The John Glass Family

By Bernard Mayfield

Simeon Alfonso Glass, forebear of the Cherokee County branch of the Glass family, was born in Lawrence County, Tennessee, July 13, 1828. His father, Thomas Glass, was a merchant. About 1855, S. A. Glass got the wanderlust to come to Texas. After traveling about the country, he arrived in Cherokee County, but was caught up in the Civil War before he became an established settler. He joined Captain R. B. Martin's Co. I of the Tenth Texas Cavalry in 1861. That unit saw action at Farmington, Miss.; Richmond, Kentucky; Perryville, Kentucky,; Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Jackson, Miss.; and Chickamauga, Georgia, in 1863. Glass sustained a shoulder wound at the battle of Spanish Fort near Mobile, Alabama, in 1865.

S. A. Glass married Susan Felphs, daughter of another pioneer family which came to Texas from Lincoln County, Tennessee, about 1840. In 1874, Glass homesteaded 100 acres of land from the State of Texas. On this farm located about seven miles south of Jacksonville, Simeon and Susan reared four children to maturity—William Thomas, Mary Catherine, Frances Elnora and John Glass.

John Glass married Lizzy Erwin in 1898. Their four children are Webster, Everett, Hassle and Moody. Lizzy died in 1911. In 1914, John married Eunice Jennings. Ten children from this union are Beulah, Herman, Ernest, Hubert, Orland, Paul, Dan, Becky, John and Jimmy.

John Glass reared his family on a farm in the Union Grove community, south of Jacksonville. He was an elder in the Union Grove Cumberland Presbyterian Church, the last remaining congregation of that faith in Cherokee County.

In keeping with the changing times, John's children left the farm to become teachers, merchants and public servants. The eldest son, Webster Glass, after teaching in the county school system for a number of years, served in the Texas legislature for fourteen years. Three sons, Everett, Ernest and Herman, joined the postal service, the latter serving presently as Jacksonville postmaster. The remainder of the sons became Jacksonville merchants engaged mainly in the wholesale and retail of gas and petroleum products. Moody Glass and his brothers presently own and operate the oldest service station doing business in town under the same management. Moody became proprietor of the establishment under the Texas Company in 1933.

Contrary to the trend of the times, most of the Glasses, like the true settlers they are, have chosen to remain close to the site of their birth.

John Glass and wife, Eunice Jennings Glass, on their 50th wedding anniversary, 1964.

Simeon Alfonso Glass, top row, center, father of John Glass, with group of Confederate veterans in a reunion in Jacksonville about 1900.