DR. NEATHERY CELEBRATED
EIGHTY-SECOND BIRTHDAY
Democrat
August 19, 1915
The following
article pertaining to the life of one of Collin county's most prominent and
progressive citizens appeared in the columns of the Farmersville Times under
date of Friday, August 13. Dr. Neatherly recently celebrated the 82nd
anniversary of his birth. He has been a resident of this county for
fifty-eight years, and has seen the county grow from a frontier country to
its present high state of development and Christian civilization.
Emerson wrote
that the world is upheld by the veracity of good men, and they who live with
them, find life glad and nutritious. Farmersville has her great men, and no
greater has she ever had than the honored and beloved Dr. A. H. Neathery, 82
years young, and a resident of Farmersville for nearly sixty years.
Dr. Allen Hill
Neathery, whom Farmersville is honored to claim as her own, celebrated his
eighty-second birthday anniversary Wednesday, August 11. Friends and
acquaintances who met him during the day in the pursuit of social and
business and home duties, were not impressed with eighty-two years of age,
but instead with the experience of sound judgement and genial comradeship of
the man who has been with Farmersville from its infancy, the man who has
ministered to her people for more than half a century, with the skill
acquired from much learning together with the human interest, that has made
him one of the greatest men of North Texas, and one of the great men of the
State.
Speaking of his
eighty-two years of life, Dr. Neathery said that he had always been active,
that he had walked when eight months old, and been going ever since. He also
mentioned that he had always lived rather a circumspect life, because he was
born on Sunday, and had tried to live up to what the day stood for. The
knowledge that in Farmersville, there lives a man who has been the balance
wheel of the power that has built up the little city, is an asset to the
citizenship.
One scarcely
dares to presume to write the biography of a man who has presided over the
entrance into life of the fathers and mothers, who now make up the populace
of an influential section. It is with reverence and a due sense of the
inability to write of one whose record will live without written words, that
this sketch is given. The Farmersville of today was not in existence when
Dr. Neathery first arrived here, a beardless youth, to cast his lot with the
people then here, in the little town called Whitehall.
He had just
received his medical education and diploma from the University of Nashville,
Tenn. when he came to Texas. At that time there were only three medical
colleges in the United States. He came from Nashville by water to Jefferson,
the route being the Cumberland, Ohio, Mississippi, and Red Rivers. Reaching
Paris by means of private conveyance, he tarried for a season, seeking out a
location, deciding finally on this place.
Why He Came To
Farmersville.
In those days,
according to the interesting story given by Dr. Neathery, the stage coach
running between Paris and Austin, was the only means of transportation in
this section. He said that he kept daily watch on the hotel register, while
sojourning in Paris, for names of passengers, their residence and
destinations. One day he saw registered, the name of a physician, with a
residence given as Sugar Hill. Old Farmersville settlers are familiar with
the history of Sugar Hill in early days the township of this section.
Recalling the incidents of those far away days, Dr. Neathery says, that
after talking to this physician who had left there, he decided to locate in
East Collin. On his arrival, he found, however, that the field was not
clear, but that there were three doctors of medicine already on the ground,
and very few folks to be patients. It proved a case of survival of the
fittest, and Dr. Neathery remained.
It was the
advent of a new day for the young physician, the beginning of a new era for
a community. It was the simple and beautiful life in those days, the life
filled with events that formed the history of a community, and people who
have taken a prominent place in the affairs of the State.
Bank President
Twenty Eight Years.
Today, Dr.
Neathery is among the wealthiest and most influential citizens of this
community. According to his own statement, his finances on his arrival in
Farmersville, fifty-eight years ago, was composed of six dollars, and this
he paid for the good will of a young doctor who wanted to leave in search of
a new location. Today, Dr. Neathery is president of the First National Bank
of Farmersville, which position he has held for twenty-eight years. The bank
having been organized only two years longer than his term of service. He
signs legal and all documents requiring his signature, with out the glasses,
writing a legible and very attractive style of penmanship.
The first years
of life and medical practice in Farmersville, according to Dr. Neathery,
were not lucrative ones—money came slowly, but man's needs were few, and the
hospitality of the people very bountiful. Success followed his practice
however, and the physician's skill was valued highly. A yearling or colt or
some other collateral came his way and in the course of some years, he
entered the mercantile business.
There were no
banks and the money taken in at the store was put away in wash pots and tea
kettles. Frequently in a pile of wash pots there would be two or three
thousand dollars. The clerk knew the pot or kettle however, and it was never
offered for sale.
Dr. Neathery
married in 1857, a Miss Bowie, a native of Mississippi but a resident of
Texas at the time of the marriage.
Twelve children
were born to Dr. Neathery and wife eleven who are living and all of them
occupy worthy and useful positions in life. Nine sons are valuable business
and professional men, two are physicians and the youngest is an able lawyer.
Surname Index
Recommended Citation:
"Dr. Neathery,
EARLY SETTLERS OF COLLIN COUNTY." Collin County, Texas History
and Genealogy Webpage by Genealogy Friends of Plano Libraries, Inc., <http://www.geocities/genfriendsghl>
[Accessed Fri February 13, 2004 ].
