The articles below appeared in A History of Texas and Texans, by Frank W. Johnson (Edited and brought to date by Eugene C. Barker with the assistance of Ernest William Winkler. To which are added historical, statistical and descriptive matter pertaining to the important local divisions of the State, and biographical accounts of the leaders and representative men of the state.), Chicago and New York: The American Historical Society, 1916.
ANTON KAHLICH. As an expression of positive leadership and forceful individuality in a community, one of the best examples is the career of Anton Kahlich, a highly successful German farmer of Fayette County, a man who has raised his individual and family fortunes from nothing to affluence, and in many ways has participated in those movements and developments which make a community prosperous. He has lived in the locality of High Hill since boyhood in 1870.
Anton Kahlich was born at the Village of Boelten, Mehren, Austria, May 8, 1857. In that locality his father Antone Kahlich was a miller, and spent his life, dying in 1863. He married Rosa Lopreis, and after his death she married Frank Marits. Her children by the first marriage were: Johanna, of Austin, Texas, wife of Charles Wild; Louisa, who married Charles Holles, and died at High Hill, leaving a family; Anton; Caroline, who married Henry Dreyer, of Linn County, Texas; Rudolph, a farmer in Dewitt County. By her marriage to Mr. Marits the only child was Wilhelmina, who married Hermann Dreyer, and died at Shiner, Texas. Mrs. Marits died in 1907 at the age of seventy-seven.
On the 26th of March, 1870, the Marits and Kahlich family, consisting of Mr. and Mrs. Marits and five Kahlich children, sailed from Bremen on the steamship Koeln, and on the 2d of May arrived in Galveston Harbor. Thence they journeyed by rail as far as Columbus, which was the terminus of the railroad, and by ox team to High Hill. This family was one among hundreds of Bohemian people who were induced to settle in the State of Texas by Franz Russek, of Schulenburg. Mr. Russek was an uncle to Anton Kahlich. The family, on reaching High Hill, rented a house and for the first year the active members of the household found work at wages. The following year they rented a farm, but finally purchased the land included in the present estate of Anton Kahlich. It was prtairie land, untouched with the plow, and a large number of acres in this vicinity have been brought into cultivation and made productive and valuable through this worthy family.
Anton Kahlich was still a boy in years when he came to Texas, but his strength was soon directed to useful purpose, and at the age of fifteen he drove an ox team to Columbus for the lumber with which to build a box house, 12 by 12 feet, with a small gallery, a habitation in which the family of eight people lived for a number of years. Ten years later their prosperity was sufficient to bring about the construction of the substantial residence in which Mr. Kahlich now lives. Like many new settlers this family was confronted with practically new conditions on reaching Texas. Back in Austria they had wheat and rye as their principal crops, but in Texas their chief dependence was placed on cotton, and in time they had the larger part of their one hundred acres in this crop. Since Mr. Anton Kahlich has assumed the active and independent management of the old estate, its acreage was increased to 476 acres, and some of this he has since given to his children for homes, since they in turn helped to improve the land and became valuable factors in the work of the locality. Mr. Kahlich has made it his practice to raise more meat than is needed for the consumption of his family, and nearly everything else for the table is supplied from his own fields and gardens with the exception of the wheat that supplies the bread.
After reaching his majority Mr. Kahlich began voting with the democratic party, but has never been a politician, has never attended conventions, and his one official service has been as trustee of the schools. He was reared in the Catholic Church, and his own family have been brought up in the same faith. He was a substantial contributor towards the erection of the new St. Mary's Church at High Hill, one of the monuments which marked the progress and ideals of the community.
On November 7, 1882, in the vicinity of High Hill Mr. Kahlich marriad [sic.] Miss Therse Wick, daughter of Franz and Anna (Klos) Wick. Her father was a farmer and one of the first settlers in the vicinity of High Hill. He also came from Mehren, Austria. The Wick children were: John, a merchant of High Hill; Anna, who married Ferdinand Klesel, of Schulenburg; Mrs. Kahlich; Mary, wife of Franz Brossman, a farmer near High Hill. Mr. and Mrs. Kahlich may well takepride in their fine family of children, most of whom are already established independently in the world. Alvina, the oldest, is the wife of F. Heinrich, and her children are Herbert, Hugo, Erwin, Victor and Laura; Addie married Rudolph Bednatz, and her children are named Edwin, Alvon, Robert, Willie and Alvin; Rudolph, a farmer near High Hill, married Amelia Holles, and has two children, Leo and Olivia; Mina is the wife of Joseph Bednatz, of the same locality, and their children are Elizabeth and Alexander; Charles married Otilia Bednatz, and has one child, Edgar; Antone is a business man of Schulenburg; Maria is the wife of Frank Lux, near Schulenburg; and the younger children still at home are Frank, Alfred, Rosa and Otto.
Mr. Kahlich is easily one of the most influential leaders among his countrymen in Fayette County, and in the achievement of financial success has spent his years most profitably. He is robust and vigorous in body and mind, and his locality has felt the influence of his citizenship in many ways. -- pp. 1370-1372.
RICHARD EWING KIRK.This is one of the most prominent railroad men of the State of Texas. Mr. Kirk lives at Yoakum, was for many years a locomotive engineer, having first become identified with the railroad work at Yoakum as a fireman in 1894, and he is now general chairman for the order of locomotive firemen.
By training and early environment he was a farmer boy and was born and reared in Fayette County. He attended country schools chiefly in the Schulenburg community, and at the age of eighteen, on account of the death of his father, had to take a place of large responsibilities at home. Soon afterwards his mother took her family to Yoakum where the sons might get in touch with work the better to aid the family.
Beginning in the railroad shops, Richard E. Kirk was soon made a fireman and continued that work until 1898 when he was promoted to engineer, making his first run from Yoakum to Skidmore. He was in the active service of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass lines as engineer until January, 1912, when he was elected general chairman of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen.
As a brotherhood man Mr. Kirk joined the Brotherhood of Locomotive Firemen in 1896. He has since been an active member of the order, his first official service was in his present capacity. He became general chairman in 1907, and with the increase of the business of the road, the importance of the office expanded, and he was chosen the first salaried chairman of the order. He has represented the firemen in conventions since 1908 and he has been very efficient and serviceable in looking after the firemen's side of the contract with the railroad company. He has attended various national conventions, and these conventions include not only the membership of the order in the United States but those of Canada as well. The chief topic of legislation in the conventions attended by Mr. Kirk has been insurance of members, in addition to the routine business transacted by such bodies.
The Kirk family has lived in Texas since ante-bellum days. His grandfather, Simon P. Kirk, came to Texas from Northern Alabama and established a home near Lagrange in Fayette County. The family had come across the Mississippi River with wagon and team, and Simon P. Kirk lived in Fayette County until his death of yellow fever in 1869. He was a substantial farmer and though past the age for service during the war he had three sons in the Confederate army. Simon P. Kirk was born in Alabama, and he married Miss Narcissa Belsha. She was born July 23, 1822, while Simon Kirk was born April 8, 1803. N. Kirk was the daughter of Calvin Belsha, who was born in February, 1766, and died August 21, 1827. Simon P. Kirk by a previous marriage had the following children: Benjamin, who spent his life in Fayette County and left a family of four children; William J., who was a farmer and died at Abilene, Texas, being survived by eight children; and Joseph M., who was a Fayette County farmer and left descendants. Simon Kirk's children by his marriage to Narcissa Belsha were: Richard P., whose career was spent as a teacher principally in Bexar County, but he died at Waco while principal of one of the ward schools; Zachariah C.; and Simon P., a farmer who died in Burleson County, Texas, leaving one child.
Zachariah C. Kirk was born June 30, 1849, and was reared in Fayette County, where he attended some of the pioneer schools. In the early part of his career he served for a number of years as deputy sheriff of Fayette County, but after his marriage he located on the old homestead and continued farming it. Later for eight years he was in the transfer business at Schulenburg and then returned to the farm where his death occurred January 28, 1893. He was a democrat and a member of the Missionary Baptist Church. Zachariah Kirk married Miss Sallie Moore, who is still living at Yoakum. Her parents were Clark and Jane (Whistler) Moore, who were married in Texas, and her father spent his life as a farmer in Fayette County. The Whistler family came to Texas from Illinois during the early days, making the journey with ox wagon. Mrs. Zachariah Kirk is the mother of the following children: Richard E.; Miss Nettie, one of the teachers in the Yoakum public school; Zach R. of Yoakum; and Mabel, wife of J. R. Young of Buffalo, New York.
On the old homestead in Fayette County Richard E. Kirk was born September 27, 1873. On June 13, 1898, he married Miss Minnie Williams, a daughter of Dudson C. and Amanda (Rhem) Williams. Her father was born in Texas and spent his active career as a farmer, while her mother was a daughter of Rev. Mr. Rhem, a pioneer Baptist preacher who was shot while holding a meeting near West Point, Texas. Mrs. Kirk, who was born January 13, 1877, had the following brothers and sisters: Rhem, Clay, Hugh, Walter, Leslie and David.
Mr. and Mrs. Kirk have one of the comfortable homes at Yoakum and are people of the highest standing in the social community. Their two children are: Marion Inez, born August 25, 1900: and Ewing Clay, born March 26, 1902. -- pp. 1764 -1765.
FRANK J. KNESEK. The career of this native son of Texas has been marked by earnest and worthy endeavor, and through his own ability and efforts he has made his way forward and achieved definite success, as is manifest in his status as one of the representative business men of the thriving Town of Moulton, Lavaca County, where he has a large and well eqiupped hardware establishment and tinshop, in the conducting of which he is now associated with his only son, under the firm name of F. J. Knesek & Son.
Frank John Knesek, who established his residence at Moulton in 1902, was born on his father's farm, on Ross Prairie, Fayette County, Texas, on the 24th of February, 1862, and he was but four years of age at the time of his father's death, his mother passing to the life eternal when he was a lad of twelve years. His childhood and early youth were passed on the home farm and his rudimentary education was obtained in the rural schools of the locality and period. After the death of his mother he was taken into the home of Doctor Webb, of Flatonia, Fayette County, where he was reared to adult age, attended school for some time and finally served an apprenticeship to the trade of tinsmith, in the establishment and under the direction of George Yeager. He completed his apprenticeship at the age of eighteen years, and for some time thereafter he was not engaged in the work of his trade but was employed as clerk in mercantile establishments, his services in this, capacity having been in turn in the employ of William Fortran, J. A. Nickol and the firm of Harrison & Lane, all of Flatonia. He continued his clerical work for a time at Sweet Home and later at Schulenburg and Hackberry, so that several years elapsed before he again turned his attention to the trade for which he had admirably fitted himself.
His resumption of his trade was in association with Augustus Krook, at Schulenburg, in April, 1886, but after two years he sold his interest in the hardware and tinning establishment and removed to Fayetteville, where he engaged in the same line of enterprise in an individual way. He there remained nearly three years in the control of a prosperous business and was then induced to assume a position as clerk in the general merchandise establishment of the firm of Nehaus Brothers, of Schulenburg. He remained with this firm about eighteen months and then resumed his individual efforts in the hardware business and also conducted in connection a general tin shop. After an interval of about eight years he disposed of his business at Schulenburg and removed to Moulton, in 1902. Here he has developed a substantial and prosperous business as a tinsmith and a hardware merchant, and besides making various improvements upon his store and warehouse, of which he is the owner, he has erected his attractive residence. On the 15th of February, 1915, he admitted his son, Edwin J., to partnership, and the business has since been conducted under the firm name of F. J. Knesek & Son.
As a citizen Mr. Knesek is essentially loyal and public-spirited, and while he has had no desire to enter the arena of practical politics he accords staunch support to the cause of the democratic party, as does also his son. Both he and his wife were reared in the faith of the Catholic Church. He is affiliated with the Bohemian S. P. J. S. T. fraternity, for which he is eligible by birthright.
At Schulenburg, on the 29th of March, 1886, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Knesek to Miss Johanna Chovanetz, a daughter of John and Apolonia Chovanetz, both natives of Silesia, Austria. John Chovanetz came to Texas in 1866 and established his home in Fayette County, where he became a prosperous farmer and valued citizen. He and his wife became the parents of two sons and three daughters, Mrs. Knesek being the youngest of the daughters and the date of her birth having been March 5, 1860; Bertha is the wife of Antone Knesek; Antonia is the wife of Charles Pustejovsky, of Moulton; Frank is a farmer near Hallettsville, Lavaca County; and Louis is a resident of the City of Houston. Mr. and Mrs. Knesek had five children. Two sons, Frank William and Alfred August, died in infancy, and the three living children are: Edwin J., who is associated with his father in business, as previously noted, was born January 8,1887, and in addition to receiving the advantages of the public schools he completed an effective course in the Massey Business College in the City of Houston; Edna is the wife of John Bucek, cashier of the First State Bank of Moulton; and Adela remains at the parental home.
Frank J. Knesek is a son of Albert Knesek, who came to Texas in 1856, a widower with four children. He settled on a pioneer farm near Fayetteville, Fayette County, but later bought a farm near High Hill in the same county, where he passed the residue of his life, his death having occurred in 1866, when the subject of this review was a child of four years. Albert Knesek was born at Frankstadt, Province of Moravia, Austria, where he continued to reside until after the death of his first wife, the four children who accompanied him on his immigration to America having been as here noted: Victoria, who is the wife of Rudolph Brauer, residing near Cuero, Dewitt County; Ferdinand, who died a bachelor, as did also Joseph; and Antone, who is a farmer near Engle, Fayette County. In Fayette County was celebrated the second marriage of Albert Knesek, who there wedded Mrs. Veronica Vanek, who was born in Moravia and who had two children by her first marriage— John, of whom all trace has been lost by other members of the family and who is supposed to be deceased; and Miss Veronica, who resides at Engle, Fayette County. Of the second marriage was born two children, Frank J., of this sketch, being the elder, and Ludwig being a prosperous farmer near Hallettsville, Fayette [sic.] County. -- pp. 1412 -1414.
JACOB KOEHL. Among the substantial and highly regarded agriculturists of Fayette County, who have contributed to the welfare and material advancement of their communities both as farmers and as the heads of families, Jacob Koehl is deserving of mention. He has been the author of his own success, and has spent his active career in Fayette and Colorado counties, and his present farm comprises a part of the Petty League.
Mr. Koehl was born at Saint Marie, Alsace, France, April 16, 1853, and the next spring his family came to America by the old-time method of ocean travel—the sailing vessel. Landing at New Orleans, they continued their journey by boat to Houston, Texas, and by ox-team to their destination in Colorado County, settling on Bee branch, about four miles east of Old Ellinger, near Connor's Creek. There the elder Koehl bought new land and opened up a farm, passing the remaining years of his life there and dying in 1908, at the age of eighty-five years. Jacob Koehl, the father of Jacob of this notice, was born in the same locality in which his son came to life, in Alsace, and came from a family of agriculturists. He himself demonstrated his ability in that field in the new world. During the Civil war and the events preceding it, his sympathies were with the South, and what brief service he rendered was done in behalf of the Confederacy, although two months of service in the field was all that he was able to render, he being honorably discharged at the end of that time because of physical disability. Mr. Koehl took no active part in politics, preferring to confine himself to the discharge of the duties of good citizenship. He was a consistent member of the Catholic Church throughout his life, and his children were reared in that belief. Jacob Koehl, Sr., married Mary Cubala, who survived him some three years and died in June, 1909. They were the parents of the following children: Walburga, who was the widow of John Bezung, and resided at Ellinger at the time of her death, February 14,. 1916; Joseph, who died near Ellinger, leaving a family; and Jacob, of this notice.
Jacob Koehl, of this review, as above suggested, was reared at the point of the pioneer settlement of the family, and his education was acquired at Frelsburg, with a priest of the Catholic Church as his teacher. Under this preceptorship he was prepared for teaching himself, and for a period of three months was an assistant teacher at Liveoak Hill—Old Ehlinger. For five years succeeding this, Mr. Koehl drove a team for his cousin Ehlinger, freighting between Old Ehlinger and Columbus, this being previous to the advent of the railroads. When he stopped freighting, he clerked in a general store for his cousin at Liveoak Hill, and then engaged in the butcher business on his own account for two years, this being succeeded in turn by his operations in farming.
Mr. Koehl made his first home as a married man on Ross Prairie, but in the following year removed to his present location, in the Colorado River bottoms. His first home here was a frame house, 14x16, "with back room and gallery,'' and this continued to be his place of residence where several of his children were born. He lost his wife there, and then ceased his agricultural pursuits for twelve years. Following the period he was away from the farm, Mr. Koehl was a cotton weigher at Ellinger, and then engaged in merchandise here in company with Charles W. Ehlinger, whose partner he remained for four years. Mr. Koehl then sold out his stock and bought his present farm of 646 acres, and has been in possession of it since that time, and has continued to carry on active and successful operations. The Koehl farm, as previously noted, is a part of the Petty League, and was formerly the property of John H. Meyer. Here Mr. Koehl is cultivating some 450 acres to corn and cotton. The farm is practically all bottom land and the farm is among the most desirable and valuable on the Colorado River. His home is a two-story frame residence, of the ante-bellum pattern, erected by Colonel Jarmon, in 1853, and its appearance gives the spectator the idea of the days of slavery and the affluence of the Southern planters of that period.
In political matters Mr. Koehl is a democrat, but, like his father, he has given little time to political matters. However, while he was engaged in weighing cotton, he served in the capacity of deputy sheriff under Nat Reeves, John Rankin and Lit Zapp, and in his official capacity was called upon to make a few arrests of men charged with murder, and for minor crimes and misdemeanors. Mr. Koehl's fraternal affiliation is with the Sons of Hermann.
Mr. Koehl was first married in the fall of 1872, his wife being Miss Nancy Meyer, a daughter of John H. Meyer. She died at his first home in the Colorado River region, leaving him the following children: Caroline, who is the wife of Gus Tiemann and has three children—Erwin, Gussie and Dorsy; Willie, who married Sophie Jannek, and has two children—Nancy and Walter; and Charley, who married Pearl Anderson, has a son Charley, and is a resident of Wharton, Texas. Mr. Koehl was married in the fall of 1881 to Miss Antonia Neitzen, who died in 1888, leaving the following children: Max, a resident of Houston; Mary, who is the widow of J. V. Opert, and has two children; Lillie, who died in young womanhood; and Bessie, who is a clerk in a general store at Comfort, Texas. On February 24, 1891, Mr. Koehl was united in marriage with Miss Mary Krenek, a daughter of Joseph and Rosa (Bambu) Krenek, who came to Texas from Bohemia. Mr. Krenek was a farmer near Ellinger and died in 1891, while Mrs. Krenek survives. There were eight Krenek children in the family and Mrs. Koehl is the oldest. To Mr. and Mrs. Koehl there have been born seven children, namely: Jacob, who met an accidental death at the age of twenty years; Eugene Henry; Ora Rosa; Rudolph Edward; Eddie; Pearlie, and Lillie Bell. Mr. Koehl is the father of fifteen children, and has eight grandchildren. He is well known and highly respected in the vicinity of his home, where he has a wide circle of acquaintances and numbers his friends by the score. -- pp. 1586 -1588.
DR. A. M. KOTZEBUE. This, well known physician of Flatonia, who has practiced medicine in Lavaca and Fayette counties for more than twenty years, is a native of South Texas, and represents a fine old line of German ancestors, several branches of which have lived in Texas since prior to the Civil war.
The history of the Kotzebue family dates back to 1420. The village that gave the name to the family was Kossebau or Kossebue, and was later named Kotzebue. This village is located in Prussia, at Arendsee in the Altmark or Old Market. Denning Kotzebue, the first of whom we have any knowledge, was born in 1420 in Stendal, and later lived at Salzwebel and also at Magdeburg in Germany. A direct lineage begins with Jacob Kotzebue, who was born in 1527 in Stendall and who was Rathskammerer at Magdeburg. His oldest son John, who was born in the Altstadt (old town) Magdeburg in 1591, was a minister or preacher. He had two sons. The older of these sons was the beginning of the Hanover line of descendants, while the younger son originated the Braunschweig or Russian line. The Kotzebue family in Texas are descended from the Hanover line.
A brief account of the Hanover line of the family is as follows: Johann Kotzebue, born at Quedlinburg in 1616, died in 1677. In 1658 he was ordained a Protestant minister at Hanover. Next comes Georg Carl Kotzebue, of Hanover, who died in 1730. The head of the next generation was Georg Christian Kotzebue who was born in 1706 and died in 1779. He was the father of four sons and five daughters. Of these Christoph Carl was born in 1740 and died in 1810; Albrecht David was born 1754 and died in 1839; and Georg Christian was born in 1752 and died in 1808.
The children of Georg C. Kotzebue last named were as follows: Julie, who was born in 1785 and died in 1861; John Carl Andreas, born in 1787 and died in 1788; Carl Ernst Leopold, born in 1789 and died in 1790; Peter Heinrich Albrecht, born in 1792 and died in 1862; Christian August Meinhard, born in 1795 and died in 1880; and Stats Franz Friedrich, born in 1801.
Stats Franz Friedrich Kotzebue, grandfather of Doctor Kotzebue, was born April 14, 1801, at Hoija in Hanover. He married Christiane Jorgensen, who was born in Denmark. Franz Friedrich Kotzebue owned land at Bocksee in Holstein, Denmark, but on account of the Danish military pressure upon settlers he sold it in 1853, and came to America with his wife and four sons, locating at New Ulm, in Austin County. Franz Friedrich Kotzebue died in 1864. Of his sons, Christian born in 1836, and Johannes, born in 1839, both died in 1857. The other two were Christian Meinhard, born in 1840, and Julius Kotzebue, born in 1842. Both these sons had to go to war in the Confederate army, and after the restoration of peace they both married, and Julius Kotzebue settled down on the farm in Colorado County, while Christian M. later moved to Lavaca County. Julius Kotzebue, who was born in 1842 in Denmark was married in 1866 in Colorado County to Bertha Donlevy. He is still living on his farm in Colorado County and has one daughter and four sons, namely: Lina, Julius, Heinrich, Wilhelm and Hilly, all living and married.
Christian Meinhard Kotzebue, father of Doctor Kotzebue, was born in Denmark in 1840. In 1870 he moved to Lavaca County, locating on a farm near Moulton, sold that place in 1890 and moved into the Town of Moulton, where for the past twenty-five years he has been in the hotel business. He was married in 1866 to Louise Bauer. Her father, George Bauer, was a baker by trade and was employed in that occupation in St. Petersburg, Russia, and after coming to Texas established a home on a farm near New Ulm. Mr. Bauer's wife was Anastasia Amalie Wiese, who was born in Germany. The Bauer children were: August; Amalie, wife of Rev. Rudolph Jaeggli of Moulton; and Mrs. C. M. Kotzebue.
Christian M. Kotzebue and wife are the parents of thirteen living children, mentioned as follows: August Emil Meinhard (Dr. A. M. Kotzebue), born in 1869; Louise, born in 1870, married F. J. Helweg of Moulton; Elise, born in 1873, married W. Graves of Moulton; Alexander F., born in 1875, in the drug business at Moulton, married Erna Fehrenkamp and has two sons and a daughter; Emilie, born in 1876, married F. F. Nesrsta of Flatonia; Selma, born in 1878, married Herman Chemnitz of Flatonia; Bertha, born in 1880, married John Brunkenhoefer of Moulton, and has two sons; Wilhelm, born in 1882, married Adela Helmkamp; Emma, born in 1883, unmarried; Julius, born in 1885, married Helen Goetz, and has one daughter; Amalie, born in 1886, married Vincent Rehmet and has one son; Linda, born in 1889, married William Franke, and has three children, two girls and one boy; and August, born in 1892, married Allan Baugh. Of the sons the oldest is Doctor Kotzebue, two others are engaged in the drug business at Moulton, and three have their homes at Flatonia, including Doctor Kotzebue, one of his brothers being in the employ of the Cowdin Grocery Company, while the youngest is a druggist.
Dr. A. M. Kotzebue was born near Columbus in Colorado County, January 13, 1869, and was reared on the old farm at Moulton. He acquired his early education in the Moulton Institute, took a correspondence course in pharmacy and then engaged in the drug business at Moulton as a partner of Dr. W. H. Lancaster and continued in that line for eleven years. He took his first course in medicine in the Kentucky University of Medicine at Louisville in 1889, and finished in the Illinois Medical College of Chicago in June, 1892. After this preparation he engaged in practice at Moulton, remained there until 1907, and has since had his office and home in Flatonia, and enjoys a large practice in the town and surrounding country. He is a member of the Lavaca County and the Fayette County Medical societies, and served as secretary of the former and has been representative of that society to three meetings of the Texas Medical Association. Ever since coming to Flatonia Doctor Kotzebue has served as city health officer, and for several years has been a member of the school board. For a time he was postmaster at Moulton. In politics he is a democrat with strong prohibition tendencies, is a member of the Lutheran Church, and has fraternal affiliations with the Woodmen of the World, the Sons of Hermann, the Knights of the Maccabees and the Order of Yeomen.
At Moulton, Texas, June 7, 1892, Doctor Kotzebue married Miss Leona Yeliera Lightner. Mrs. Kotzebue was born on a farm at Clayton, near Montgomery, Alabama, a daughter of Thomas Smith and Nancy (Bishop) Lightner. Thomas S. Lightner was a son of William Michael Lightner, whose parents came to America from Holland. Mrs. Kotzebue's mother, Nancy Bishop, was a member of a well known Alabama family, and her mother was a Miss Pitts. Nancy (Bishop) Lightner had four brothers and four sisters. All the brothers lived and died in Alabama except William Bishop, who moved to Arkansas. The sisters became the wives of William Blair, Ryan Bennett, Concel Bush and Monroe Lasseter. Thomas S. Lightner's mother was a Miss Sophia Mustgrove. Mr. Lightner had three brothers and one sister: Sarah, Samuel F., John and William. The sister married a Mr. Warren and after his death married Mr. Helms. The mother of William Michael Lightner, above mentioned, was a Miss Smith. Her first husband was named Harvy, an Englishman. They had been married only a short time before the Revolutionary war. Mr. Harvy was wrongfully accused of active sympathy with the English in that war, and without any trial was hanged before the eyes of his wife. She fainted -at the spectacle and when she recovered consciousness found the dead body of her husband across her. At that time they lived in North Carolina. Mrs. Harvy afterwards married a man of German origin, named Leitner, the name which was subsequently changed to its present spelling of Lightner. Mrs. Doctor Kotzebue has three brothers and three sisters: Fannie, wife of L. T. Edwards of San Antonio, and the mother of three sons and one daughter; Alabama, widow of J. S. Burns of Brownwood, Texas, and has two daughters and one son; Mollie, now Mrs. G. W. Harrison of Cottonwood, Alabama, and has four daughters and three sons; William M. Lightner, of Arkadelphia, Arkansas, and has five daughters and three sons; C. E. Lightner, still living in St. Louis and Gus 0. Lightner, who lives in Monterey, Mexico, and has two sons.
Mrs. Kotzebue was reared in Alabama, finished her high school course in the Clayton Female College of Clayton, and is a graduate of the Tuscaloosa Female College of Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Before her marriage she was a teacher in the public schools at Moulton, Texas. Doctor and Mrs. Kotzebue are the parents of two sons. Meinhard Henry Kotzebue, born May 9, 1893, was graduated from the mechanical engineering department of the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas in 1914, and is now manager of an automobile school at Houston. Leon Lightner Kotzebue, born September 29, 1896, is a graduate of the Flatonia High School and is now a student in the Agricultural and Mechanical College. -- pp. 1398-1400.
ADOLPH KRENEK was born at Fayetteville October 17, 1880, a son of Ignaz Krenek, who for many years was one of the leading ginners in the Fayetteville community. Ignaz Krenek was born at Bordovice, Bohemia, in 1853, and came to America at the age of eighteen. He had gained practically no education in the old country, and such schooling as he had in Texas was of a most primitive character. In fact, he learned to read and write after his marriage. For a few years following the establishment of a home of his own, he was a farmer, and then demonstrated his first stroke of business genius by establishing a cotton gin. His capital was exceedingly limited, and he secured machinery for a gin of one stand, which he put up on his farm, and the power for its operation was supplied by his mule. In connection with the gin he also set up, as his own millwright, a molasses mill. He made the rolls out of liveoak blocks. For several weeks in each season he operated his molasses mill, and after that did the ginning for the cotton growers of that locality. With increasing business and capital he finally installed a modern steam gin, put in a new molasses plant and grist mill, and thus established on his farm three miles south of Fayetteville an institution which gave his place the name of Krenek, an independent village. As a result of increasing financial success he finally bought the gin at Live Oak Hill, rebuilt it, and after operating it for a number of years sold to his son-in-law Joseph Jasek. The plant on his home place he finally sold to his son Ignaz Krenek, and on retiring from active affairs erected a comfortable residence on his adjoining farm. In 1900 Mr. Krenek attended the exposition in Paris, France, and visited the localities in his native land where he had grown up. He was attacked by a severe illness during this trip abroad, and died in 1902 after returning to Texas. In every sense of the term he was the architect of his own destiny, and his success in business was very unusual. Though a democrat, he was never in public office, and his social relations were largely with the Knights of Honor, the Bohemian Orders of C. S. P. S. and the S. P. J. S. T., while in religious affairs he was a Freethinker. Ignaz Krenek married Anna Bubela, daughter of John Bubela, who came to America about the same time as Mr. Krenek and from about the same locality in Bohemia. Mrs. Krenek is now living in LaGrange. The children of their marriage were: Joseph, who was killed in a railroad wreck near Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1902, and was still unmarried; Ignaz, a farmer at Crosby, Texas; Agnes, whose first husband was Joseph Jasek, and who is now the wife of Joseph Franta, and lives at Crosby; Amalia is the wife of John Kubala of Granger Texas; Annie, married J. H. Schamburg of Bartlett, Texas; Rudolph E., a veterinary surgeon in Kansas City, Missouri; and Emil, a graduate of the Kansas City Veterinary College; Alvina who married W. H. Hruska of LaGrange.
Adolph Krenek spent his early life in the Fayetteville community, attended school at Ellinger, and for one year was a student in the Agricultural and Mechanical College at Bryan. He inherited many of the practical qualities of his father, and was well trained for his future career under the direction of that self-made business man. When still a boy he acquired a minute knowledge of the ginning business, and helped to remodel the home plant and the Live Oak Hill plant. Thus he brought experience with him when he moved in 1901 to Engle and bought the William Hillmann gin. After conducting this plant four years it was destroyed by fire, but he at once replaced it with one of the best plants of the kind in Fayette County, a five stand gin of the Murray system. The ginning plant is located in a galvanized house, and adjacent is a corn mill. The mill and surroundings are a model of neatness. In November, 1915, Mr. Krenek sold his business at Engle and moved to Crosby, Harris County, where he again went in the gin business. He made this change in order to afford his children better educational advantages.
There was hardly any more important institution at Engle than the Krenek Cotton gin, and its proprietor was one of the leading citizens of that community and a vigorous and progressive business man who usually succeeds in everything he takes hold of. His family were identified with Fayette County for many years, and their activities sufficed to accumulate a number of honorable associations around the name.
In fraternal matters Mr. Krenek is affiliated with the Bohemian Order S. P. J. S. T., with the Woodmen of the World, the Sons of Hermann, and carries insurance policies issued by the New York Life Company, the Merchants Life Association of Burlington, Iowa, and the Amicable Life of Waco. Every visitor to Engle carried away impressions of the Krenek home, one of the most attractive in all Fayette County, and few if any of the towns can compete with it for beauty. This residence is a two-story frame building, set in the midst of an attractive lawn, covered with luxuriant grasses, with substantial walks, the evergreens and other shrubs carefully shaped by the tools of the landscape gardener. Mr. Krenek was married at Engle, Texas, July 8, 1902, to Miss Albina Herzik. She was born in Fayette County, and one of a large family. Her mother was a Russek. Mr. and Mrs. Krenek are the parents of three children: Adella, Walter and Wilbur. - pp. 1540-1542.
HON. JOHN R. KUBENA. A resident of Fayette County since 1882, Hon. John R. KIubena has been engaged in general merchandising at Fayetteville since 1899, and here has built up a reputation as a businessman, public servant and dependable citizen that makes him one of the leading men of his community. His business establishment has been developed from modest beginnings to one of large propositions, and would do credit to a much larger community than Fayetteville; his signal services in various public capacities have been of a nature to contribute materially to the general advancement of the county, while as a public-spirited citizen he has promoted and supported various movements for the welfare of the county and its people.
John R. Kubena came to Texas in 1882 as a lad of thirteen years, having accompanied his parents from Moravia, Bohemia, where he was born June 10, 1868, at the little Town of Lichnov, where his ancestors had lived for several generations and where they had passed their lives in agricultural pursuits. Mr Kubena is a son of John Kubena, who died at Fayetteville, in 1898, at the age of sixty years. The father’s career in America was passed as a farmer, he settling among his Bohemian countrymen here and becoming a real friend of the institutions of the United States. He became naturalized, and in politics identified himself with the democratic party. He was a lifelong member of the Catholic Church, in which faith the members of his family were reared. Mr Kubena married Miss Veri Kahanek, who still survives and makes her home on the farm on which the family settled upon first coming to Fayette County. The following children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Kubena: Jane, who became the wife of E. J. Knesek, of Fayetteville; John R. of this notice; Miss Rosalia and Miss Rosa, both of Fayetteville; Agnes, who is the wife of Joseph Zapalac, of Fayetteville; Joseph, a resident of Crosby, Texas; Rudolph, who is in the employ of his brother John R.; and Anton, who is residing with his mother and operating the old homestead farm.
John Kubena came to America as the only one to emigrate of the children of his father, John Kubena, who died at the age of thirty-six years. John Kubena’s only brother died in Moravia, and his sisters both married and live there. His first wife was Veri Miculka, who bore him a daughter, Veri, who is now the widow of Adolph Polansky, and resides at Caldwell, Texas. The Kubena family sailed from Bremen, Germany, for the United States on the ship Elbe, which on a later trip met disaster in a collision atsea, but on this voyage reached New York without undue incident, making port on March 16, 1882. The family then came directly to Texas, where the father purchased property in the near vicinity of Fayetteville, and in this locality the children entered the public schools and secured their first lessons in English.
John R. Kubena gained his education from the public school during two winter terms, and farmed with his parents until reaching the age of twenty-two years, at which time he left home and went to LaGrange to enter upon his mercantile experience. He entered the employ of C. J. VonRosenburg [Von Rosenberg], as a clerk, and remained until the spring of 1896, when he was married and moved back to Fayetteville. Here Mr. Kubena worked for his brother-in-law, Mr. Knesek, for one year, and in 1897 went to Moulton and became a clerk for Ed Boehn, a merchant, with whom he remained until January 31, 1899. On March 1st following, Mr. Kubena formed a partnership at Fayetteville with Mr. Knesek, as Kubena & Knesek, and this association continued until the concern was mutually dissolved, January 1, 1905, Mr. Knesek retiring and Mr. Kubena continuing in business. His stock comprises general merchandise, implements and vehicles and occupies a frontage of three stores. Mr. Kubena owns the property and was the erector of two of the buildings which accommodate his stock. In addition to his extensive mercantile interests, he has been identified with other enterprises, having been one of the promoters of the New Ulm State Bank, of which he served in the capacity of vice president for several years.
In political matters, Mr. Kubena began taking an interest as soon as he attained his majority. He cast his first vote for President for Grover Cleveland, and early became a convention man. He attended every state convention for several years, and in the famous Hogg and Clark campaign of 1892 he was a supporter of George Clark for governor. He was an alternate at large to the National Democratic Convention held at Denver, Colorado, in 1908, and attended that body as an alternate-at-large for M. M. Brooks.
Mr. Kubena’s first office was as mayor of Fayetteville, a capacity to which he was elected and served one term. Following this, he was sent to the Twenty-eighth Legislature, as flotorial representative for the counties of Fayette, Bastrop and Gonzales. He served through the Lanham administration and two years under Governor Campbell, but, having been on the losing side of the house in the speakership contest was overlooked in the chairmanship assignments. Mr. Kubena was in favor of Governor Campbell’s “full rendition” scheme, and helped to elect Senators Bailey and Culbertson during his terms. He retired in 1908, and was soon appointed by Governor Colquitt to an official position at the State Insane Asylum at Austin, but resigned that office in 1915 to become a member of the board of managers of the Agricultural and Mechanical College, by the appointment of Governor Ferguson.
Mr. Kubena is a Pythian Knight, a past chancellor and present chancellor of the Fayetteville Lodge, is a Woodman of the World, and has served as camp clerk, and is a member of the Sons of Hermann and the Bohemian lodges S. P. J. S. T. and C. S. P. S. In the S. P. J. S. T., he was an active figure in the organization at LaGrange, and has been secretary of the supreme lodge of the state since its organization.
On January 21, 1896, Mr. Kubena was married to Miss Julia Sladek, a daughter of John Sladek. Mr. Sladek came to America from Moravia prior to the Civil war, married Miss Mary Polak, and passed away in 1908 as a merchant at Fayetteville. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Kubena are nine in number, as follows: Jerome, John, Ladimir, Joseph, Rudolph, Lambert, Julia, Anita and an infant son, Woodrow Wilson. Mrs. Kubena has two brothers, Raymond and Rudolph, and one sister, Mrs. Bertha Foitik. -- pp. 1533-1535.
ALBERT G. KRUEGER. For more than fifteen years Burleson County has recognized in Doctor Krueger a physician and surgeon of superior attainments and skill, and not only an able doctor but also a gentleman and valuable citizen. To a limited extent he has taken an active part in local business affairs and has served his community well and faithfully, not only as a private physician but also as a health officer.
He represents one of the pioneer German families of Burleson County. His grandfather, John Krueger, came to Texas from the Province of Posen, Germany, in 1848, preceding his family to this country by two years. He first located near Brenham in Washington County, but later identified himself with the Round Top community of Fayette County. In his native country he was a miller, but on coming to Texas engaged in farming, and his last years were spent at Round Top, where he died in 1891 at the age of eighty-one, and is buried there. He was successful as a farmer and operated a large tract of land, leaving a good estate to testify to his success. He was a Lutheran in religion and in politics a democrat. He had children by both of his marriages. Those of his first wife were: Charles and Gottlieb, the latter dying at Brenham and survived by a family. The children of the second marriage were: Rudolph, who died at Galveston and left children; Mrs. Greber and Miss Krueger of Brenham.
Charles Krueger, father of Doctor Krueger, was born April 3, 1831, and as he was eighteen years of age when he arrived in Texas had in the meantime acquired a substantial education in German schools. His active career was spent in farming exclusively, and nearly his entire lifetime has been lived within the vicinity of Round Top. He is now retired at the age of eighty-five, and a resident of Carmine. During the war between the states he was a Confederate soldier, his regiment being a part of General Hood's brigade, but after a short service in the ranks he was assigned to the freighting service of Texas to Columbus and other points of Central Texas to the Eio Grande. Following the war he resumed his place as a farmer and for many years conducted a goodly estate near Carmine on the La Bahia Prairie. He was rather markedly successful, and did not retire until old age came upon him. He never sought any distinctions or honors in politics, merely voting the democratic ticket, and in religion is a Lutheran.
Charles Krueger married Emily Hartzke, whose father also came from Posen, Germany, and was a carpenter. Mr. and Mrs' Charles Krueger had the following children: Ed, who was a farmer near Lincoln, Texas; Bertha, who married Adolph Steffen of Ledbetter, Texas; Dr. Albert C.; Charles G., now county judge of Austin County; Paul, a stockman of Carmine, Texas; and Dr. Oscar, who is now practicing medicine at San Antonio, and who spent in the course of his preparation two years in the Vienna Hospital, where he was a pupil under the eminent surgeons Lorenz, Buedenger and Ehrlich.
Dr. Albert G. Krueger was born near Carmine, Texas, December 25, 1866. Until his nineteenth year his days were spent as a farmer boy. After getting all the instruction from the local public schools he attended Bickler Academy and a commercial college at Austin, and entered upon his first serious vocation as a school teacher in Fayette County, where he taught three terms. From his earnings as a teacher he entered medical college in 1894 as a student in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, the medical department of the University of Illinois, Chicago. He was graduated M. D. in 1898, and at once returned to Texas and began practice at Caldwell. On three different occasions he has interrupted his practice to take post-graduate courses in the Chicago Policlinic. His standing in the profession is indicated by his incumbency of the office of president of the County Medical Society, and for a number of years he was secretary of the Brazos Valley Medical Association, and belongs to the State Medical Society and the American Medical Association.
He is also health officer of Caldwell and in politics has been a democrat, but has not been active in party affairs, doing most of his politics as a voter. In a business way he has always been more or less associated with Caldwell affairs, and is a stockholder in the Caldwell Oil Company, stockholder and director of the Caldwell National Bank, and stockholder and director of the Caldwell Furniture Company. He has contributed liberally to enterprises for the good of the locality, and has one of the attractive homes of the little city.
At Caldwell, April 19, 1915, Doctor Krueger married Miss Vivian Lee, who was one of the eight children of George and Mary E. (Young) Lee. Mr. and Mrs. Krueger, as a wedding trip, visited the Panama-Pacific Exposition and also spent considerable time at Salt Lake, Colorado Springs, Denver and other sections of the Rocky Mountains, and visited many parts of California. Doctor Krueger is affiliated with the Knights of Pythias and in church affairs is a Lutheran. -- pp. 1824-1826.
CHARLES KUHN. Now one of the substantial business men and honored and influential citizens of the Village of Paige, Bastrop County, Mr. Kuhn claims the Lone Star State as the place of his nativity and is a scion of one of its honored pioneer families, as his father here established his residence more than sixty years ago. He whose name initiates this paragraph has been in the most significant sense the architect of his own fortune and by his energy, good judgment and sterling integrity of purpose he made consecutive advancement toward the mark of independence and prosperity, with the result that he has become not only a man of affairs but also one who has inviolable place in popular confidence and esteem.
Charles Kuhn was born near Round Top, Fayette County, Texas, on the 8th of November, 1861, and is a son of Jacob J. and Christina (Strauhecker) Kuhn, whose marriage was solemnized in the City of Galveston. Jacob J. Kuhn was born near Ludwigsburg, Kingdom of Wurttemburg, Germany, in 1833, and in the same vicinity was born his wife, though their marriage was solemnized in Galveston, Texas, to which state both had come when young folk. Jacob J. Kuhn was reared and educated in his native land, where his father followed the vocation of wood-turner and where he himself learned the trade of tailor, in the City of Karlsruhe, he having been the only member of the immediate family to have immigrated to America.
In the early '50s, as a young man of about twenty years, Jacob J. Kuhn broke the ties that bound him to his native land and set forth to seek his fortunes in the United States, of which he became a naturalized citizen on the 27th of September, 1858. He made the voyage across the Atlantic on a sailing vessel and continued his voyage across the Gulf of Mexico to Galveston, Texas, from which port he initiated his activities in connection with steamboat navigation along the southern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. Later he became a zealous emissary of the American Tract Society, the publications of which he handled with real missionary spirit, as he was a man of deep religious convictions and was well equipped for service along distinct religious lines. After leaving the employ of the tract society he established his residence at Brazoria, where he turned his attention to such work as he could obtain to make a livelihood, for he had no reserve resources of financial order. From Brazoria he finally removed to the vicinity of Brenham, Washington County, where he seems to have given his time principally to farming. Thereafter he resided for a time at the old Town of Independence, where he found employment in connection with the construction of the original buildings of Baylor University. Finally he settled near Round Top, Fayette County, where he was engaged in agricultural pursuits at the time of the outbreak of the Civil war. He was earnestly impressed with the idea that the integrity of the Union must be preserved, and though his sympathies and hopes were all with the Union he was impressed into the Confederate service, as a member of the company commanded by Captain Alexander. He proceeded with his command toward the Rio Grande frontier, but as soon as opportunity presented he manifested the courage of his convictions by leaving his regiment and joining the Union forces, in which he served with signal fidelity and loyalty until the close of the war. He took part in numerous engagements and under all conditions and circumstances manifested his unbounded loyalty to the Union and to the land of his adoption. He was eventually granted a Government pension in recognition of his services in the Civil war, and he continued to receive the same until his death.
After the close of the war Jacob J. Kuhn vigorously resumed farming operations near Round Top, Fayette County, where he improved and became the owner of a good property and where he continued his residence during the remainder of his active career. He acquired good knowledge of the English language, was progressive and loyal as a citizen but never entered the arena of practical politics and never sought or held public office. As a matter of course he allied himself with the democratic party, though he was not an aggressive partisan. He was a man of broad mental ken and of the deepest appreciation of his personal stewardship, as shown in his unfailing zeal and devotion as a member of the Lutheran Church, of which both he and his wife were earnest communicants. He died in the year 1900, shortly before attaining to the psalmist's allotted span of three score years and ten, and his cherished and devoted wife passed to the life eternal in 1899. Of their children it may be recorded that John is a resident of Miami, this state; Fritz J. remains at the old home near Round Top; Charles, of this review, is the next in order of birth; Caroline is the wife of Louis Plitt, of Taylor, Williamson County; Dr. August is a successful physician and surgeon engaged in practice at Pflugerville, Travis County, where also resides his sister next younger, Miss Catherine; Mollie is the wife of Albert Dipple, of Moulton, Lavaca County; Mrs. Emma Johnson resides at Pflugerville; and Miss Mary, who maintains her home at that place, is a successful teacher in the public schools of Travis County.
Charles Kuhn was signally favored in his youth in being able to attend the excellent school then conducted by Professor Aller in the old Town of Moulton, and he supplemented this educational discipline by a partial course in Baylor University, which was then maintained in the old Town of Independence. After teaching two terms of rural school, at Warrenton and Zionsville, he assumed a clerical position at Round Top, where he became not only a salesman in the mercantile establishment of Walter Schultz but also the latter's assistant in the local postoffice, Mr. Schultz having long served as postmaster at that place. Finally Mr. Kuhn became associated with his brother Fritz J. in purchasing the mercantile establishment and business of Mr. Schultz. and after continuing the enterprise two years under the firm name of Charles Kuhn & Brother they sold the business to Dipple Brothers. At this juncture in his career Charles Kuhn removed to Paige, Bastrop County, where he and his brother entered the mercantile business under the firm name which they had previously maintained at Round Top. They finally erected a good building for their business headquarters, and after an alliance that had here continued four years Fritz J. Kuhn retired from the firm and was succeeded by H. F. Hamff. After the firm of Kuhn & Hamff had continued operations four years Charles Kuhn purchased his partner's interest, since which time he has conducted the same in an individual way. In addition to the general lines of merchandise usually handled in such an establishment, Mr. Kuhn also controls a substantial trade in the handling of agricultural implements and the buying and shipping of cotton. He gave his co-operation in the organization of the Paige Guaranty State Bank, which has proved of great value in fostering the commercial and general business activities of the community and of which he is one of the principal stockholders, as indicated by the fact that he is president of the institution and gives careful attention to the directing of its affairs. Mr. Kuhn has served several years as a trustee of the public schools of Paige and is essentially liberal and public-spirited as a citizen, though his activities in the domain of politics have been confined almost entirely in his casting his ballot in favor of men and measures meeting the approval of his judgment and in occasional service as a member of the board of elections. He is past master of the Paige lodge of Ancient Free and Accepted Masons and is affiliated also with the Sons of Hermann. Both he and his wife are communicants of the Lutheran Church at Paige, and he is serving as its treasurer.
In the City of Austin, on the 26th of March, 1892, was recorded the marriage of Mr. Kuhn to Miss Annie Krause, daughter of William Krause, who came from one of the Polish communities of Germany, and who became one of the representative agriculturists and stock growers of Fayette County, Texas, the maiden name of his wife having been Sternberg and Mrs. Kuhn having been the third in order of birth of their children. Mr. and Mrs. Kuhn have three children, all of whom remain at the parents' home, Eleanora, Albert and Harry. -- pp. 1641-1643.
HUGH F. LITTLE. A prominent and popular exponent of the agricultural and live-stock industries in Fayette County, Mr. Little maintains his residence in the Winchester community of Fayette County and is well upholding the prestige of a family name that has been identified with Texas history since the early period when the now opulent commonwealth was still under the Dominion of Mexico. William Little, grandfather of him whose name initiates this paragraph, came from Tennessee and settled in Texas as a member of the American Colony founded by Stephen F. Austin, in the early '30s, and he obtained as his headright a league of land in what is now Fort Bend County. He endured the full tension of hardships and perils incidental to life on the frontier and did his part in furthering the cause of Texas independence. His marriage was solemnized in Texas, and here he and his wife passed the remainder of their lives. Among their children were John, Walter, William, Mrs. James Jones, of Fort Bend County, and George, of Columbus, this state, the two last mentioned being now the only survivors of the children of these sterling pioneers. It will thus be seen that the family of which the subject of this sketch is a scion of the third generation in Texas was one of the first to become identified with the settlement and development of the Lone Star Commonwealth.
Hugh F. Little was born at LaGrange, the judicial center of Fayette County, Texas, on the 30th of September, 1861, and is a son of Walter and Sarah (Wilson) Little. Walter Little was born on his father's extensive landed estate, twenty miles above Richmond, in Fort Bend County, Texas, in October, 1830, and he passed the last ten years of his life at Eagle Lake, Colorado County, where his death occurred on the 4th of March, 1913. He passed his early manhood as a cattle man in Colorado and Fort Bend counties, and prior to the Civil war he removed to LaGrange. During the progress of the war he was identified with the Government freighting operations between Texas points and Mexico, and this was the medium through which he served the Confederate government. After the war he removed to the district east of LaGrange, but several years later he returned to the county seat. He served for a number of years as a member of the Board of County Commissioners of Fayette County, and his services were frequently in requisition in the work of surveying, for which he had become well qualified. He did much speculating in lands in Fayette County, and represented the Vail-Evans heirs as agent for their extensive landed estate in Fayette and other counties of Texas. Walter Little was a man of well disciplined mind, broad information and special mathematical ability, and his life was guided and governed by the highest principles of integrity. Such was his natural reserve that he had no desire to enter the area of practical politics or to assume leadership in public affairs, the only public office of which he consented to become the incumbent having been that of county commissioner. He was reared in the faith of the Catholic Church but in the later years of his life he formed a definite religious affiliation with the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. In the Masonic fraternity he was raised to the degree of Master Mason, and he was a loyal and worthy citizen who ever commanded unqualified popular confidence and esteem. He had in the early days broad and varied experience in frontier life and was known as a fine pistol shot. In his younger life he drove cattle through to army posts in Northwestern Texas and incidentally had occasion to pass numerous Indian camps and to encounter at times the danger of attack by marauding bands of the Indians. Throughout his life he was aligned as a stalwart supporter of the principles of the democratic party.
As a young man Walter Little wedded Miss Sarah Wilson, daughter of Doctor Wilson, who came from Virginia to Texas and settled in Colorado County, where he passed the remainder of his life. Of the other children of Doctor Wilson it may be noted that Norval is a resident of Alleyton, Colorado County; Virginia became the wife of Vincent Allen and her death occurred in Colorado County; and Robert met his death in battle, while serving as a soldier of the Confederacy in the Civil war. Of the children of Walter and Sarah (Wilson) Little, Hugh F., of this sketch, is the eldest, and Mary is the wife of Edward McRea, of Eagle Lake, Colorado County. The first wife of Walter Little died in 1869, and he later married Maggie Laird, their children being Nellie, who is the wife of Walter Strickland, of Eagle Lake; Walter, who is associated with the Frank Stephens Company at that place; and Sam who is serving in 1915 as postmaster at Eagle Lake.
The public schools of LaGrange afforded to Hugh F. Little his early educational advantages, and when but a boy he initiated his business career by assuming charge of a bunch of cattle, of which he became the owner. By the time he had attained to his legal majority he had gained a substantial start in the cattle business. He first grazed his cattle on the old-time open range in Fayette County, and within a short time after becoming of age he engaged in the meat market business at LaGrange. Two years thereafter he disposed of his market and business and in the autumn which marked the construction of the railroad through the Winchester district of his native county he established his residence in the ambitious Village of Winchester, where he erected a business building and where for two years he was associated with William Loud in the retail liquor trade. He then purchased his partner's interest, and his association with this line of enterprise continued for an aggregate period of eighteen years. In the meanwhile he had continued to a certain extent his identification with the cattle business, and after his retirement from the liquor trade he engaged in the live stock commission business in the City of Fort Worth, as a member of the Flato Commission Company. After an experience of eighteen months he retired from this business and returned to LaGrange, where he again began handling cattle, in association with Mr. Juergens. In 1911 he returned to Winchester, and he has since found ample demands upon his time and attention in connection with his successful operations as a farmer and in the raising and handling of live stock. In politics he is arrayed as a loyal supporter of the cause of the democratic party, he is affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and he and his family hold to the faith of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. On the 4th of February, 1885, in Fayette County, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Little to Miss Elizabeth Walker, a daughter of John Z. and Shields (Saunders) Walker, both of whom were residents of LaGrange at the time of their death. Mr. Walker came from Maryland to Texas, but Robert D. Saunders, maternal grandfather of Mrs. Little, was numbered among the pioneer settlers of the Lone Star State. John Z. Walker came from Mardela Springs, Maryland, his father, John Walker, having been a prosperous farmer of that state. Mr. Walker not only became a successful farmer in Texas but also worked at his trade, that of carpenter. He was a valiant soldier of the Confederacy in the Civil war, as a member of a Texas regiment. He and his wife became the parents of seven children: Ella married J. P. Wroe, of Houston; Elizabeth is the wife of Mr. Little, of this review; John Walter resides at Winchester; Mrs. Kate Joyner likewise maintains her home at Winchester; W. Alexander resides in the City of Houston; Margaret wedded William Caldwell, of La Grange; and Robert resides in the City of St. Louis, Missouri. Mr. and Mrs. Little have no children. -- pp. 1408-1410.
JAMES MARBURGER In the year following that of the admission of the former Republic of Texas as one of the sovereign commonwealths of the United States, James Marburger, of Cistern, Fayette County, became a resident of this state, as a lad of about five years. He accompanied his parents on their immigration from Germany and the family home was established in Austin County, Texas. Here Mr. Marburger maintained his home during the long intervening period of seventy years, and it was his privilege and satisfaction to have witnessed and assisted in the civic and material development and upbuilding of the Lone Star State and through his well ordered endeavors to achieve independence and substantial financial success. He was one of the pioneer citizens of Fayette County, where he accumulated a large landed estate, and he was prominent and influential in civic affairs and in industrial and business activities, the while his course was ordered according to the principles of integrity, fairness and steadfastness, so that he fully merited the confidence and good will that were uniformly accorded to him.
Mr. Marburger was born in Witzenstein, Prussia, on the 22d of March, 1841, and was a son of Henry and Mary (Wolf) Marburger, both natives of Preis-Witzenstein, where the former was born August 20, 1805, and the latter on the 19th of February, 1803. Henry Marburger acquired a common-school education in his native land, was reared in the faith of the Lutheran Church, and he developed much musical ability, especially as a vocalist. In his Fatherland he had direction of a church choir, and he continued his activities in this line after becoming a pioneer in Texas, having been a leader in the religious activities in the Shelby community of Austin County.
In 1846 Henry Marburger and his family embarked on a sailing vessel in the port of Bremen, Germany, and set forth to establish their new home in America. Their voyage was continued through the Gulf of Mexico to Texas and they landed at Galveston, five days having been required for them to make the trip between that place and Houston, from which latter point they were transferred to their destination to the Shelby community, in Austin County, by the old-time freighter and pioneer German citizen named Rinn. In the vicinity of the present Town of Shelby Henry Marburger purchased and improved a tract of land, and prior to the war between the North and the South he owned a few slaves. When the war was precipitated he vigorously upheld the cause of the Union, but his three sons all served as soldiers in the Confederate ranks. He was a staunch democrat, an honest, upright and unassuming citizen, he became only measurably familiar with the English language, and on his farm he continued to live a quiet and uneventful life until he was venerable in years, when he became a welcome member of the home circle of his son James, of this review, at Cistern, where he died on the llth of January, 1893, his loved and devoted wife having passed away June 14, 1886. Of their children it may be recorded that William died near Cistern, at the age of sixty-five years, he having been a soldier in Waul's Legion in the Confederate service in the Civil war; his wife, Anna, having survived him by a number of years; Henry, who likewise served in Waul's Legion, died at his home near Cistern, Fayette County, at the age of seventy-six years, the maiden name of his wife having been Bertha Wunderlich; James, of this sketch, was the next in order of birth and is the only surviving member of the immediate family; and the one daughter, Mrs. Louisa Bernhausen, died near Welcome, Austin County, when seventy-six years of age.
In Austin County James Marburger was reared to manhood under the conditions of the pioneer days on the Texas frontier, and such educational advantages as came to him were those offered in the somewhat primitive schools maintained in the Shelby community. As a youth he entered the employ of William B. Witte, the leading merchant of Shelby, and was assigned to the work of hauling merchandise and other commodities from Houston to Shelby. After experience in this capacity he was given a clerkship in Mr. Witte's store at Shelby, and his compensation for the first year included his board and lodging and the stupendous emolument of $5. The second year, however, he prevailed upon his employer to accord to him a cash compensation of $12.50, and he continued his faithful clerical labors in this connection until he went forth in the Civil war as a youthful and loyal soldier of the Confederacy.
In November, 1861, Mr. Marburger enlisted in Company G, commanded by Captain Hauvel, in Colonel Riley's Regiment of General Sibley's Brigade. With this valiant command he proceeded into New Mexico, where he took part in the battles of Fort Craig, Valverde and Santa Fe, besides a long-resisted engagement at Beralda after the return of the brigade to Texas. After remaining a few weeks in camp at Milliken Mr. Marburger's regiment went with his regiment to the vicinity of Harrisburg, where some of its members, concerning one of whom Mr. Marburger was prone to keep wisely silent, did effective foraging and captured a number of semi-belligerent hogs, and the command thence proceeded to Galveston. From the rank of private Mr. Marburger was promoted sergeant, later was made orderly sergeant, and finally was commissioned first lieutenant. After the battle of Galveston he was assigned to guard duty, with sixty men, on the wharf of that city, where they endured much hardship in the loss of their tents and being compelled to sleep unprotected from the rain, besides meeting other unseemly exposure to the elements. From Galveston the command returned to Houston, and prior to the close of the war Mr. Marburger received his honorable discharge, on account of physical disability. Prior to his discharge he had been assigned to hospital service at Hempstead, but he was soon ordered to Houston, with his men and equipment, and in that city he was finally retired from further service.
After having recuperated his physical powers Mr. Marburger joined his old friend, the pioneer freighter, Mr. Rinn, and engaged in the buying of cotton, which they hauled to the Rio Grande, where they sold the product at the rate of 40 cents a pound. He paid for the freighting of his cotton across the plains to Rio Grande at the rate of 11 cents a pound, in gold, and even under these conditions he realized large profits. Before the close of the war Mr. Marburger became associated with his former employer, Mr. Witte, in the general merchandise business at Shelby, and though much the junior in years he was made senior member of the firm of Marburger & Witte, his capitalistic investment being the heavier of the two and representing his profits from his transactions in cotton, notwithstanding he had been compelled to pay one-fifth of his gross receipts to the Confederate government, as a war tax with incidental privilege of conducting his business enterprise. After six years of successful merchandising at Shelby, Mr. Marburger dissolved his partnership with Mr. Witte and engaged in the same line of enterprise at Haw Creek, a village in Fayette County. He established the first mercantile store in the place and the building which he there erected for the purpose is still used for business purposes. He developed a specially large and prosperous enterprise, was the first country merchant in this locality to buy his goods by the car-load lot, and he continued in business at Haw Creek nearly five years, besides which he conducted a similar or branch enterprise about three years at Rock House, in the meanwhile having opened also a general store in Cistern, where he occupied the old adobe building that had been erected by the Goshia firm some years previously. At Cistern Mr. Marburger continued his successful business as one of the leading merchants of Fayette County for the long period of twenty-two years, his retirement having occurred in 1900.
While engaged in the mercantile business Mr. Marburger was investing his profits judiciously in real estate. He bought lands in the Whiteside League, near Cistern, and brought much of the same into effective and profitable cultivation. He is still owner of an extensive landed estate in Fayette County and has set apart a large amount of his holdings for his children. At Cistern he erected the fine and essentially modern house which was afterward his place of residence and which became a center of genial hospitality. For many years Mr. Marburger was engaged in the raising of cattle on an extensive scale, and until within a recent period he had many head of high-grade cattle on his range. His brand was the anchor, and it is used on the Anchor Brand Ranch, of which one of his sons has the active supervision.
In politics Mr. Marburger never deviated from a line of strict allegiance to the democratic party, but in local affairs he was inclined to subordinate mere partisanship to give his support to men and measures meeting the approval of his judgment. He was for many years arrayed as a foe of the liquor traffic and was in full accord with the prohibition movement. Mr. Marburger was reared in the faith of the Lutheran Church, maintained an abiding appreciation of the spiritual verities of the Christian religion and was always liberal and helpful in church support, holding it not in derogation of the cause that he himself has had his confidence abused and sustained losses through the medium of hypocritical clergymen and other church members from whom he had expected honest and sincere treatment. At Round Top he became affiliated with the Masonic fraternity more than forty-five years ago, but he was not in active affiliation with the order at the close of his life. He signified his birthright eligibility by holding membershp in the Sons of Hermann. In addition to Henry Marburger, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, three of his brothers, William, Ludwig and Jacob, likewise became early settlers of Texas, and their only sister passed the closing years of her life at Shelby, this state, the name of her first husband having been Voelkel and that of her second, Hetzel, she having had children by both marriages.
In Austin County, on the 10th of January, 1865, was celebrated the marriage of James Marburger to Miss Mary Doss, a daughter of Charles and Augusta (Schneider) Doss. Mr. Doss came from Potsdam, Germany, and was a skilled mechanic as well as a talented vocalist. In his native land he was a music leader in the service of his Prussian king, and after he came to Texas he served as leader of the Gesangverein in Austin County. He was one of the German revolutionists of 1848 and on this account, with many of his fellow patriots, was compelled to flee his Fatherland and establish a home in the United States. Of his children Richard died at Victoria, Texas; George is a resident of Rockdale, this state; Mrs. Marburger, the elder daughter, was born in the City of Berlin, Germany, August 14, 1846, and was a young child at the time of the family immigration to America; and Johanna, who became the wife of Andreas Schucaney, was a resident of Shelby, this state, at the time of her death. In the concluding paragraph is entered brief record concerning the children of Mr. and Mrs. Marburger:
Antonia died at the age of three and one-half years; Hedwig, born March 14, 1867, is the wife of William Mennicke, of La Grange, judicial center of Fayette County; Paula, born March 11, 1869, is the wife of E. A. Arnim, of Flatonia, this county; Walter, born August 8, 1870, is a resident of the City of Galveston, the maiden name of his wife having been Antonia Paul; Johanna, born June 6, 1872, is the wife of W. C. Miller, of Smithville; Lula, born August 26, 1874, is the wife of A. M. Gosch, of Flatonia; Felix J., who was born March 12, 1878, married Miss Georgia Blanchard and they reside in the City of Galveston; Max, who was born November 8, 1879, and who married Miss Clara Mensing, is a successful ranchman near Cistern; Beno D., who was born December 10, 1882, and the maiden name of whose wife was Eva Rich, resides at Kingsville, Texas, and is a civil engineer by profession, he being identified with railroad work in a professional capacity; Valeska, born November 25, 1884, is the wife of Dr. 0. Davis, of Anderson, this state; Arnold, born November 15,1889, is a scientific farmer on a portion of his father's landed estate, near Cistern, and the maiden name of his wife was Dovie Knight.
James Marburger, the subject of this sketch, died at Flatonia, Texas, October 3, 1915, and was buried under the auspices of the Sons of Hermann at the family buying ground at Cistern, Texas, October 4, 1915, at the age of seventy-four years and six months, his entire family being present. -- pp. 1508-1511.
JOHN JOSEPH MAURER A well known citizen of San Antonio, John Joseph Maurer is to be especially remembered for his valuable work in building up and establishing several of the nourishing Baptist churches of that city. It is noteworthy that he was the first male person baptized in a Baptist church in San Antonio, and for a number of years he was active as a missionary and regular minister of that faith.
He was born in Fayette County near Cistern, March 18, 1873. His Elise (Jacquemart) Maurer [sic.]. His father, who was born in the Rhine Province of Germany, coming to America when a youth, is now deceased, having for several years lived in San Antonio. The mother, who makes her home with her son in San Antonio, is now past ninety years of age. She was born in Northern France, daughter of a Protestant minister who was sent as a missionary to Montreal, Canada, where Mrs. Maurer lived as a girl.
John Joseph Maurer was about seventeen years old when his parents moved to San Antonio in 1875 [sic.]. After his education he took up the trade of sign painter, and since he gave up regular church work some years ago he has continued employment along that line and has done much of the artistic work found about the city.
He was converted at one of the early Baptist meetings held at San Antonio, and soon afterwards decided to enter the ministry. His conversion and baptism took place in the old First Baptist Church of San Antonio. After finishing the full English Bible course in the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary at Louisville, Kentucky, where he was graduated in 1886, he was ordained at Lawrenceburg, Kentucky, where he entered upon the regular ministry. However, he had begun preaching as early as 1880,. and in the early years was the principal missionary of his denomination in San Antonio. It was due to his constructive labors as a preacher that three missions were established which subsequently grew into three flourishing churches, and are now known as the Prospect Hill Church, the Central Church and the Calvary Church. He was pastor of the Sunset, now the Calvary Church, for several years after its organization, and has also been pastor of a number of churches of his denomination at various places in Southwest and West Texas. Some of the towns where he is best remembered as a minister were Cotulla, Hondo City, Marfa and Marathon. While in recent years he has not taken any regular charge as a pastor, he is occasionally called upon to preach, and is one of the best beloved ministers of his denomination in Southwest Texas.
Rev. Mr. Maurer married Miss Ruth Hedger of Lawrenceburg, Kentucky. Their three sons are named Gus L., John J., and Charles W.. -- pp. 1419.
FRANK McCLELLAN. One of the important industries of the vicinity of Ledbetter, in Fayette County, is that which has to do with the furnishing of gravel for railroad ballasting arid like enterprises, and which is being conducted on a large scale under the capable direction of Frank McClellan, who has also been identified with various other ventures which have lent business prestige to the community.
Mr. McClellan is a representative of an old and well known pioneer family of Fayette County, which was founded by William B. McClellan in Austin County during the first settlement of Texas. He resided four miles east of Burton, where he conducted a large country store and there lived out his life as a quiet, unassuming citizen, giving much attention to public affairs. He was a native of Tennessee, from which state he came to Texas, and died about the year 1878, when perhaps eighty-five years of age. In political matters he was a democrat, and his religious affiliation was with the Christian Church, in the work of which he took an active part for many years. William B. McClellan was married in his native state to Miss Smith, who survived him several years, both being buried a short distance from their old home. Their children were as follows: John, who passed his life as a farmer some seven miles east of Giddings, where he died, was a Confederate soldier during the Civil war, and lived a quiet life much like his father; Albert, who lived a few miles north of Ledbetter, where he carried on agricultural pursuits, was a Confederate soldier, and was a county official on several occasions, dying at his old country home; Samuel, the father of Frank of this notice, who served a short time in the service of the Confederate Government, was a freighter before the advent of the railroads, and subsequently handled stock and engaged in farming, and finally engaged in the tie and wood contracting business, and was so engaged at the time of his death; Jane, who married Haynie Gilliland and died in Brown County, Texas; Susan, who became the wife of Abram McCain, and died in Lee County, Texas; Mattie, who became the wife of Mr. Dunn, and died in Navarro County, Texas; Mary, who became the wife of G. W. Ratcliff and died at Fort Worth; and William R., who is now a resident of Coleman, Texas.
Samuel H. McClellan was married in Texas to Miss Addie Hackworth, the daughter of another pioneer of Texas, who was a wheelwright by vocation and passed his life in Washington County. Mrs. McClellan still survives her husband and is a resident of Elgin, Texas, and has been the mother of the following children: John, of Houston, who is engaged in the wholesale and retail crockery business; Frank, of this notice; Walter, who is in the United States mail service at Houston; George, who is engaged in farming near LaGrange; and Ethel, who is the wife of John Flowers, of Elgin, Texas.
Frank McClellan was born October 6, 1863, and grew up in the community of Ledbetter, his education being secured in the public schools: His father died when he was still a youth and when he put aside his school books he began farming for his mother and helping her in raising stock, remaining under the maternal roof until past his majority. When he began life on his own account it was as a .gravel producer in the vicinity of Ledbetter, with teams and in a small way, his first work being done by day labor, subsequently as a contractor, and finally as a buyer of gravel beds, his contracts now being with the Houston & Texas Central Railroad. Mr. McClellan at this time has a force of thirty-five teams doing daily work, thirty-three men being employed on an average all the time, and in the course of his long career, covering a period of twenty-five years, he has stripped of gravel perhaps 200 acres of land, and about 500 or 600 miles of the Houston & Texas Central Railroad's line has been ballasted with gravel furnished by him. This industry is one of the most important at Ledbetter, and as directed by Mr. McClellan is constantly increasing in scope and usefulness. In addition to his gravel enterprise, Mr. McClellan is a farmer, owning a large amount of property in Fayette County, and is a dealer in lands and a trader in horses and mules. In all his business ventures he bears a high reputation, and is looked upon as one of the substantial and thoroughly reliable men of this locality.
Mr. McClellan has not been particularly active in political affairs, but has always supported the policies and candidates of the democratic party. He is at all times ready to contribute of his means or abilities in behalf of movements for the public welfare, and has served and is serving as a trustee of the Ledbetter schools. For two years he was also at the head of a mercantile business here, but disposed of his interests in that line.
On June 20, 1886, Mr. McClellan was married in Fayette County, to Miss Ellen Killen, a daughter of James Killen, an agriculturist near Ledbetter and a member of another old family of this part of Texas, although at the time Mr. McClellan married his wife the family was residing in Travis County. Mr. Killen married Miss Mary Womack, and they became the parents of four daughters and two sons: Ellen, who married Frank McClellan; Annie, who is the wife of Lewis Bevel; Mattie, who married Jo Gault; Ludie, who became the wife of George Jones; John, a resident of Austin, who married Miss Roberts; and Harvey, a resident of Round Rock, Texas. Mr. and Mrs. McClellan have had the following children: Conway H., who is associated with his father in his business enterprise at Ledbetter; Addie, who is the wife of Lester Chamberlain, of Ledbetter, and has three children— Frank, Mary Ethel and Aldridge; Frank, who has spent two years in the service of the United States navy, and is now on an auxiliary ship; and Mabel, Erie, Myra, Johnnie, May, Billy and Milton, who reside with their parents. Mr. McClellan is a member of the Woodmen of the World. -- pp.1676-1678.
Penny Odom has this tintype labelled George McClellan from an old Whitehead family photo album. If you have information that this is the George McClellan mentioned in the above article or can tie McClellan to the Whitehead family, please contact Penny. Click on photo for larger view.
REV. JOSEPH MEISER. Pastor of the St. Rosa Catholic Church at Schulenburg, Father Meiser has been connected with churches in Texas since 1904. He possesses rare accomplishments for his profession, both as a matter of scholarly training and natural fitness, and is one of the ablest younger priests in the San Antonio diocese.
Born November 1, 1876, Father Meiser's birthplace was in Wust-weilerhof by Illingen, Ottweiler, in the Province of the Rhine. He grew up on a farm, and on completing the course of the elementary schools continued his studies in the Gymnasia at Neuenkirchen and Saar-bruecken, studied philosophy in the University of Louvain, Belgium, finished four semesters in theology at Luxemburg, and for a like period was a student of theology in Freiburg, Switzerland. He was ordained at Freiburg by Archbishop Potron, one of the old missionaries of the church, on September 24, 1904, and was designated for service in the diocese of San Antonio, Texas. He at once came to this country, and was first assigned to the Sacred Heart Church at Red Rock. There in addition to his pastoral duties of a regular nature he proved his efficiency in building up the parochial school and erecting new school buildings at Spring Prairie. His pastorate at Red Rock, in the Sacred Heart Church, lasted eight years. His next duties were in St. Mary's Church at LaCroste, where he remained a year and a half and erected a parochial school and parsonage. On July 17, 1914, Father Meiser was transferred to Schulenburg to succeed Rev. Father Mathias.
Father Meiser is a son of Peter and Catherine (Schirra) Meiser. Of their nine children six died in childhood, and the other two now living are Catherine, who is one of the visitors of the poor at Bruegge, Belgium; and Anna, still at the old home in Germany. Father Meiser's father participated in the Prussian war against Austria during 1866, and in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870, his service consisting of those duties now designated under the general term Red Cross work.
Born a German, Father Meiser acquired Italian and Spanish during his courses in the gymnasia, also some knowledge of the English, and his study and associations in Belgium made him proficient in the French. He is a linguist of exceptional attainment even for the Catholic priesthood. Father Meiser is spiritual director of the Sterbekasse of the German Catholics of Texas, and is a member of the German Catholic Staats-verbund of Texas. -- pp.1365-1366.
HERMAN J. MEITZEN. Although he is now retired from his active labors in the field of education, the name of Herman J. Meitzen is especially esteemed at Fayetteville as one of those whose helpful and purposeful participation in the life of the locality has done much to advance the material interests of Fayette County.
A native of Fayette County, where he was born March 25, 1851, he is a son of Otto Meitzen, a German emigrant of the year 1849, who came from Breslau where he was born January 11, 1811. Well educated and a machinist by trade, after he came to the United States he developed his enterprise into the building of steam engines and kindred machinery and cotton gins. He came to the United States following the revolutionary movement of 1848 in Germany. While not a participant in the Revolution, he became so disgusted with the attitude and policy of the government that he decided to take his family and seek a new home in the free country across the waters.
After a journey on a sailing vessel, Otto Meitzen and family landed in Texas, went up Buffalo Bayou and thence by ox team to Fayetteville, where they arrived in December, 1849. There he turned to a new venture, that of farming, but on account of his inexperience was able to. achieve little success. In 1859 in company with his brother William Meitzen, he started a gin, grist mill and saw mill at Fayetteville. This business was broken up during the confusion of war time. He then returned to the farm and resumed the tilling of the soil, an occupation which, though not familiar with it, promised better returns than any mercantile or manufacturing venture at that time.
During the war, on the merits of the struggle between the North and the South, he was a Union man and against secession, but took no active part in the war that would offend his neighbors as he was at that time too old for military service. Following the close of hostility he became a supporter of the republican party and continued to vote for it during the rest of his career. His fortune was dissipated during the war, and for several years he was merely a tenant farmer. Subsequently with the aid of his children he purchased his old home and remained there until age forced him to leave, the last few months of his life being spent with a son near Hallettsville, where he died in April, 1882, and was buried at Bauersville, Lavaca County. His wife lies on the old farm in Biegel settlement, Fayette County. Her death occurred April 7, 1877. Her maiden name was Jennie Holmgren, a daughter of Jens Holmgren. She was born in the City of Berlin, Germany, where her father, originally a Dane from Copenhagen, was a government official. Otto Meitzen and wife were Lutherans and their children were reared in the faith of that church. Of their children, Otto died at the age of eighteen at Biegel. The next child, Ida, died young. The third is Herman J. Meitzen. Judge Edward 0. of Hallettsville is proprietor of the leading socialist newspaper in Texas. Ernst died at Shiner, Texas, leaving no children. Julia married John A. Ligon, a merchant at Robstown, Texas. Ida, the second of the name, first married Tyler Wade and for her second husband Mr. Killen of Ledbetter, Texas.
Herman J. Meitzen grew up in the vicinity of the town of Fayetteville, and had few chances as a boy to gain an education. By making the best use of his time and opportunities, he became well educated, acquiring much from his parents, gaming a knowledge of English from an uncle. Prof. Otto Kunert. At the age of seventeen he did his first work as a teacher. His mother was a teacher, having been liberally educated in her native land, and she needed the aid of her son in her school, while he eagerly sought this experience in teaching. He began teaching the English language when he himself had little familiarity with it, as he says, and at the age of nineteen he took his first teacher's examination. Examinations for teacher's certificates in Fayette County were then held before a commission appointed by J. C. DeGress, the carpetbag state superintendent. Oral examinations were also in vogue. With this license Mr. Meitzen began work in the school at Fayetteville.
As an echo of educational conditions following the war some incidents of that oral examination should be mentioned. The superintendent was holding a session of school trustees on the day of the examination, and young Meitzen was requested several times to call again, since the superintendent had not completed his other business. When finally called into the room later in the day, another school man, a white man engaged in teaching negro schools, accompanied him. The first question or two seemed to be put to both the applicants, and young Meitzen was always the first to answer, but was informed by the superintendent that the questions were not put to him but to the other. This indicated that he was being purposely neglected and slighted, and it was only natural that he felt a growing ill humor. After some time of grilling, the youth suggested that evidently his way of answering questions was not satisfactory to the examiner, although the questions were answered correctly. The superintendent returned: "If you want to edify teachers you had better go to Austin." To this Mr. Meitzen asked: "Do you want to ask me any more questions?" "No, sir," came the reply, and Mr. Meitzen returned in the belief that he would not be granted a certificate. At that time certificates were of four grades, first, second, third and fourth class, and through the intercession of a friend of the superintendent and the young man, the latter was granted a fourth class license. With this he began teaching at Fayetteville as assistant to Professor Benne. His second certificate came easier than the first, and through a different channel, and he continued to teach at Fayetteville from 1870 until 1873. This was followed by eleven years of work at the Willow Springs school, at the end of which time he gave up teaching,, and went to farming. After a year the people of his neighborhood prevailed upon him to take the home school then on his farm, and. he took it on a second grade certificate. Thus for five years he taught "in his own schoolhouse" as he puts it, this being known as the Postoak School. Then there was a year at Oldenburg, at the end of which time the people of his home community agreed to build him a schoolhouse midway between Oldenburg and his farm if he would return to them, a proposition which he accepted. The district was composed of Germans and Bohemians, with the latter in the ascendancy, and for thirteen years Professor Meitzen taught there without interruption. His last work as a schoolman was done in 1904, after which he retired. Now he and his faithful wife live together in their home at Fayetteville, Texas.
During his retirement he has exercised himself about his home, and has enjoyed a rest for his many years of capable service in the schoolroom. In politics he has been merely a voter, although when populism was a live issue he was identified with that party.
October 29, 1874, Professor Meitzen married Miss Mary Zapp, a daughter of Hugo Zapp, one of the pioneers of Fayette County and one of its leading citizens both before and after the Civil war. Mrs. Meitzen was born June 11, 1854. Mr. and Mrs. Meitzen have a family of very capable children, and they became so mainly through the well directed efforts of their energetic, ever watchful and most loving mother, who was their only guide, especially in their early years. A woman of great circumspection and discretion, every one must admit that in addition to these qualities Mrs. Meitzen possesses a lovable and unselfish disposition, else she could never have attained the results that she did with her family. Her name deserves always to be spoken with praise and gratitude by those who follow after her in the line of generation.
A brief record of these children is as follows: Otto H., the oldest, graduated from the law department of the Texas State University in 1899, practiced law two years at LaGrange in Judge Willrich's office, also taught school for a time, and is now a railway mail clerk with home at Houston, and running on the M. K. & T. between Houston and Temple. Hugo E., who also taught school for a number of years, is a railway mail clerk on the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, running between Houston and Temple; by his marriage to Emma Afflerbach he has two sons named Warren and Clarence. Adelia is the wife of John A. Gehrels of Sandia, Texas, a carpenter by trade, and they have an only son named Algernon. Theodore, the next child of Mr. and Mrs. Meitzen, was born June 3, 1880, and died June 18, 1881. Victor C., who spent one year as a teacher, lives at Denison, Texas, being a railway mail clerk from that point to San Antonio; he married Irene Afflerbach, and has four children, Marian, Logan, Irene and Emogene. Edgar H., youngest son of Mr. and Mrs. Meitzen, a bookkeeper for the Houston Packing Company, was married November 24, 1915, to Miss Gertrude Stellbauer of Houston. Agnes, the youngest child, died when nearly seven years of age.
Professor Meitzen is a charter member of the Knights of Honor, instituted at Fayetteville in 1881, and was its first reporter, an office which he held for eighteen years. He is also a charter member of his lodge of the Woodmen of the World, and was its first clerk and served in that capacity for eight years. At one time he was. a member in the Sons of Hermann. -- pp.1916-1918.
OTTO F. MENKING. Persistence, adaptability, good judgment and common sense have been the qualities which have prevailed in the career of Otto F. Menking, who is conducting a successful general store on Haw Creek, Fayetteville R. F. D. No. 3. He is a product of the agricultural regions of Fayette County, his birth having occurred in the immediate vicinity of his store, September 30, 1872. His family is an early one in Texas, having been founded here by his grandfather, Fritz Menking, who was born at Schamburger-Lippe, Germany, had a limited education, and was a shepherd in his native land, where he was married to Caroline Koch, who passed away many years before her husband.
In the year 1853 Fritz Menking shipped from Bremen, Germany, to Galveston, Texas, from whence he brought his family straight to Austin County and settled near Shelby. Being one of the poor men of the settlement, he began his farming career as a renter, but soon demonstrated his capacity for industry and thrift and became able to own land after a few years, buying his first property on Cummings Creek, a piece of raw land. After a few months he moved to Industry where he bought a farm and resided for several years and then sold out and moved to the Schoenau locality where he lived and farmed during the period of the Civil war. While here also he did some freighting to Mexico with oxen, and after the war again devoted his entire energies to farming. From that community Mr. Menking moved to another raw tract of land on Haw Creek, improved and finally sold it, and then located at his final home on the farm, a tract of improved land, and when he reached his high tide of business prosperity was the owner of 600 acres. At the time of his death, which occurred in the Haw Creek community when past seventy years of age, he was the owner of 400 acres.
Fritz Menking was not a public man. He voted after his citizenship was accomplished and endeavored to support good men and beneficial measures. His religious faith was that of the Lutheran church. Mr. and Mrs. Menking were the parents of the following children: Caroline, who is the wife of Henry Finck, of the Haw Creek locality; Frederick 0., the father of Otto F.; William; Henry, who died leaving a family; Ferdinand, a farmer of the Haw Creek neighborhood; and Louis, of Lavaca County, Texas. William Menking, of the above family, was born in Austin County, Texas, in December, 1853, secured his education in the country schools of Fayette County, and for twenty years conducted the Haw Creek gin, then engaging in farming on the tract he now owns, a property of 140 acres on the Shepherd League. He has one of the splendid farm residences pf the county, has been a successful cotton and corn grower, and raises such stock as his farm will sustain. He married Catherine Bauerhamper, a daughter of Fritz Bauerhamper, of Germany, and to this union have been born the following children: Louis, a farmer in the neighborhood, who married Minna Marburger; Miss Emma, twin of Louis, still with her parents; Rev. William, a Methodist minister of Marlin, Texas, who married Miss Schlecter; Meta, who married Albert Marburger, a farmer here; Henry, a farmer of this community, who married Erna Giese; and Walter, who is located on a farm in this vicinity and married Lena Giese.
Frederick 0. Menking, father of Otto F. Menking, was born in Schamburger-Lippe, Germany, in March, 1852, and was one year old when brought by his parents to the United States. He received his education in the country schools and lived in Austin and Fayette counties until 1871, when he moved to Lavaca County, and after a few years to Gonzales County, where he still resides, successfully engaged in agricultural pursuits. Mr. Menking married Justine Schmidt, a daughter of Fred Schmidt, a sketch of whose career will be found elsewhere in this work in the review of Rudolph Schmidt. Mrs. Menking died in Lavaca County, Texas, and was buried at the old Kinkler Cemetery. She was the mother of the following children: Otto F., of this notice; Emma, who married August Able, of Gonzales; Ed, who is manager of the Cocoanut Stock Ranch, at Gonzales; Emily, who is a resident of Gonzales; Ernest, who is a merchant of that place; and Erwin and Herman, who also reside there.
From the time he was seven years of age until he reached manhood, Otto F. Menking was a resident of Lacava [sic.] County. After attending the public schools of the country, he entered Blinn's Commercial College, Brenham, Texas, where he secured his diploma, and at that time came to Haw Creek, where he became an employe [sic.] of his uncle, Henry Menking, who was conducting the store. He remained in this position for ten years and three months without intermission, rest or vacation, and then purchased a farm in the vicinity and devoted himself to its cultivation and the handling of cattle, buying and selling and otherwise dealing in livestock. After being thus successfully engaged for four years, Mr. Menking disposed of his interests and purchased the Haw Creek store and stock from his uncle's estate, and since that time has devoted the major part of his attention to building up an excellent country trade. The Haw Creek community as a commercial locality was commenced in about 1872 by E. J. Marburger, who was succeeded by Louis Wagner, he by the firm of Stahlbaum & Wagner, the latter by Otto Newman, and Mr. Newman by Henry Menking, whose heirs sold it to Mr. Menking of this notice.
While his personal interests have been such as to demand the major part of his energies, Mr. Menking has found time to devote to the welfare of his community. He is strongly interested in the making of good roads and has supervised the work in his section by the authority of the county commissioners. He has graded and graveled, making roads by sections and following a plan that will eventually result in a system of good roads. In politics a democrat, his first presidential vote was cast in 1896 for William J. Bryan. Fraternally he is a member of the Sons of Hermann and of the Woodmen of the World, and is secretary of both lodges, located at Shelby.
Mr. Menking was married in August, 1896, to Miss Emily Finck, a daughter of F. Finck, and a member of a German family of this locality. Mrs. Menking died in February, 1905, leaving three children: Leslie, Eugene, and Oliver. Mr. Menking was again married in November, 1905, to Miss Selma Voelkel, a daughter of Ludwig Voelkel, a review of whose career will be found on another page of this work. One child, Stella, has been born to this union. -- pp. 1818 -1820.
CHARLES JOHN HENRY MEYER. One of the strongest business factors in the life of the little village of Ellinger in Fayette County has been Charles J. H. Meyer, a man of many sided activities, the owner of a splendid country property in addition to interests in the town, and a citizen who at different times has responded to the request of his fellows for service in local offices and in the legislature.
He belongs to the pioneer German element in Fayette County, and was born in this county November 5, 1854. The family was planted in Texas by his grandfather, Henry Meyer, who in 1844 brought his family from Hanover, Germany, and landed from a sailing vessel at Galveston. From that point they secured ox teams to carry the people and their possessions to Fayette County. Grandfather Meyer located two miles north of Ellinger, started to develop a home, and the acreage which he owned and partly put into cultivation descended to his son and to his grandson, Charles J. H. Grandfather Meyer was sawing lumber by hand with which to cover cracks in his log cabin when bit by a snake, and was found dead. He lies in the Lutheran Cemetery between Ellinger and Fayetteville, and his wife, who lived to be seventy-nine years of age, lies beside him. When the Meyer family came into Texas the country was absolutely new, and there were Indians who occasionally called at the old cabin and once took the scalp of a relative of the family, an uncle of Charles J. H. Meyer. Henry Meyer's children were: Dora, who married Charles Hillman and died in Fayette County, leaving children; Annie, who married John Heinshon [Heinsohn], and also left children; Mary, who left a daughter by her marriage to Albert Alerbush [Ellerbusch]; John H.; Frederick, who spent his life in Fayette County; and Richard, who went to California just before the Civil war and nothing is known of his subsequent fate.
John H. Meyer, father of the Ellinger business man, was born in Hanover and was fourteen years of age when he came to this country. He had only a country school education, hut was very apt as a business man, acquired business forms as he needed them, was expert in the handling of stock and crop productions. During a portion of the war he was overseer of a factory at LaGrange making hats for the Confederate soldiers, but subsequently was employed as a teamster carrying cotton and general merchandise in and out of Brownsville. Following the war came his settled activities as a farmer, and he raised crops over the site of the present town of Ellinger. He sold ninety acres to the railroad company for townsite purposes, and the depot was built not far from his house. He took an advanced stand in the breeding of blooded horses, and raised some of the best specimens of those animals in Fayette County. He was also widely known as a cattle drover. His market was at Houston, though it was his usual custom to sell his cattle off his ranch directly to the northern buyers. At his death he possessed 1,260 acres in the Colorado bottom, and it was one of the finest estates along that river. From the time Ellinger was founded he took a very active interest in its growth and development, and lived in the village until his death. He was always a democrat in politics, took much interest in the principles of the party, and was very strong in espousing the cause of his friends when they were candidates. Although not an orator he occasionally made talks on political and other subjects. Very seldom was he in court on business of his own and when such occasions did arise he defended his own cases. He had no fraternal affiliations, but this was due to the opposition of his wife to such orders. He was brought up in the faith of the Lutheran Church and gave liberally to the support of church and charitable causes in his community. John H. Meyer died March 20, 1893; he had been married nearly forty years. His wife was Miss Dora Alerbush [Ellerbusch], whose father, Albert Alerbush, came from Hanover, Germany, and settled in the Ellinger locality. Mrs. Meyer died in February, 1911. Her children were: Charles J. H.; Nancy, who married Jacob Koehl and died near Ellinger leaving children; Charles F., a farmer near Ellinger; John, who died just at his majority; D. Fritz, a ginner at Ellinger; Dora, wife of Charles Von Rosenberg of LaGrange; Annie, wife of F. W. Girndt of Ellinger; and Otta A., of Houston.
Charles H. J. Meyer grew up in the locality where he was born and still has a picture of the cabin which was his birthplace. This cabin contained a single room, and like most of the early homes had a dirt floor. It is still standing, being now used as a crib, and is owned by a Bohemian settler. As part of his education Mr. Meyer spent three years in the Texas Military Institute at Austin. He returned home in Jurie, 1874, was married in St. Paul, and started to provide for his home by strenuous labor. He was paid $6 an acre for breaking prairie and also used his ox team in hauling logs. He subsequently engaged in the stock business near Rosenberg in Colorado and Fort Bend counties, and spent about six years in that vicinity with considerable profit. In 1881 he bought the Charles Gisber saloon, after the proprietor had been run out by the wild element inhabiting the river country around Ellinger. He took possession at once, and there has never been an occasion when he has not been master of every situation. Though for a period of thirty-five years he has owned a saloon, he has let the other fellows do the drinking. He tended his own bar until the gradual increase of his stock and other interests made it necessary for him to spend most of his time outside. His chief business is as a stock farmer. He has fed many hundreds of cattle, driving them to the Houston market as his father had done, and now for more than thirty-five years has been well known in Fayette County as a feeder and shipper. He owns about 400 acres around Ellinger, and 226 acres adjoin the town. This land is used primarily for the feeding of his cattle. As a farmer he operates chiefly on leased land, and gives employment to about 27 white families, comprising nearly 200 people. Some of his renters have been with him more than twenty years, and include people who have married and become grandparents while living on his land.
When Mr. Meyer was a young man he signed a subscription for $100 toward the building of the railroad through Ellinger, and paid the obligation through his own labors. He has thus been identified with the town since the beginning, has dealt somewhat extensively in farm property and his is the best residence of the community. He is a director of the First State Bank of Ellinger. While formerly actively identified with politics he is now inclined to step aside in favor of younger men. In 1890 Precinct No. 1 elected him a county commissioner, and after two years in that office he was elected to the legislature and served one term. While in the House of Representatives he was a member of the committee on farming, stock raising and irrigation and several others. Much of his time he spent in watching the movements of other members and in exercising his vote against uncertain bills. He helped to make hog stealing a penitentiary offense, but had no pet measures of his own to advocate. On one occasion an attempt was made in the House to instruct Senator Mills as to his duty on a certain matter, but Mr. Meyer strongly resisted this resolution, since he believed that Roger Q. Mills was much superior to any man in the Texas Legislature and knew full well how to act and vote in the National Congress.
On October 27, 1874, Mr. Meyer married Miss Elizabeth Ellinger [Ehlinger], daughter of Charles Ellinger. Their children are: Elo C., who is associated with his father in business, and by his marriage to Lizzie Konni has two children, Ivy and Leslie; Adelia married Frank Fritch of LaGrange, and their children are Henry and Lucile; Lizzie married Joe Fritch of Ellinger, and they have twins, Leroy and Littleton; Lillie Bell; Henry J., a physician at Hondo, Texas, a graduate of Tulane University, and by his marriage to Cassie Holloway has two children, John H. and Walter; Hattie is the wife of Walter Sarcin of Taylor, Texas, and has a daughter Ruby Bell; Leera is the youngest of the family.
Mr. Meyer is affiliated with the lodge of Independent Order of Odd Fellows at LaGrange, and also with the Knights of Honor and with the Sons of Hermann. Occasionally he takes a health recruiting trip, often visits the Dallas Fair, the Fort Worth stock shows, and is occasionally a member of a political convention. He is a man of large body, of genial nature, has hosts of friends in Fayette County, and in every relation of life has proved himself trustworthy and efficient. -- pp. 1878 -1880.
JOHN F. MOHLER. Born and reared in the Winchester district of Fayette County, John F. Mohler has here continued his residence during the long intervening years and here has found ample opportunity for the achieving of success and substantial prosperity through well ordered personal endeavor. He is a representative of one of the sterling German pioneer families of this now favored section of the Lone Star State, and the name which he bears has been long and worthily identified with civic and industrial activities in Fayette County.
Mr. Mohler was born near the present Village of Winchester, where he maintains his residence, and the date of his nativity was August 6, 1865. He is a son of Frank Joseph Möhler (this being the original German orthography of the name) and Catherine (Nink) Möhler, the former of whom died at Winchester, Texas, in 1911, a few months after having celebrated his eighty-second birthday anniversary, and the latter of whom still resides in this village, as one of its venerable and revered pioneer women. Frank Joseph Möhler, who ultimately simplified the spelling of his name to the present form of Mohler, was born in one of the Rhine River districts of Germany and was there reared and educated. In 1856, as a young man, he emigrated to the United States and in the same year he settled in Bastrop County, Texas, where he found employment at his trade, that of carpenter. There his marriage was solemnized and there he and his wife continued their residence until after the close of the Civil war, when they removed to Fayette County and established their home in the Winchester community. Here Mr. Mohler became a successful contractor and builder and during the later years of his life he was here engaged in the furniture business and in work as a cabinetmaker, lines of enterprise with which he continued to be identified until his death. He was a man of sterling character and ever commanded the respect and good will of his fellow men. A rupture made him ineligible for and exempt from service as a soldier during the Civil war; his political allegiance was given to the democratic party and he was a devout communicant of the Catholic Church, as is also his widow. He was a close student of the Bible and was one of the best informed laymen in regard to biblical history to be found in this section of the state.
In Bastrop County was solemnized the marriage of Frank J. Mohler to Miss Catherine Nink, who was born in Germany but who was reared and educated in Texas. She is a daughter of Madison and Ellen (Rauch) Nink. Her father came from Carlsbad, Germany, to the United States in 1845 and settled in Texas, this being the year in which the state was admitted to the Union. He landed at Indianola, which was then known as Powder Horn, and in the early days he became a prominent freighter between his home town of New Braunfels, Comal County, and the frontier towns of Austin and Houston. While he was engaged in this hazardous business he encountered at one time a band of 500 Comanche Indians and he feared that his life was to end. However, he treated the Indians to coffee and gave other evidences of friendliness, with the result that they finally left him unmolested. He kept watch all night, with his gun ready for service, but upon his arrival at New Braunfels on the next day he found the Indians peacefully encamped in the vicinity of the village. After his retirement from the freighting business Mr. Nink removed to Bastrop County, where he and his wife passed the residue of their lives. Of their children, Mrs. Catherine Mohler, mother of the subject of this review, is the eldest; and she was born at Carlsbad, Germany, in 1839; Mrs. Mary Brieger, the next in order of birth, died at Bastrop, Texas; Jacob continued his residence in Bastrop County until his death, as did also Madison; Margaret became the wife of Peter Braum and died in Bastrop County; and Bettie, whose death occurred in the same county, was the wife of John Michel.
Mrs. Catherine Mohler was about six years of age at the time of the family immigration to America and settlement in Texas, where she received her education in the pioneer schools, a few months having been the duration of her attendance in a school at Frelsburg, to which point she rode on horseback each day from her home, several miles distant She recalls in graphic reminiscence the conditions and incidents of the pioneer days, especially in the struggle of the settlers to save their homes when prairie fires were started by the Indians. On the occasion of a visit to Ship's Lake she witnessed the gathering of fully 500 Indians who had assembled to witness an eclipse of the moon, an event of which they had been informed by the well known frontiersman, Grassmeyer. Mrs. Mohler knew the Goche family, members of which were massacred by the Indians, and she heard at first hand the story of the butchery and of the capture of the two Goche boys, Samuel and Riley, both of whom, with other captives, were rescued finally by Mr. Spalding, who later married a widow of one of the Goche family, she having been widowed at the time she was thus captured by the Indians.
Concerning the children of Frank J. and Catherine (Nink) Mohler the following brief record is given: Mary is the wife of Albert Shober, of Smithville, this state; Jacob is a prosperous merchant in the same town; Ellen is the wife of Edward Rasbery, an oil operator in that section of the state, their home being at Thorndale; John F., of this review, was the next in order of birth; Bettie is the wife of Robert Redfield, of Cameron, Texas; Mott resides at Winchester, as does also Miss Lela, who remains with her widowed mother.
John F. Mohler was reared to adult age on the old homestead farm near Winchester and such were the conditions and exigencies of time and place that his educational advantages in his youth were greatly limited. He assisted in the work of the home farm until he was about twenty-one years of age, when he made his first independent venture by engaging in business in the conducting of a meat market at Winchester, under the firm name of Mohler & Murphy. After his retirement from this line of enterprise he devoted his attention to farming for a period of about five years, and he then became clerk in the mercantile establishment of Roensch Brothers, at Winchester. About a year later he engaged in the retail liquor business in this village, and after conducting a successful enterprise in this line for somewhat more than a decade he turned his attention to farming and stock-raising, with which basic industries he has since continued his identification and in connection with which he has achieved distinctive success. In the live-stock business Mr. Mohler is associated with Hugh F. Little, concerning whom individual mention is made on other pages of this publication, and their several tracts of excellent grazing land, in the district surrounding the Village of Winchester, have an aggregate area of nearly 2,000 acres. The firm controls a large business in dealing in cattle and other live stock and at times large direct shipments are made by its members, both of whom are progressive and energetic men of affairs. They utilize on all their cattle the ear-crop method of identification, which has been found more effective and humane than the old branding system.
Mr. Mohler was one of the influential men identified with the organization of the Winchester State Bank, of the directorate of which he has been a member from the time of its incorporation and of which he was soon elected vice president, a position of which he continued the incumbent. He is broad-minded and public-spirited as a citizen and as such opposed the "State-wide" movement in Texas. By Governor Colquitt he was appointed a delegate to the Conservation Congress held in the City of Indianapolis, Indiana, but circumstances prevented him from attending the sessions of this body. He has been a loyal supporter of the cause of the democratic party and was a liberal contributor to the Bryan Campaign Fund in the election of 1908.
Mr. Mohler has been twice wedded. On the 20th of February, 1894, he married Miss Lizzie Phillips, daughter of John Phillips and a granddaughter of Thompson Phillips, who was a pioneer of Texas, where he settled in 1834. Mrs. Mohler's death occurred on the 18th of February, 1899, no children having been born of this union. On the 16th of December, 1899, was solemnized the marriage of Mr. Mohler to Miss Frances Hutcherson, only child of James F. and Martha (Brooks) Hutcherson, her father being a prosperous farmer and a representative of a family that was founded in Texas in the early pioneer days. Mr. and Mrs. Mohler have three children: Little Joe, Frank Leon, and Leslie Eugene. -- pp.1388-1390.
