Memorial and biographical history of Ellis county, Texas ... Containing a history of this important section of the great state of Texas, from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its future prospects; with full-page portraits of the presidents of the United States, and also full-page portraits of some of the most eminent men of the county, and biographical mention of many of its pioneers, and also of prominent citizens of to-day ... Page: 257

                                
HISTORY OF ELLIS COUNZ'?.                 257

creek; there he followed farming and stockraising
until 1883, and then removed to
Ennis; his farm consists of 123 acres in an
advanced state of cultivation and well inproved
with buildings.
He and his wife are members of the Baptist
Church, and he belongs to the Masonic
fraternity, having been a member since 1846;
Mrs. Rankin is a member of the Eastern
Star.
HOMAS S. ANDREWS, one of the
pioneer settlers and oldest farmers of
Ellis county, was born in Pope county,
Arkansas, in 1841, the son of Thomas H. and
Arena (Davidson) Andrews, natives of Tennessee.
Mr. Thomas H. Andrews was reared
in Alabama, whither the family had removed
when he was a child. and his wife was brought
up in Virginia, to which State her parents
had emigrated when she was small, and they
remained there until their death. After that
event she went to Arkansas with her brothers.
Thomas H. left his father when quite small,
in company with his brother and brother-inlaw
and came to Texas. Two years afterward
he went to Arkansas, stopping in Pope
county, and bound himself to an Englishman
named Norris, to become a farmer and receive
an education; he remained with him
till his twenty-first year, when, besides his
education, he received a suit of clothes, horse,
bridle and saddle. In his twenty-second year
he married and commenced farming in that
State, first locating land on the Arkansas
river bottom; but the malaria there proved

too strong for himself and wife, and they
moved back into the "' barrens," or ( "second
bottom." After living there until the spring
of 1859 he moved to Texas. While living
in Arkansas, sometime between 1836 and
1846, lie served in some of the Indian wars,
being in the State service under Captain
Scott of Pope county. He accumulated considerable
property in stock and land, and
erected one of the first gin houses in that
county; it is supposed to be still standing.
He also built a threshing machine for his
own use, which operated well, threshing his
own and his neighbors' wheat.
In Texas he made his first stop in Burlesonl
county, from the spring to tilh fall ot 1859,
on a place he had purchased twelve years previously.
At length lie settled on the place
now occupied by the son, the subject of this
sketch. He purchased it of Mr. Pace, at
which time it comprised 320 acres, with fortyseven
acres improved, one small clapboard
house, a rude one of logs and a little log crib.
At the time of his death he owned 1,510 acres
of fine land, with at least 450 acres in good
cultivation, a splendid farm residence on his
home place, tenement houses, barns, etc. Ile
was a member of the Fifteenth Legislature,
elected by the Democratic party, being one
of the most popular men of the county,
benevolent and accommodating. He died in
1889 at the age of seventy-three years. Both
himself and his wife were members of the
Cumberland Presbyterian Church. He was
for many years a prominent Freemason, having
filled all the chairs in the blue lodge and
being a member of the chapter.  '

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HI~STOR O RU CUNY

257