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P. D. SANDERS
was born in Grimes county, Texas, October 5, 1855, son
of Peter T. and
Harriet A. (Dueitt) Sanders, natives of Marion
county, South Carolina. The Dueitts were of Scotch
descent and the family was represented in South Carolina
among the early settlers of that State.
Peter Sanders was a house builder, doing both masonry
and wood work. In 1853 he moved from
South Carolina to Texas, locating in Grimes county,
where he soon became somewhat interested in the stock
business and worked hard to get a start. While in a fair
way to prosperity, overwork broke down his health
and he died in the prime of his life, in 1861, at the
age of thirty-four years. His widow reached the ripe age
of seventy-one years, her death occurring in Grimes county, in 1894. Of
their eight children,
all died in infancy, except two, P. D. Sanders,
the subject of this sketch,
and a daughter, now Mrs. L. P. Mills, of Leon
county, Texas.
It was just at the opening of the Civil war times that
P. D. Sanders was left an orphan by
the death of his father, and the widowed mother with
three children was left to struggle for an existence
in a new and thinly settled country. From the time he was eight until he
was fourteen years of age,
P. D. attended such private schools as there were in
their neighborhood, his schooling being
confined chiefly to the summer months. After he was
fourteen he took charge of his mother's farm
and the small amount of stock that she had left, and supported her and his
sister. The youngest child
meantime had died. He continued to reside with his
mother until 1881. That year he went to
Burleson county, Texas, and rented land near Caldwell,
the county seat, which he cultivated for two years.
While there he was elected justice of the peace of his
precinct, and he soon afterward changed his
residence to the town of Caldwell and engaged in the
hotel business. For five years he ran the hotel,
four years of that time spending all his leisure moments
in the study of law. In due time he was
admitted to the bar, during the spring term of the
District Court at Caldwell, in 1886,
and at once began the practice of law.
In January, 1888, he moved to Haskell, and in November
of that year he was elected
county judge of Haskell county, for a term of two years.
To this office he was again elected in the
fall of 1892, and served two terms, up to the fall of
1896. He was elected district judge of the
Thirty-ninth Judicial District in the fall of 1898, for a term of four
years, and since his retirement
from that office he has been practicing law and
conducting a general land and investment business at
Haskell. Judge Sanders is a man of fine personality, is
yet in the prime of life, and has before him
prospects for greater success than he has already
attained. His acquaintance and his
business relations extend not only all over his own county but also to
numerous adjacent counties.
While living on the farm with his mother, in 1875, at
the age of twenty, Judge Sanders married Miss Addie
Elliott, who was born and reared in Union Town,
Perry county, Alabama. She died in October, 1886,
leaving five children, the youngest three weeks old.
After living a widower for more than a dozen years,
the Judge married for his second wife, May 24, 1899, Miss Neelia Porter,
daughter of Robert Porter of Burleson county,
where he was born and reared. Of Judge Sanders' family
we record that his eldest daughter, Hattie E.,
died in 1899. She was a graduate of the Haskell high
school and had taught school one term.
Fred T., his eldest son, is engaged in the cotton
gin and confectionery business at Haskell;
P. D., Jr., is a resident of Calgary, Alberta
Province, Canada where he is Veterinary Inspector for
the government; Alma, a music teacher, resides in
Caldwell; and Zora B., wife of H. C. Park,
lives in Haskell.
By the second marriage there is one child, Rufus Cedrick, at this
writing two years old.
For twenty-eight years Judge Sanders has been a
consistent member of the Methodist church.
He has been a Royal Arch Mason thirteen years and ten
years
he was affiliated with the Woodmen of the World. |
