Notes for: William Thomas CASWELL, Sr
A HISTORY OF TEXAS AND TEXANS - William Thomas Caswell. One of the comparatively few whose genius for large undertaking and achievement determines the business destinies of the localities in which they live and labor is William Thomas Caswell, of Austin. Brought in early manhood in touch with the cotton business, he seized upon his opportunity, mastered the rudiments of the trade with a thoroughness that has characterized his every action in life, and upon this practical knowledge has builded his exceptional business career. One by one he has seen the possibilities as they have opened before him, and each possibility has first become a probability and then made a certainty, until now he is one of the largest cotton exporters in the United States. Incidentally, he has become interested in real estate and timber lands, and gives the benefit of his broad knowledge, clear judgment and vast experience to various other lines of industry.
Mr. Caswell was born in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1877, and is a son of Daniel Haskell and Louise (Broadwell) Caswell. On his father's side he is descended from Scotch-Irish stock which emigrated to America before the days of the Revolutionary War and settled in Maine, but later moved to the South. His mother's family trace their ancestry back to the Mayflower and to John and Priscilla Alden of Massachusetts. Daniel Haskell Caswell in his early life was a millwright and built flour and lumber mills, but since 1880 has been actively engaged in the cotton seed oil mill business, being now the oldest oil mill man in active service. He was the owner of the Tuscaloosa, Alabama, Oil Mill, one of the first cotton seed oil mills ever erected, and in 1892 came to Texas and located at Austin, where he has since continued to carry on his affairs, and is actively engaged in business in spite of his eighty years. During his long and useful career it is estimated that he has erected fifty cotton seed oil mills.
William Thomas Caswell received his early education in the public schools of his native city, where he graduated from the High School, and entered Vanderbilt University, graduating therefrom in civil engineering in 1899. At that time he joined his father at Austin, and was associated with him in business for a short time. He then embarked in the business of cotton buying and exporting, which he has developed until it is now recognized as one of the leading enterprises of this section. At this time he is handling over 100,000 bales of cotton annually, and is one of the few cotton men in the business to buy direct from the farmer and export direct to the foreign customer, firms in Europe and Japan handling the greater part of his output. He also handles more wagon cotton than any dealer in the United States, his business during some years running up as high as $20,000,000. Mr. Caswell, in addition to being the owner of a chain of cotton gins in the vicinity of Austin, is president of the Capitol Compress Company and of the San Marcos Compress Company, and vice president of the Elgin Compress Company. He has been largely interested in real estate, and in 1910 bought and developed what is now known as the Ridge Top Addition and the Ridge Top Annex Addition to the city of Austin, which have proved the most popular additions to the northern part of the city, now being rapidly developed and settled as residential sections. He is also the owner of the Hyde Park Heights Addition to the city of Houston, which he has most successfully developed and settled, and is the owner of 5,000 acres of timber land in Montgomery county, Texas, on which he has erected an extensive sawmill which is cutting some 15,000,000 feet of timber. He maintains offices at No. 410 Chicon street and 625 Littlefield Bldg., Austin, Texas. 'Mr. Caswell's success is one which is noteworthy even in a part of the country where a large measure of success is not uncommon and where forcible and capable captains of business abound. And it is all the more remarkable in that it has been practically self-gained. Active, alert, quick in his decisions and courageous in his undertakings, he has the entire confidence of his associates, who constantly look to him for leadership and counsel. Essentially a man of business, he has cared little for public life, except as a good citizen performing his civic duties, and his only fraternal connection is with the Chi Phi fraternity of the Vanderbilt University. But he is an active worker in all charitable movements of Austin and in the Y. M. C. A. work, of which institution he was president several years.
Mr. Caswell was married in 1904 to Miss Vivian Brenizer, daughter of Dr. Nelson O. Brenizer, a well known practicing physician of Austin, and to this union there have been born two children: Anna Louise and Clair. The pleasant family residence is located at No. 1502 West avenue.