JOHN ALSWERD HENSLEY. It is fitting to review the career of a native son of Jack county, whose childhood began amidst the wild scenes of frontier life and whose youthful labors and efforts of early manhood were an active force in the promotion of one of the most successful ventures conceived and brought to maturity within the limits of the county. While his efforts were active the force they propelled was a silent one for years, yet it ever counted toward the final results and helped to make John Hensley, his father, famous as a cowman in Jack county.
As already indicated, John A. Hensley was born in Jack county and his birth occurred January 29, 1868. His father entered the county as a genuine pioneer and his record is set out at some length on another page of his work. Five miles east of Jacksboro, on Carroll creek, was the scene of our subject’s childhood days and the footprints of his innocent days may yet linger along the banks of that harmless and rippling stream. His day of pupilage in the rural schools having been finished, he joined in the chow chase while he was yet far beneath his majority years. The college at Thorp Springs and the Southwestern University at Georgetown served to ground him well as a student and he cap-sheafed his college career with a course in Johnson’s Business College in St. Louis, Missouri. The Hensley ranch, embracing forty-eight hundred acres, received him when his education was completed and with its affairs he is yet an active factor. In 1896 Hensley & Son, John and John A., were engaged in the hardware business in Jacksboro and disposed of their interests in 1897. In 1904 our subject was engaged in the stock business and thus the hours of his daily life are devoted to active industrious pursuits.
October 20, 1888, Mr. Hensley was united in marriage, in Young county, Texas, with Miss Emma Terrell, a daughter of the Fort Worth pioneer, Ed Terrell, of Belknap, Texas. Mr. Terrell was a merchant in Fort Worth in pioneer days, but many years since identified himself with Young county, where is sons are among the well known cattlemen of the county. Mr. Hensley is a Master Mason and a Democrat, and his interests are allied with the progressive and moral elements of his county.
Source: B. B. Paddock, History and Biographical Record of North and West Texas (Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1906), Vol. II, pp. 341.