Pierce B. Ward, Cleburne attorney, state senator from the Twelfth Senatorial District, was in early manhood a farm hand in Bosque County, saved and contrived until he had attained the goal of a college education and qualifications for a professional career, and since the people of his home community have constantly honored him, in the first place with a successful law practice, and also with many offices and responsibilities within their gift.

Senator Ward was born in Mississippi, December 15, 1849. His father, William A. Ward, was born in South Carolina, in 1808, and moved to Mississippi, where he became a planter and slave owner. He was a colonel in the Mexican war, but was to old for duty as a soldier in the Confederate army. He died in Mississippi in 1872. His wife, Laura Lucius, was born in South Carolina, daughter of Daniel Lucius, a planter and slave owner of that state. She died in Mississippi in 1869, and of her six children Pierce was the fifth.

Pierce B.Ward attended school in Mississippi, and he came to Texas in a wagon drawn by a mule team. First stopping in Bosque County, he worked on a farm for wages for several years, and was also employed in the General Land Office at Austin. He completed his education in Granbury College in Hood County, was licensed to practice at Austin, and for over forty years has been employed in an extensive law practice in all the courts of his district and state. In 1885 he was appointed and served two years as county attorney of Stephens County, and in 1888 was appointed district attorney of the Eighteenth District, comprising the three counties of Hill, Johnson and Bosque. Following that he resumed his private practice at Cleburne. He was first a member of the State Senate from the Tenth District, comprising the counties of Ellis, Johnson and Hill. The Twelfth District, which he has represented for several terms, comprises the counties of Ellis, Hill, Hood, Johnson and Somervel [sic].

Senator Ward in his public career has been a high minded and stalwart Texas patriot, keenly alert to the interests of his home community and district, and on many occasions has shown a broad statesmanlike view of public questions. Senator Ward while a student in Granbury College had as a schoolmate a grandson of David Crockett, and for many years has been an intimate friend of the Crockett family. In the Thirty-second General Assembly of Texas he introduced into the senate the bill to appropriate funds for the erection of a monument to the memory of Mrs. Elizabeth Crockett, wife of David Crockett. Mrs. Crockett is buried in the Acton Cemetery of Hood County. Senator Ward was chosen to make the chief address at the unveiling of this monument. This address, which was widely published at the time, is not only an example of Mr. Ward's eloquence, but is a remarkable historical study and tribute to heroic womanhood. Senator Ward in the course of his address called attention to the fact that only two Southern women had been given monuments expressive of community gratitude for their self-sacrificing devotion, one of them being the institution known as "Faith Home" at Houston, in honor of Mrs. De Peachin, one of the heroines of the yellow fever scourges of the South, and who devoted the rest of her life to the service of orphan children. The monument to Mrs. Elizabeth Crockett, provided by the appropriation of two thousand dollars from the Thirty-second Legislature, is the third such monument in the South.

Another cause in which Senator Ward has been interested was the effort to provide suitable state aid for the tribe of Alabama Indians at Indian Village in Polk County, descendants of that band of Indians who established their homes there on the advice and as a result of promises made them by Gen. Sam Houston, and who have persisted in remaining there in spite of poverty and the impoverishment of their lands. In 1927 a committee of the State Senate was appointed to investigate the conditions of these Indians and recommend measures for their relief, and Senator Ward is a member of that committee.

Senator Ward is a Democrat, member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the Cleburne Chamber of Commerce and the Woodmen of the World. He married in Bosque County, Texas, in June, 1885, Miss Mollie Thompson, who was born June 18, 1866. Her father, W.C. Thompson, a native of Mississippi, was a farmer and stock raiser. Five children were born to the marriage of Senator and Mrs. Ward: W.L., born November 24, 1887, now practicing law at Dallas, married Miss Grace Twyman. Irwin T., born November 24, 1892, a resident of Cleburne, now judge of the Eighteenth Judicial District of Texas, married Marie Ellen Landingberger and has one child. Miss Laura Ward is a teacher at Cleburne. Bertcey is the wife of H.C. Dahl, of Los Angeles, California. P.B. Ward Jr., born in 1909, is attending high school at Cleburne.

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

2000 HOOD COUNTY TEXAS GENEALOGICAL SOCIETY