USA > Texas > Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I > Part 61
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
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
Gen. M. W. Gary, of South Carolina, in 1864. assumed command of the cavalry in the Penin- sula, and attached Lieut. Hume to his staff. Shortly after this a battle was fought at Riddle's Shop, on the Charles City Road, in which Gen. Gary engaged troops under Gen. Hancock, the latter having been sent to threaten Richmond to cover Grant's crossing to the south side of the James. In this action Lieut. Hume had the honor of being assigned on the field to the com- mand of the Seventh South Carolina Regiment of Cavalry. The last considerable battle in which he took part was the engagement of Tilghman's Farm,
1
328
INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
on James river, the Confederate commander being Gen. Gary. Herc he received his third and last wound, having been shot through the body. The Richmond papers published his name in the dead list of that aetion. When sufficiently recovered to travel he went to Texas on a furlough, reaching there in October, 1864. Recovering his health he was requested by Gen. J. G. Walker to inspect troops and departments about Tyler, which he did. Soon afterwards he accepted an invitation from Gen. A. P. Bagbey to serve on his staff in Louisiana, and remained with that officer as Assistant Adjutant- General with the rank of Major.
When the great Civil War ended, Maj. Hume began to prepare in earnest for the important battle of civil life. He completed his preparations for the bar, and was admitted to practice by the Dis- trict Court of Walker County, at Huntsville, in 1865, and followed his calling there for about one year. From Huntsville he went to Galveston, and rapidly took rank as an able lawyer. His patient industry, fidelity and attainments soon gave him prominence at a bar that has no superior in the State of Texas. He was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court in 1866, and in 1877 was enrolled as an attorney of the Supreme Court of the United States at Washington.
Then only twenty-three, in 1866, he was elected
to represent Walker County in the Eleventh Texas Legislature, and served one term. He was City Attorney for Galveston for the municipal year of 1877.
Maj. Hume was educated at Austin College, Texas, and subsequently spent a year at the Uni- versity of Virginia. He has always been a Demo- crat in his political views, but has not aspired to position in the world of politics, his ambition being wholly professional. To his business he has devoted himself patiently and faithfully. He has no rule but to do his duty with unfaltering fidelity. Court- eous, affable and honorable, he is held in the highest estcem by his professional brethren, who are best able to judge his merits. Whatever he does he delights in doing well ; prepares his cases with great care and study, and is never taken by surprise. He looks at both sides with a true judi- cial judgment, and hence is very successful in the prosecution of his profession. He never descends to the arts of the pettifogger or charlatan, but aspires to the highest professional standard.
He would anywhere be recognized as a man of talent. As a speaker he is argumentative and logical, sometimes rhetorical and eloquent. His great reliance is on the merits of his case, and he appeals rather to the judgment of men than to their sympathies and passions.
H. K. JONES,
DILWORTH, CONZALES COUNTY.
Mr. H. K. Jones, one of the wealthiest and most influential citizens of Gonzales County, Texas, was born in Decatur, Lawrence County, Alabama, in 1840 ; came to Texas in 1855 with his parents, Mr. Tignal Jones and Mrs. Susan Jones (nee Miss Susan King) who located at San Antonio ; was sent to the University at Oxford, Mississippi, and was a student in that institution of learning when war was declared between the States; returned to his home at San Antonio at the beginningof hostilities and enlisted as a private in Company K., Twenty-fourth Texas dismounted cavalry, commanded by Col. F. C. Wilkes ; was afterward elected Lieutenant of his company ; in December, 1862, was captured, with the entire brigade, at Arkansas Post, upon the fall of that fort, and taken first to Camp Chase, near Columbus, Ohio, and four months later to Fort
Delaware near Philadelphia, where he remained until exchanged in April, 1863; then made his way to the army at Tullahoma, Tenn., where his old regiments were reorganized, with Dishler as com- mander of brigade and Pat Cleburne as commander of division ; was appointed Adjutant, and a month! later Quartermaster of his regiment ; although, as Quartermaster not expected to take part in engage- ments, volunteered in several battles, and was severely wounded at New Hope Church ; May 27th. 1861, was again captured, and in October following cxchanged ; remained in the Confederate hospital at Fort Valley, Ga., for a month, and then joined Gen. Hood's army at Decatur, and served under that commander in the famous Tennessee campaign. participating as a volunteer, among others, in the battles of Spring Hill, Franklin and Nashville. On
329
INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
Hlood's retreat Mr. Jones marched bare-footed out of Tennessee. His feet were so badly wounded by the rough stones of the turnpike along which the soldiers trudged that he was compelled to go to the hospital, where he remained for two weeks, after which he returned to the army on its way to North Corolina, and was made Adjutant-general of Gran- bury's old brigade, commanded at the time by Col. Cole, of Memphis, Tenn. His command was ordered into the battle of Bentonville, N. C., but the Federals broke line and retreated, leaving their dead and wounded on the field, as this part of the Confederate force came in sight, and the brigade was consequently not engaged. Shortly after the surrender of Johnston's army near Jonesboro, Granbury's Texas brigade, which enlisted 6,000 strong at the beginning of the war, surrendered one hundred and thirty-seven guns to Gen. Sher- man. Thousands had gone in those days after days of battle, shoek and dreadful carnage, to sol- diers' graves. They rest now in peace in Fame's great Valhalla. Their memories are enshrined in loving comrades' hearts. For them
" The muffled drum's sad roll has beat The soldier's last tattoo, No more on life's parade shall meet That brave but fallen few. On Fame's eternal camping ground Their silent tents are spread, And Glory guards with solemn round The bivouac of the dead.
The Macedonian Phalanx under Alexander, the Tenth Legion under Cæsar and the Old Guard under the first Napoleon did not display.a fortitude and valor superior to that of this heroie brigade.
Its history was singularly brilliant. After Gran- bury and Cleburne fell to rise no more upon the hard contested and blood stained field of Franklin it maintained the reputation that it had earned under those leaders undimmed until the Confederate colors were furled under the shade of the tall pines of North Carolina, never again to be shaken out to the breeze and lead brave hearts on to vietory or death. When the last sad act in the drama of war had been played the battle-scarred survivors of the brigade separated sadly for their homes, many of them to meet no more. As a soldier Mr. Jones sought, like he has in all the other walks of life, to do his full duty, and as a consequence was respected and beloved by his comrades in arms.
Ile says the negro question was undoubtedly the main issue in the war, that he always regarded slavery as a moral wrong and that the Southern people are well rid of the institution, but that it is
deeply to be deplored that it could not have been abolished without resort to war.
" I have seen more dead men " said he, "on one battle field than all the negroes in the country were worth."
How short-sighted is human wisdom. The phi- losopher Loeke and other philanthropic men of his time conceived the idea of sending agents to Africa to negotiate with various tribes and buy a number of prisoners captured in the fierce tribal wars of extermination then prevailing and carry them to the plantations in North America. The humane design of these great men was in the first instance to save the lives of the unhappy wretches, in the next to transport them to new scenes, where they could learn the peaceful art of agriculture and become civilized, and finally after these ends had been accomplished to send them back to Africa to civilize and Christianize that continent. What appears at the time to be the height of human wisdom is in reality the height of human folly, and what appears to be wholly right not infrequently has at its heart the seeds of radical wrong. What a dismal end awaited the schemes of those philosophers! The slave, trade, with its unspeakable atrocities, soon grew to frightful proportions under the impetus of New England cupidity. Its foul annals are familiar to the students of history.
Under the Constitution it was abolished shortly after the formation of the American Union. The Constitution recognized, however. the slaves already in the country as property, and provided for the recovery of fugitives fleeing from one State to another. The anti-slavery party precipitated the war. Through its influence every acquisition of territory was opposed, citizens of the Southern States murdered when they attempted to remove with their property to territories purchased by the common blood and treasure of the country, the express provision of the Constitution providing for the surrender of fugitive slaves to their masters upon demand; nullified by express statutory enact- ments in many Northern States, or trampled under foot by armed mobs, and all manner of bitterness stirred up until the hearty hate of one seetion for the other culminated in one attempting to peace- fully sever its connection from the other and live apart, and a war that has no parallel in ancient or modern times. It was a direful day when the first slave was brought ashore upon American soil. The evils that have followed have been innumerable. How different would have been the history of the country if such an event had never taken place!
The fearful storm of war that swept over this devoted land from 1861 to 1865 shook the very
--
330
INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
foundations of popular government, and they have never since become firmly settled. The Consti- tution was warped and twisted until it bears little semblance to what it was, and constructions have been made and precedents laid that are full of danger- not immediate, but real for all that, as under these constructions and precedents a bitter partisan executive and Congress could do anything necessary to accomplish their ends, however nefar- ious.
There are graves from the Potomae to the Rio Grande, and from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans filled with the country's brightest and bravest and best. Mr. Jones truly says all the negroes owned by the Southern people were not worth such a fear- ful priee. In justiee to that people, however, it is necessary to repeat the statement (and it can be made truly ) that they are not to be held responsible for the war. It was thrust upon them. Such will be the verdiet of impartial history in after times.
Mr. Jones returned to Texas by way of New Orleans, on the first steamer run after the war. E. J. Davis, afterwards Republican Governor of Texas, was a passenger on the boat. Mr. Jones landed at Galveston in May, 1865, and found that
nearly all of his father's possessions had been swept away by the war. He repaired to Vietoria, clerked for a short time in a mereantile establish- ment at that place, and then engaged in merehan- dizing at Gonzales, in copartnership with his father, but the venture proving unsuccessful, soon embarked in other pursuits.
October 29th, 1867, he was united in marriage to Miss Mary F. Braches, daughter of Charles and Sarah A. Braches, of Peach Creek, Gonzales County, a lady of mueb refinement and worth, and settled in the eastern part of the county, near Peach Creek, at what is now Dilworth Station.
Mrs. Jones is one of the most accomplished and queenly of our noble Texas ladies, and her palatial home is the seat of that eleganee, refinement and hospitality that distinguished the South under the old regime.
Mr. and Mrs. Jones have one child, Anna, wife of Mr. James B: Kennard, of Gonzales, Texas.
Mr. Jones is a business man of rare diseern- ment and ability, and has met with a large measure of success in liis finaneial operations. He is a member of the Democratic party and of the Royal Areh degree in Masonry.
WILLIAM CLEMENS,
NEW BRAUNFELS.
Hon. William Clemens, son of Wilhelm and Wilbemine Clemens, of German ancestry, was born in Germany on the 8th day of October, 1843. His father followed the honorable occupation of ear- penter in Germany. His parents emigrated to Texas in 1849, bringing him with them, and settled in New Braunfels, Comal County. . At the age of twelve years he suffered an irreparable loss in the death of his mother, whom he dearly loved. Ile passed through youth and into manhood without her gentle eare, but her sainted memory and the lessons learned at her knee remained with and cheered him in moments of sadness and trial and urged him on to be a winner in the battle of life. He was apprentieed to Hon. John A. Staehely, who now lives at Darinstadt, Germany. Mr. Stachely was then doing the largest and mnost luera- tive business at New Braunfels and to his strictly honest and methodical business ways and fatherly advice, Mr. Clemens ascribes a great deal of his
success in life, and has always entertained for him sentiments of respect and warmest friendship. Mr. Clemens entered the Confederate army at eighteen years of age, enlisting in 1862, and participated in the sharp engagement at Jenkins Ferry in Arkansas. He was Orderly Sergeant of Capt. Bose's company of volunteers, of which office he is exceedingly proud. He was afterwards elected Lieutenant. After the war he engaged in merchandising, in which he was quite successful, and then went into the banking business. After having served four years as Alderman of the city of New Braunfels and eight years as trustee and treasurer of the New Braunfels Academy, he was elected to the House of Representatives of the Texas Legislature, in 1879, from the Eighty-ninth Distriet, composed of Bexar and Comal counties, and also served in the house of the Twenty-first Legislature, representing Comnal, Blanco and Gillespie counties, each time being elected without opposition at the polls. In 1890 he
-
JOHN MAXWELL JONES.
1
331
INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
was elected to the State Senate, from the Twenty- fifth District, composed of Caldwell, Hays, Guada- lupe, Comal, Blanco, Llano and Kendall counties. In 1879 he was the author of the bill to improve the public free school system then in vogue in towns and cities and, also, of an amendment to the penal code punishing severely misapplication of public money (both of which became laws) and assisted very materially in the passage of the bill to regulate continuances in criminal cases and place discretion in the hands of the trial judge. In the Twenty-first Legislature he was one of the sub-com- mittee that perfected the House Railroad Bill that was passed by that body but killed in the Senate, and offered a bill regulating teachers' certificates according to the law of the State of New York. He was one of the pioneers in the advocacy of the railroad commission idea, which has since been car- ried into effect. He favors a commission, hoping that it will lead to the State owning and operating its own railroads. A proposition looking to that end was defeated in the Committee on Platform at the Democratic State Convention held in 1890 by a vote of eighteen to twelve only. In the Senate, during the session the Twenty-second Legislature, be introduced a bill providing for the Australian ballot system, making it operative over the entire State and a bill prohibiting the acceptance of free rail- road passes by legislative, judicial and executive officers, both of which were passed by the Senate, and, further introduced a bill designed for the suppression of homicide by striking the degree of manslaughter from the penal-code. He was Chair- man of the Committee on Finance and Chairman of the Committee on Contingent Expenses, and was considered one of the ablest members of the
Senate. Mr. Clemens withdrew from active politi- cal life several years ago, but his well-known phi- lanthropie views led Gov. C. A. Culberson to offer him an appointment as one of the Board of Com- missioners of the Texas State Penitentiaries, which he accepted. Mr. Clemens was shortly thereafter elected to and now holds the position of Chairman of that body. He has been foremost in every good work. Four years ago a hospital society was organized at New Braunfels and later, as a result of its efforts, a fine hospital building erected in that city. Mr. Clemens was elected President of the association and has continuously served as such from its inception. Charity patients are admitted to the walls of the institution and given that care and medical attention in keeping with an enlightened Christian civilization. The society's work also includes other charitable and benevo- lent purposes. Mr. Clemens' mind is broad enough and heart warm enough for him to dis- regard all distinctions of creed, race and social condition when a case of suffering presents itself. For him to know that it exists is sufficient and he seeks to relieve it. He is a genuine lover of his kind, a public-spirited citizen, a kind father, a sincere friend and a true patriot. He has always aided every public enterprise in his section and is one of the men who built the famous dam across the Comal river at New Braunfels. The dam fur- nishes a fine water-power and it will be, in the near future, the means through which many a good and honest laborer will be enabled to earn a livelihood. Mr. Clemens was married at New Braunfels in 1873, to Miss K. von Koll, daughter of Mr. John von Koll, the Auditor and confidential agent of the German Emigration Society, in 1845.
JOHN MAXWELL JONES,
GALVESTON.
In December, 1836, the Congress of Texas, at its first session at Columbia, in consideration of $50,000, granted to Michael B. Menard a league of land on the eastern end of Galveston Island, then unoccupied by a single human habitation. Upon this tract of land, the following year, Col. Menard laid out the city of Galveston. In April, 1x38, the first lots were sold and in August, 1839, the place was incorporated. Beginning with 1837, for several succeeding years Galveston became the
objective point of most of the settlers coming to the country, and there also many of the enter- prising spirits who sought homes and fortune in the new Republic cast their lots. One of the men who thus early became identified with the Island City upon the history of which he left in full measure the imprint of his talents and character was John Maxwell Jones, a brief memoir of whom here follows.
Mr. Jones came of good antecedents. On his
-
332
INDIAN WIRS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
father's side his ancestry is traccd to Ireland, pos- sibly more remotely to Wales. His mother's peo- ple were Scotch. Theophilus Jones, bis paternal grandfather, was born in Dublin, Ireland, some- where near the middle of the last century ; emi- grated thence with his wife and an infant son to America in 1774, stopping for a time at Charleston, S. C. There his wife died, after which event he went to Wilmington, Del., where, on May 4th, 1775, he married Miss Mary Eceles, daughter of John and Mary Eccles, and settled himself at his trade as a eabinetmaker. He was a skillfnl workman and in time became a man of some means; afterwards abandoned cabinet- making and engaged in trade with the West Indies which he followed with profit until his death on the island of St. Kitts, West Indies. about the begin- ning of the present century. In addition to the son by the first marriage referred to, he left sur- viving him thirec sons and two danghters by his second marriage, namely, Mary MeCorkle, John, Theophilus, Isabella Anderson, and George. The youngest of tlicse. George Jones. was the father of John M., of this article. George Jones was born in Wilmington, Del., Mareh 1, 1784. He married Jane Ochiltree, of Wilmington, Jan- uary 28, 1811, and had issue two sons and three daughters: Mary Jane, John Maxwell, Eliza- beth Ann, George Crowe and Isabella. Mr. Jones' wife died in 1821, and he later married Anna M. Alexander McMullen, daughter of Dr. Archibald Alexander and widow of A. MeMullen, by whom he had a daughter and son, Henrietta Ord and Arehi- bald Alexander, the latter dying in infancy. The senior Mr. Jones, father of John M., was a man of superior ability as a financier and oeeupied a prom- inent place in Wilmington for many years. He was taught the trade of watchmaking by his father, but later gave this up for the profession of dentistry and, after having. accumulated some means, de- voted much of his attention to general business pursuits and the purchase and sale of Wilmington property and the building of workingmen's homes.
For twenty-five years he was president of the Delaware Fire Insurance Company, was one of the originators of the Wilmington Savings Fund and remained one of its directors as long as he lived, was a director of the Bank of Wilmington and Brandywine, sinee nationalized and still in exist- ence, one of the founders of Friendship Fire Engine Company, the oldest organization of the kind in Wilmington, and was a member of Hanover Street Presbyterian church, in which for fifty years he was an elder. Ilis death occurred at Wilmington, Angust 15, 1867.
George Jones was a man of rare intelligence and thrift and a man of advanced ideas on education. He gave his children the very best of edueations, his younger son George graduating from Princeton College in 1838. On his mother's side John M. Jones was dircetly descended from revolutionary sires, his great-grandfather, John Waugh, having been with Gen. Washington at Valley Forge during the terrible winter of 1776.
From such ancestry the subject of this memoir sprung and, surrounded by scenes of commercial thrift and in an air strongly impregnated with morality and religions feeling, his boyhood and early youth were passed. He was born at Wilming- ton, Del., October 8, 1814, and educated in the schools of that place and at Bloomfield, N. J., lay- ing aside his books at about the age of eighteen to take up the trade of a jeweler, which he mastered under bis father. His father offered to send him to Princeton along with his brother George but he de- clined, having already a good education and being desirous of striking out for himself into active busi- ness life. In the fall of 1836, having been taken with a severe attack of inflammatory rheumatism in Philadelphia, where he had been clerking for a year in the jewelry house of Edward P. Lescure, and as his physician recommended him to take a sea voyage, he determined to sail on a vessel then bound for New Orleans. Through the efforts of his father, his employer, and others, he took with him somc twenty letters of introduction to prominent merchants in New Orleans, Natchez and Vicksburg. These letters spoke of him in the highest terms. His employer, Edward P. Lescure, wrote as follows : --
"PHILADELPHIA, Nov. 1st, 1836.
"The bearer, Mr. John M. Jones, has been in my employ for the last twelve months and I take pleasure in bearing testimony to his integrity, sobriety, energy, good disposition and gentlemanly deportinent."
On crutches he boarded his vessel, taking with him his father's gift of his own warm cloak and a huu- dred dollars in money, and in due course of time reached his destination, much improved in health. Having brought with him a letter of introduction to Hyde & Goodrich, then and for many years after- wards the leading jewelers of that section, he sought them onton his arrival. Mr. William Good- rich interested himself in the young man and soon found for him an opening in Woodville, Miss., in an excellent jewelry housc.
Mr. Jones went there about February, 1837, remaining with his employer until July, 1838, at
333
INDLIN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
which time he became imbued with Texas fever through letters written him by his friend, James Benson, who had been for several years located at Washington, Texas. Mr. Jones had now become very much attached to the South, its climate and its people. He wished to engage in business for himself, bence he returned to New Orleans and sought the friendly counsel of his friend, Wm. Goodrich. Mr. Goodrich advised him to first try Shreveport, La., ' found a ready sale. One of the advertisements referred to above sets forth that he had just received a large assortment of "Fashionable and fancy jewelry, school books, stationery, blank books, annuals, albums, gift books, writing, letter and note paper, visiting and conversation eards, cutlery, combs, suspenders, gloves, stocks, straps etc., etc."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.