Azariah Hood (17820093) Suggested edit (7/11/2020): Judge A. J. Hood, now deceased, was one ofthe early residents of Weatherfofd and one of the able public men of North Texas. Horn in South Carolina, in T824, of Irish stock, a son of Humphrey and Sarah Truesdale Hood, he was reared on a southern plantation and had the adges of education and culture that were afforded the sons of leading southern families. For books he had always a fondness, and found time to gratify his passion for literature and greedily read whatever fell into his hands. With such tastes lie also combined an ardor for the chase and all athletic games. He began teaching school at the age of eighteen, and for four years continued this in connection with his law studies. He was admitted to the bar in 1846, and in the same year came to Texas, and began the practice of law at Rusk, Cherokee county, where he lived until his removal to Weatherford in i860. At the breaking out of the war between the states, Parker count}' was on the extreme north- western frontier of the state. During the fall of the year preceding the war a large band of hostile Comanches came down into Parker county and drove off a large number of horses, after murdering citizens and committing other revolting acts of savage barbarity. Judge Hood, with a few others who had hastily assembled, early the next morning took and followed the trail. The Indians, as was their custom in such cases, traveled night and day, and having a night the start, the pursuit was a fruitless one. This and other like bloody raids of the Indians on the frontier resulted, the same fall, in what was known as the Baylor Expedition. The expedition was composed of about two hundred and fifty men, and was commanded by Col. John R. Baylor, and
its object was to administer chastisement on the Indians in their homes, from three to five hundred miles away. The men composing this expedition were out without wagons, tents or anything ap- proximating military stores, in the Panhandle and on the extreme head branches of the Brazos and Colorado rivers during the entire winter of 1860-61. Judge Hood commanded a small company in this expedition. Having been unac- customed to the extreme privations and great toil encountered in this expedition, he returned home in the spring of 1 86 1 completely broken down in health. For months his life was despaired of, and it was not until more than a year after the war that his health was sufficiently restored to enable him again to resume the practice of his profession. Hence it was that Judge Hood,though an ardent friend of the cause of the South, was prevented from being an active parti- cipant in the war. Alread) he had received honors of public character. Elected in 1850, he .represented Cherokee county three sessions in the legislature. HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS. 129 In 1850-51-52, though the youngest member of the assembly, he was a member of the judiciary and other leading committees. The subjects that most engrossed the attention of the people and the legislature at that time were, the settlement of the state debt, the proper disposition of public lands, the establishment of a system of common schools, and the encouragement of railroads. In 1856 he canvassed the state as a presidential elector and that fall cast a ballot for Buchanan in the electoral college. In 1858 he was a member of the convention that nominated Hardin R. Runnels for governor. In 1874 he assumed the duties of judge of the thirteenth judicialdistrict court, which he filled about two years, and in 1879 was appointed judge of the twentyninth judicial district by Gov. Roberts, being elected to that office in 1880. In the history of North and West Texas from 1855 to 1870 the central fact of prominence is the hostility of the .. Indians, which, as we have said, was ' a constantly retarding force that held back the line of settlements for twenty years, so that the utmost efforts of the people were expended in defense rather than in ex- tending civilization beyOnd the frontier limits which had been established in the fifties. Illustrative of this eventful period as also of the epoch which followed, when the western country began to build up, is the career of Col. J. E. McCord, now vice president of the Cole- man National Bank at Coleman, Texas. Born in what was formerly known as Abbyville District of South Carolina, July 4, 1834,
his parents, W. P. and Lucinda (Miller) McCord, being natives of the same district, and
his father a planter and captain of a company of South Carolina militia and later lieutenant colonel of militia in the state of Mississippi, Col. J. E. McCord was reared on his father's plantation in Pontotoc county, Mississippi, where the family had removed the year of his
birth. He received his education by private tutelage and in country schools, completing it at Henderson, Rusk county, Texas, to whichplace his father moved in 1853. From school he went to San Marcos, where he engaged in the land business with A. M. Lindsey, a surveyor, and up to the fall of i860 they located lands in the frontier counties of Coleman, Brown, Runnels and others. In January, i860, a company of rangers was organized at San Marcos at the behest of Gov. Sam
Houston, its officers being Capt. Ed. Burleson, first lieutenant J. E. McCord, second lieuten- ant Joe Carson. They were assigned to duty on Home Creek in Coleman county, twenty miles south of Camp Colorado, at which post the commandants were the well known E. Kirby Smith and Fitzhugh Lee. During the summer of i860 various companies were concentrated at Fort Belknap and organized into a regiment of Col. M. T. Johnson. This regi- ment was ordered to the Wichita Mountains where they remained for some time and was there disbanded without having participated in any event of importance. Returning home Col. McCord joined a batallion organized under authority of Gov. Houston by Col. W. C. Dalrymple and went to the protection of the frontier, McCord acting in the capacity of adjutant. On one occasion the presence of Col. Dalrymple's command pre- vented a collision between the United States troops and an aggregation of men without authority from any source who were bent upon capturing the military post of Camp Cooper. The troops refused to surrender to such a body but declared their willingness to do so to Col. Dalrymple, as he was an officer in command under state authority. In like manner all the frontier posts were abandoned by the national troops and occupied by state militia, and, later, by Confederate troops. Texas seceded, and the frontier service under Col. H. E. McCulloch was inaugurated. The legislature in the fall of 1861 authorized the organization of a regiment of ten companies for the purpose of patrolling the frontier from the Red river to the Rio Grande. The field officers of the regiment were appointed by the governor, but each company was to elect its captain and subordinate officers. J. M. Norris was appointed colonel of the regiment, his subordinates being Lieutenant Colonel Obenchain i 3o HISTORY OF NORTH AND WEST TEXAS. and Major J. E. McCord, their appointmentto continue for one year. Col. Obenchain waskilled shortly after the organization when Major McCord succeeded to the position of
lieutenantcolonel. When the regiment was reorganized he waselected colonel without opposition, and his subordinates were Lieutenant Colonel BuckBarry and Major W. J. Alexander. This -regi- ment remained on the frontier in the state service until the spring of 1864, when it was trans- ferred by order of the governor to the Confederate service. Six companies of Col. McCord'sregiment were ordered to the coast, and he was in command of the post at the mouth of the Brazos river when Lee surrendered and the end of the bloody Civil war came ; much of the service consisting in guarding federal prisoners and patrolling the Gulf coast from the south end of Galveston island to the Peninsula of Matagorda. After the war Col. McCord re- turned to his father's home in Rusk county, Texas, where he worked on the farm and raised a crop of cotton, and in 1867 he returned to Caldwell county and engaged in the mercantile business at Prairie Lea, on the San Marcos river. His early experience in the ranger service had made him Well acquainted with the country about the present town of Coleman, and on March 17, 1876, when this district was still a frontier and ten years before the railroad penetrated the county, he located on his ranch on Home Creek some twenty miles south of the site where the town of Coleman was after- wards laid out. In 1879 he moved his family to this still new and small town, and has been a resident of the same ever since. Raising cattle, dealing in land and finance has been his principal business activities, and his two sons, T. M. and J. P. McCord are associated with him in business. When the Coleman National Bank was or- ganized in 1892, he was elected its first presi- dent, and served as such for some years, and is still vice president of the institution. Col. McCord married, January 30, 1868, at Prairie Lea, Miss Sarah Elizabeth Mooney,
who was born in Alabama and reared in Texas, a daughter of Thomas and Clementine (Johnson) Mooney. The children born to this union are: Lou C, Mary V., Thomas M., Julia T., James P. and Gertrude. Colonel McCord is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and he and his wife belong to the Presbyterian church.
Contributor: Nona Forrest (46501243)

From History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas, Vol. 1, by B.B.
Paddock, 1906.

JUDGE A. J. HOOD, now deceased, was one of the early residents of Weatherford
and one of the able public men of North Texas. Born in South Carolina, in 1824,
of Irish stock, a son of Humphrey and Sarah Truesdale Hood, he was reared on a
southern plantation and had the advantages of education and culture that were
afforded the sons of leading southern families. For books he had always a
fondness, and found time to gratify his passion for literature and greedily read
whatever fell into his hands. With such tastes he also combined an ardor for the
chase and all athletic games. He began teaching school at the age of eighteen,
and for four years continued this in connection with his law studies. He was
admitted to the bar in 1846, and in the same year came to Texas, and began the
practice of law at Rusk, Cherokee county, where he lived until his removal to
Weatherford in 1860.

At the breaking out of the war between the states, Parker county was on the
extreme northwestern frontier of the state. During the fall of the year
preceding the war, a large band of hostile Comanches came down into Parker
county and drove off a large number of horses, after murdering citizens and
committing other revolting acts of savage barbarity. Judge Hood, with a few
others who had hastily assembled, early the next morning took and followed the
trail. The Indians, as was their custom in such cases, traveled night and day,
and having a night the start, the pursuit was a fruitless one. This and other
like bloody raids of the Indians on the frontier resulted, the same fall, in
what was known as the Baylor Expedition. The expedition was composed of about
two hundred and fifty men, and was commanded by Col. John R. Baylor, and its
object was to administer chastisement on the Indians in their homes, from three
to five hundred miles away. The men composing this expedition were out without
wagons, tents or anything approximating military stores, in the Panhandle and on
the extreme head branches of the Brazos and Colorado rivers during the entire
winter of 1860-61. Judge Hood commanded a small company in this expedition.
Having been unaccustomed to the extreme privations and great toil encountered in
this expedition, he returned home in the spring of 1861 completely broken down
in health. For months his life was despaired of, and it was not until more than
a year after the war his health was sufficiently restored to enable him again to
resume the practice in his profession. Hence it was that Judge Hood, though an
ardent friend of the cause of the South, was prevented from being an active
participant in the war.

Already he had received honors of public character. Elected in 1850, he
represented Cherokee county three sessions in the legislature. In 1850-51-52,
though the youngest member of the assembly, he was a member of the judiciary and
other leading committees. The subjects that most engrossed the attention of the
people and the legislature at the time were the settlement of the state debt,
the proper disposition of public lands, the establishment of a system of common
schools, and the encouragement of railroads. In 1856 he canvassed the state as a
presidential elector college. In 1858 he was a member of the convention that
nominated Hardin R. Runnels for governor. In 1874 he assumed the duties of judge
of the thirteenth judicial district court, which he filled about two years, and
in 1879 was appointed judge of the twenty-ninth judicial district by Gov.
Roberts, being elected to that office in 1880.