Life History

Notes

• "I am kin to the Wooley family.  Howard Arthur Wooley is the son of Thomas Howard Wooley and Mary Ann Brickey.  Thomas Howard Wooley is the brother to my great grandfather Enoch Wooley.  Thomas Howard Wooley was a buffalo hunter.  There is a photo of him in a book with Mary Ann Brickey.  Mary Ann Brinkley was from England. ... Also, Elijah Myers Wooley and his wife Sarah Howard Wooley are buried at the Harmony Cemetery and it is on the Internet.  Thomas Howard  Wooley and his wife Mary Brickey Wooley are buried at Greenwood, I believe.  They are on the Internet as well."
  --  Wanda Cox, from her research, Facebook Message to Orville Boyd Jenkins, 24 July 2015
  
  (Her name is found spelled as Brickey, Brickley and other ways.  It appears the proper family name was Brickey.
  
  1880 Federal Census, Young County, Texas, 30 June, Precinct 1, District 167, page 50 (scan 400B), Hse/Fam #475
  Wooley, Thomas H  W M 24 Husband Farmer MO IL IL [b abt 1856]
  Wooley, Mary A  W F 24 Wife Housekeeping AR MS MS [abt 1856]
  Wooley, Howard A  W M 4mos born Feb 1880 Son At Home TX MO MO
  
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  Thomas Howard Wooley
  Birth Apr. 20, 1845
  Death Dec. 1, 1938
  
  +++++++++++++++
  Thomas Howard Wooley, buffalo hunter, trail driver, pioneer cattleman, and frontier postmaster, was born April 20, 1845, a son of E.M. [Elijah Myers] Wooley [and Sarah Elizabeth Howard] of Tennessee, who gained pioneer honors in both Missouri and Texas. His original American ancestors came to the States from Ireland.
  
  The elder Wooley owned three of the twenty wagons which left Missouri for Texas in 1849, when Tom Wooley was four years old. Those three wagons led the caravan and were the only ones of the group which came as far west as Parker County. The remaining seventeen wagons stopped in East Texas, but E.M. Wooley pushed on toward the frontier, preempted land five miles south of Weatherford on Sanchez Creek, and built a house which was to become a Parker County landmark. People for miles around came to see the new dwelling, for it had pine floors and real glass windows -- the first glass windows in the whole county. Unlike the typical two-room cabin of that day, the Wooley house was a story and a half high, and the lumber and shingles for its construction were hauled from saw-mills in East Texas.
  
  Tom Wooley's first real farm task was breaking sixty acres of ground with a bull-tongue plow. Breaking the ground wasn't so difficult, but the small boy found it a real task to shoulder a shotgun and carry a six-shooter in his belt while the plowing was being done. It was necessary, however, to go armed, for one never knew when the Indians were going to make an attack.
  
  Mr. Wooley was too young for enlistment at the outbreak of the Civil War, but in 1862, at the age of 17 years, he became a private in Company E., Nineteenth Texas Cavalry, which served with the Twelfth and Twenty-First Regiment, Morgan's Battalion and Pratt's Battery of four guns in Parson's Texas Cavalry Brigade, in the command of Gen. Nat M. Burford of Dallas. Mr. Wooley is the last surviving man of the 800 who enlisted in the Confederate Army from Parker County.
  
  Following the war, Mr. Wooley and W.H. Eddelman, who at one time was president of fourteen Texas banks, began freighting with ox teams, and in 1870, sold their business for $8,000 in gold. It was next that Mr. Wooley located in Young County, bought a ranch, and branded hundreds of cattle with "W.O.L.Y." He drove one herd to Shreveport, Louisiana, and another of 1,400 steers up the trail to Abilene, Kansas. In 1877, the H.&T.C. Railroad reached Ennis, and he shipped four carloads of fed steers to Kansas City, which are believed to have been the first cattle ever fattened in Texas for an outside market.
  
  Mr. Wooley spent his Christmas holidays hunting buffalo with his father and a group of neighborhood boys, at one time salting down 7,000 pounds of prime buffalo rump, which later sold in Alvarado for twenty-five cents a pound.
  
  On March 21, 1879, Mr. Wooley married Miss Mary Ann Brickley at Alvarado, whose paternal grandfather was a native of England. To this union five children were born: Arthur Wooley, Mrs. Josie (Edward) Gower, both deceased; Mrs. Fairy (H.R.) English of Dallas; Kline B. [Brickey] Wooley of Dallas; and Mrs. Fornia (Floyd) Bowden of Weatherford. Mr. Wooley has eight grandchildren: Glenn and Darrell Wooley; Aubra and Eddie Lee Gower; and DeVere, Netholyn, and W.H. (Kelfra) Bowden.
  
  In 1882, Mr. & Mrs. Wooley returned to Parker County, settling at Millsap, where Mr. Wooley operated a general merchandising business and served the community as postmaster. Twenty-two years ago, they moved to Weatherford, and since Mrs. Wooley's death, October 15, 1933, Mr. Wooley has made his home with his daughter, Mrs. [Fornia] Floyd Bowden, in Weatherford.
  
  The things Mr. Wooley remembers with fondest memories of pioneer days are how he and his wife picked wild geese for pillow feathers, shot wild turkey and deer from the front door of their cabin, started fire with flint and steel, molded bullets and folded rags for gun-wadding, roasted unpeeled potatoes and unshucked roasting-ears in hot ashes, and made biscuits and cakes without the aid of soda or baking powder.
  --  (from Holland, Gustavus Adolphus; "The History of Parker County and the Double Log Cabin;" Weatherford, Texas, Herald, 1931 & rpt. 1937; pp. 228-229.)
  +++++++++++++++
  
  Spouse Mary Ann Brickey Wooley (1860 - 1933)
  Children:
  Fairy Belle Wooley English (1890 - 1985)
  Kline Brickey Wooley (1892 - 1979)
  Fornia Mae Wooley Bowden (1895 - 1951)
  
  Burial Oakland Cemetery, Weatherford, Parker  County, Texas
  
  Maintained by John Bauer, Originally Created by timcdfw Jul 19, 2008
  --  Find A Grave Memorial #28388078, http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=28388077
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Sources

• 1. Facebook Messaging
• 2. Find a Grave Memorial Registry
• 3. Texas, Death Certificates, 1903-1982
• 4. 1880 Federal Census, Young County, Texas
  • 30 June, Precinct 1, District 167, page 50 (scan 400B), Hse/Fam #475
• 5. 1910 Federal Census, Jackson County, Oklahoma
  • 7 May, Elmer Township, District 140, Page 13A, Hse/Fam #218
• 6. Jenkins Family History by Harold Keith Christian
• 7. U.S., World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942
• 8. 1920 Federal Census, Parker County, Texas
  • 2 January, Justice Precinct 1, District 37, page 1A, Weatherford to Spring Creek Rd, Hse #8, Fam #9