Walker County Texas Biographies

Walker County Biographies

BALL, Thomas Henry
(1859—1944)
BALL, Thomas Henry, a Representative from Texas; born in Huntsville, Walker County, Tex., January 14, 1859; attended private schools; was graduated from Austin College, Sherman, Tex., in 1876; studied law at the University of Virginia at Charlottesville; was admitted to the bar in 1886 and commenced practice in Huntsville, Tex.; mayor of Huntsville 1887-1893; chairman of the Democratic executive committee of Walker County 1884-1896; delegate to all State conventions from 1886 to 1924, with three exceptions; delegate to the Democratic National Conventions in 1892, 1924, and 1928; elected as a Democrat to the Fifty-fifth and to the three succeeding Congresses and served from March 4, 1897, to November 16, 1903, when he resigned; resumed the practice of his profession; unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination in 1914; general counsel for the State council of defense during the First World War; general counsel for the port commission of the Houston Harbor and Ship Channel from May 1922 to August 1931, when he retired; died in Houston, Tex., May 7, 1944; interment in Forest Park Cemetery Contributed by A. Newell

Sam Houston
The subject of this sketch was born in Rockbridge county, Virginia. When yet a child, his parents moved to the mountains of Tennessee, where he was reared. His ancestors were of Scotch origin. His mother is said to have been a lady of much beauty, and high degree of intellectual culture. She was also noble and benevolent, and ever ready to sacrifice her own comfort to those whose wants or sufferings excited her sympathy.
Houston was a sad truant when a school-boy. The schools amid his native hills were not numerous, nor of a first-class character, and his delight was rather in the chase of the deer than in the haunts of knowledge. When thirteen years old his father died, and his mother moved, with her large family, to Tennessee.
Here the boy Sam became acquainted with the Cherokee Indians, who lived near by his home, and much of his time was spent with them in the chase.
This was much more to his liking, than studying, or working on the farm. Much of Houston's early life, indeed, till he was eighteen years old, was spent in this manner, living alternately with the Indians, with whom he became a favorite, and at his home.
In 1813, the second war with England having broken out, Houston enlisted as a private soldier, and was made sergeant of a company. He soon became the best drill-officer in the regiment.
During the war with the Creek Indians, Houston served under General Jackson. He participated in the sharp conflict with that enemy which took place at To-ho-ne-ka, or Horseshoe Bend of the Tallapoosa River, Alabama.
The breastworks of the enemy were gallantly stormed by the 31st regiment, and he was the second to scale the works, the major (Major Montgomery) being the first, and instantly killed. Here he received a painful wound from an arrow which remained sticking in his thigh.
After trying in vain to extract the arrow, he called upon a comrade to do it. The comrade, a lieutenant, tried and failed. "Try again," said Houston, raising his sword; "and pull it out or I strike you down." With this incentive, the next effort to withdraw the barbed point succeeded, tearing away the flesh, and leaving an ugly wound which never completely healed.
General Jackson ordered Houston to the rear; but, regardless of the order, he was soon in the thickest of the fight.
Just before the conclusion of this decisive action, when volunteers were called to make a charge upon the only part of the fortification from which the Indians had not been dislodged, Houston instantly leaped to the front, calling upon the men to follow him; dashed across the precipitous ravine, and up to the breastworks, from which came deadly volleys of musketry and arrows.
Here the gallant young officer received two balls in his right shoulder, which at once disabled him, and he was carried from the field just before complete victory crowned the arms of his comrades.
Houston's recovery was for a long time doubtful, but at length he recovered sufficiently to join his regiment just before peace was declared.
In November, 1817, Houston was appointed to an agency for the Cherokee Indians, and during the winter went with a delegation of that tribe to Washington, to represent their interests to the Federal authorities.
When Houston was twenty-five years old, he went to Nashville, and engaged in the study of law. He was soon admitted to the bar, and was, even from the first, a successful advocate. He was about this time made Adjutant General of Tennessee.
He was, in 1823, elected to Congress, and afterward re-elected by an almost unanimous vote.
In 1827, he was elected Governor of Tennessee, by a large majority.
While Houston was Governor of Tennessee, he married a lady of respectable connections; but in little more than two months a sudden and inexplicable separation between the parties took place. This sudden sundering of the marriage tie, about which many conjectures were afloat but nothing definite was known, gave rise at the time to great excitement, and the friends of the lady made many serious charges against the governor. To none of these did he reply, and quietly resigning his office he left the State of Tennessee. Houston now returned to his friends, the Cherokees, with whom he remained, occasionally visiting Washington City in their behalf, until December, 1832, when with a few friends he came to Texas. He was elected a delegate from Nacogdoches to the convention which met at San Felipe in 1833, for the purpose of framing a State constitution. From this time General Houston appears as a prominent actor in the affairs of Texas.
In 1835, he was appointed general of the military district east of the Trinity. He was a member of the Consultation of 1835, also of the Convention which declared the independence of Texas, in March 1836. Immediately after the Declaration of Independence, the convention elected Houston commander-in-chief of the armies of Texas.
He at once took the field, and after the fall of the Alamo and Goliad, he conducted the retreat of the army to San Jacinto, where, on the 21st of April, 1836, he administered to the Mexican forces under Santa Anna the crushing defeat which secured the independence of Texas.
In the action he suffered a painful wound in the ankle, from which he never fully recovered. In the fall of 1836 he was elected First President of the Republic of Texas. In 1839 and '40, after his time of office expired, he served in the Congress of the Republic. In 1841 he was again, almost by acclamation, elevated to the head of the Texas government.
After annexation, Houston was elected Senator from Texas to the Congress of the United States. This position he filled with marked ability until March, 1859. After his return to Texas Houston was elected Governor in the fall of 1859.
At the breaking out of the civil war in 1861-5,.General Houston opposed the secession of Texas, and favored separate State action. This course not agreeing with the views of the advocates of unconditional secession, he was deposed from the office of Governor, March, 1861.
On the 18th day of that month Governor Houston left his official chair. This was the end of his public career. He retired to the privacy of his home in Walker county, where he died in July, 1863.
His well-earned fame, and the remembrance of his virtues, are alike the property of his countrymen. The praise of the historian is not needed to magnify the one, nor could his silence or censure detract from the other.
[Source: "A Texas scrap-book", by De Witt Clinton Baker, 1875 - Submitted by Cathy Danielson]

Chronology of Houston's life:

March 2, 1793 -- Born to Samuel and Elizabeth (Paxton) Houston in Rockbridge County, VA
1813 -- Enlisted in the United States Army during the "War of 1812"
May 1818 -- Resigned from the Army as a first lieutenant, to begin the study of law
October 1818 -- Elected district attorney of Nashville, Tennessee, district
ca. 1819 -- Appointed adjutant general of the Tennessee state militia with rank of colonel
1821 -- Elected major general of the state militia
1823 -- Elected to U.S. House of Representatives as delegate from Tennessee
1825 -- Re-elected to U.S. Congress
1827 -- Elected governor of Tennessee
1829 -- Married and separated from Eliza H. Allen of Gallatin, Tennessee
1829 -- Resigned as governor of Tennessee
1829-1835 -- Served as business and diplomatic agent for the Cherokees in the Indian Territory
1832 -- Houston's probable first trip into Texas
1833 -- Returned to Texas to attend the Convention of 1833 as a representative of Nacogdoches
1835 -- Elected delegate to the Consultation, and the General Council elected him major general of the Texas Army
1836 -- Elected delegate to the Convention of 1836; elected commander-in-chief of the Texas Army; led army to victory at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21
1836-1838 -- Elected and served as President of the Republic of Texas
1839-1841 -- Elected and served as representative from San Augustine County to the Fourth and Fifth Congresses
1840 -- Married Margaret Moffette Lea in Marion, Alabama
1841-1844 -- Elected and served second term as President of the Republic of Texas
1845 -- Elected delegate from Montgomery County to the Convention of 1845
1846-1859 -- Elected by the Texas Legislature to the U.S. Senate
1856 -- Discussed as possible presidential candidate for the Know-Nothing Party
1857 -- Defeated in election for governor of Texas
1859 -- Elected governor of Texas
1860 -- Discussed as possible presidential candidate for the Constitutional Union Party
1861 -- Declined to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy and was ousted as governor by the Secession Convention
July 26, 1863 -- Died at his home in Huntsville, Texas
[Source: A guide to the Sam Houston Papers, The University of Texas at Austin - sub. by K.T.]

Johnson, Clyde Beecher
The eldest son of James L. and Anna C. (Martin) Johnson, Clyde Johnson, was born June 17, 1871, on a farm in Pleasants County, West Virginia, near what was then Twiggs Post Office. His father, at the age of 74, is yet living at Ellenboro, Ritchie County, West Virginia, and has for many years been an active farmer and business man in that section of the State.
In conversation with the writer Mr. Johnson talked of little else than his mother, who died in 1909. He attributes to her any degree of success that has come to him, and among other things said:
"My mother was a queen among women. She was one of the early female graduates of Marietta College, and I yet believe she was the most thoroughly cultured and educated woman I have ever met. Her knowledge was encyclopedic, her memory marvelous, and her judgment of persons and situations unerring. After her graduation she taught in Mississippi, and later in Texas and during a portion of the War Between the States she was principal of the Huntsville Female Academy, now, I believe, a Texas Normal School. After the close of the war she came back north to care for her aged parents, and in 1866 opened "The Cedars," one of the first exclusive finishing schools for young ladies west of the Allegheny Mountains. In January, 1870, she married my father, and in addition to her duties as a wife and mother she found time to teach what was in fact a private college almost up to the time of her death in 1909. I have spoken thus at length of my mother because she deserves it. She is by far the most important part of this sketch, as whatever of success has come to me is almost wholly due to her example and teaching, and to such of her high ideals and splendid mind as I inherited."
Mr. Johnson was educated in the common schools of West Virginia, later spending some time both at Marietta and at West Virginia Wesleyan Colleges, but is not a graduate of either. He taught public schools for a number of years, in the meantime devoting himself to the study of law, being admitted to the Bar in 1895. He is proud of the fact that Arthur I. Boreman, the first Governor of West Virginia, and then Judge of the Third Circuit, was the first Judge to sign his law license. His first year of practice was at Sistersville in Tyler County, at the end of which he returned to Pleasants County and was the nominee of his party for Prosecuting Attorney in the election of 1896. He says that his defeat in that election at once curing him of running for office, and forcing him to settle down to hard professional work was a blessing in disguise.
He practiced in the town of St. Marys from 1896 until July 1, 1913, when he removed to Charleston and formed a partnership with Hon. William G. Conley, who had just finished his term as Attorney-General of the State. This firm represents The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company in many matters in West Virginia, and has a wide general practice in both State and Federal Courts.
In 1898 Mr. Johnson married Miss Anna Grace Hart, of Randolph County, West Virginia, and with their two children — Myra and Bosworth — they reside in a pleasant home in the City of Charleston. At this home with his family and in his modest home library Mr. Johnson finds his greatest pleasures. Amid pressing duties of a general law practice he has found a few spare hours to devote to literary pursuits, and in addition to some editorial work has written occasional bits of verse. Some of these were published in 1914 in a little volume entitled "Rhyme and Reason."
He is a member of the American Bar Association, the West Virginia Bar Association and the local Bar Association of the City of Charleston. His highest ambition is to be remembered when his life is finished as a lawyer worthy of fellowship in these associations, which include the great legal minds of America.
In politics Mr. Johnson is a life-long Democrat of the school, he says, that trusts the popular judgment and believes that no cause or party emergency is great enough to demand a sacrifice of candor. While never himself a candidate for public office since 1896, until the present year, being the nominee of his party as a candidate for State Senator, he has always taken an active interest in the affairs of his party, and has as wide an acquaintance throughout the State as perhaps any man of his age. He is a believer in Government by party, and it is never difficult to know where he stands on any public question. He is one of the ablest stump speakers in the entire State in all of the political parties.
Mr. Johnson confesses of having lived the quiet life of the country lawyer who must live by his work, and assures the biographer that there is little to tell about it that would seem of importance except to his family and intimate friends. He is an orator of high grade, and is a trial lawyer of pronounced ability and is a sound pleader as well.
[Bench and bar of West Virginia by George Wesley Atkinson, 1919 – Transcribed by AFOFG]