CAPTAIN ED DUGGAN, the present county and district clerk of San Angelo, is numbered among the native sons of the Lone Star state, his birth occurring on a farm on the Colorado river below Austin, September 19, 1840, a son of Hon. Thomas H. and Elizabeth (Berry) Duggan. Thomas H. Duggan, a native of Mississippi, came to Texas in 1839, first settling in Travis county on the Colorado, where the birth of his son Ed occurred, and this place is now called Webberville. The family home was there maintained until the Indians became so troublesome that a removal became necessary and they went to the coast, locating at Port Lavaca. On account of the mother’s declining health another move was made in 1845, to Seguin, Guadalupe county, and there Mr. Duggan became active in the political history of the state, having served as a member of the state senate for several terms. His death occurred in Seguin, as did that of his wife several years later, when she had reached the age of eighty-five years. She, too, was born in Mississippi.
The early years of Captain Duggan’s life were spent at Seguin, where his early educational training was supplemented by a term at the famous Chappel Hill College. His first business venture was in the mercantile line, but as he was needed to assist his father he sold his interests and engaged with his father in the stock business, thus continuing until the breaking out of the war. Enlisting in Company D, Fourth Texas Infantry, he was made lieutenant of the company and sent to the Army of Virginia, where beginning with the battle of Chickahominy Swamp he was in all the engagements up to and including that of Antietam, among them being the seven days’ fight at Richmond, Elkins’ Landing, Wade’s Ford, Seven Pines, second battle of Manassas and Lookout Mountain. His military career is one which will never redound to his honor as a loyal and devoted son of the republic, and to no one can greater honor be paid than to him who aids in holding high the standard which represents the deeper principles of liberty. Immediately after the closer of the struggle Mr. Duggan started a small mercantile business at Prairie Lee, near Seguin, but later disposed of that industry and until the year 1877 followed farming in Guadalupe county. In that year he came to western Texas and soon afterward located in Tom Green county, with those interests he has ever since been prominently identified. Engaging extensively in the sheep industry, he became the owner of a large ranch thirty miles south of San Angelo, which he continued to operate until it sold in 1893. In the meantime, in 1888, he was elected county and district clerk, to which position he has since been re-elected every two years, the last few years without opposition.
In Seguin Mr. Duggan was united in marriage to Miss Julia Coorpender, and they have one son, Ed Duggan Jr. Their eldest son, Thomas J., died in May, 1899. Mr. Duggan is a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity, in which he has attained the Knight Templar degree.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas, Vol. II (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), pp. 220-221.