Mary Burnett

Background

Mary Couts was born July 1856, to James R. Couts in Lawrence County, Arkansas. Her father was a cattleman who relocated his family to Parker County, Texas, where he established a bank in Weatherford.

Career

The endowment was used to establish the at the university. Along with John North. Simpson in 1875, he also established the longhorn cattle Hashknife Ranch in Taylor County. Mary"s first husband Claude Barradel died.

He partnered with Quanah Parker to lease grazing land on Comanche and Kiowa reservations in Oklahoma, making Parker wealthy as well.

Mary and Samuel Burnett made their home in Fort Worth, Texas. The couple had one child, Junior., who died one month short of his twenty-first birthday in 1916.

The situation deteriorated to the point in 1920 that Mary began to mention to others that Burnett was planning to murder her. Samuel Burnett"s reaction was to have her declared legally insane and committed to an asylum in a private home.

She broke out of the asylum on the day of her husband"s death on June 26, 1922.

Her personal physician, Charles Harris, assisted her in getting the insanity ruling reversed. The court ruled that she was to receive half of the estate. In December 1923, she bequeathed $12,000 to the Dixon Colored Orphanage in Gilmer.

The remainder of her $3 million estate was bequeathed to Texas Christian University.

The monies were used to replace the existing library at Texas Christian University, which had been housed in the university"s administration building. In accordance with the terms of Burnett"s will, $150,000 was immediately allocated for the construction of a new library building.

The architects were West. G. Clarkson and Company. Texas Christian University president East.M. Waits requested the new building be named the The library is the repository for the papers and memorabilia of former Congressman and Speaker of the House Jim Wright.

Connections

friends:

Theodore Roosevelt