ANDREW J. MARTIN, one of the prominent residents of Jones county and a business man of Stamford, is a Kentuckian by birth, his life record beginning in Muhlenberg county, on the 17th of February, 1844. His father, Andrew Martin, was also a native of Kentucky, but his parents were Virginians. In 1855 the family left the Blue Grass state and removed to Missouri, making the trip a part of the way on a flat-boat on the Greene and Ohio rivers, and reached their destination on the 5th of March. The family settled in Mississippi county, where Andrew Martin and his wife spent their remaining days, the former passing away in January, 1856, while the latter departed this life in February, 1859. In their family were ten children, five sons and five daughters, of whom one daughter, Mrs. Susie Howlett, is residing at Charleston, Missouri, while Andrew J. Martin is the only other surviving member of the family.
Upon his father’s farm Andrew J. Martin spent his boyhood days and as a diversion from the regular routine of duties of the farm and schoolroom made frequent excursions for mink and coons. He remained there until about 1859, when, on account of the death of the parents, the family was broken up and the children were scattered. Andrew Martin went to live with a brother-in-law, Willshire Chapman, with whom be remained for about two years. He next sought employment at a salary of eleven dollars per month in the year 1861. The Civil war was not in progress and he enlisted in Colonel Jeffries’ Regiment, becoming a member of Company E, Eighth Missouri Cavalry, with which he served throughout the entire period of hostilities, participating in all of the engagements of his command. There was hard fighting and all of the difficulties and dangers of war to be encountered, but he bravely stood at his post defending the cause which he had espoused. After the close of hostilities he started home, riding his own horse from Minden, Louisiana, but while on the way, because of the spring floods and the condition of the country caused thereby, he was obliged to sell his horse and continued the journey by flat- boat, reaching home on the 16th of June, 1865.
In the summer of that year Mr. Martin finished cultivating a crop for his brother-in-law, Dennis Bryant, and on the 1st of January, 1866, he removed to Wolf Island, in Mississippi county, Missouri, where he rented land and began farming on his own account. He remained there until he had raised about seven crops, principally corn, when he sold out and removed to Rushes Ridge, where he lived for about ten years, there devoting his time principally to the cultivation of wheat. In March, 1884, he left Missouri and came to Texas, arriving at Anson on the 9th of March of that year. Here he rented a little place for ten dollars per month and began putting up a house and making general improvements. Upon this place he made his home. Eight years of the time, however, was spent in Anson in the hardware and implement business, from 1886 until 1894. In the latter year he sold out and gave his undivided attention to farming and stock raising. Mr. Martin had in his farm six hundred and forty acres just at the edge of Anson, of which one hundred and sixty acres is under cultivation, and he was one of the successful business men and leading agriculturists and stock dealers of that part of the state. His business success is due entirely to his own well directed efforts and capability and his prosperity is well merited. He now resides in Stamford and is a member of the firm of Baker, Bryant & Company.
On the 12th of November, 1871, in Nelson county, Kentucky, Mr. Martin was married to Miss Emma L. Pottinger, a native of that county, born in 1850. They have no children of their own, but have reared several. Mr. Martin has been a member of the Masonic fraternity since 1866, taking the degrees of the lodge and the chapter and is an exemplary representative of the craft, true to the teachings which form its basic elements.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. II, pp. 519-520.
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