JOHN O. DEWEES,

SAN ANTONIO.

John O. Dewees, for many years identified with the history of western Texas, and a leading citizen and stockman of that part of the State, was born in Putnam County, Indiana, where the town of Greencastle now stands, on the 30th day of December, 1828. His parents were Thomas and America Dewees, natives of Kentucky, and respectively of Welsh and English and German and English descent. His father was a farmer and stockraiser, and died on his farm, near Hallettsville, in Lavaca County, in 1864. His mother died at San Marcos, Hays County, Texas, May 5, 1889.

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Mr. Thomas Dewees moved, with his family, from Putnam County, Indiana, to Tasewell County, Illinois, in 1831 or 1832, and, four or five years later, located further north, on the Fox River, where the town of Dundee, Cane County, Illinois, now stands. Mr. John Oatman, Mrs. Dewees' father, laid off the village of Dundee, on the east side of the river, and Mr. Thomas Dewees on the west side, and the latter engaged in farming and established the first flouring mill erected in that section.

The country west of the Mississippi, at this time, contained few white pioneers. There were, in fact, camps of Sioux and Pottawottamie Indians situated within half a mile of the little frontier settlement, but the Indians were kindly treated and, as a consequence, made good neighbors. School facilities were meager and the subject of this sketch, John O. Dewees, had few opportunities to acquire an education. During the summer months he worked upon his father's farm, and as teamster, often hauled wheat and corn to Chicago, thirty-six miles west of Dundee, and then merely a government post, containing 200 or 300 inhabitants. In the long winter days he was a pupil at the little red brick school-house, and succeeded in acquiring the rudiments of an English education, which he improved and extended in after years, as opportunity offered. In 1848 the construction of the Chicago & Galena Railroad was commenced, and in the fall of 1849 it had reached Elgin, five miles below Dundee. John O. Dewees, then in his twenty-first year, was among the first of the people of that section to ride over and watch, as a deeply interested spectator, the wonderful work of railroad building. And well he might! Rude and imperfect as was this primitive railway, slowly uncoiling itself in the Western wilderness, it represented the highest embodiment of the genius of this utilitarian, iron, world-moving age! An invention second only to that of gunpowder. Gunpowder enabled civilization, at last, to hold barbarism at bay and to render evermore impossible such a catastrophe as that which engulfed Rome's 1,400 years of glory, art, literature and law, in the night of the middle ages. The railroad has made it no longer necessary for cities to be built where there are harbors, or on broad, navigable streams. Every great railroad is a Mississippi. The savage has been subdued; every fertile acre of the continent has been made accessible; the frontier, moving farther and farther westward, has at last melted into the Pacific, and lives only in tradition, and old-fogy ism has, amid the glare of new surroundings, been compelled to sit and blink in dark corners and inanely bemoan the good old times.

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The railroad that young Dewees regarded with such natural and amazing interest, and upon which he rode at the first opportunity, was very far from being such a piece of perfect engineering as one of our modern trunk-line railways. The ties were placed five or six feet apart and on these were laid two stringers, and on the stringers nailed strips of iron, somewhat broader and thicker than the tire-iron used on wagon wheels. The engine and coaches were equally primordial and suggestive of the possibility of accidents, in a day, too, when the convenience of insuring, at short notice, against mishaps was a long way off in the impalpable future. The rails (or iron strips) often loosened, by spikes coming out, and the swelling of ties, had a penchant for assuming perpendicular or semi-perpendicular positions, and ripping holes in the bottoms of the coaches. These ragged pieces of iron were called snake-heads. The Chicago & Galena Railway was by no means the first road built in the United States, but it was among the first constructed in the West, and its appearance at Elgin was an event that made the day one of the dies notandi in Mr. Dewees' life.

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In 1847 Mr. John Oatman and his two sons went down the Mississippi to New Orleans, from New Orleans (by sea) to Galveston, proceeded to Houston, procured horses and traveled as far west as San Antonio. On the homeward trip (made during the same year) they passed northward, through east Texas, and, taking passage, in Louisiana, on a Red River steamboat, made their way back to Dundee. They were charmed with what they had beheld of Texas, and united in urging Mr. Thomas Dewees to remove to the Lone Star State. Both Mr. Oatman and Mr. Dewees were afflicted with bronchial ailments, and it was their desire to establish homes at some healthful locality in the South. Accordingly, the two families (consisting of John and Nancy Oatman and their children, and Thomas and America Dewees and their children—John O., Eliza, Ellen, W. P., Mary Amnia, Thomas, Ira Adelbert, Isaac and Medina Dewees) left for Texas, in 1849, and, after an interesting journey (partly by land and partly by water), reached their destination and settled on Cedar Creek, twelve miles below the town of Bastrop, and engaged in farming and stockraising.

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They followed the course of the Fox River in wagons to Peru. Illinois, the head of navigation on the Illinois River; there embarked on a steamboat and proceeded down the Iliinois and Mississippi Rivers to St. Louis; went by steamboat from that point to Natchez, Mississippi; at Natchez went ashore, and traveled overland the remainder of the way. They crossed the Red River at Nachitoches, the Sabine at a ferry near San Augustine, and the Brazos at Washington. The party struck the Colorado at La Grange, and wended their way up that river to Bastrop, where they crossed the stream and proceeded to the place of settlement on Cedar Creek. Mr. Thomas Lewees was in bad health and unable to perform physical labor. His eldest son, John O. Dewees, therefore, looked after the cattle and farm work, performing the larger part of it himself. When he came to Texas he had $160, and with this amount purchased cattle at $4 and $5 a head. He worked for his father on shares during the ensuing four years and cleared about $3,000.

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In 1854, he went to Seguin, Guadalupe County, engaged in business speculations and, during the year, lost the hard earned $3,000 and found himself about $1,200 in debt. Nothing discouraged, he turned about, with undiminished zeal, to make another start, and in the spring of 1857, went to Live Oak County, purchased a few head of cattle on time, and worked on shares, his share being the fourth calf—payment that would now be considered grossly inadequate.

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At the beginning of the war between the States he owned about 1,600 head of cattle. In 1862 he joined Company B, commanded by Captain E. B. Millett, Thirty-second Texas cavalry, commanded by Colonel Woods, and served in Texas and Louisiana, making a brave and efficient soldier. His command did not reach Lousiana until after the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill, but participated in the fight at Blair's Landing and the twenty-five or thirty severe skirmishes, including the battle of Yellow Bayou, that marked the retreat of Banks' vanquished army. At the close of hostilities, his company was mustered out of service about twelve miles above Richmond, on the Brazos River.

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The winter of 1864-5 was peculiarly severe and thousands of cattle died in west Texas. He gathered up what stock he had left, and purchased a number of herds, and soon laid the foundation for his subsequent fortune. Before entering the Confederate army he so disposed of his interest in cattle and lands that, when he returned home, he was able to realize there from a small amount of money. The price of cattle, immediately succeeding that winter, was lower than ever before, or since known, and he bought large numbers of cattle. In 1873, he sold his cattle, on the range, fo. $23,000, and moved to San Antonio, and has since made that city his home. At that time the market was not on a boom. Had he sold two or three years later, he would have realized at least $100,000 for his herds. At San Antonio he formed a copartnership with J. F. Ellison, of San Marcos. The firm, during the ensuing five years, speculated in cattle and bought and drove herds to Kansas, Wyoming and other markets in the Northwest, realizing large financial returns therefrom. Messrs. Dewees & Ellison severed their connection and the former formed a copartnership with his brother, Thomas Dewees, of San Antonio. They purchased and sold land and traded in cattle until they owned a ranch of 60,000 acres (under fence and well stocked) in Wilson, Atascosa, and Karnes Counties, and then James T. Thornton, at the time a banker in San Antonio, and now a resident of Kansas City, was taken into the firm. The new firm continued in business a number of years and, at the time of its dissolution, by the retirement of Mr. Thornton, owned 95,000 acres, also well stocked. The two brothers continued the business for about a year, and then dissolved partnership on account of the failing health of John O. Dewees. It was supposed that he could live only a few months, and they thought it best to have their affairs settled while both were living. The assets of the firm, at a fair valuation, were not less than $350,000. John O. Dewees has since been engaged in business on his own account. His ranch lies in Wilson and Atascosa Counties, and consists of 24,000 acres of land, stocked with 3,000 cattle, 2,600 of that number, steers. He owns lands in various parts of the State, a fine farm in Wilson County, and valuable property in and near the city of San Antonio, and is worth from $140,000 to $200,000.

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In early life, when struggling toward independence, he shirked no labor, however arduous; often splitting rails and shingles, felling trees, and working waist-deep in water. Difficulties, even misfortune, served to increase, rather than diminish, his courage and resolution to succeed—to be one of those who conquer in life's struggle. The demands upon his constitution in those years was the cause of the apparent decline that led him to wind up his affairs at one time, in anticipation that the end of his earthly career was near at hand. His health since has been fully restored, and he is now a man of magnificent physique, and, although his hair and beard are silvered by the pencil of time, his carriage is firm and elastic. He is a man of strikingly dignified and courtly appearance, and would be marked in any assembly.

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On the 12thof February, 1873, Mr. Dewees was united in marriage to Miss Annie Irvin, at the home of her mother, in Guadalupe County. They have one child, a daughter, Miss Alice A. Dewees, eighteen years of age, and now a student at Saint Mary's Seminary, at Knoxville, Illinois. Mrs. Dewees' parents were Jordan and-Sallie Irvin. Her father was a prominent farmer and stockraiser, and died many years ago. Her mother is still living in San Antonio. Mrs. Dewees received an excellent education, is one of the most talented ladies in the State, and presides over her palatial home with that rare and elegant grace that distinguishes cultured society.

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Mr. Dewees is a Democrat, and has never voted any other than the Democratic ticket, but takes little interest in politics. He is a man of broad and liberal mind, and has aided in the promotion of many public enterprises. While not a member of any church, he is a man of warm and generous impulses, as is abundantly attested by his almost daily acts of charity. He is a fit representative of that sturdy race that made their homes in this State when Texas was a wilderness, and have, by the exercise of manly virtues, achieved success, using the word in its highest and truest sense—a goal that all men seek to attain, and that fitly rounds an honorable career.

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SOURCE: 

Personnel of the Texas State Government: With Sketches of Representative Men of Texas

 

Lewis E. Daniell 

January 1, 1892

Maverick Print. House

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