The Dallas Journal, Volume 51, 2006 Page: 24

About M. Lawrence Camp

had been entry of 47,087 items upon which fees
are charged and 24,928 instruments for record,
such as warranty and trust deeds, etc. The
number of instruments placed on record was
28,397 in 1914 and 30,704 in 1913.
Vital statistics for November, as
compiled by Deputy County Clerk Ed Cobb
showed November to have had the most

marriages of any month of 1915. The total
number of marriage licenses issued during the
month was 277, which is six more than were
issued in October, which had the year's record
up to that time. Other vital statistics showed
forty-four births and twenty-three deaths in
Dallas County outside the city of Dallas.

M. Lawrence Camp in the Dallas County Clerk's Office 1918
Dallas Morning News 10 January 1918

COUNTY CLERK REFUSES TO ISSUE LICENSE FOR
CHILD

When a Dallas man appeared at County
Clerk Cullom's office yesterday and demanded
a marriage license for his little daughter, Mr.
Cullom refused to issue it and advised the father
to go home and send her back to school.
The man called at the office last Monday
with a boy of 17, who wanted a license for
himself and the girl. They told License Clerk
M. L. Camp that the girl was born in October,
Dallas Morning News 24 October 1918

1904, and the clerk refused to issue the license.
The boy had a note from his mother giving her
consent and Mr. Camp told him that in any case
the consent would have to be acknowledged
before a notary.
Yesterday the father of the girl came
back with the family Bible, an entry in which
placed her birth date in October 1903. Mr.
Cullom told him he would not issue the license.

NO MARRIAGE LICENSE ISSUED YESTERDAY

Yesterday was the first week-day in
several years that the County Clerk of Dallas
County had no applicants for marriage licenses.
M. L. Camp, chief deputy, sat at his desk all day
with pads of blanks in reach, but had no
occasion to use them. "I don't know what's
ailing the young people," he said. "I took a turn
down Elm street at the noon hour. I saw about
the usual number of soldiers one would
encounter, including some likely Lieutenants

and Sergeants, and there was no lack of
blooming girls abroad with their smiles, but it
seems there is nothing doing. Whey, we call it
an off day, from a matrimonial point of view,
when we issue fewer than ten or a dozen
marriage licenses. It could not be on account of
the rain for the weather has never heretofore
interfered with this part of the business of the
office. Possibly it is the flu."

24 Dallas Journal 2006

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Dallas Journal 2006