A History of Greater Dallas and Vicinity: Volume 2 Page: 135 of 485

                                
GREATER DALLAS AND VICINITY                        121
CAPrTAI. JESSE M. STRONG.-The name of Captain Jesse M. Strong
occupies a place along the men who have been prominent in the civil
and military affairs of the nation, and also among those whose history
touches the pioneer epoch in the annals of the Lone Star state. It was
at the close of the Civil war epoch that he came to join his fortunes with
the southwest, and his days since form a part of the chain of events linking
that early formative period with present day progress. In 1875 he
came to Dallas county, and just eight years afterward, in 1883, he was
made the county surveyor and served as such by succeeding elections for
six years. He was also elected from Dallas county as a member of the
Nineteenth and Twentieth state legislatures, and it was in those sessions
that the well remembered land legislation, involving the mode of handling
the state school lands, as well as the trouble arising from fence cutters on
lands that were fenced with barb wire, were the foremost matters of interest
in state affairs. Captain Strong took an active part in those controversies,
and in the Nineteenth session he was a member of the School
Land Committee and chairman of the sub-committee that prepared the
land bill. During the Twentieth session he served for a portion of the
time as chairman of the committee on state lands. He was chosen for
this duty on account of his intimate knowledge of the public lands in Texas,
he having done a great deal of surveying throughout western Texas for
railroads and other parties in the earlier years of his residence here. He
has been a surveyor and civil engineer throughout the entire period of his
residence in this state, and during the past several years has been connected
with the city erigineer's department in Dallas.
Captain Strong is a native son of Kentucky, born in Monroe county
in 1839, but when a child he went with his parents to Missouri and it was
there in the county of Newton that he spent his boyhood's days and laid
the foundation for life's real duties. At the opening of the war between
the north and the south he joined the Missouri State Militia, with which
he was later mustered into the regular Confederate service in General
Price's army. During his military services he received several promotions
for brave and efficient work, and was twice wounded in battle, first in the
engagement of Oak Hill or Wilson's Creek, and secondly at the.battle of
Elkhorn or Pea Ridge. He was in active service throughout the entire
war, his duties lying in Missouri, Arkansas and Louisiana, and he was at
Shreveport at the close of the conflict.
The wife of Captain Strong was before marriage Miss M. J. Newton.
WILLIAM H. CLARK.-Honor is the legitimate reward of talent, and
when yielded to merit it hangs like a graceful robe on its wearer, imparting
dignity and commanding respect; and while the life of the lawyer, unlike
that of the statesman or warrior, affords but few incidents calculated to
excite interest or allure attention, it is not on that account, however, less
worthy of record or barren of public utility. The subject of the present
sketch early in life is justly entitled to a place among the lawyers of