Hearne History - Page 637

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gas for family use for all purposes, but also runs the machinery for an immense workshop for both wood and iron, where many men are constantly employed in both making and repairing implements for use on the farm. A very intelligent and highly educated negro physician, living in Hearne, is employed by the year to do the practice for all the negro families, and gives good satisfaction. Mr. Hearne furnishes all the medicines, having a complete apothecary shop in his yard, that the physician has access to all the time.

Mr. Hearne furnishes four church and school buildings (three Baptist and one Methodist) on the farm for the negroes, and when any of the four pastors is not fully paid his salary by the negroes, he makes it up himself, and says he never loses by it.

Mr. Hearne is a wonderfully well preserved man in both body and mind, and still gives his personal attention to all his business, which is large outside his farm, as he owns quite a deal of property in Hearne, and has large interests in four banks. He is president of the National Bank at Hearne; vice-president of one in Bryan, and director in one each at Waco and Dallas. He tells me he remembers very distinctly my great-uncle Joseph Hearne and his wife and two children, George and Priscilla, coming on a visit to his father's family in Alabama 1826, and his sister, Rhoda Cox also remembers it. Uncle Joseph was then a wealthy and prosperous planter, and is the same of whom mention is made in the History, that we have lost all track of his family.

Horatio Reardon Hearne never made a profession of religion but he was a firm believer in Christianity, as his whole life attested, by his liberal donations to the cause. His wife Priscilla was a most devoted Christian, and he told me that whatever of success in life he had, he owed it all to the influence of his Christian wife. He died suddenly in Houston, Texas, June 22, 1896, and his body was placed in his own vault, with his wife, at Dallas, Texas. The following notice of him is from the Dallas News written by Robert E. Cowart, an eminent lawyer and jurist of the Dallas bar, and a life-long friend of Mr. Hearne:

"IN MEMORIAM.

"In the death of H. R. Hearne one of the most extraordinary men of Texas has passed over to the great majority. I have lived in this State over twenty years and have met many of our representative

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Notes:

Thanks to Carol Ealey for transcribing this page.


Copyright (c) 1999, 2007 Brian Cragun.