Hood County Texas Genealogical Society

 

MAXFIELD F. HENSLEE

1849 - 1933

From Texas Under Many Flags - Published in 1930

Transcribed by Linda J. Nichols

 

MAXFIELD F. HENSLEE, farmer and stock man of Hood County, whose home is twelve miles southeast of Granbury on the Acton Road, came to Texas when a child of two years, grew up in Hood County and has spent more than half a century as a useful member of that community.

He was born in Arkansas, September 18, 1849. His father, Maxfield Henslee, a native of Georgia, came to Texas in 1851, and after a short stay in Hunt County bought land in Collin County, and from there moved to Hood County, where he established a home six miles southeast of Acton. Some years later he went south to Comal County, Texas, and lived there until his death in 1898. He was three times married, Maxfield F. being the second of five children born to his second wife, Alvira Lorentz, who died when her son was a small child. She was the mother of five children, the only other one now living being John Henslee, a farmer and stock man at Abilene, Taylor County, who married Lavone Whiley.

Maxfield F. Henslee grew up in the home community of Hood County, attended local schools there and was with his father on the farm until he was twenty. During the next five or six years he rented land and ranged his stock, at the end of which time he located twelve miles southeast of Granbury, where he has lived ever since, and where his material acquisitions are represented by the ownership of five hundred acres. Mr. Henslee has enjoyed a satisfactory degree of prosperity, having been able to provide for his family and educate his large family of children. For forty years he has been a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church.

He married in Hood County, March 24, 1869, Miss Lucinda Matlock, member of another pioneer family of this section. She was born May 6, 1850, daughter of William Matlock, who came from Tennessee. Mr. and Mrs. Henslee had a family of eleven children; John C., born January 18, 1870, a Hood County farmer, married Hattie Molder and has seven children; Marguerite, born December 26, 1871, is the wife of O. Gee, a farmer in Hood County, and has nine children; W.H., born December 11, 1874, met his death in an oil field, and was the father of five children by his marriage to Clara Cremer, who now lives at Fort Worth; E.M., born April 18, 1877, an oil field worker at Desdemona, Texas, married Lillie Cremer and has five children; Jim M., born March 19, 1881, an Oklahoma farmer, married Lou Massey and has twelve children; Hattie, born April 9, 1883, is the wife of Walter Nelson and has twelve children; Jesse S., born February 17, 1886, a farmer at the old homestead, is unmarried; A.B., born February 5, 1888, a grocery merchant at Desdemona, married Zola Cremer and has five children; M.C., born November 24, 1889, a farmer in Taylor County, Texas, married Tomsie Bell, who died leaving two children; Gilbert, born March 30, 1892, is a farmer in Oklahoma; and Orville, born May 11, 1894, a farmer in Taylor County, married Dillie Colesburn and has two daughters.

Maxfield F. Henslee was born September 18, 1849 and died December 9, 1933. He was buried in the family cemetery in Fall Creek Cemetery in Hood County, Texas.

SOURCE

Texas Under Many Flags, Volume III. Clarence R. Wharton, Author and Editor. 1930: The American Historical Society, Inc., Chicago and New York.

I would like to post a correction to the biography of Maxfield F. Henslee which was from TX Under Many Flags.

..."and Orville, born May 11, 1894, a farmer in Taylor County, married Dillie Colesburn and has two daughters."

This is my grandfather; he was the youngest of Maxfield and Lucinda's children. However, his name was Arvellor and he married Dollie Cogburn. They had 3 daughters. I have seen the Orville and different variations of "Dillie's" name several different places; it is a common error from what original source I do not know. At any rate, just wanted to post it for anyone's information in researching this family. After moving from Taylor Co. to Tarrant Co. where they resided many years, they returned to Hood Co. and are buried in the Acton Cemetery.

A little additional info on this family:

Maxfield F's father, Maxfield C. or G., was buried in Menard Co.

Gilbert Henslee also returned to Hood Co. and is buried at Fall Creek.

Sandra Wortham rwortham@flash.net
Springtown, Texas - August 21, 2000

 

I would like to post a correction to the biography of Maxfield F. Henslee which was from Texas Under Many Flags.

 

Where it lists the W.H. (William Homer) marriage to Clara Cremer. The correct spelling of Clara's last name was Cramer as was Lillie and Zola. These three Cramer sisters (Lillie, Zola and Clara) married three Henslee brothers (W.H., E.M. (Enoch) and A.B. (Buck)). My father, Jerrell W. Henslee, was one of those what they called triple cousins.

 

Clara Jane Cramer Henslee was my Grandmother.

 

Thank you,

 

Jerrell Winn Henslee, Jr. hdoctorwinn@aol.com

August 19, 2005

 

2000 HOOD COUNTY TEXAS GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY