Pioneers of Ellis County William G. Veal - (1831-1892)   William G. Veal, Methodist circuit preacher and businessman, was born near Knoxville, Tennessee. He settled in Hopkins Co. Texas in 1853 where he paid his first poll tax the same year and by 1854 owned 100 acres of land and one slave. Veal moved to Parker County in 1857 and was licensed as a Methodist minister the same year.  There he organized Veal Station, a school or academy. Later,, under the leadership of S. W. Parsons, the school became known as Parsons College and survived until the 1890's. Veal was elected delegate to the Texas Methodist Convention at Waco in 1857 and was promoted to presiding elder of the Weatherford District before 1859. In 1860 he and his wife, Ruth (Wilson), owned real estate and personal property worth $23,000. Veal  was a captain in  Parson's Brigade.  in Col. Thomas Coke Bass's Twentieth Texas Cavalry Regiment. He saw action in Arkansas, Indian Territory, and Texas. After the war, he resumed his church activities. He was elected presiding elder of the Waxahachie District in Ellis County at the 1866 general conference. and moved to Ellis County soon afterward, leaving behind $1,424 worth of property in Parker County on which he failed to pay taxes. In Ellis County, Veal continued his pastoral duties, and by 1870 had amassed personal worth of $55,000. He was elected a delegate to the general convention at Louisville, Kentucky, in May 1874. In 1875, he moved to Dallas County where charges were filed against him the next year for improper conduct toward a woman. Veal was vindicated after an inquiry  conducted by Methodist Church.  In 1878, he was arrested in Waxahachie  on a similar charge, and  after another inquiry by the Church, was suspended indefinitely from the Methodist Church. By 1880 the Veals, including their  eight-year-old daughter Ellen, were back in Dallas County, but by 1888,  they had moved to Fort Worth, again leaving taxable property. Veal was a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Lodge and the Masonic Lodge. He was the first president of the Board of Trade in Dallas. In 1885, he served as the president of the Central Texas Pomological and Horticultural Association. He held the position of financial agent for Southwestern University, was a member of the Joint Board of Publications of the Texas Christian Advocate (see United Methodist Reporter), and served on the Texas Education Commission of the Methodist Church in 1871. Two months before his death, Veal received death threats from someone in Dallas warning him not to be seen in  that city again or he would be killed on the spot. On October 25, 1892, despite pleas from his business associate, Veal attended a Confederate reunion at the State Fair of Texas. On that night while he was preparing for his duties at the convention, a gunman came to the door of his hotel room and shot him in the head, killing him instantly. BIBLIOGRAPHY. S. W. Geiser, Horticulture and Horticulturists in Early Texas (Dallas University Press, 1945) Gustavus Adolphus Holland, History of Parker County and the Double Log Cabin (Weatherford, Texas: Herald, 1931; rpt. 1937). Macum Phelan, History of Early Methodism in Texas, 1817-1866 (Nashville: Cokesbury, 1924); A History of the Expansion of Methodism in Texas, 1867-1902 (Dallas: Mathis, Van Nort, 1937). Henry Smythe, Historical Sketch of Parker County and Weatherford (St. Louis: Lavat, 1877; rpt., Waco: Morrison, 1973). Homer S. Thrall, A Brief History of Methodism in Texas (Nashville: Publishing House of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 1889; rpt., Greenwood, South Carolina: Attic, 1977). Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center University of Texas at Austin Charles C. Haynes Jr. References: "VEAL, WILLIAM G." The Handbook of Texas Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/VV/five1.html   Copyright © 2004-2016, Ellis County TXGenWeb. All Rights Reserved. This page was last modified: Thursday, 01-Jul-2021 13:30:15 MDT