Heritage, 2010, Volume 3 Page: 4
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71AS 44 JI42 (
From the beginning when the Original 300 settled Anglo-American exas, families have played an important
role in the state's history. With this issue, we shin new focus on Texas families.
By Judith W. LinsleyAccording to family lore,
James McFaddin didn't plan to
come to Texas. He and several
other young men were sitting
behind a woman at a church
meeting in Montgomery
County, Tennessee, clandestine- r ,
ly testing the thickness of her
bustle with a hat pin, and James
pushed a bit too hard. That inci-
dent prompted a change in
scenery and sent James first to
Louisiana, where he fought in -k=
the Battle of New Orleans in
1815 and married Elizabeth
Mackey. About 1823, the couple moved to Texas and in
1833 permanently settled where the Atascosito Trail crossed
the Neches River, in what would become the town of
Beaumont. James raised cattle there until his death in 1845.
During the Texas Revolution, James and Elizabeth's oldest
son William served in the Texian Army, at the battles of
Bexar and San Jacinto. He was discharged on his seventeenth
birthday, June 8, 1836, and walked the 240 miles from
Goliad back to his home. William settled next to his father,
married Rachel Williams in 1838, and soon became noted
for his relentless acquisition of cattle and land.
The seventh of William and Rachel's nine children,
William Perry Herring McFaddin, was born in 1856. W.P.H.
inherited his father's boundless appetite for property, and
together they began to amass a land and cattle empire; after
William's death in 1897, W.P.H. continued on his own.
Another of William's sons, James, married Margaret Coward
and bought land in Victoria County in 1878, where he even-
tually established a sizeable ranch. James was an innovator,
being one of the earliest to improve his stock with Brahman
blood and to fence his pastures with barbed wire. In addition,
he was a partner in the first meatpacking firm in Texas and an
organizer of the Cattle Raisers Association of Texas and the
Guadalupe (River) Navigation Company. By the 1880s James
owned three ranches and was one of the wealthiest citizens in
Victoria County; he died in Victoria in 1916.
The Spindletop oil boom in 1901 brought wealth toBeaumont-and to W.P.H.
McFaddin, pictured at left.
The oil field was located on
pasture land owned by him
and his McFaddin relatives,
members of the Wiess and
- V Kyle families. W.P.H. kept on
1 .with his ranching activities as
well, ultimately building the
McFaddin ranch into some
120,000 acres.
WP.H.'s first wife, Emma
Janes, died in 1890, and he
married West Virginia belle
Ida Caldwell in 1894. In early
1907, he and Ida moved into an elegant Beaux-Arts colonial-
style home in Beaumont. Their daughter Mamie married
Carroll Ward in 1919, and the couple lived in the McFaddin
home with her parents. Mamie's brothers married and lived
nearby with their own families.
After the death of her parents and her husband, Mamie
devoted her efforts to her home and to philanthropic causes.
At her death in 1982, by her wishes, the family home became
a historic house museum, the McFaddin-Ward House, now
accredited by the American Association of Museums.
Today the McFaddin Ranch in Victoria County remains in
the possession of McFaddin descendants. The vast ranch
empire of the Beaumont McFaddins has been dismantled,
though family members still own area land and maintain
ranching operations. The McFaddin name on maps and
structures stands as a permanent reminder of the family's pres-
ence throughout history. Wherever their location, McFaddin
descendants continue to be prominent in the financial and
cultural welfare of their community and their state.
Judith WV Linsley is the curator of interpretation and education
at the McFaddin- Ward House. Image above courtesy ofM- WH.
Visit the McFaddin-Ward House in Beaumont Tuesday
through Saturday from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and Sunday
from 1:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. Call for reservations. Find a
virtual tour at www. mcfaddin-ward. org/tour. htm.HERITAGE Volume 3 2010
n
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Texas Historical Foundation. Heritage, 2010, Volume 3, periodical, 2010; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth254218/m1/4/?q=Lamar+University: accessed May 29, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Historical Foundation.