The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 69, July 1965 - April, 1966 Page: 261

Book Reviews

History probably will give a verdict that the commonwealth
derived benefits from citizen House.
Richardson has to his credit an outstanding list of publications
in books and articles dealing with Texas and the Southwest, and
these have earned for him a solid reputation as a scholar, his-
torian, and accomplished writer. Although the present work is
not a first class job of printing, Colonel House is the definitive
study for the Texas period of House's life.
DORMAN H. WINFREY
Texas State Library
History of Titus County, Texas. By Traylor Russell. Waco (W. M.
Morrison), 1965. Pp. 286. $o.oo.
Titus county was created by act of the state legislature on May
11, 1846, from portions of Red River, Bowie, and Nacogdoches
counties. It was named in honor of Andrew Jackson Titus, a
native of Tennessee, who settled about fifteen miles northeast of
Clarksville in 1839. He established the first post office in Red
River county, organized the first Presbyterian church in the
area, was a Royal Arch Mason and Knight Templar, worked
diligently for the annexation of Texas to the United States, served
with distinction in the Mexican War, and was a member of the
state legislature in 1851-1852. Morris and Franklin counties were
carved out of Titus on March 8, 1875.
This volume is not a chronological record of events but a se-
ries of sketches of some 125 families and their descendants who
were in the area prior to 1870. In addition there are descrip-
tions of some of the activities and interests of the people who
lived and worked in the county. Some of those were Fort Sher-
man, post offices and postmasters, newspapers, outlaws, race riots,
churches and baptizings, boot legging, and professional baseball.
The book also has a list of men from the county who served in
the Civil War, taken from sixteen of the eighteen muster rolls
of companies in which men from Titus served; the burial places
in the county of Civil War veterans; and names of men from
the area who died in World Wars I and II. This is a most wel-
come volume for the genealogist, both professional and amateur.
The author was fortunate to have the help, especially with bio-
graphical sketches, of many persons who lived in the county

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