of the first day of May, A. D., 1848. My father's ancestors were from Virginia. My paternal grandfather was of Irish descent, and my grandmother was of a Scotch family by the name of Duncan. My mother's name before her marriage with my father was Anna Utley: Wade. My maternal grandfather, Hon. Vincent A. Wade, after whom I was named, was a man of some political prominence in his county, having been frequently elected a member of the Kentucky Legislature. He was descended, I think, from the Welsh. My maternal grandmother was an Utley, and was born near Raleigh, N. C.; moved thence to Tennessee and was there married to my grandfather, who, in an early day, moved to Kentucky. She was one of the noblest and greatest women I have known, and to her precepts and courageous example in the great battles of life, I owe perhaps, more of what little success I have attained than to the influence of any other person, my own mother not excepted. My grandfather Wade, having been completely broken up by politics and security debts, emigrated to Texas in the early settlement of the State and located near what is now known as the town of Crandall in the western portion of Kaufman county, where he opened up a small farm, and soon afterwards died, leaving my heroic grandmother, Mrs. Phoebe Wade, to raise a large family of children, nearly all boys, the oldest being not over sixteen years of age at the time of his father's untimely death; the youngest, a daughter, now Mrs. Lafayette Murphy, being an infant. Our family remained in Kentucky, but was preparing to follow at the time of my birth, when a misfortune befell my father which made him a cripple for life.

My mother's father dying about the same time, the removal was prevented. The premature death of my father, in 1855, made it necessary for my mother, with her children, consisting of three boys and two girls, the oldest, my sister Jane being then abont ten years of age, to move to

Texas and seek the aid and protection of her mother and her brothers, one of whom, my Uncle Barksdale, usually called "Baz," Wade coming back to Kentucky to wind up the business of my father's little estate, and move us to Texas. He was, indeed, a noble specimen of intellectual and physical manhood, the oldest and grandest of that pioneer family, a fit person in every respect, to be the couselor of his widowed mother, and the guardian and protector of the younger members of the family. He, with his two younger brothers and my oldest sister died of an epidemic about the same time, two of them dying the same day. My mother was an invalid and had been for years. Her nervous system had been completely shattered, and this awful calamity seemed more than she could bear. It appeared for a long time that her mind would give way, under the weight of the affliction in spite of every effort to console her. But she finally recovered, and the climate of Texas and the absence of trouble almost entirely restored to their normal condition her shattered nervous centres. In 1858 she was married to Mr. R. O. Anthony, and we moved to his home in Ellis county, about twelve miles east of Waxahachie, where we remained until the year 1862, returning to Kaufman county. Of that union there were born two sons and a daughter who have been to me as my own brothers and sisters,

My stepfather has been to me more than an ordinary father. No nobler or kinder-hearted man, with all of his peculiarities, was ever permitted to breathe the breath of life. His generosity and unselfishness, his patience in affliction, which has been constant and severe, often becoming dangerous, serious, and distressing, have been, at all times, remarkable. While he never, at any time, so far as I remember, denied me a favor that he was in the leastwise able to confer, his means were never sufficient to keep the others of the family up and justify him in contributing much, if anything, to my educa

tion. Indeed, I had not the heart to ask or to receive it when I saw and realized the accumulated necessities of the family.* My mother and my two brothers, Thueston and William, and my sister Laura, now Mrs. McSween, all three of whom are now living near the old homestead, and surrrounded by happy and interesting families, were, at all times, ready to do anything in their power to aid me in my struggles for an education, even to the denial of themselves the ordinary comforts and necessaries of life. My half-brothers and sister, Sam, now deceased, Joseph. and Jennie Anthony, (now Mrs. S. W. Roberts, of Kaufman,) were equally selfsacrificing, and my feelings of gratitude towards them all increase and grow stronger as the years pass away. I cannot take time to narrate the ordinary incidents of my wild life from the days of my removal to Texas, in 1855, until I arrived at the age of seventeen, which was about the close of the civil war. The greater part of the time after I became large enough to ride a Spanish pony was spent on the broad prairies as a cow-driver or herder of horses. My school days had been few; my education had been badly neglected. I could ride the wildest and most dangerous horse that roamed the prairies, if I could keep him still long enough to mount him. I delighted in the sport, although it kept my poor mother dying from uneasiness, and often would she try to dissuade me from going into the danger. But my chief ambition seemed to be to acquire the reputation of the best rider in all that section of the country, and in that I was reasonably successful. All on earth I had or cared to have, was a horse, saddle and bridle. The idea of the accumulation of property, or of obtaining an education, much less qualifying myself for a learned profession, never

* Since the above was written my step-father has passed over the dark river. He died at his home near Crandall, in Kaufman county, on the 3d day of April, 1887, and now sleeps in the Kaufman Cemetery beside his oldest son, Samuel R. Anthony, who died at the Agricultural and Mechanical College near Bryan Texas, on the 22nd day of November, 1881.

once flitted across my imagination. I concluded in the fall of 1865 that I would go back to Kentucky on a visit, and to gather up the fragments of the proceeds of our old homestead and bring them to Texas. To those people up there I was a great curiosity, and I rather enjoyed the distinction. I started home in February of the following year with about two hundred dollars in gold in my pocket. the accumulated rents ot the old family homestead. Took a steamboat at Paducah and in due time landed in New Orleans. I was good picking for the sharpers, and, had it not been for a kind and fatherly old gentleman, a Mr. Husbands, who then lived in Hunt county, Texas, with whom I had accidentally become acquainted, I should have been fleeced before I could have possibly gotten away from the city. But I finally made it home, and from that good day until the present, I have been satisfied with Texas.

Nothing could have more effectually calmed every feeling of discontent than that wild goose chase to Kentucky. It gave me a lasting impression of my own ignorance, and also of the fact that my manner of life was anything but conducive to the development of my manhood and the accomplishment of any noble purpose of my life; so I set about at once to obtain a good, practical education; sold my horse, saddle, and bridle, and every hoof of cattle, and all other property that had accidentally fallen into my hands, and entered a high school at Kaufman, where I was able, by the kindness of my friends, to remain for two sessions. At the end of that time I had not a dollars worth of property on earth. While there I was taken notice of by Judge Green J. Clark, and he seemed to feel a deep and abiding interest in my future. his law office one day and gave me the of making a lawyer out of myself. His kindly words of encouragement sank deep into my heart. The brief history he gave me of his own life and its struggles made a lasting impression upon my mind, and I remember every word he spoke

He called me into first idea I ever had

to me on that occasion as well as if it had been yesterday, though twenty long years have since passed away. I thought over the difficulties in the way, and they arose up before me like mountains in the distance, but while they were rising, my own resolution grew stronger, and at length I started on my long and wearisome journey. I had a good friend in Kaufman, Rev. D. W. Broughton, now a resident of Dallas, who advised me to go to Tehuacana and enter the first session of the Trinity University, which began in September, 1869. The months intervening I had given to teaching and other pursuits, by which I had realized about one hundred and fifty dollars, that being every cent I could command at the time I entered the college, which was in November of the year 1869. It was all gone before the close of the session, although I had been quite economical and saving. During the session I had made many friends among teachers, pupils, and the good people of the town and community. Should I undertake to mention the many acts of kindness and words of encouragement which were bestowed upon me from the time I entered the college till I left it, and to mention the names made so dear to the memory of those happy days, it would require all the space set apart for the material intended for this volume. When I spoke of leaving school for the purpose of replenishing my exchequer, there was a positive dissent by every one of my teachers, who insisted that I could easily work my way through, and that they would all help me to accomplish the undertaking. I went home in June, 1870, full of doubt and uncertainty as to the course I ought to pursue. I had by that time acquired a thirst for knowledge that it seemed impossible for me to satisfy or suppress. I spent the entire vacation in the hardest, heaviest, and hottest work of my life. I took a contract to build a barn for my step-father, and, donning my old threadbare clothes and broad brimmed hat, I repaired to the woods, where I cut down and hewed the tim