BIOGRAPHY OF PLEASANT FELIX HALBERT
PLEASANT F. HALBERT. From a beginning as a farm hand and clerk in Navarro county some thirty years ago, and against the handicaps of ill health, Pleasant F. Halbert has acquitted himself so successfully as to have surrounded himself with all he and his little family need, and at the same time has the highest esteem of all who know him. He is now living retired at Rice, and has been a resident of Navarro county almost a third of a century, having come here in 1882 from Lincoln county, Tennessee.
Pleasant F. Halbert was born in Lincoln county, Tennessee, September 9, 1861. He grew up as a country boy ten miles west of Fayetteville in that state, and the schools of that locality educated him. Coming to Texas on reaching his majority, he arrived in Corsicana with about sixty-three dollars in money, and his only acquaintance was an uncle in that town. His first employment was as a farm hand with Nick Graham, an old settler of the county, and he spent three years as a wage earner and sheep herder. With some knowledge of the value of money, after he quit working for wages, he started farming on rented land. After making two crops he moved to Corsicana, and was employed by his uncle John S. Gibson in an implement house. The following year his services were transferred to the M. Drane & Son implement house, and he continued with that firm for fourteen years and was manager of the concern when he left. In the meantime he had come into public affairs and served two years as deputy sheriff under Sheriff West.
His close attention to business undermined his health, and in order to recuperate he bought a farm and left town. His farm was located eight miles east of Corsicana at Roane, but at the end of two years his health was still much impaired, and he then left the country altogether and for several years traveled extensively, covering all parts of Old Mexico, visiting Monterey, Tampico, the City of Mexico, hunting and fishing in different resorts, and final restored his health. During his travels he also covered most of west Texas and much of New Mexico, and finished his tour with a visit to his old home in Tennessee.
Mr. Halbert in 1897 moved to Rice and has since lived partly retired. He is the owner of twenty-five hundred acres of land, about four hundred acres of which is in cultivation. He also owns some of the brick business property in Rice, erected one or two structures himself, and has been quite prominent both as a business man and citizen. He was one of the first board of aldermen. He helped promote the Farmers State Bank of Rice. In politics he is an anti-Bailey Democrat, and was one of the original Wilson men in this part of the state. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Woodmen of the World, and belongs to no church.
Mr. Halbert’s father was James C. Halbert who still lives on the old home farm in Lincoln county, Tennessee, and was born there in 1838, and has spent his career as a farmer. Before the war he owned slaves, and was for four years a Confederate soldier. His has been a quiet life outside of his military experience, and he is a member of the Christian church. Grandfather Pleasant Halbert, also born in Lincoln county and of North Carolina parentage, from an ancestry of Scotch-Irish, married a Miss Crawford, and their children were: Maggie, who married Lemuel Suggs; Martha, who married Dr. Yowell; James C., father of the Rice business man; Jane, who married Harlan George; Naomi, wo married Monroe Clayton; Pleasant W.; Thomas; Dr. Hay Halbert; Laura, who married Pleasant Hobbs; Isaac B.; and Tula, who died when young.
Pleasant F. Halbert was married in Navarro county July, 1897, to Miss Lizzie Loop, daughter of William W. Loop, a merchant and ranchman, who died at Rice in 1913. Mr. Loop came to Texas from Indiana previous to the war, and fought on the Confederate side as a Texas soldier. He married Sarah Catherine Naudain, who died in Rice, and had come from Pennsylvania. The children in the Loop family were: Ellen, who married Ceberry Garner; John Loop, Melissa, who married a Mr. Oliphant and died in Navarro county; David M.; Riley; Mrs. Halbert; Mattie, who married W. R. Kenner; and Addie, wife of W. M. Harper. Mr. and Mrs. Halbert have no children of their own. day!
Source:
Frank W. Johnson, A History of Texas and Texans, ed. Eugene C. Barker and Ernest William Winkler, vol. V, p. 2205 (Chicago: The American Historical Society, 1914). Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.