Josiah
Martin Daniel
(January 27, 1880 - Februry 20, 1968)
Josiah "Joe"
Martin Daniel was born in Wadeville to Theophilus Smith Daniel and Lelia
Wisener Daniel. He was reared in Kerens
and attended military school in North Carolina, graduating in 1900. He
attended the University of Texas at Austin, but left in 1904 when a boll
weevil infestation in Navarro County destroyed his family's cotton crop and
their finances were diminished.
Daniel worked at the
First National Bank of Kerens and married Nellie Mae Hines of Tyler, widowed
in 1907, he married Jessie Mae Johnson of Corsicana
in 1911. By 1913 he was a partner in the insurance firm of Daniel &
Stockton. He joined the Texas National Guard and Became Mayor of
Kerens. He was reelected twice and resigned in 1916 to go on active duty
for the National Guard. He was called up to the U.S. Army in its
operations in West Texas in pursuit of the Mexican Revolutionary Pancho
Villa. During World War I
he served in the Army's 36th Division and was discharged as a captain..
Joe Daniel went to work
for the Lone Star as Company about 1929. He moved to Abilene in 1931,
and to Corsicana in 1937. During and after World
War II Daniel served in the Texas State Guard, retiring in 1954 with the
rank of Colonel. Daniel assisted Gov.
Beauford Jester of Corsicana in creating the Veterans Affairs Commission
in 1947. As its first chairman, he led the commission in providing
valuable services to more than one million Texas veterans. Joe and
Jessie Daniel returned to Kerens in 1952, shortly after his retirement from
Business, and his Veterans Commission term ended in 1953. Daniel served
Kerens and Navarro County in a variety of civic, economic and historic
preservation activities.
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