April 1930 – Semi-Weekly Farm News

Samuel Uhl

Texas Herdboy During '50s Dies in County at Age of 97

Samuel Uhl, 97, Dallas County resident for about sixty years, died Wednesday afternoon at his home in Wheatland.  He was a Confederate veteran, a church leader and a charter member of Oak Cliff Masonic Lodge.

Born in Mount Savage, Md., on Nov. 26, 1832, Mr. Uhl came to this section in 1858.  A few years before he had been drawn as a fortune seeker to the Pacific Coast country, where his father went as one of the famed "forty-niners."

Samuel Uhl worked his passage Illinois as one of the drivers of 200 head of beef cattle belonging to a relative.  The caravan began its journey in the spring of 1854 and reached its destination during the autumn.  He worked in the mines remaining in California for about two years.

In company with his brother he later brought a bunch of sheep to Texas at three different times and grazed them in Dallas, Johnson and Tarrant Counties. closing them out just before the Civil War.

In 1861 he joined the Confederate forces, Twelfth Texas Cavalry, and served in the trans-Mississippi department.  At the close of the war he returned to Dallas County and took up farming, locating on the Crutchfield survey, where his home was until his death.

On Dec. 24, 1862, Mr. Uhl married Miss Eleanor Branson, daughter of the pioneer Thomas Branson, who came to Texas in 1853 from Illinois.

For many years Mr. Uhl was a steward in the Wheatland Methodist Church.  He will be buried at Wheatland.  Funeral arrangements will be completed Thursday.

Surviving are four daughters, Miss Sue Uhl, Wheatland; Mrs. R. H. Sprowls, Haskell; Mrs. W. P. Davis, Godley, and Mrs. T. B. Brixey, Dallas; three sons, C. S. Uhl, Wheatland; B. F. Uhl, New York, and L. B. Uhl, Salesville, Ark.; twenty-six grandchildren and twenty-four great-grandchildren.