Biography of Judge William H. Elliott, Bowie County, Texas *********************************************************** Submitted by: Anna Brett: Date: Jan 2001 Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/tx/bowie/bowitoc.htm *********************************************************** The grandfather of Judge Elliott was of Scotch-Irish origin and emigrated himself from Europe. The father, Jonathan Elliott, was born in Chester district, South Carolina, in 1804, where he remained, receiving a common school education, until his majority. About 1830 he removed to Alabama, where he became acquainted with and afterwards married Miss Eliza McKain, who was also born in South Carolina and removed with her parents to Alabama, her father being of Scotch, and her mother, Miss Sterling, of Irish descent. All the children of Jonathan and Eliza Elliott died before arriving at majority except the subject of this sketch and one sister. They lost two sons respectively of the age of seventeen years in the service of the Confederacy--John K. at Rienzi, Mississippi, on the retreat from Corinth, and Thomas J., two years afterwards, at Camden, Arkansas, died of measles. Jonathan Elliott was a successful farmer, of straight-forward, strict integrity, and had not an enemy. From Alabama he removed to Noxubee county, Mississippi, at a very early period of its settlement. He remained there two years, located lands, and then removed to Itawamba county in the same state. In 1849 he removed to Claiborne parish, Louisiana, and in 1856 from there to Columbia county, Arkansas, where, in July, 1872, he died. After the death of Jonathan Elliott, his wife lived alternately with her two remaining children, W. H. Elliott and his sister. Her's was the life of an exemplary Christian. She lived many years a strict member of the church. She was an Old School Presbyterian, and died in the faith in the winter of 1879, and was laid to rest in the cemetery in Whitesboro, Grayson county, Texas. Judge William H. Elliott was born October 21, 1831, in Perry county, Alabama, alternately working on the farm and attending school until, at nineteen years of age, he undertook by his own labor to procure the means of obtaining a more advanced education, finally closing his studies in Homer High School. In 1854 and part of 1855 he served as deputy sheriff, and the remainder of 1855 and a part of 1856, as deputy district clerk of Claiborne parish, Louisiana. His health failing, he spent six months with relatives and old friends in Mississippi. During these years he studied law, and in 1857, at Monroe, Louisiana, appeared before the supreme court, Judge Spofford, Judge E. T. Merrick and Judge Cole presiding, and obtained license to practice law in all the courts of the state. Being again on a visit to Mississippi in 1861, when the war between the states broke out, in October of that year he joined an infantry company from Fulton, under the command of Captain B. F. Toomer. Theirs was company F, of the gallant 24th Mississippi regiment, commanded by Colonel W. F. Dowd, and for a time was a part of General S. B. Maxey's brigade. The regiment was organized at Marion Station, Mississippi, on the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. Nearly dying of measles, he was furloughed for thirty days, and returned to his home in Louisiana. At the expiration of his furlough he joined his command at Fernandina, Florida, and remained there until the capture of the place by the Federals; was ordered to Chattanooga, Tennessee; thence to Corinth, Mississippi, and up to Bethel Springs, McNary county, Tennessee, doing outpost picket duty for three weeks; returning to Corinth, remained there until the evacuation; thence to Tupelo, Mississippi; returning from there to Chattanooga, Tennessee, was placed on picket duty some twenty-five or thirty miles below, at Bridgeport, on the Tennessee river, where the regiment remained three or four weeks; returning again to Chattanooga, where the main army was concentrating and preparing for General Bragg's famous seven hundred mile raid through Tennessee and Kentucky; lost all his clothing, valise, books, etc., at Danville, Kentucky; came out by way of Crab Orchard, Cumberland Gap, and to Knoxville, Tennessee; from there to Middle Tennessee; was in the battle of Murfreesboro between Generals Bragg and Rosecrans; remained in Tennessee during the winter of 1862; after which the army fell back to Chattanooga and fought the sanguinary battles of Chicamauga and Missionary Ridge. Joining the company after it was organized and officered, he entered as a private, but was soon elected first-lieutenant, and was frequently called on to command his own and other companies of the regiment. After the war, in 1865, he returned to the home of his parents in Columbia county, Arkansas, and settled down as a farmer; was elected and served a term as justice of the peace. On Sunday, the 28th day of July, 1867, he married Miss Leona A. Smith. She has four brothers: J. F. and J. W. Smith, in the drug business in Texarkana; Guss S., in the newspaper business, and one of the proprietors of the Texarkana Democrat, and H. W. Smith, farming in Grayson county, Texas. Farming was his principal occupation from 1867 to 1873. At the first settlement of Texarkana, Texas, he went there and opened a drug store. He was successful in this, but hard work and close confinement caused his health to fail, and in consequence he sold his stock of drugs to his brothers-in-law, J. F. and J. W. Smith, in 1879. Judge Elliott has one sister, Mrs. S. J. McWilliams, living in 1880. the village of Macomb, Grayson county, Texas. She owns a fine prairie farm and is doing well. He was made a Master Mason in Homer, Louisiana, in 1854; is a Knight of Honor, Bowie Lodge No. 1903, Texarkana, Texas; was its dictator for two terms; is now past dictator, and a representative to the Grand Lodge at San Antonio. He belongs to the Ancient Order of United Workmen, Alamo Lodge No. 13; was first elected general foreman, and afterwards master workman; was a delegate to Marshall when the Grand Lodge of the state was organized, and was elected general foreman of the Grand Lodge. He belongs to Mystic Lodge of the American Legion of Honor at Texarkana; was its first commander, and is now its past commander. He also belongs to the Knights of the Golden Rule, at the same place. In politics he is a Democrat. Though not a church member, he is orthodox in sentiment and attends church regularly. In 1880 he was elected mayor of Texarkana and held the office until the November election of 1880, when he was elected by a majority of over five hundred votes to the office of county judge of Bowie county, Texas. The duties of this office he is now filling to the satisfaction of his constituents. Judge Elliott weighs one hundred and seventy pounds, is six feet high, has dark hair, hazel eyes, and is very erect in figure. He has a fine residence and other property in the city of Texarkana, where he resides, but has his office at the court house in Boston, Bowie county, Texas. Above article copied from "THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE NEW WEST", pages 222 and 223. Published in 1881 by The United States Biographical Publishing Company, reproduced in 1978 by Southern Historical Press, new material copyright 1978 by the Rev. Silas Emmett Lucas, Jr. ISBN 0-8930-121-3