James Henry McDaniel was born in 1851 in Madison County, Illinois. He was one of five children of Jacob McDaniel and Rebecca Ann Harnsberger of Trigg County in Kentucky. Henry was raised on the family farm at New Douglas, and in 1870 married Sarah Elizabeth Kuykendall. When his father Jacob died in 1871, the farm was sold and the estate divided among the remaining family, most of whom soon left the area to resettle in Missouri. However, Henry and Sarah bought a wagon and team and struck out for Texas. Their first child, Annie Jane (Nuttall) was born in Illinois in 1875, and two more after migrating to Parker County. They bought land near Millsap, and there they stayed. Other children were Minnie Eliza (Jordan) born 1880 and Henry Elmer McDaniel, born 1884. Not content with simply farming, James Henry McDaniel took up the ministry, and was licensed in June of 1899 by the Methodist Episcopal Church, Northwest District of Texas. He gave the land on his farm, and a Church was erected on a spot directly across the road from the Poe Prairie Cemetery, near Millsap. The building burned to the ground in the late 1930s and was never rebuilt.

James Henry was called “Reverend Mack” by the people around those parts, and he built his own automobile to get around in, and make his calls. It was built of spare parts on a Ford Model T chassis, but it got him where he needed to go. Henry put his mechanical talents to work also on the farm, and invented and patented a 2-row corn planter. It was patented in 1903 . Here he is shown with the patent model being sent to the U.S. Patent Office, taken at the Weatherford railroad station.

Following the successful patent application, Reverend Mack took his invention to the 1904 World’s Fair at St. Louis. It was displayed in the Agricultural Building, and as a result, he was able to sell the patent rights to the McCormick Plow Co.

Figure 1 James H. and Sarah E. Mc Daniel

James Henry McDaniel died on April 27, 1929 at his farm. Sarah Elizabeth died on November 23, 1930 and both are buried at the Poe Prairie Cemetery, along with children Percy (stillborn), Annie Jane Nuttall (1875-1947) and Minnie E. Jordan (1880-1967). Numerous others of the Nuttall, Jordan, and Allin names are connected, and also buried at Poe Prairie. Henry Elmer McDaniel, their only surviving son (1884-1960) is buried at Laurel Land Cemetery in Dallas. Though not related by birth, another family member is buried at Poe Prairie also. Billy Moore (1861-1934) came to them as a very young boy, a homeless orphan, and stayed through the rest of his days.