TEXAS FREETHOUGHT HALL OF FAME

The Texas Freethought Hall of Fame is a pantheon of prominent Texas Freethinkers of both the past and the present. If you would like to nominate someone for this honor, please send your nomination, explaining why you think some individual (or group) is worthy of inclusion, to secularscholar@outlook.com. Thanks!

John R. CHARLESWORTH

Ovee (Ove) Torgerson Colwick (Kjølvig)

Charles Littleton Edwards

Link to "Find-a-Grave" Memorial

Jasper Monroe GILBERT was born January 1870 in Fannin County, Texas, the son of Jasper Gilbert, Sr. and Rebecca Lindsey Gilbert. His paternal grandfather was Capt. Mabel Gilbert, an early day pioneer in both Dallas and Fannin counties. He was raised as a conventional Christian in Randolph, Fannin County, Texas by his mother and stepfather Woodruff P. Hall.

Around 1880-1890, Gilbert traveled to California. While residing in Los Angeles he began attending Unitarian church services and also took some interest in spiritualism.

A few years after returning to Randolph, he began to have doubts about the authenticity of the Bible and religion in general. After reading Volney's Ruins, John William Draper's History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science, and works by Ingersoll, Darwin, Huxley and Haeckel, he not only became an atheist but also an outspoken opponent of organized religion. In politics he embraced Populism before converting to Socialism, and then finally Anarchism.

In 1897 he wrote the first of several letters and articles that were published in D. M. Bennett's The Truth Seeker. During the early 1900s his work also appeared in Free Thought Magazine and other "infidel" publications.

In 1898 Gilbert enrolled at the American Medical College in St. Louis, Missouri. In 1902 he was graduated with degree in "eclectic" medicine. After living briefly in Homer, Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma), he returned to Randolph, where it appears he remained for the rest of his life. Unable to make a living as a doctor, he turned to farming.

During the second decade of the twentieth century many of the "infidel" publications Gilbert wrote for began to close down. With no outlets for his work, his writing seems to have ceased.

Between 1919 and 1921 Gilbert was treated for a cancerous growth on his face, doubtless the result of exposure to intense sunlight while working in the fields. For a while he thought he was cured but after the cancer returned, he grew despondent. On May 19, 1943, he committed suicide in Dallas. He is buried at Randolph, Texas.

Charles H. JONES was born in Cass County, Missouri on October 20, 1861. His father was Lycurgus Jones, a Kentucky-born farmer. His mother, Martha A. (Younger) Jones, was born in Missouri. Three maternal uncles, Cole, Jim and Bob Younger, were outlaws who robbed banks and trains in league with equally notorious outlaw brothers Frank and Jesse James.

Jones had one sister and three brothers, two of which may have been named in honor of his outlaw uncles.

In 1881, the Lycurgus Jones family moved to Denison, Texas, where father and sons, unlike their notorious relatives in Missouri, were respectable citizens who operated a furniture business on Main Street. Following the death of his father, and after brothers Coleman and Robert moved to Indian Territory, the Denison store began operating under Charles' name only.

On July 30, 1902, Charles H. Jones married Minnie M. Marsh, a teacher and principal in the Denison schools and an instructor at North Texas Normal College in Denton. She was also an occasional writer and orator.

In 1910 Jones left the furniture business to sell real estate and make loans.

At some point in his life, Jones became an atheist. Between 1916 and 1918, he wrote twenty-four short articles criticizing religion, which were printed as paid advertisements in two local newspapers. Jones also kept a close watch on news of a religious nature and attended church services from time-to-time, apparently to listen to sermons that he would later rebut in print.

Jones was a well-read materialist who based his opinions on the fact that none of the claims made by Christianity could be proven. He was also apparently very familiar with the Scriptures. In his articles he often pointed out Bible verses that were contradictory or seemed to make no sense.

Jones died of pneumonia on March 14, 1924 while vacation with his wife and daughter in Dallas He was buried at Denison's Fairview Cemetery.

From 1960 to the present time, the Mr. and Mrs. Chas. H. Jones Trust Fund, a legacy from the Jones estate, has provided continued financial support to the Denison Public Library.

Geno Scott LINCOLN

David MACKAY

Thomas Volney MUNSON was born at Fulton County, Illinois on September 26, 1843. His parents were William and Maria (nee Linley) Munson. He had two brothers and three sisters.

Munson's parents were members of the Disciples of Christ, who raised all their children in that denomination.

In 1861 Munson enrolled in business school in Chicago, and then taught school back home for a year before enrolling at the Kentucky Agricultural and Mechanical College at Lexington, where he first had doubts about the religious beliefs he had been taught as a child.

After reading Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859), and also The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication (1868), he gave up the Christian faith entirely.

On June 21, 1870, less than two weeks being graduated with a Bachelor's degree, Munson was married to Ellen Scott Bell.

In 1873 Munson and his wife bought property near Lincoln, Nebraska. In 1876, the couple moved to Texas, where Munson's brothers had helped to found Denison four years earlier.

From 1876 to 1887 the Munson family resided on a small farm where the budding botanist started the nursery business that sustained him and his family throughout his long life. He also won the first of many awards, and socialized with his fellow "infidels," a minority in a town filled with churches. Among those with similar views were brothers Theo and Ben, and Sunday Gazetteer publisher B. C. Murray.

In 1880, Munson was one of the founders of the Denison Liberal League. In 1884, a year after earning a Master's degree from his alma mater in Kentucky, he wrote the first of several freethought articles that were published in J. D. Shaw's Independent Pulpit. In 1887 Munson and his family moved into the house he named "Vinita."

In 1889 Munson was awarded a gold medal by the French government for saving the French wine industry from certain ruin by sending pest-resistant grafts from his Texas vines. The following year, after founding the Denison Philosophical Society, he was elected treasurer of the Texas State Liberal Association, a position he held for at least three terms.

In 1906, B. C. Murray published Munson's small anti-religious tract, The New Revelation, in which he openly wrote of his atheism. On January 21, 1913, Munson died. He was buried at Denison's Fairview Cemetery, following a completely non-religious funeral.

Bredette Corydon MURRAY

Ormond P. PAGET

Richard PETERSON

Richard Potts

Henry C. RENFRO

James P. RICHARDSON

Death of Judge Richardson.

Former Judge J. P. Richardson, a well-known Freethought writer, who at one time was president of the Liberal Association of Texas, died at his home in Austin on May 7. The "sermon" at his funeral was a paper written by himself, which he directed that his executor should read. Judge Richardson was born In Massachusetts, August 20, 1821. He was the son of Puritan parents, and was brought up in all the strictness of that rigid and uncompromising sect. Up to the age of eighteen he accepted the theology that was taught him by his parents, by the New England schools, the Sunday-school, and Jhe church. He was led to read the Bible critically by attending a course of lectures by Father Miller, an honest and pious old man who had devoted himself to the careful study of the Bible, and especially of the prophecies, and had satisfied himself that the world was coming to an end In 1843. The only effect was to stimulate him to careful study of the Bible and the true meaning of the prophecies upon which Miller based his theories. The result was that he lost his reverence for the Bible, and worked out alone and unaided a system of Rationalism. He then began to read Freethought literature, and in 18^3 he made the acquaintance of Horace Seaver and J. P. Mendum, and became a subscriber of the Boston Investigator. As he became a Freethinker, he became also an ardent opponent of slavery; and when the civil war broke out he enlisted as a soldier. He raised the first company in all the loyal North for the war. This was in Cambridge, Mass., In January, 1861. At the close of the war he received a commission In the regular army, which took him to Texas. Being offered the position of judge of the seventeerith judicial district, he resigned his commission. In the regular army, and served a term of six years on the bench. During all these years he had always been an outspoken advocate of mental and political freedom. In 1883, when J. D. Shaw established the Independent Pulpit, Judge Richardson recognized the importance of the movement and gave It his hearty support.

Levi James RUSSELL

James Dickson SHAW was born on December 27, 1841 in Walker County, Texas. During the Civil War, he served as a Second Lieutenant in the 10th Texas Infantry, C.S.A. After the war, he was an active member of the Pat Cleburne Camp, U.C.V.

In 1870, Shaw became an ordained Methodist minister. In 1878, he moved to Waco, where he served as pastor of the Fifth Street Methodist Church until 1882, when, after preaching a sermon that stressed good works over faith, Shaw was called before a church examining committee in Cleburne. After he admitted his unorthodox opinions, the committee stripped him of his credentials.

Later that same year, Shaw founded the Religious and Benevolent Association and in 1883, he began publishing a monthly newspaper titled The Independent Pulpit, the masthead of which stated that its purpose was "to serve as a forum for the most liberal and independent thinkers on the moral, social, and intellectual questions of the day."

In 1890 Shaw organized the first meeting of the short-lived Texas Liberal Association in Waco, where he was elected president. He later served as secretary. The group disbanded following the 1894 convention in Temple.

During his heyday, Shaw was a sought-after public speaker who frequently traveled around the state to address his fellow freethinkers. In Waco, he served for a time on the city council. Following the death of Iconoclast publisher W. C. Brann in a gunfight with an offended Baptist, Shaw wrote a biography of his old friend.

In 1881, Shaw's first wife, Lucy, died, leaving him with six children to raise alone. In 1884, he married Rachella Dodson, who died in Waco in 1902.

In 1900 Shaw suspended publication of The Independent Pulpit, replacing it in 1901 with The Searchlight, which he edited until 1910, when he moved to Glendale, California, where he lived with two of his daughters and a grandchild. He died in California on December 3, 1926. He was later buried at Waco's Oakwood Cemetery.

Even Shaw's theological opponents respected him. One Baptist minister, J. B. Cranfill, wrote that "while his arguments were clearcut and emphatic, he never at any time ceased to exemplify the high qualities of good breeding and gentlemaness."

John R. SPENCER, printer and publisher of The Agnostic, was born in Ohio in 1846. At some point in his early life, he moved to Texas, where on December 13, 1875, in Houston, he married Ida Genevieve Smith, born 1852.

In 1879, while living and working in Dallas, Spencer began publishing The Agnostic, which was "devoted to the rise of Reason and the downfall of Superstition." Ironically, he had previously worked as a printing room foreman at the offices of The Texas Baptist, also located in Dallas, which may explain why he started publishing a freethought periodical! One cannot help but wonder what Spencer's former employers thought about his new venture, although it is not too hard to imagine that they disapproved.

In its fifth and apparently final year, 1884, The Agnostic purportedly had a circulation of 1,000. During this time, Spencer and his family resided on Wood Street, where the family's home doubled as a print shop and office. There is no record of why The Agnostic went out of business. While it is possible that the journal was the victim of social pressure, chances are it was simply unprofitable due to an almost certainly limited readership. Unfortunately, there are no known extant copies.

Sometime in the mid-1880s, Spencer and his family moved to McLennan County, where his wife, Ida, died on March 4, 1888. She is buried at the Crawford Cemetery in Crawford, Texas.

Spencer was not only an "infidel" but also a union man. In May 1923 a writer for the Dallas Morning News observed that he was "one of the oldest printers in the state," and announced that as a "veteran member of Waco Typographical Union No. 188," he would be attending "the annual meeting of the Allied Trades Council at Dallas." A few years later, an aging Spencer was admitted to the Union Printers Home in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where he died on November 7, 1934 at the age of eighty-eight and was afterward buried in Evergreen Cemetery-a peaceful, shady burial ground that offers the living a magnificent view of Pike's Peak.

Established October 31, 2015

Copyright © 2015-2019 The Freethought Press of Texas. All rights reserved.

Established October 31, 2015

Copyright © 2015-2019 The Freethought Press of Texas. All rights reserved.