PORTRAITS AND BIOGRAPHIES. 399 



of Kentucky. His mother, on her mother's side, was of 

 Dutch extraction. The father of the subject of our sketch 

 died on his way to California in 1852, at Fort Laramie, of 

 cholera. Being thus left at the tender age of i year with 

 a widowed mother he received but a limited common 

 school education at the public school of Freeport, Illinois. 

 At the age of 10 years he went to work on a farm to assist 

 in providing for a widowed mother. He went to Cali- 

 fornia in 1869, and to Kansas in the fall of 1870. From 

 there he went to Texas in the summer of 1871. He occu- 

 pied his spare time for five years in the study of law and 

 medicine. In the fall of 1875 he married Miss Sallie 

 Vickrey, of Salado, Bell county, Texas, a very estimable 

 and accomplished lady who was born in Kentucky. In 

 1887 he commenced the practice of medicine which occu- 

 pation he followed until the work of the Alliance claimed 

 all of his time. He became a member of the Farmers' 

 Alliance in the spring of 1886, in Milam county, Texas. 

 ' ' The same year he was called to active service as Chair- 

 man of the Executive Committee of the State Alliance of 

 Texas. In this capacity he developed that executive 

 ability which won for him the admiration and high regard 

 of the membership of the Order. By the resignation of 

 the President and Vice-President of the State Alliance he 

 became Ex-ofHcio President of the Order, in the fall of 

 1886, which position he filled, in addition to his duties as 

 Chairman of the Executive Committee, until the called 

 meeting of the State Alliance in the city of Waco, on 

 January 18, 1887. It was during the session of this body 

 at Waco that the National Farmers' Alliance and Co-op- 

 erative Union of America was organized and the subject 

 of this sketch elected President." 



In the summer of the same year he was made the 

 business manager of the Texas Alliance Exchange at 

 Dallas, and in the following October was re-elected Presi- 



