USA > Texas > Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I > Part 67
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the Seventh Congressional District and January 3, 1893, cast bis vote for Cleveland for President and Stephenson for Vice-President. At the State Con- vention, which met in the city of Houston, August 16, 1892, to nominate State officers, he was unani- mously and without opposition elected Chairman of the State Democratic Executive Committee. This was at a time when all eyes were turned in search of a man whosc generalship could lead the Demo- cratic hosts to victory against the combined efforts of the Populists, Republicans and disgruntled wing of the Democratic party. He was selected for the trust. How well he met the great responsibility that he was called upon to shoulder is attested by the overwhelming victory won in favor of Hon. James S. Hogg for Governor. Mr. Baker was married to Miss Mary M. Mills, January 14, 1886, in Waco, Texas. She is the daughter of Mrs. Mattie Bonner Mills and Samuel D. Mills (deceased) of Galveston.
Mr. Baker is one of the most notable figures in public life in Texas to-day. An excellent lawyer, genial and affable in social life, he enjoys the conti- dence and friendship of his fellow-members of the bar and all who know him personally. A true and tried popular leader, his name is one that needs but to be mentioned to send a thrill through a Demo- cratic assembly.
W. T. ARMISTEAD,
JEFFERSON.
Hon. W. T. Armistead, for many years past 3 leading lawyer of East Texas and for several terms a distinguished member of the Texas Legislature, is a native of Georgia and was born in that State on the 25th of October, 1848. He graduated from the University of Georgia in 1871. In 1864 he enlisted in the Confederate army as a private, participated in engagements around Atlanta, was : wounded at the battle of Jonesboro, Ga., and was made a prisoner at Gerard Aba during the closing scenes of the war. He had, however, been pro- moted and commissioned Captain before lie was captured.
Mr. Armistead came to Texas immediately after his graduation and located at Douglassville, in Cass County, Texas, where he taught school. He moved to Jefferson. Texas, in 1872, and commenced the practice of law in 1873, which he continued for many years as a copartner of Honorable D. B. Cul- berson, under the firm name of Culberson & Arm- istead. He has since practiced alone.
He has been elected a delegate to every Demo- cratic State Convention since 1874.
Ile was elected to the House of Representatives of the Eighteenth Legislature and was re-elected to the Nineteenth by an increased majority. He was
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elected Senator to the Twentieth and Twenty-first legislatures from the Fourth Senatorial District over Hon. D. S. Hearne, by nearly 5,000 majority. He was elected to the House of Representatives of the Twenty-third Legislature from Marion County and wielded an influence second to that of no other member of that body. He is a Knight Templar Mason, a member of the Baptist church, the Legiou of Honor and the Ancient Order of United Work-
men. As a lawyer he has met with uncommon suc- cess and has won for himself a place in the front rank of his profession. To a broad knowledge of the principles and practice of law, he adds the power and grace of a finished logical and magnetic orator. He has done yeoman service for the Democratie party and should he consent to remain in public life the people will doubtless confer further houors upon bim.
GEORGE HOBBS,
ALICE.
George Hobbs was born in Derbyshire, England, January 21, 1841, and came to Texas with his par- ents (James and Sarah Hobbs) and brothers and sisters in November, 1852, as a passenger on the sailing vessel, "Osborne," the voyage from England to New Orleans requiring seven weeks and from New Orleans to Corpus Christi one week. The family were a part of the immigrants introduced into Nueces County by Capt. II. L. Kinney, and had contracted for one hundred acres of land near Corpus Christi, then a village containing only six houses. Hostile Lipan Indians infested that section of the State, rendering life and property insecure outside of the settlements. The head of the family found the condition of the country so dif- ferent from what it had been represented to him that he concluded not to open a farm or stock ranch, rested a month in Corpus Christi, and then, with his family, moved to the town of Nueces, where eight or ten families soon followed. Here he resided until the time of his death, which occurred in August, 1868. His wife died of yellow fever in Corpus Christi in 1854. They left seven children: Rebecca, who married a Mr. Mitchel in England, and did not come to America with her parents ; William ; Sarah, now Mrs. Reuben Holbein ; James, George, Priscilla, now Mrs. Thomas Beynon, and Miriam, the wife of George Littig, who died soon after their marriage. All of the boys joined the Confederate army during the war between the States and made enviable records as soldiers. George volunteered as a private in Capt. Matt Nolan's company, Pyron's regiment, Sibley's brigade. The companies of Capts. Nolan and Tobin (detailed for daty on the Rio Grande), were sent from Laredo to Brownsville and took charge
of the United States posts and arsenals, when the United States forces evacuated that territory at the beginning of the war. Later Mr. Hobbs participated in the famous battle of Galveston, which resulted iu the recapture of that city by the Confederates, and not long thereafter was a mem- ber of the " Belle Crew " of volunteers that boarded and captured at Sabine Pass the " Morning Light," a Federal war vessel carrying six guns. After taking the vessel and finding that she was of too heavy draft to be brought across the bar into the harbor, she was left in the charge of a single private, Eugene Aikin, of Nolan's company. Next day the United States mailship hove in sight, and, drawing alongside to discharge and receive mail as as usual, requested that an officer be sent aboard. Aikin replied in a ferocious and stentorian voice that the "Morning Light " had been captured by the Confederates, ordered imaginary marines to quarters and imaginary cannoneers to clear the guns. The captain of the mail steamer lost no time in putting out to sea under a full head of steam and left Aikin master of the situation. The day fol- lowing this humorous incident, worthy to bring a smile to the physiognomy of grim-visaged war, the " Morning Light," was burued to preveut her from being retaken by the Federals. Nolan's com- pany, of which Mr. Hobbs was a member, was next ordered to Lake Charles, La., where it was sent to watch and report upon the movements of Gen. Banks and did courier, scouting and picket duty for eight months. It was then ordered back to Texas for coastguard duty at Cedar Lake and afterwards at Padre Island, which he performed until the end of the war. The close of hostilities found Mr. Hobbs. to use the expressive vernacular of the times, "flat
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GEN. BOONE.
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broke." December 31, 1867, he was united in marriage to Miss Margaret Beynon, and shortly thereafter made his home in Corpus Christi, where he followed various occupations until he started in business as a merchant in 1872. In 1875 he moved to Collins, situated on the line of the Mexican Na- tional Railroad, where he continued merchandising during the following twelve years and was for eleven years Postmaster. He then moved to Alice, where he has since resided, and is now a dealer in general merchandise, carries one of the largest stocks of goods west of San Antonio and conducts a large and paying business. He built the first house in Alice, erected in May, 1888, one month before the railroad reached the place. He was one of the men who christened the village Alice, a name selected in honor of the wife of Mr. R. J. Kleberg, youngest daughter of the late Capt. Richard King, of Nueces County, and has done much for the upbuilding of the place, which is now a thriving town of twelve hundred souls. Mr. Hobbs has four children -- Philip, Felix, Rufus and Nettie. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and Democratic party, but has never taken an active interest in politics. In 1872 he joined Lodge, No. 189, A. F. and A. M., at Corpus Christi; and is a faithful member of the Masonic fraternity. At the time his parents made their home in Southwest Texas, that part of the State was almost as far removed from the beaten tracks of civilization as Central Africa is to-day, but notwithstanding that fact a few brave and
hardy pioneers settled within the limits, determined to establish homes, conquer the wilderness and act as the vanguard of the tide of population that was to come pouring in in later years. In 1852 the year the Hobbs family located in Nueces County, Capt. Van Buren, of the United States army, was ambusbed and mortally wounded by an arrow shot from the bow of a Lipan Indian. He was · nursed by the subject of this memoir, then a boy of eleven years of age, until death relieved him of his sufferings about a week later. The hostility of the Indians was unrelenting, but they were soon taught to fear the vengeance, if they did not respect the rights, of the settlers. Mr. Hobbs' childhood, youth and early manhood were passed amid trials and seenes of danger that developed the full strength of his character and gave him that firmness and self-reliance that has since enabled him to win his way to success in the face of difficulties that few men would have found it possible to overcome. His educational opportunities were restricted but he took full ad- vantage of such as were within his reach. What he learned from text-books has since been sup- planted by the wider knowledge obtained in the school of experience, extensive reading and asso- ciation, and he may be justly described as a strong, well-poised man. He has led a quiet, peaceful life, and made it a rule to attend strictly to his own affairs. No man in Nueces County is more highly respected or generally liked by all who know him.
H. H. BOONE,
NAVASOTA.
To the iniquitous religious persecutions which pre- vailed throughout Europe during the greater part of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, America owes a large proportion of its population. From this source came not only the " Pilgrim Fathers," but the Catholics under Lord Baltimore, the Hugne- nots and the Scotch and Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. The influence of the last named of these has per- haps been more far-reaching than that of any of the others, because the Scotch showed a greater dispo- sition to migrate, were a hardier and more inde- pendent people, were better fighters, and were thus better equipped to withstand the hardships and
vicissitudes of a new country and to solve the pressing problems of civilization. So it bappens that the terms, "of Scotch " and "Seoteh-Irish origin " are of so frequent occurrence in the biographical literature of this country.
The subject of this brief notice is of Scotch ancestry, "old blue-stocking Presbyterians " says family tradition. Two of his paternal ancestors, great-grandfathers, Boone and Greene, were officers in the Revolution. His father was Joseph Greene Boone and his mother bore the maiden name of Harriet N. Latham - the former a native of North Carolina, belonging to the historic Boone family of
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that State, and the latter a native of New York. Joseph Greene Boone and wife migrated from North Carolina in 1827 and settled in Tipton County, West Tennessee, when that was a compara- tively new country. " Mountain Academy neigh- borhood," where they settled, was made up mostly of Presbyterians who had been attracted to that vicinity by Church ties and were kept there through the influence of the academy, which had been founded by a pioneer Presbyterian minister, the Rev. James Holmes, a graduate of Princeton College. In that neighborhood H. II. Boone was born, February 24, 1834. In 1842 his parents moved to DeSoto County, Miss., where, nine years later, his mother died, and whence in 1852 his father, accompanied by his two sons, the subject of this sketch and an elder brother, came to Texas, settling in the "old Rock Island neighborhood," in what was then Austin, now Waller County. The boyhood and youth of H. II. Boone were thus passed in the three States, Tennessee, Mississippi and, Texas. His education, begun under the Rev. Mr. Holmes at Mountain Academy, in Tipton County, Tenn., was continued under the tuitor- ship of Professor John A. Rousseau (brother of the Federal general of that name) in Mississippi, and, after coming to Texas, at Austin College, Huntsville, under the direction of the Rev. Daniel Baker, the distinguished Texas pioneer, Presby- terian minister and teacher. While in Austin Col- lege he took up the study of law, first under Judge W. A. Lec, aud afterwards under Col. Henderson Yoakum, the historian, and Judge Royal T. Wheeler, of the Supreme Court of Texas. The illness of his father caused him to quit college four months before graduation, but not until he had obtained bis license to practice law. For four years after returning home he gave his attention to the management of his father's plantation, until 1859, when he began the practice of his profession at Hempstead.
When the late war came on between the North and South young Boone, like hundreds of others, was filled with the war-spirit and at once offered his services to the Confederacy, enlisting, in Feb- ruary, 1861, as a private in Col. John S. (" Old Rip ") Ford's regiment, with which he procceded to the Rio Grande frontier and participated in the capture of the Union posts in that vicinity. Not wishing to do garrison duty he returned home after the capture of the posts and again eulisted in a six months' company under Capt. McDade, with which he was assigned to duty at Dickinson's Bayou aud in the vicinity of Galveston. A short time before the expiration of his term of enlist-
ment in this command he was detailed as recruiting officer to assist Maj. Edwin Waller in raising a cavalry battalion. Five companies were recruited from the lower Brazos country which, after rendez- vousing at Hempstead, left that place July 4, 1862, under orders to go to Louisiana. At Vermillion, La., a sixth company under Capt. Joseph E. Terrell, from Fort Worth, was added and Waller then becoming Lieutenant-Colonel, Boone was made Major. The command was attached to Sibley's (afterwards Green's) brigade and was in active service from that time on along the Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas border. Maj. Boone was in all its operations up to September 29, 1863, when he was wounded in the affair at Fordoche, La., losing his right arm and the first two fingers and thumb of his left hand. By these wounds he was disabled for further field service. Marrying Miss Sue H. Gordon, of Washington, St. Lan- dry's Parish, La., he returned to Texas and reported to Gen. Magruder, then commanding the department of Texas, for such duty as he was able to perform. He was assigned to post duty at dif- ferent points, and remained in the service till the surrender.
After the war Maj. Boone removed from Hemp- stead to Anderson, in Grimes County, where he re- sumed the practice of the law in partnership with Hon. I. G. Searcy, and continued in the active prac- tice of his profession until 1876, when, having been made the nominee of the Democratic party for Attorney-General of the State, he accepted the nomination, was elected and served one term. On the expiration of his term of office he moved to Navasota, where he again took up his professional duties, which he has since followed to the exclusion of everything else, although a number of times im- portaned by his friends to again enter the political arena.
As a lawyer Maj. Boone has achieved consider- able reputation, and justly so, for he possesses all of the attributes of a successful practitioner, a clear legal mind, sensitive conscience aud diligent habits. He has been in the practice now for thirty-odd years and still he pursues the arduous duties of his profession with all the enthusiasm of youth. In ac- cepting cases he is careful, exacting sincerity from his clients, and in the preparation of causes for trial he is diligent and faithful, fair in his state- ments before the jury, courteous to adverse counsel and circumspect to the court, a logical thinker, able and carnest speaker. Measured by pecuniary gain he may be said to have met with success, for by means of his profession he has accumulated some property after having reared and made ample edu-
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cational provision for a large family of children. He is spoken of by those who know him best in terms of sincere respeet, being regarded as a good citizen, beloved neighbor, earnest, liberal, progres- sive and charitable without stint. Naturally he has a warm place in his heart for his old comrades and he in turn has been the recipient of many marks of esteem at their hands. He was chiefly instrumental in organizing the first eamp of Confederate veterans at Navasota, the eamp being being named for him but afterwards changed at his suggestion to " Camp W. G. Post" in honor of the memory of one of its de- ceased members. At the general reunion of the Confederate Veterans of the United States, of Hous- ton, in May, 1895, he was elected Commander of the Division of Texas, which position he is now filling.
In polities Maj. Boone is a Democrat --- " Jeffer- sonian Democrat " - but not of the variety of which the publie has heard so much in recent years. His confession of faith excludes all of the sump- tuary and paternal sehemes of legislation which have
recently been paraded under the banner of " Jeffer- sonian Democracy." He believes in loeal self- government and in the fullest measure of personal freedom consistent with the public good. The ele- vation of the citizen - opportunity for the highest possible development of the individual - should, in his judgment, be the true end of popular govern- ment, and this is to be attained not by ever-reeur- ring appeals to the law-making bodies of the land nor by the practice of any form of politieal fetish- ism, but by the unwearing exertion of the individual himself under a government that guarantees to him but one equality, namely, equality before the law. He has always held himself in readiness to work for his party and has done it good service in times past. Such service, it may be added, has sprung from his interest in the men and measures of his choice and not from any expectation of reward. The exaeting duties of a laborious profession and the elaims of family to which he is devoted with rare fidelity long sinee shut out any hope he may have entertained of a public career.
F. R. GRAVES,
KARNES CITY.
Russell Graves, a prominent planter of Lowndes County, Ala., eame to Texas in' 1838 with his family and located near where the town of Hunts- ville now stands, in what was then Montgomery (now Walker) County, and three years later re- turned to Shelby County, where he was (as a regulator ) an active participant in the war waged for many years between the regulators and the moderators. Here Frank R. Graves, the subject of this notice, was born on his father's farm in 1852. He was principally educated in the common schools of Ellis County, his parents moving to that county and settling near Red Oak in 1857. His mother, Mrs. Esther G. Graves, died in 1865 and in the following year the remaining members of the family moved to Montgomery County, Ala., and lived there until 1875, when they came back to Ellis County, Texas.
Frank R. Graves was united in marriage to Miss Amanda Ryburn, at Waxahachie, in 1878, and soon after went to Alvarado, Johnson County, where he wigaged in the hardware business. They have three children: Davy, Esther and Frank.
In the fall of 1882 Mr. Graves failed in the hardware business, eame to Austin with his family in 1883 and in September of that year entered the law department of the State University. When he reached Austin, he had only sixty-five dollars in money, a wife and three children. He sold books in the afternoons and during vacatious to earn enough to meet expenses and succeeded in supporting himself and family. He attended the University eighteen months and was admitted to the bar at the December Term of the District Court in 1884. While a member of the senior law class he was elected County Attorney of Karnes County, in January, 1885, by the Commissioners' Court of that county, having been, without his knowledge, recommended by friends who had learned his worth. He held the position for four years and made a reputation that afterward brought him a large and lucrative practice. He has for many years been upon one side or the other of nearly every impor- tant ease tried in his section of the State.
Mr. Graves was elected to the Twenty-second Legislature in 1890 from the Eighty-second Repre-
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INDLAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
sentative District, composed of Karnes, Atascosa and Wilson counties ; served upon a number of important committees, soou took rauk in the House as a man of very superior capacity and made a record that fully justified the flattering expectations of his friends. He was re-elected to the same position in 1892 and served in the Twenty-fourth . Legislature.
He was a member of the Democratic Executive Committee for 1892 to 1894.
He was one of the founders of the Kansas Re- porter, the first newspaper published in Karnes City.
He is and has been since 1890 the senior member of the law firm of Graves & Wilson at Helena and Karnes City.
His son Davy was a popular Page in the Twenty- third Legislature.
This biography contains the brief outlines of a life that should cheer every young man who is struggling against adversity and to whom the way that leads to success and a competeney seems blocked by insurmountable obstacles. While fortune is capricious in her gifts, she owes a debt to such men as Frank R. Graves which she will never fail in due time to pay.
JOSEPH E. WALLIS,
GALVESTON.
Joseph Edmund Wallis, a member of the well- known firm of Wallis, Landes & Co., was born in Morgan County, Ala., in 1835. His parents were Maj. Joseph and Elizabeth Crockett Wallis, both connected with some of the most distinguished families that the South can boast. His father was a lineal descendant of the famous Sir William Wal- lace, whose name is indissolubly connected with the most glorious epoch of Scottish history. Owing to a family disagreement, an American ancestor changed his name to Wallis, and it has so remained in the branch of the family to which the subject of this memoir belongs. Maj. Joseph Wallis was for many years a wealthy planter in Alabama and Mississippi, owning lands in both States, and for a long time planting in partnership with Governor Chapman, of Alabauna. In the winter of 1848 he determined to move to Texas. Ilis eldest son, John C., brought the slaves over- land, whilst he moved the family by water, only leaving behind his eldest daughter, Emily, who had married Joseph Toland, a wealthy planter of Lowndes County, Miss. He located at Chappell Hill, Washington County, Texas, and continued planting. In October, 1849, his second daughter, Elmina Carolina, was married to Dr. John W. Lockhart, of Washington County.
When Maj. Wallis removed to Texas his second son, Joseph Edmund, was thirteen years of age, and had gone to school but a limited time. In the fall of 1849 (in Texas), he spent oue session at Professor Ulysses Chapman's school. At the age
of fifteen he spent one year (1850) in merchan- dising at Chappell Hill, then, selling out, he passed the two sessions of 1851 and the spring session of 1852 at the Chappell Hill Male College, then in its prime, thus acquiring a fair education. In the summer of 1852 he again resumed merchandising at Chappell Hill, and continued about four years, being the Postmaster during the time. His father now wishing to retire from active business, divided his property among his children. This caused Joseph Edmund to close out his mercantile business and turn his attention to planting. When the war began he had accumulated considerable property, and was turning out his hundred bales of cotton annually. On February 12th, 1860, he married Miss S. Kate Landes, daughter of Col. D. Landes, of Austin County, Texas, formerly of Kentucky.
His father was particularly noted for his great industry, energy, perseverance and public spirit, and was always a leader in public enterprises wherever he lived; notably in this connection, he was the first one in Texas to advocate and start with Col. D. Landes and Isaac Applewhite, of Wasli- ington County, the construction of the now great Houston & Texas Central Railway, but was soon joined by such spirits as Paul Bremond, Harvey Allen and others of Houston, and later with other associates, put under construction the Washington Railroad from Hempstead to Brenham, now the western branch of the Houston & Texas Central Railroad. During his residence in the State he was engaged in many other enterprises, was a leading
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