Warren Angus Ferris was a surveyor and tracker. He is credited with being one of the first persons to map out Dallas County (prior to the better-known John Neely Bryan) and several other parts of Texas. He was born the day after Christmas in 1810 to Angus and Sarah Ferris of Glen Falls, New York, a family with a Quaker and Puritan heritage. He also had a younger brother named Charles Drake Ferris.
Tag: biography
Unsolved Mystery: Billy the Kid
Saturday, December 29, 1950, there was a funeral in Hico, Texas for O. L. Roberts (some accounts call him William Henry Roberts) who claimed to be Billy the Kid. He had come to Hico in the late 1930s from his previous home in Gladewater, claiming to be Billy the Kid, who was born Henry McCarty and also known as William Bonney. We’ll refer to the outlaw as Bonney.
Continue reading Unsolved Mystery: Billy the KidC. M. “Dad” Joiner
Columbus Marion “Dad” Joiner was a familiar name to folks in the early days of the oilfields in Oklahoma and Texas. The East Texas town of Joinerville is named for him. Joiner is credited for having discovered the East Texas oil field in 1930 when his third wildcat well came in west of Henderson, Texas.
Angelina Eberly
Angelina Peyton Eberly is credited with having saved Austin as the capital of Texas by preventing the state archives from being removed to another location. While her name may not be as familiar as others, her story is one worth knowing.
William Cowper Brann
(Image credit: Texas Co-op Power Magazine)
William Cowper Brann was born in Coles County, Illinois in 1855 and was raised by a local farmer after his mother died when he was 2 1/2. His first job was to serve as a bell boy at a local hotel. Following that, he worked as a painter, a drummer, a grainer, a printer, a reporter and an editorial writer. It was written that he talked his way into a position as chief editorial writer for the Houston Post. Brann earned a reputation for being a hard worker at whatever he attempted to do.
Texas History Notebook 