HEMPHILL, JOHN
(1803-1862)

John Hemphill, jurist and Confederate congressman, was born in Blackstock, Chester District, South Carolina, on December 18, 1803, the son of John and Jane (Lind) Hemphill. His father was a Presbyterian minister. Hemphill attended Jefferson College (now Washington and Jefferson) in Pennsylvania from 1823 to 1825 and graduated second in his class.

He taught school for a while in South Carolina and in 1829 began to study law with David J. McCord in Columbia. After admission to practice in the court of Common Pleas in November 1829 he established a practice in Sumter District, South Carolina. In 1831 he was admitted to practice in the Court of Chancery.

As a staunch advocate of states' rights, Hemphill edited a nullification newspaper in Sumter in 1832-33. In 1836 he volunteered for service in the Seminole War, in which he achieved the rank of second lieutenant.

In the summer of 1838 he immigrated to Texas and established a legal practice at Washington-on-the-Brazos. In early 1840 the Congress of the Republic of Texas elected him judge of the Fourth Judicial District, an election that automatically made him an associate justice of the republic Supreme Court. He was confirmed in the office on January 20, 1840. On March 19, 1840, he participated in the Council House Fight in San Antonio.

In 1840-41 Hemphill joined several campaigns against the Comanches, and in 1842-43, during a period when the Supreme Court did not meet, he served as adjutant general of the Somervell expedition. On December 5, 1840, the Congress elected him chief justice of the Supreme Court, a position he held until 1858. He was elected a delegate from Washington County to the Convention of 1845, where he cast his vote in favor of statehood.

Governor James Pinckney Henderson appointed Hemphill to a six-year term as chief justice, and he was confirmed on March 2, 1846. After the selection of Supreme Court justices was transferred to the voters, Hemphill was elected chief justice on August 4, 1851, and again in 1856.

As a jurist he took a particular interest in cases involving Spanish and Mexican law, which he had studied intensively, as well as those concerning marital rights, divorce, and homestead and other exemptions. He was noted for the "liberal construction" he placed on married women's rights and for his championship of homestead rights. His decisions are credited with substantially shaping the "form and content" of community property and homestead exemption law.

Hemphill regretted the adoption of common law by the Texas Congress in 1840 and managed, in his written opinions, to preserve "something of the liberal spirit of the civil law." He was called the John Marshall of Texas for the significant role he played in the development of Texas jurisprudence.

In November 1857 Democrats, dissatisfied with Sam Houston, nominated Hemphill to succeed Houston when the latter's senatorial term ended in March 1859. Hemphill was subsequently elected by the Texas Senate and took office on March 4, 1859.

In January 1861 he delivered an address expressing his belief in the right of states to secede, and on January 6, 1861, he was one of fourteen senators who recommended the immediate withdrawal of the southern states. On February 4, 1861, the Secession Convention elected him one of seven Texas delegates to the convention of Southern states in Montgomery, Alabama, which became the Provisional Confederate Congress. He was subsequently expelled from the United States Senate by resolution on July 11, 1861.

As a member of the Provisional Confederate Congress, Hemphill served on the Commercial and Financial Independence, Finance, and Judiciary committees and on the special committee to digest the laws. He devoted much of his attention to the task of adapting United States laws to Confederate purposes.

In November 1861 he ran for a seat in the First Regular Congress but was narrowly defeated by Williamson S. Oldham. Before the end of the Provisional Congress Judge Hemphill died in Richmond, on January 4, 1862. His body was returned to Austin for burial in the State Cemetery.

Never married, Hemphill was characterized as a private and reserved yet generous individual. Hemphill County, established on August 21, 1876, was named in his honor.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dictionary of American Biography. Reuben Reid Gaines, "John Hemphill, 1803-1862," in Great American Lawyers, ed. William Draper Louis (8 vols., Philadelphia: Winston, 1907-09). John Hemphill, "Texas Letter from John Hemphill to his Brother, James, in Tennessee," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 57 (October 1953). Frances Richard Lubbock, Six Decades in Texas (Austin: Ben C. Jones, 1900; rpt., Austin: Pemberton, 1968). Joseph Milton Nance, Attack and Counterattack: The Texas-Mexican Frontier, 1842 (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1964). Jon L. Wakelyn, Biographical Dictionary of the Confederacy (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood, 1977). Ezra J. Warner and W. Buck Yearns, Biographical Register of the Confederate Congress (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1975).

Thomas W. Cutrer

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HOOVER, HARVEY EDGAR
(1863-1945)

Harvey Edgar Hoover, lawyer, ranch owner, and businessman, the son of Harvey Nelson and Amanda (Rankin) Hoover, was born on November 16, 1863, in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. His father, a Confederate soldier, died of wounds he received during the siege of Vicksburg. Hoover attended common schools and married Laura Alice Bragg Winsett, daughter of a Tennessee planter, on July 4, 1884. They had five children.

Early in 1885 Hoover went into business with his brother-in-law, J. F. Johnson, in Kiowa, Kansas, then the railhead for the Southern Kansas (Santa Fe) Railroad. They ran a store supplying the 180 wagons that delivered goods and equipment to the railroad crews pushing across Indian Territory toward Texas.

Eager to participate in Panhandle development, Hoover led an eighteen-wagon caravan of young Missouri bachelors into Lipscomb County in April 1886 and set up camp at the head of Kiowa Creek. His idea was to discern the railroad's likely route and locate a county seat. After returning to Kiowa to obtain a wagonload of merchandise, he set up a "tail store" for his followers and passersby, keeping his stock in the wagon and living in a tent. It was here that area cowboys and ranchers voted to organize Lipscomb County that summer.

The terrible blizzards that winter froze Hoover out, and in the spring of 1887 he moved to the new rail town of Higgins, where he set up store in a tent and later in a boxcar on a sidetrack. He also built the town's first residence, to which he brought his wife and small son in July. A month later, Hoover was named the town's postmaster.

He ran unsuccessfully for the Lipscomb county judge's seat. Although business was good, he also wanted to practice law, so in January 1888 he turned the store and post office over to Johnson and took his family to Lebanon, Tennessee. There he attended law school at Cumberland University for six months, after which he was admitted to the State Bar of Texas.

He returned to Higgins, resumed his job as postmaster, acquired an additional job of teaching school, and practiced law on the side. In 1890 the Hoovers moved to Lipscomb and in 1892 to Canadian, where Hoover became attorney for the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railway.

Hoover became president of the First National Bank in Canadian, established the White House Lumber Company, and owned several businesses related to agriculture. His fame as an attorney grew nationwide when it became known that he had never lost a case, and his sons Dan and Edgar eventually became his associates in the Hoover-Hoover-Cussens law firm in Canadian.

The railroad-switch town of Hoover in Gray County was named for him. He and C. C. Patton purchased choice Panhandle ranchland and began developing it into model farms. Hoover later bought out Patton's interests and at one time owned one 10,000-acre ranch with 2,000 acres under cultivation and another 17,000-acre ranch with 10,000 acres under cultivation. These ranches were inhabited by fourteen tenants and were well stocked with purebred cattle.

Hoover was involved in organizing the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society and served as its president from 1933 to 1935. During the Great Depression he gave financial backing to many small farmers, ranchers, and homeowners who were about to go broke.

With a knack for prose and poetry, Hoover wrote several books, including Universalism and The Lay of the Law (1931), a poetic parody on "The Lay of the Last Minstrel." He died on March 21, 1945, and was buried in Canadian.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Amarillo Daily News, March 22, 1945. Sallie B. Harris, Cowmen and Ladies: A History of Hemphill County (Canyon, Texas: Staked Plains, 1977). F. Stanley [Stanley F. L. Crocchiola], Rodeo Town (Canadian, Texas) (Denver: World, 1953).

H. Allen Anderson

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HOPKINS, WILLIAM HARLEN
(1856-1933)

William Harlen (Bee) Hopkins, Panhandle pioneer and rancher, was born on March 24, 1856, on a farm near Bloomfield, Indiana. During his early years his family moved several times, first to Iowa, then to Shawnee County near Topeka, Kansas, and then in 1877 to North Dakota. Soon after that Bee Hopkins began his career as a rancher, when he went to Colorado to join his brother-in-law Will Young.

In 1878 they helped trail the Pollard brothers' cattle to the Panhandle to begin the PO Ranch in Hemphill County. Hopkins turned over the PO cattle to Robert Moody after Moody bought out Milton Pollard's interest in 1881. In the meantime Hopkins had gone to work for the Horseshoe Ranch (see LAUREL LEAF RANCH) of Frank Kerrick (or Karrick).

When J. V. Andrews bought the Horseshoe from Kerrick in 1879, Hopkins was made foreman. His two younger brothers, Joseph (Hoos) and Andrew (Josh), joined him there. Hopkins was retained as foreman after the Texas Land and Cattle Company bought out the Horseshoe and started using the Laurel Leaf brand in 1882.

Friction developed when Edgar Wilson, the syndicate's general manager, tried to get Hopkins to run off some neighboring farmers and small stockmen who had recently settled the area along the Gunter-Munson survey strip. The foreman refused to do so, and his threatened resignation was averted only by a raise in salary to twenty-five dollars a month.

Hopkins helped organize the Panhandle Stock Association in 1880. In 1883, while returning by stagecoach to the Laurel Leaf from a business trip, he met Hannah Nation, who was traveling from her hometown of Gonzales to visit her sister in Mobeetie. They were married at Mobeetie later that year.

They had two children; their oldest, Bessie Lorene, was said to be the first girl born in Canadian, a town that Hopkins and his wife helped found in 1887. In 1892 Hannah's sister, Bessie, married Andrew Hopkins. All three Hopkins brothers and their families became civic leaders during the Panhandle's early development. William Hopkins remained foreman of the Laurel Leaf until 1888, when the Texas Land and Cattle Company sold its Panhandle holdings.

At that time he purchased a portion of the Laurel Leaf range and subsequently developed his own ranch with the help of his brother Hoos. Hopkins devoted the major part of his later years to his ranch south of Canadian. He was a Mason and a member of the Shrine of Amarillo. He died in July 1933 and was buried in Canadian.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Millie Jones Porter, Memory Cups of Panhandle Pioneers (Clarendon, Texas: Clarendon Press, 1945). Glyndon M. Riley, The History of Hemphill County (M.A. thesis, West Texas State College, 1939). Pauline D. and R. L. Robertson, Cowman's Country: Fifty Frontier Ranches in the Texas Panhandle, 1876-1887 (Amarillo: Paramount, 1981). F. Stanley [Stanley F. L. Crocchiola], Rodeo Town (Canadian, Texas) (Denver: World, 1953).

H. Allen Anderson

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HOWE, EUGENE ALEXANDER
(1886-1952)

Eugene Alexander (Gene) Howe, journalist, the youngest of three surviving children of Edgar Watson and Clara (Frank) Howe, was born on March 22, 1886, in Atchison, Kansas. His father, the founder of the Atchison Globe, was a genius of varied moods, an avowed agnostic, and nationally famous as the "Sage of Potato Hill."

When his parents separated, Gene, then in his early teens, remained with his father and often accompanied him on trips to Europe and the eastern United States. He quit high school after an argument with a teacher, enrolled in a business school, and went to work setting type in his father's printing shop.

At the age of sixteen, he left home after a disagreement with his father and made his way to Emmett, Idaho, where his brother James ran a weekly paper. He went to Oregon in 1903 and eventually obtained a position as a reporter for the Portland Oregonian under editor Harvey Scott. Ed Howe summoned his son home in 1907 and set him up as a combination advertising salesman and reporter for the Atchison Globe.

When the elder Howe decided to retire in 1911, he offered Gene half interest in the Globe if he could produce the money quickly. Within two days Gene had $25,000, and the deal was completed. He subsequently became the paper's managing editor. In 1911 he married Gale Donald of Atchison; they had one daughter.

In February 1924 Howe moved to Amarillo and established the Amarillo Globe as an evening paper. Eighteen months later he and his partner, Wilbur Clayton Hawk, bought out their morning competition, the Amarillo Daily News, from J. E. and J. Lindsay Nunn. They merged the papers in January 1926 as the Amarillo Globe-News.

Howe and his associates began a daily column, "The Tactless Texan," written under the pseudonym of Kernal E. Rasmus (or Erasmus) Tack and signed "Old Tack," which became Howe's nickname. Carl Brown wrote the first of these columns, but Howe soon took over. He abhorred dullness, and his editorials were laced with humor, candidness, logic, and common sense.

Charles A. Lindbergh and opera star Mary Garden were among the celebrities who received scathing rebukes from Old Tack, who caused national controversy in the press. Howe often declared that he would rather be a good reporter than a famous publisher. Through his columns he found homes for stray dogs, named children, and brought marriageable couples together. He often referred to the United States Weather Bureau as the "weather trust."

Many of his early editorials and witticisms were compiled into a four-volume series entitled Them Texans, published between 1927 and 1930. During the lean years of the Dust Bowl Howe organized the Goodfellows and helped raise tons of food for the needy. One of his most famous promotional stunts was his proclamation of March 5 as National Mothers-in-Law Day in honor of his wife's mother, Mrs. Nellie Donald. He wanted to make amends for having ruffled her feelings in a 1934 column.

For the occasion in 1938 Howe staged a parade that featured the "world's largest float," a block long and carrying 650 mothers-in-law. Eleanor Roosevelt, who was in Amarillo during a lecture tour, joined officials on the reviewing stand and was presented the "world's largest bouquet" of 4,000 roses, hoisted by a crane. Comedian Ben Turpin, whose crossed eyes inspired Old Tack's caricatured countenance, was also present for the festivities.

Howe retained ownership of the Atchison Globe, and over the years he and his associates expanded their enterprise over three states, adding the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Dalhart Texan, Memphis Democrat, Shamrock Texan, and other regional papers to the Globe-News Publishing Company.

They also began the Plains Radio Broadcasting Company, through which they set up stations in Amarillo and Lubbock, and for a time held interests in other Southwestern stations. Lewis T. Nordyke, Olive King Dixon, Laura V. Hamner, John L. McCarty,q Paul Allingham, Charles A. Guy, and Thomas "Turnstile" Thompson were among Howe's employees and associates at various times. In 1950 Howe became chairman of the board of the Globe-News firm.

Some months later, S. B. Whittenburg and associates, who published the Amarillo Times, bought interest in the Globe-News, but though Times name was added to the afternoon paper's masthead, Howe retained his chairmanship. In 1951 he opened Amarillo's first television station.

From the time of his boyhood ventures on the Missouri River, Howe was a staunch sportsman and conservationist. He and outdoor sports writer Ray Holland lobbied, through Kansas congressman Dan Anthony, for the establishment of federal protection of game birds. In 1932 Howe purchased the 10,000-acre Big Bull Ranch in Hemphill County. There, in addition to raising high-grade Herefords, he developed a series of lakes and conducted experiments with fish. In 1941 he became a member of the Texas Game and Fish Commission and was an organizer of Ducks Unlimited, an international foundation.

Howe's travels and hunting expeditions took him to wilderness areas throughout the United States and Canada. Many of his columns contained travelogues of his outdoor experiences. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Lake Marvin and Gene Howe Wildlife Management areas in Hemphill County east of Canadian. Howe's sporting life suddenly ended in the fall of 1951 after he accidentally shot and killed his favorite bird dog, Princess, during a quail hunt.

During his last years, Howe's eyesight began to fail, and he was stricken with a bladder ailment attributed to cancer. It was, perhaps, his fear of becoming an invalid in his old age that led him to commit suicide on June 25, 1952. His death stunned the city of Amarillo. Funeral services were held at his home prior to burial in the Llano Cemetery.

Shelby M. Kritser, Howe's son-in-law and a grandson of R. B. (Ben) Masterson, became general manager of the Globe-News Publishing Company. Over the entrance of the Globe-News building is inscribed Howe's most famous slogan: "A newspaper may be forgiven for lack of wisdom but never for lack of courage." Gene Howe Elementary School in Amarillo was named in his honor.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gene Howe, Them Texans (4 vols., Amarillo: Russell and Cockrell, 1927-30). Thomas Thompson, North of Palo Duro (Canyon, Texas: Staked Plains, 1984).

H. Allen Anderson

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ISAACS BROTHERS

William C., Sam, and John Childress Isaacs, Panhandle settlers and ranchers, were the sons of Joseph C. and Mary (Jack) Isaacs, who moved to Bosque County, Texas, from their native Alabama in 1857. Will, the oldest, was born on December 4, 1853, in Alabama and moved to Bosque County with his parents at the age of four.

There Sam was born on January 26, 1864, and John in 1866. Their father served as a captain in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. The boys were largely self-educated. Sam in 1877 reportedly attended the first school at Buffalo Gap in Taylor County. That year he began working near Abilene for the Half Diamond H Ranch, which was owned by his brother-in-law, Alex Martin.

In 1883-84 he worked as an outside man for the Hashknife Ranch under John N. Simpson in the Concho country around San Angelo. John, the youngest brother, attended school for a time in Comanche County.

In 1883 Will and John Isaacs were employed by the Apple Ranch, located at the junction of Quartermaster Creek and the Washita River, in the Indian Territory (later Oklahoma) about sixty miles from the Texas border. The next year Sam was hired by Mallalay and Forbes, who were also grazing cattle on Cheyenne reservation lands. Both outfits moved their herds across the Panhandle to New Mexico in 1885 after the federal government ordered all cattlemen to vacate the Indian Territory.

John Isaacs, after a brief stint with the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Cattle Company, worked on ranches in Arizona. Will and Sam remained with the Apple and Mallalay-Forbes outfits in eastern New Mexico. Sam participated in several drives between Endee and Caldwell, Kansas, where the Forbes headquarters was located. In 1886 Sam, who was in charge of the Mallalay-Forbes cattle at Endee, wintered on Palo Duro Creek about twelve miles above the T Anchor Ranch. There he constructed one of the Panhandle's first picket houses.

In 1889 he drove the Mallalay-Forbes herd to Red Deer Creek near its junction with the Canadian River in Hemphill County. Among the Panhandle ranches he frequently visited were the LX and the Turkey Track.q He also knew Robert Benjamin (Ben) Masterson of the Long S.

In January 1892 Will Isaacs married Mary K. Brainard, Canadian's first schoolteacher and the sister of rancher Edward H. Brainard. The next year he and Sam purchased a 30,000-acre ranch and 4,000 cattle, which bore their Circle and a Half brand. In 1906 the brothers helped establish the Canadian State Bank, with Ed Brainard as president, Will as vice president, and Sam as cashier; Will subsequently was president for several years.

Their partnership lasted until 1912, when they divided the property among themselves and operated independently. Will continued ranching until 1928, when he sold 8,085 acres to Lewis Webb of Gray County. He died on May 18, 1934. Mary Isaacs remained active in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and social affairs in Canadian until her death on October 12, 1950. The Mary B. Isaacs school in Canadian is named for her.

Sam, whose ranch consisted of 13,371 well-stocked acres, served as a director of the Canadian Building and Loan Association and helped establish Canadian's Masonic lodge. He married May Louisa Stevens of Kansas City on August 6, 1907, and for years they provided high-school boys with room and board at their two-story brick home on Main Street, in exchange for the chores they did around the house.

Sam was a charter member of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Society and was one of the founders of the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum at Canyon; he liberally supported both institutions. He retired after leasing his ranch in September 1942, and died on September 28, 1943.

John C. Isaacs returned to the Panhandle from Arizona in 1890 and worked two years for the T Anchor Ranch, earning the nickname "T Anchor Kid." After working briefly for the Frying Pan Ranch, he established his own ranch in 1893 on Needmore Creek, east of Canadian. He married Viola Bloom of Medicine Lodge, Kansas, on June 1, 1898, and they had four children.

Along with his brothers, John helped organize the Canadian State Bank and the Canadian Building and Loan Association, both of which he served for years as a director. He also was a past president of the T Anchor Reunion Association and the Panhandle Old Settlers' Association.

He died on October 22, 1937, and in 1986 the ranch on Needmore Creek was still being operated by his heirs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Sallie B. Harris, Cowmen and Ladies: A History of Hemphill County (Canyon, Texas: Staked Plains, 1977). Millie Jones Porter, Memory Cups of Panhandle Pioneers (Clarendon, Texas: Clarendon Press, 1945). Glyndon M. Riley, The History of Hemphill County (M.A. thesis, West Texas State College, 1939). Lester Fields Sheffy, "Sam Isaacs," Panhandle-Plains Historical Review 19 (1946). F. Stanley [Stanley F. L. Crocchiola], Rodeo Town (Canadian, Texas) (Denver: World, 1953).

H. Allen Anderson