastrop county. Thomas G. McGehee had the following children : Ann, who married Milton Watkins, and both died in Llano, Texas; George T., a farmer of Hayes coun- ty, who was a member of the lower house of the Texas Legislature ten years; John T., Postmaster of San Marcos; C. W., the sub- ject of this sketch; Sarah, wife of Tom Hill, a banker of Weimar, Texas; William, de- ceased, was a physician of Hayes county; Alexander, a stockman of that county; Palmira, who married Dr. Oliver, of Bastrop
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county; Edward, a resident of Colorado county, Texas, Three of the sons, George, John and C. W., were soldiers in the Con- federate army.
In addition to attending the country schools, C. W. McGehee, the subject of this sketch, spent one session in the Seguin Col- lege. In 1860, at the age of nineteen years, he joined Company D, Captain Ferrell's, Eighth Texas Cavalry, Terry Rangers, which was organized at Bowling Green, Kentucky, and become a part of Joe Johnston's Army. Their first battle was with General Buell, and also took part in the battles of Shiloh and Corinth. Mr. McGehee then exchanged places with his brother George, and joined the trans-Mississippi Department in time to begin the Mansfield and Pleasant Hill cam- paign, which lasted forty-two days, contin- uous fighting. The regiment was then stationed at Simsport, Louisiana, watching Banks, and in the fall our subject engaged in running cattle across the Mississippi country to the Eastern army. In December the regiment fell back to San Augustine, Texas, and was at Houston at the close of the struggle.
After returning home, Mr. McGehee went to San Augustine, where he had met Miss Bettie Dixon while encamped there in 1864-5, and September 25, of the latter year, she became Mrs. C. W. McGehee. She was a daughter of Frank Dixon, who had served as Clerk of his county for twen- ty-two years, and was also a member of the Congress of the Texas republic. He was
born in Georgia, and died in Montague county, Texas, in 1879, aged sixty-eight years. On returning to San Marcos, Mr. McGehee took charge of his father's planta- tion. In the spring of 1866 he engaged in trading in horses and mules, and in one transaction, when he shipped a cargo of 200 mules to Cuba, on the city of Mexico, he realized a profit of $7,000. He drove cat- tle to Kansas in the seventies, when Texas cattle were shipped from Kansas points. In August, 1877, Mr. McGehee came to Weath- erford, where he bought property, and also has stock in three banks at Tyler. In po- litical matters he votes with the Democratic party, and was an active campaign worker against the State Prohibition amendment in 1886. In his social relations he affiliates with the Masonic order, and the Knights of Pythias, having been the first representative of his lodge to the Grand Lodge of Texas. He is a member of the Episcopal Church.
Mr. and Mrs. McGehee had three chil- dren,-Minnie, deceased in September, 1886, at the age of seventeen years; Ada, who died in 1875, aged nine months; and Jessie, born in October, 1875, graduated at the St. Mary's Institute, Dallas, in 1894. Mrs. McGehee departed this life May 4, 1889.
STEINFELDT, the gentlemanly agent of the Anheuser-Busch Brew- ing Company, of St. Louis, Mis- souri, for Fort Worth, was born at Bremen,
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