Before Hollywood, He Played Piano at New Hope Baptist RoadyGoat

Long before the world knew Jamie Foxx, a kid named Eric Marlon Bishop was growing up in Terrell, born here on December 13, 1967, and raised by his grandmother Estelle Talley, who he later called his first acting teacher. He took up the piano at five and grew into a part-time pianist and choir leader at New Hope Baptist Church here in town, the room where a future Oscar winner first learned to command an audience. At Terrell High School he was the quarterback, dreaming of the Dallas Cowboys before comedy and music pulled him another way. He took the stage name Jamie Foxx, broke through on television, and in 2004 won the Academy Award for Best Actor for playing Ray Charles in Ray. The music never left him either; he landed number-one Billboard singles guesting on Slow Jamz and Gold Digger, and won a Grammy for his own hit Blame It. From a church piano bench in Terrell to an Oscar stage, it started right here. (Source: Wikipedia; Jamie Foxx 2005 Oscar acceptance.)

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Twenty British Boys Beneath the Texas Sod RoadyGoat

In Oakland Memorial Park, along West Moore Avenue, there is a plot that belongs, in a sense, to Britain. Twenty young men of the Royal Air Force who died while training at Terrell's flying school during World War II are buried here together, most killed in flying accidents, one from illness. During the war, Terrell residents quietly tended the graves of the foreign boys who had died far from home; afterward the Commonwealth War Graves Commission took over their care, and the plot is kept under the British flag. The bond never faded. On the Sunday nearest November 11, Remembrance Day, the British Flying Training School Museum still holds a ceremony at these graves, followed by tea, honoring cadets who have now lain in Kaufman County soil for more than eighty years. The same cemetery holds Terrell's own, including the painter Frank Reaugh, but it's this small square of Royal Air Force headstones that turns a North Texas burial ground into a piece of England. (Source: Commonwealth War Graves Commission; No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum.)

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The Richest Heir in America Drove Texas's First Car From Here RoadyGoat

In 1893 a young man named Edward H.R. Green, son of Hetty Green, the famously miserly Witch of Wall Street and the richest woman in America, was sent to Terrell to run the ailing Texas Midland Railroad his mother had taken in foreclosure. Colonel Green, as he liked to be called, made Terrell his bachelor home and turned the little line into a showpiece, reportedly the first railroad in the state to light its passenger coaches and its locomotive headlights electrically. But his most famous Terrell stunt was on wheels, not rails. In 1899 he bought one of two motor cars built in St. Louis, had it shipped here, and hired its maker, George Preston Dorris, to teach him to drive. On October 5, 1899, Green motored his horseless carriage from Terrell to the State Fair of Texas in Dallas, widely remembered as the first automobile trip in Texas. A downtown mural at Moore Avenue and Rockwall Street marks the moment. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Discover Terrell mural project.)

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Marrs, S. M. N.

1862

On January 2, 1862, Starlin Marion Newberry Marrs was born in Gauley Bridge, Fayette County, Virginia (now West Virginia). At 16, he began teaching in rural schools, working in coal mines to make ends meet. He moved to Texas in 1881, teaching in Erath County, Hico and Cleburne. He also earned a degree from Ohio's National Normal University, and wed Anna Hesup, also of West Virginia. In 1893, Terrell's school board chose Marrs as superintendent. In 1897, the board was involved in a political fight with the city aldermen and mayor. During two years of turmoil, Marrs was fired and re-hired, and he resigned to work at the Department of Education in Austin for a year. He returned as Terrell superintendent in 1899. After his first wife died in 1904, Marrs cared for their four children and, in 1909, wed Ina Cadell. In addition to school and family responsibilities, he was an active citizen, playing a role in building Terrell's Carnegie library and also in changing the local government utilizing a city commission model. He also served as president of the Texas State Teachers Association and on the State Board of Examiners. In 1918, Marrs left to become State Supervisor of High Schools. He worked under State Superintendent Annie Webb Blanton, becoming Assistant Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1921. He became State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1922. In that job, he initiated compulsory school attendance and worked for better rural schools, stronger high school funding and higher certification standards. Marrs died in 1932 and was buried in the Texas State Cemetery in Austin, He was honored at the 1954 Texas State Fair as one of 100 heroes of Texas education. His contributions to Terrell, and to the state, remain significant. (2004)

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Green, Edward Howland Robinson

1892

Edward Green, railroad capitalist, was born in London, England, on August 22, 1868, the son of Edward Henry and Hetty Howland (Robinson) Green . Edward's parents were extraordinarily wealthy and at the time of his birth were living in London primarily because of his father's activity in international banking. He shared a close, if at times tumultuous, relationship with his eccentric mother, a parsimonious heiress with extensive business interests throughout the United States. Green attended school in New York City and Vermont, graduated from Fordham College in 1888, and then was admitted to the bar after studying law in Chicago. He became involved in various aspects of his mother's real estate and railroad interests in the Midwest, and in 1892 he moved to Texas at his mother's request to represent her in several developing railroad deals. Green began his business career in Texas as president and general manager of the Texas-Midland Railroad, which was developed from a section of the Houston and Texas Central he purchased on his mother's behalf in 1892. He set up his headquarters in Terrell and quickly moved to improve the railroad through both better equipment and expansion. Much to his mother's dismay, he took a deep liking to Texas and became active in numerous business, social, and political activities there. The massive transplanted Texan-he stood 6'4" and weighed between 250 and 300 pounds-pursued real estate investments, served as the director of several banks, and was a leader in the state Republican party . He also was credited with establishing an experimental diversified farm in Kaufman County, bringing the first automobile to Texas, and giving jobs on the railroad to members of a traveling semiprofessional baseball team he organized in Terrell. Green was a close friend of President William McKinley and chaired the state Republican executive committee for three terms, from 1896 to 1902. One of his closest friends and political partners was black politician William M. (Gooseneck Bill) McDonald . Firmly aligned with the "Black and Tan" faction of the Republicans in Texas, Green was less appreciated by the party's "Lily White" members. Nevertheless, he was selected several times as a delegate to the Republican national conventions. There also was speculation that Green might become the Republican candidate for governor in the early 1900s, although he did not. His relationship with Democratic politicians in the state, such as Oscar B. Colquitt of Terrell, was also strong. After supporting Colquitt for governor in 1910, Green was appointed an honorary colonel on the new governor's staff and was subsequently known as Colonel Green. Although his mother encouraged him not to marry, Green was known for enjoying the company of women. He had a longtime relationship with Mabel E. Harlow, a native of Illinois, whom he married on July 10, 1917, after his mother's death. Before their marriage, Green arranged for Mabel to live in Dallas, where he visited her on weekends, in an effort to appease the citizens of Terrell, who disapproved of her past employment as a prostitute. Green's marriage lasted until his death, but it apparently had little effect on his activities with other women. He ran the Texas-Midland until 1928, when he sold it to Southern Pacific. He spent much time in New York after 1910, helping his mother with her estate. It has been suggested that she called him back to New York to get him out of Texas politics, but the request for his help as her health declined indicated that Hetty Green trusted her son; he was in fact one of the few people close to her. Still, theirs was not a simple relationship. It was often suggested that the amputation of his leg in 1887 resulted from her neglect of an injury to his knee as a teenager, although Colonel Green attributed his artificial limb to a handcar accident. Upon the death of Hetty Green in 1916, he inherited half of her wealth, while the other half went to his sister. Green

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Hunt, Archie Albert [Prince Albert]

1896

Prince Albert Hunt, fiddle player and singer, was born Archie Albert Hunt in Terrell, Texas, on December 20, 1896. He was the son of Archibald Hunt and Manasa Emma Lee Skates. In the late 1920s Hunt and his Texas Ramblers recorded several sides for the OKeh label, and, in addition to the East Texas Serenaders , Hunt was one of the few musicians playing “old-time country numbers with melodic variations that presaged western swing.” Hunt also performed with fellow musicians Oscar Harper and his nephew Doc Harper. Oscar Harper developed a notable reputation in East Texas and was later recorded by John A. Lomax in 1942 for the Library of Congress. Hunt also recorded with a more obscure violinist by the name of Harmon Clem on his two known recording sessions, one of which occurred on March 28, 1928, in San Antonio and the other in late June 1929, in Dallas. Hunt’s complete discography includes the songs “Canada Waltz,” “Houston Slide,” “Oklahoma Rag,” “Traveling Man,” “Katy on Time,” “Waltz of the Rose,” and “Blues in the Bottle,” but he is perhaps best remembered for his song “Wake Up Jacob,” which is included on the renowned Anthology of American Folk Music CD series. Hunt made numerous lasting contributions to the early development of western swing in Texas and to country music in general. In addition to his work as a recording artist, he also frequently performed over local radio stations and at local dance halls in the Dallas area. Hunt and a number of his musician friends frequented the Dallas neighborhood known as Deep Ellum and Central Track which included a notorious red-light district that was home to many theaters, cheap hotels, saloons, dance halls, and pawnshops. In fact some of the best blues and country artists spent time in Deep Ellum in the 1920s and 1930s listening to and jamming with other musicians. It was in Dallas on March 21, 1931, at 11:45 P.M. that Prince Albert Hunt was fatally shot outside of the Confederate Hall at 421 North Harwood Street. The Dallas Morning News reported that his assailant, William M. Douglas, was a former city fireman and the husband of a woman that Hunt had accompanied to a dance. Douglas later told police that “he [Hunt] broke up my home….He took my wife clear away from me. He had her at the dance with him and I followed them downstairs,” in front of the hall. There at close-range Douglas shot Hunt in the chest under the left arm with a .25 caliber automatic pistol. Hunt was rushed to Emergency Hospital and then to Parkland Hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival. He left behind his wife, Mary Cook, their four children, and his parents. Houston Public Television produced a documentary, Memories of Prince Albert Hunt , in 1974.

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Knapp, Seaman Asahel

1903

Seaman Asahel Knapp, agriculturist, college administrator, and entrepreneur, the son of Dr. Bradford and Rhoda (Seaman) Knapp, was born on December 16, 1833, at Schroon Lake, Essex County, New York. At Union College at Schenectady, New York, he received a classical education, became a Phi Beta Kappa, and graduated with a B.A. in 1856. Immediately following graduation Knapp married Maria Elizabeth Hotchkins, a native of Hampton, New York; the couple had five children. They were employed as college teachers for ten years. They moved to Benton County, Iowa, after Knapp suffered an illness resulting from a severe knee injury. They purchased a small sheep farm at Big Grove, and Knapp also served as pastor of the Methodist church at nearby Vinton. In 1869 Knapp became superintendent of the Iowa State School for the Blind at Vinton. He is credited with the modernization of the institution. He farmed at the same time he was overseeing the school. In 1873 he organized and became the first president of the Iowa Improved Stock Breeders Association. During the next twenty years Knapp concentrated his efforts on the improvement of farming techniques. In 1876 he began publishing the Western Stock Journal and Farmer out of offices at Cedar Rapids. The journal became a vehicle for his suggestions on modern methods of farming and a public diary on the experiments he performed on his farm. His publications, speeches, and reputation resulted in his selection as professor of agriculture at Iowa State College of Agriculture at Ames, Iowa, in 1879. He served as president of the college from 1883 to 1884. On the campus of Iowa State, Knapp established the forerunner of the demonstration farm. The campus farm became the site of experimental farming. In 1882 he drafted a bill providing federal aid to establish experimental farming stations at agricultural colleges. Ultimately, this bill became the Hatch Act of 1887. From 1886 to 1898 Knapp resided in Lake Charles, Louisiana, where he conducted a variety of experiments for the North American Land and Timber Company of Great Britain and promoted immigration to Louisiana. He also developed the rice industry there. He was subsequently appointed agricultural explorer for the United States, Asia, Latin America, and the West Indies and studied farming practices in those lands. The boll weevil arrived in Texas in 1903. Panic set in, farms were abandoned, whole counties depopulated. The Department of Agriculture commissioned Knapp to demonstrate how cotton could still be raised. At roughly the same time the citizens of Terrell, Texas, asked the department to send an expert to assist them in their efforts. Knapp arrived in Terrell in 1903. His reputation, convincing speech, and promise to demonstrate that cotton could be grown persuaded the city to assist him in setting up a demonstration farm. The land of Walter C. Porter was chosen. Knapp visited the Porter farm every month and oversaw the implementation of the methods that had worked in Iowa and Louisiana. The demonstration was successful, and soon neighboring farmers and farmers throughout East Texas adopted Knapp's approach. From his headquarters in Houston, Knapp sent out a series of "lecture trains" to reach the farmers. During the first year 7,000 farmers agreed to set up demonstration farms. In 1906 Knapp initiated the county-agent plan, and in order to promote the plan he organized boys' cotton and corn growing clubs. In 1910 a girls' corn and poultry club was added. These organizations were the forerunners of the modern 4-H Clubs. The success of Knapp's work and the attention the South received from northern philanthropists and expatriate writers like Walter Hines Page resulted in a drive for federal aid to extend demonstration work to every southern state. Knapp spent the last years of his life in this effort. Because of the amount of time spent communicating with officials in Washington D.C., he left Lake Charles for the capital in 1907. He died th

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Major W.F. Long

1917

MISSOURI NATIVE WILLIAM FRANCIS “BILL” LONG WAS 17 WHEN HIS FAMILY MOVED TO TEXAS. DURING WORLD WAR I, HE WAS AN AERIAL OBSERVER AND PILOT IN THE 24TH AERO SQUADRON, FIRST ARMY OBSERVATION GROUP. AFTER THE WAR, HE ESTABLISHED SAN ANTONIO AVIATION AND MOTOR SCHOOL AT STINSON FIELD. IN 1925, HE BOUGHT 251 SURPLUS CURTISS AIRPLANES AND A HANGAR AT LOVE FIELD AND MOVED HIS FLIGHT TRAINING SCHOOL THERE AS DALLAS AVIATION SCHOOL AND AIR COLLEGE. NEVER IDLE, LONG, SOMETIMES REFERRED TO AS “MR. LOVE FIELD,” BUILT A NEW AIRFIELD, CURTISS-WRIGHT FIELD, WITH PARTNERS IN 1929 AT GRAND PRAIRIE. IN 1939, LONG ATTENDED GEN. “HAP” ARNOLD’S WASHINGTON, D. C. BRIEFING ON THE USE OF CIVILIAN CONTRACT SCHOOLS TO TRAIN U. S. ARMY PILOT CADETS IN ANTICIPATION OF WORLD WAR II. LONG RECEIVED A CONTRACT AND THE PROGRAM’S SUCCESS LED TO A SECOND CONTRACT, FOR A SCHOOL AT THE REACTIVATED HICKS FIELD IN FORT WORTH AND FOR AN AIRPLANE MECHANICS TRAINING SCHOOL AT LOVE FIELD. LONG OPENED ANOTHER SCHOOL AT CURTIS FIELD IN BRADY IN MARCH 1941. ENGLAND ALSO SENT ITS ROYAL AIR FORCE (RAF) CADETS TO TRAIN IN THE U. S., CONTRACTING WITH LONG TO OPEN THE NO. 1 BRITISH FLYING TRAINING SCHOOL AT TERRELL. DURING THE WAR, LONG AND ASSOCIATES ACQUIRED ESSAIR AIRLINES WHICH PROVIDED AIRMAIL SERVICE FROM HOUSTON TO AMARILLO, WITH STOPS ACROSS TEXAS. RENAMED PIONEER AIRLINES IN 1946, THE CARRIER ATTESTED LONG’S BELIEF THAT SUCH FEEDER AIRLINES WOULD PROMOTE PASSENGER FLIGHTS WHEN IT EXPANDED TO DOZENS OF CITIES IN TEXAS AND NEW MEXICO. UNDER SIGNIFICANT PRESSURES OF TIME AND WARTIME SHORTAGES, LONG OPERATED FOUR SCHOOLS, TRAINING ABOUT ONE-TENTH OF U. S. ARMY AVIATORS AND ONE-THIRD OF RAF CADETS IN THE U. S. HIS ACCOMPLISHMENTS GARNERED HIM HONORS FROM PRESIDENT HARRY S. TRUMAN AND KING GEORGE VI, AS WELL AS A PLACE IN TEXAS AVIATION HISTORY.

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Colquitt, Oscar Branch, Gov., Homesite of

1861

(1861-1940) (This block is the former homesite of) Twenty-fourth Governor of Texas (1911-1915). Known as "The Napoleon of Texas Politics" and "Little Oscar" because of his short stature, Colquitt was a strong and independent chief executive. His stump speeches were among the most effective of his times. A descendant of American Revolution and Civil War fighters, Colquitt was born in Georgia. He worked as a tenant farmer and newspaperman before serving as a Texas Senator. He was railroad commissioner, 1903-1911, and his efforts in office for Galveston gained him the title "Daddy of the Causeway". In his second race for the office, he was elected Governor on an anti-Prohibition ticket. His legal residence was in Terrell during both terms and he had owned the Terrell "Times-Star" in the 1890s. While in office, Colquitt achieved prison reforms. (He campaigned with a bullwhip in hand to publicize prison brutality.) He helped preserve the Alamo as a Texas shrine. Homes for the insane and retarded were improved under him, and he also spearheaded advancements in education and backed labor bills. In 1885 he had married Alice F. Murrell, by whom he had five children. After 1915 he entered private business and worked as a U.S. government official.

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Terrell, Texas

Music in Terrell

Songs About Terrell

Artists From Terrell

Rivers & Roads in Song near Terrell

History of Terrell

Before Hollywood, He Played Piano at New Hope Baptist RoadyGoat

Twenty British Boys Beneath the Texas Sod RoadyGoat

The Richest Heir in America Drove Texas's First Car From Here RoadyGoat

Marrs, S. M. N.

Green, Edward Howland Robinson

Hunt, Archie Albert [Prince Albert]

Knapp, Seaman Asahel

Major W.F. Long

Colquitt, Oscar Branch, Gov., Homesite of

Everything Near Terrell