The encyclopedia of Texas, V.1, Part 62

Author: Davis, Ellis Arthur, ed; Grobe, Edwin H., ed
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Dallas, Texas Development Bureau
Number of Pages: 1204

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Mr. Seay was a member of the commission that framed the present charter for the City of Dallas providing for a commission form of government and has always taken a very active interest in civic af- fairs. He served as police and fire commissioner from 1907 to 1911. On December 17, 1902 he was married to Miss Margaret Ballentine of Memphis, Tennessee. They have one child, Harry L. Seay, Jr. Mr. Seay is a member and director of the Chamber of Commerce, a director of Dallas Trust and Say- ings Bank, Dallas Power and Light Company, Texas Power and Light Company and vice-president of the . Electric Express Company which handles the ex- press and baggage privilege of the various interur- ban lines operating out of Dallas. He is a member of the City Club, Dallas and Lakewood Country Clubs and Kappa Alpha fraternity. He was president of the American Life Convention in 1917-18.

EORGE M. SEAY, of the firm of Seay & Hall, insurance agents with offices in the American Exchange Building, has been at the heart of the insurance business in Texas for nearly twenty years and his name will stand near the head of any list of prominent insurance men of the Southwest. His associate in the firm, Mr. Freeman Hall, is also widely known as an insurance man.

The firm of Seay & Hall was organized in 1905 which was begun in 1899. They are general insur- ance agents, handling all lines of fire insurance, liability insurance, compensation insurance and they represent as general agents the U. S. Fidelity & Guaranty Company. Their territory includes the whole of Texas and fifteen steady employes are on the pay roll.

Mr. Seay was born in Hartsville, Tennessee, No- vember 19, 1882. When he was ten years old he came with his parents, Ben T. and Eliza (Wenston) Seay, to Dallas where his father was engaged, for a number of years, in the real estate business from which he has now retired. At the early age of seventeen, Mr. Seay severed connection with the schools of Dallas, where he had received his early

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mmation, and entered the great school of experience > :he insurance business. He at once went into the 1 .: which he organized with Mr. Gulick where he .nued until the organization of the present firm :. 05. With these years of experience in his 1. )en field in which diligent attention has been in to every feature of the work, it is not surpris- .« that Mr. Seay has attained to his present high "i"sling among his business associates.

:# 1908 Mr. Seay was married to Miss Elizabeth A u.ace. Their home is at 5517 Gaston Avenue.

Mr. Seay has taken a large place in promoting the urance business in Texas. He was formerly pres- ,ent of the State Association of Insurance Agents ,"! is still a member of the executive committee. i. : « a director of the American Exchange National Tank, also a member of the National Association of surance Agents. His record as a member of the !!! le Sandy Hunting and Fishing Club is evidence ! his weakness toward the forest and stream. He is a member of the Dallas Country Club, Lakewood t'ountry Club and the City Club. While still a com- ; sratively young man, Mr. Seay's early start in his ..! e work has enabled him to reach a place of promi- "ence already and his abundant enthusiasm and in- genuity assures him of increasing success.

ASCHAL P. TUCKER, state agent for the Aetna Insurance Company of Hartford, Conn., is one of the pioneer insurance men in the state of Texas and today directs one . : the largest insurance activities here.

Mr. Tucker was born on January 29, 1860, in La Fouche Parish, Louisiana, on a sugar plantation, the ton of George W. Tucker who came to Louisiana from Virginia and Margaret Stewart (Glover) Tucker, a native of England. In 1870 the Tucker family moved to New Orleans and in the school sys- :em of this beautiful and historic city Paschal P. Tucker received his earlier education. In 1875 the family migrated to Texas and located in Dallas. Here the lad completed his schooling. His father, a physician, after practicing in Dallas a while, later moved to west Texas. In 1887 Paschal P. Tucker entered the employ of the First Bank of Sulphur Springs where he remained thirteen years. When he left in 1900 he was assistant cashier of the in- «titution. In 1900 he moved to Dallas and in the Allowing year was made state agent for the Aetna Insurance Company. When he first began his state association with this company, the average annual t"«iness of the Aetna concern, in premiums, was $100,000. Now the annual premiums are near a million dollar mark. He has four special assistants in his personal corps of workers at present.

As chairman of the insurance company's advisory committee, Mr. Tucker has had extensive work in ! wiking after the interests of fire insurance com- panies in Texas. He is ex-president of the Texas Fire Prevention Association.

In 1881, Miss Ella B. Stephenson and Mr. Tucker were united in wedlock, of this union there are six children, George P., Virginia (now Mrs. C. P. Schulze), Paschal E., Ella Belle (now Mrs. J. C. Motter), Bessie Glover (now Mrs. R. R. McDowell), and Willie C. (Mrs. W. C. Farrow).

Mr. Tucker is a whole-hearted Mason to the .Wirty-second degree. In his twenty-one years of residence in the city of Dallas as state director for a big concern, he has won a host of business and personal friends.

EORGE GARFIELD SHEERIN, president of the General Fire and Casualty Lloyds of Dallas, and manager of the G. G. Sheerin Company, 911 Commerce Street, came to Dallas from San Antonio in 1904. He is a native of Pittsburg, Pa., where he was born December 3, 1881. His father, William Sheerin, was a mining engineer in Pennsylvania. His mother was Mary Lecky Shee- rin. Mr. Sheerin graduated from Phillips-Andover Preparatory School in 1900 and later attended Har- vard University. He is married and lives at 6033 Bryan Parkway. His wife, who was Miss Lula Lane Atkinson, is a native of Texas, her father, Wm. M. Atkinson, being a well known attorney and judge of Gonzales county. They have one son, Frank.

Mr. Sheerin's entry into the insurance field was made as a broker in 1909. Prior to that time he had been a teacher in a San Antonio school and at West Texas Military College. He came to Dallas in 1904 and taught at St. Matthews School for boys, and in 1907 he became principal of the school, re- tiring in 1909, when the present business was or- ganized.

Mr. Sheerin has build up a large and profitable business, doing about $300,000 net premium income per year, and he expects to increase this to $1,000,000 per year in a short time. He contemplates increas- ing the capital stock of his company for the pur- pose of taking in other states. Fifty agents repre- sent the company throughout the State, and nine people make up the local office corps. All lines of insurance except life are handled.

Mr. Sheerin is a member of the State Advisory Board of the Salvation Army, the Chamber of Com- merce, the Auto Club, the Dallas Country Club, the Dallas Athletic Club the University Club and the Harvard Club.

He is a great booster for Dallas and the state and predicts that Dallas will become the second Hart- ford, Conn., as an insurance center.

RICE CROSS, president of the International Travelers' Association, with offices at 727 Wilson Building, Dallas, is the founder of the company of which he is now the leading official and has been a resident of this city for the past twenty-eight years. Since 1903 he has taken an active and leading part in the insurance business of this city and by persistent effort has built up a strong and reliable insurance association that has members in every state of the Union and in the Dominion of Canada. The International Travelers' Association was organized in 1903 and was at first limited to the insuring of traveling men exclusively. In the course of time the company extended its field and today has policyholders in all of the walks of life. At the present time the company has over twelve thousand policies in force, the majority of which are confined to the southern states, especially Texas. The Dallas office has a working force con- sisting of seven people and employs nine traveling salesmen, whose territory covers the Texas field. The annual income of the association is approxi- mately one hundred and fifty thousand dollars per year and during the past year this was increased about forty-five per cent.

Born at Brunswick, Missouri, December 1Stli, 1860, Price Cross is a son of Doctor H. W. Cross, who was a member of the medical fraternity of Bruns- wick and who established a reputation for himself

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in that field. The younger Mr. Cross received his early educational training at the public schools of his native city and after finishing there he moved to Texas in 1879. He settled at Galveston and began 'his business career as a dry goods clerk in the store of J. B. Womack, of that city. After six years of experience there he opened up a dry goods store of his own and for the next three years carried on an extensive and profitable retail business. In 1886 he became a traveling salesman for the P. J. Willis and Brother Company, wholesale dry goods mer- chants and for the next succeeding six years traveled throughout Texas for that firm. In 1892 he moved to Dallas and became the traveling salesman of Walker Brothers and Company, Ltd., wholesale dry goods commission merchants of New Orleans Louisiana. In 1903 he organized the International Travelers' Association and its phenomenal growth forced him to resign his position with Walker Broth- ers in 1914 and from that time he has devoted all of his time to the insurance business.

On April 27th, 1898, Mr. Cross married Miss Loula Seymour New, of San Antonio. Mr. Cross is a thirty-second degree Mason, a York Rite Mason, a member of the Chamber of Commerce, the Dallas Country Club, the Bone Head Club and the Rotary Club. In religion he is a Baptist.

ARMER D. (FRITZ) COCHRAN, member of the firm of Trezevant and Cochran, general insurance agents, 1821 Young Street, Dal- las, has been associated with this company for the past thirty years. He is especially well known over the state as an authority on insurance. Trezevant and Cochran was organized in 1876; since that time it has become one of the largest general insurance agencies in the United States and now has branch offices in five states of the Union. At the present time the concern employs approximately one hundred and twenty-five people and occupies a three- story brick building of the most modern construction.

A native of Kentucky, Farmer D. Cochran was born at the city of Covington, on the 18th day of September, 1870. His father, John C. Cochran, was a prominent business man of Lexington and was well known throughout the state. Mr. Cochran re- ceived his early educational training in the public schools of his native .state, which was adequately supplemented by a course of training at the Virginia Military Institute, of Lexington, Virginia. General Stonewall Jackson, famed for his valiant service to the South, at one time taught at that institution and since his day it has become one of the strongest military schools of the United States. When twenty- one years of age Mr. Cochran was appointed Com- missioner for the United States Government, at Cov- ington, Kentucky, and while there he was clerk of the court presided over by W. H. Taft, later presi- dent of the United States. In March of 1890 Mr. Cochran came to Texas, settling at Dallas and be- came associated with his brother, Sam P. Cochran, in the firm that he is now a member of. Mr. Cochran was one of the organizers and was secretary and treasurer of the Mary Elizabeth Oil Company, which owns extensive oil interests throughout the state.

On April 21, 1892, Mr. Cochran married Miss May Morris, daughter of W. G. Morris, a prominent to- bacco raiser of Kentucky. Mr. and Mrs. Cochran are the parents of two children, Mary Elizabeth, now a student at Chevy Chase, and Granville M., who

was a first lieutenant of the 143rd Infantry and who served as Battallion Adjutant in that regiment whil .. in France Upon his return to Dallas embarked in the insurance business, and is now a member of the local agency of Cochran and Houseman.

Another brother, James M. Cochran, is vice-presi- dent of the Fire Association of Philadelphia, the Rilomer Insurance and the Victory Insurance Com- panies, all of Philadelphia, where he resides.

In fraternal orders Mr. Cochran is a member of the Shrine, Hella Temple, the Knights Templar, Scottish Rite 32d degree, Red Cross of Constantine and K. C. C. H. In civic and social organizations he has membership in the Dallas Country Club, The Brook Hollow Country Club, The Automobile Club, is a vestryman in St. Matthews Episcopal Cathedral, The Blue Goose, an insurance organization, and vari- ous other local organizations.

One of the pioneer insurance men in this field Mr. Cochran deserved great credit for the rapid strides that business has made in this portion of the state. He is responsible for a number of the civic improvements that have been made in this city and to him is due the credit of having always been a loyal and faithful citizen.

HOMAS HENRY STEPHENSON, Special Agent for the Great Southern Life Insur- ance Company, with Dallas and vicinity as his territory is numbered among the leading men in his profession in the Southwest. Mr. Stephen- son has been engaged in the insurance business for about twenty years and has come to be looked upon as an expert in his line.

Mr. Stephenson is a native Texan, born in Ellis County March 18th, 1884. His father T. H. Stephen- son was an Ellis County farmer and resided there for forty years after his arrival from Alabama. His mother was Henrietta Bridges, a native of Ala- bama. He received his education in the Ellis County schools. At the age of seventeen years he was a member of an insurance company in Waxahachie, under the name of Strickland, Harbin & Stephenson. Mr. Strickland later became builder of interurban lines, centering in Dallas from 1904 to 1906. Mr. Stephenson was with Mr. Strickland in Dallas, being in the purchasing department for a number of small city light plants and from 1906 to 1908 he was identi- tied with his brother James A. since deceased, in the Life Insurance business. In 1908, associated with his brother James A., together with John T. Boone and W. A. Galloway, organized the Southland Life Insurance Company and he became Superintendent of Agents, holding this position from 1909 to 1916 when he became manager of the Guarantee Life In- surance Company at Houston. From 1917 to 1918 he was with the Wichita Southern Life Insurance Company at Wichita Falls.

On January 1st, 1918, Mr. Stephenson organized the Atlas Life Insurance Company of Tulsa, Okla- homa and in January 1920 he became active in the Century Life Insurance Company of Indianapolis and returned to Dallas, where he became State agent for the Century Life Insurance Company. More recently Mr. Stephenson became identified with the Great Southern Life Insurance Company and is active in the production of business.

Mr. Stephenson was united in marriage with Miss Frances Lancaster, daughter of W. R. Lancaster, retired Ellis County farmer. He is a member of the

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:saber of Commerce, Dallas Athletic Club, Lake- . ..! Country Club, Masonic and Elks Lodges. He e an enthusiastic booster of Dallas and Texas and , aiways glad to co-operate in advancing the com- al and civic interests in this city and state.

HILIP N. THEVENET, secretary of the Southland Life Insurance Company, with offices in the Southland Life Building, has been identified with the insurance business texas for more than fifteen years during which : a.c he has been associated with the most reliable mpanies operating in the state, and has become an standing figure in the insurance world.

The Southland Life Insurance Company made many conquest of much of the territory in Texas ¿" i has maintained itself with credit. Its active, » .le-awake agents are on the ground in every im- priant center in the state.

Mr. Thevenet comes of cultured French stock, the ihre that has furnished some of our best citizens. If.s parents, Michael Thevenet and Adelaide (Frere- .agues) Thevenet were both born in France and came :. Dallas in the late fifties. Here the young Theve- ..: was born, January 24, 1869. He was educated in Dallas private schools and under a special tutorship .n Florida. His first contact with the business world was in the photography business into which he entered in 1887 and remained for three years. In 1>00 he returned to Florida and remained until 1898. At the outbreak of the Spanish-American War he entered the government service in the Quartermaster department in which he continued for five years. In Cuba he had charge of the embarkation of troops in the provinces of Matanzas and Santa Clara. For the efficient manner in which his duties here were dis- charged he was publicly complimented by General Scott. In 1901 he went to the Philippines and was in charge of the Quartermaster Department under General J. Franklin Bell. After four months service in the Philippines he was transferred to Japan where he had charge of the coaling of transports. In 1902 he resigned from the government work and came back to Dallas and went into the life insurance busi- ress with the Southwestern Life. In 1907, in the service of the Texas Life Insurance Co., he went to Waco and had charge of their office there. Two years later he returned to Dallas and took a general agency contract with the Sam Houston Life Insur- ance Company of which he became secretary in 1913. A year later when his company was consolidated with the Southland Life Insurance Company he became assistant secretary. His duties with the company were complete charge of the office and supervision of the collection and renewals of prem- tunis. In 1920 he was elected secretary of the com- pany, which office he still holds. In addition to his interests in Dallas, he has a large grape fruit orchard in Florida where he spent a portion of his life.

In 1917 Mr. Thevenet was married to Miss Julia Corma Clendenen of St. Louis. A daughter, Adele Eloise, is the' only child. Their home is at 3410 Harvard Avenue.

Mr. Thevenet's wide range of knowledge and his experiences in dealing with men have been valuable assets to his work as an insurance man. He is a member of the North Texas Association of Life In- surance and Underwriters. Few men of his age have had a more varied career or have entered into a wider variety of the experiences of life.

ILLIAM BUTLER LEE, of the firm of Lee and Lee, general agents for the Union Cen- tral Life Insurance Co. of Cincinnati, at Dallas, has devoted more than a quarter of a century to the insurance business and during his long residence in Dallas he has come to be one of the outstanding exponents of that business in Texas.

The Union Central Life Insurance Company, one of the oldest and most reliable in America, became firmly entrenched in Texas at an early day and its . satisfactory service has been the basis of its con- tinued growth. Lee & Lee represent their interests for the whole of Texas with the exception of the ex- treme southern part. Approximately eighty agents have been licensed throughout Texas in addition to the five who are located in Dallas. Policies totaling more than $9,000,000 were written in 1919 and over $12,000,000 in 1920.

Mr. Lee was born in Covington, Georgia, July 29, 1873. His father, William B. Lee, was a prominent merchant and planter. His mother was Laura L. Lee. For his college education Mr. Lee attended Emory College, at Oxford Georgia, now Emory University of Atlanta, one of the oldest institutions of higher learning in the United States. From this school he was graduated in 1893 with the A. B. de- gree. Following his graduation he taught school for two years and then went into the insurance business in which he has since remained. His first location was in Birmingham, Alabama, where he remained for two years. It was here that he became associated with Mr. J. Early Lee. Between them a very hearty friendship sprang up and a partnership was formed which has never been broken, all their business being conducted on the partnership basis. In 1897 the Lees moved to Dallas and were permanently located. Their mastery of every phase of their line and their ability to inspire their agents with confidence in their work has made the firm one of the most valuable assets of a great company.

Mrs. Lee, who was formerly Miss Mabelle Ingram, is also a native Georgian, being born and reared at Eatonton. Two sons, Ingram and Wm. B. III., and a daughter, Miriam, complete the family. Their home is at 2723 Routh Street.

Careful study of his business and of his field and an unusual insight into human nature are qualities which have combined to make Mr. Lee a thorough master of the insurance game and a man to whose opinions his associates give large deference.

EN THIORP, state manager for the Federal Life insurance Company of Chicago, Prae- torian building, is handling an insurance business that has maintained steady and phenominal growth. All premiums on Texas busi- ness are collected through the Dallas office and all claims are paid through this office under the direct supervision of Ben Thorp or E. V. Thorp. Until 1911 the company never had representation in the South. On March 1st of that year Mr. Thorp opened the office here and wrote his first policy. Since then branch offices have been established in Fort Worth, Wichita Falls, Ranger, Breckenridge, San Antonio, Houston, Waxahachie, Denison, Paris, Sulphur Springs with a district manager in each office. Two hundred and fourteen agents are working out of the Dallas office, which is one of the few in the entire country where both life and accident insurance are handled by one manager. In 1919 life insurance business increased 100 per cent over 1918, and acci-

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dent insurance increased 300 per cent, while during the year of 1920 a fifty per cent increase over this was reached. In 1920 the company sold over $5,000,- . Miss Lenora Lawrence, a native of Texas, and the 000.00 worth of insurance in that state and collected over $150,000 in accident and health premiums.

A native of Texas, Mr. Thorp was born in Austin on June 14th, 1873. His father A. J. Thorp, a civil war veteran, was for thirty-five years a peace officer in Austin. It was through his instrumentality that Sunday closing of saloons was first inaugurated, the initial law requiring the saloons to close from ten Sunday to four in the afternoon. His mother was Jane Baker, who like ' his father was a native of Austin. It is a strange coincidence that both her father and her husband's father came to Texan in 1812 and fought in the Seminole War in Texas, and other early Indian wars.

Mr. Thorp was educated in the public schools of Austin, but when he was twelve years old ran away to Mexico, remaining there until he was eighteen and serving as time keeper in Mexican Mines. When he was nineteen he joined the Texas Rangers and for two years served under Capt. McNeil and Capt. Mc- Donald, leading a picturesque and adventurous life. When he was twenty-one he settled down to business, accepting a position as traveling salesman out of Chicago for Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co., and making every state in the Union. He remained with this company for fifteen years, when he was offered the opportunity of opening the first office for the Fed- eral Insurance Company at Dallas.

He was married on August 6, 1902 to Miss Susan McDonald daughter of Dr. A. McDonald, early phy- sician for Texas Rangers at Round Rock, Texas. Mr. and Mrs. Thorp own one of the most beautiful homes in Munger Place, located at 4916 Junius street.

Mr. Thorp is a thirty-second degree Mason of Dallas and a Ben Hur Shriner of Austin. He is a director of the Kiwanis Club and has been an officer in this organization since its establishment. For two years he served as secretary and two years as presi- dent of the North Texas Association of Life Under- writers. Mr. Thorp also holds membership in the Dallas Athletic Club, University Club, Automobile Club, Dallas Country Club, Automobile Country Club and is active in the Chamber of Commerce.

ARRY WARD CRUTCHER, member of the well known firm of Wassell-Crutcher Com- pany, and division manager of the Amer- ican Kardex Company with offices at 600 North Akard Street, is active in business, club and fraternal circles of North Texas.

The Wassell-Crutcher Company are district man- agers for the American Kardex Company and of the Globe Register Company. The products of these two companies are leaders in the field in which they operate and the Wassell-Crutcher Company are eni- joying an increasing popularity and patronage. Mr. Crutcher is division manager for the American Kardex Company and has in his territory eight states. Each district has a manager and salesmen.

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The encyclopedia of Texas, V.1, Part 62

Author: Davis, Ellis Arthur, ed; Grobe, Edwin H., ed Publication date: 1922 Publisher: Dallas, Texas Development Bureau Number of Pages: 1204

Author: Davis, Ellis Arthur, ed; Grobe, Edwin H., ed
Publication date: 1922
Publisher: Dallas, Texas Development Bureau
Number of Pages: 1204