From Proud Heritage, Vol 1 by DCPA, not currently in print.
Harry G. Brady was born 14 August 1857, the seventh of nine sons and one daughter, to Joseph J. and Mary Catherine Boyce Brady at Farmington, St. Francois County, Missouri. He became associated in St. Joseph, Missouri with the hide business through the James C. Smith Hide Company when he was only 19 (according to family legend). They sent him to Dallas to open a branch office. He was so successful they had him open another office in Waco.
No one knows if he met his wife, Sarah Belknap, before they came to Texas or after, as she was born in Ironton, Iron County, Missouri 4 March 1864, only four or five miles from Farmington. The marriage records of Dallas County, Vol. G, pg. 211 reflect they were married 14 September 1881. It is family tradition that she came to Dallas to live with her sister, Mrs. Parmelia Myers, who reared her after their mother, Elizabeth Wildman Belknap, passed away. Sarah was only a little over three years old. Her father, Giles Rankin Belknap, a planter and minister of the gospel, was left with six children under 13 years of age. Their mother must have died at the birth of the youngest child, Morgan, in 1867.
Camden (Cam) Chovoin Brady was born 21 April 1885 in Weatherford, Parker County, Texas. His parents, Harry G. and Sarah Belknap Brady, moved back to Dallas where Cam and his three sisters: Mamie Brady (Mrs. Geo. N. Walker); Catherine (Katy) Brady (Mrs. Matt Allender); and Willard Brady (Mrs. Howard Edge) were reared. The home in which they lived when Cam Brady married Laura Hill was on Exposition, not far from Fair Park. The house burned when the entire block was destroyed by fire in 1905.
Oak Grove Avenue was laid out and named by Harry G. and Sarah Belknap Brady when they built their family homeplace there, starting the growth of Dallas northward. Possibly the lot was given to them by Sarah’s sister and husband (Mr. & Mrs. John P. Myers) from part of – their dairy properties which were located in this area according to the City Directory of 1880-1881. The City Directory of 1898 shows “Harry G. Brady, Res. 315 Oak Grove, cor. Newman. Mgr. John Finnigan Hide Co., 202 N. Lamar. Pho. 110.”
Harry Brady pioneered the hide, wool and fur business in the late 1870’s when Dallas was recognized as a leather-goods center. In 1887 he and Dave Cline owned a Feed Store at 1217 Camp Street located close to Akard, angling at a southward decline toward Sanger Bros. on Lamar.
Marie Brady remembers when the imposing fine old stone Post Office across Ervay from Neiman Marcus between Main and Commerce was torn down and the present one across Bryan from the Republic Bank was built, at which time Camp Street was changed to Federal as it is now. She particularly remembers the colorful wooden Indian on guard outside her grandfather’s “Hide House” with its Trading Store signs such as “Hides, Fur, Wool, Pelts and Tallow” scattered all over the walls.
Harry Brady was active in town government politics in Dallas. He was elected Alderman of the 9th Ward and District D under mayors John H. Traylor and Ben Cabell in the years 1897 through 1902, as shown in the History of Dallas County, Texas, by John Henry Brown and John H. Cochran.
Sarah Belknap Brady’s married sister, Parmelia Belknap Myers, was the wife of a dairyman, John Pome Myers, according to the Gen. Directory of the City of Dallas – 1880-1881 which shows, “Miss Sarah Belknap, home of J. P. Myers”, pg. 63 and “John P. Myers, dairyman, res. w s H&TC R ‘y, nr S city limits”, pg. 179. Central Expressway was the location of H&TC railway before the expressway was built. It must have been very close, or at the place where Harry Brady later built his homeplace on Oak Grove and Newman, as it was just west of north Central Expressway as it is now. At that time it was almost in the country.
For many years the Harry Brady family were members of Central Christian Church at Bryan and Pearl Streets, with Rev. Wm. Henry Wright as pastor. About 1920 the Christian Church split over having mechanical music or not, and one faction of the Dallas Central Christian Church, which wanted no mechanical music, became the Church of Christ. The other faction organized and built a little frame church on McKinney Avenue and Hall Streets, the North Dallas Christian Church with Rev. Clinkenbeard as pastor.
The membership of this little North Dallas Church included the H. G. Brady’s and their married children’s families.
The Ladies Aid Society of the church raised funds for its construction and maintenance by running a dining room on the grounds of the State Fair, serving delicious holiday turkey dinners to hungry fair-goers, and becoming very popular with their home cooking. Later this little church built a larger one in Oak Lawn area across Turtle Creek, eventually becoming what is now Northway Christian Church on Northwest Highway.
Harry Brady died at his home at 4229 McKinney Avenue near Fitzhugh on 28 February 1928 at the age of 71. His wife, Sarah Belknap Brady, passed away at the home of their younger daughter ten years later on the 6th of April, 1938 at the age of They are buried together with a double tombstone in Greenwood Cemetery. Harry Brady was instrumental in reorganizing this cemetery as Greenwood after it had orginally been called Trinity Cemetery.
By Marie Brady Hunter, Dallas
