A memorial and biographical history of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties, Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospects; also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens, Part 38

Author:
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 954

USA > Texas > Henderson County > A memorial and biographical history of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties, Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospects; also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 38
USA > Texas > Freestone County > A memorial and biographical history of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties, Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospects; also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 38
USA > Texas > Leon County > A memorial and biographical history of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties, Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospects; also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 38
USA > Texas > Anderson County > A memorial and biographical history of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties, Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospects; also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 38
USA > Texas > Limestone County > A memorial and biographical history of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties, Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospects; also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 38
USA > Texas > Navarro County > A memorial and biographical history of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon counties, Texas from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospects; also biographical mention of many of the pioneers and prominent citizens > Part 38

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The county is well wooded: the most prominent varieties of timber are pine, oak, hickory, and black-jack.

The International & Great Northern Railway runs through the center of the county, one branch running to Houston and one to Laredo, there being eighteen miles of the former and twenty-nine miles of the latter. The value of its property in this county is $660,032.

The Methodist, Catholic, Episcopal, Baptist, Presbyterian, Congregational and Christian churches have church organiza- tions in the county.

Elkhart Mineral Wells, located one and one-half miles from Elkhart Station, on

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HISTORY OF NAVARRO, HENDERSON, ANDERSON,

the Ilouston branch of the International & Great Northern Railroad, are highly appreciated as a health resort, the water being recommended for enfeebled health, dyspepsia, malaria, biliousness, etc.

CENSUS OF 1890.

Population .- United States census, 1880, 17,395; 1890, 20,921; increase 3,526.

Number of votes cast for Governor in 1890, Democratic, 1,594; Republican, 903; total, 2,497.

Palestine is the county seat: population, 5,834. The other principal towns in the county are: Elkhart, population, 110; Nechesville, population, 265; Fosterville, population, 731; Kickapoo, population, 82; Tennessee Colony, population, 87.

Value of property. - The assessed value of all property in 1890, $3,964,646; in 1891, $4,142,625; increase, $177,979.

Lands .- Improved lands sell for from $3 to $10 per acre; unimproved for from $1 to $5 per acre. The average taxable value of land in the county is $2.12 per acre. Acres State school land in the county, 960.

Banks .- There is one private bank in the connty, with a capital stock of $25,000; one national bank, capital stock of $75,000 and a surplus of $10,000, making two banks in the county, with a total capital of $100,000.

Marriages .- Number of marriages in the county during the year, 236; divorces, 13.

Schools .- The county has a total school population of 4,143, with 21 schoolhouses, and gives employment to 84 teachers. Average wages paid teachers: White- males, $48.25; females, $30. Colored- males, $52.85; females, $28. Total num.

ber of pupils enrolled during the year was 3,524; average attendance, 1,842, and the average length of school term 3.73 mouths. The estimated value of schoolhouses and grounds is $4,100. Total tuition revenue received from the State, $16.572.

Farm and Crop Statistics .- There were 75 mortgages recorded in the county dur- ing the year, the amount of such mort- gages being $92,498.51. There were re- corded 1,261 chattel mortgages to produce crops. There are 1,349 farms in the county ; 662 renters on farms; 439 farm laborers were employed on the farmns of the county during the year; average wages paid, $13.16 per month. Value of farming implements, $19,642.

The farmers of this county purchased during the year 298,957 pounds of bacon, 10,072 pounds of lard, 12,450 bushels of corn, 11,496 gallons of molasses.

The products and valne of erops for the year 1890 were as follows:

Cotton-32,266 acres, 11,718 bales, $469,730; cotton seed-5,859 tous, $46,- 872; corn-28,332 acres, 300,386 bushels, $180,494; oats-231 acres, 34,965 bush- els, $17,439; sweet potatoes-455 acres, 52,649 bushels, $26,130; Irish potatoes- 29 acres, 2,667 bushels, $2,667; peas- 712 acres, 5,268 bushels, $5,268; cultiva- ted hay-19 acres. 35 tons, $360; prairie hay-none; millet-3 acres, 8 tons, $160; canesyrup-none reported ; sorghum molasses-225 acres, 784 barrels, $16,- 225; sorghum cane-122 acres, 187 tons, $3,755; tobacco -¿ acre, 200 pounds, $50; peanuts -¿ acre, 72 bushels, $75.

Fruits and Garden .- Fruit crop a total failure. Acres in melons 69, value $4,837;

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in garden 280%, value $25,049; in grape vines 284 acres, value $300.

Bees .- Stands of bees 973, pounds of honey 16,996, value $81,784.

Live Stock .- Number of horses and mules 5,589, value $245,277; cattle, 22,- 706, value $133,649; jacks and jennets 39, value $5,155; sheep 1,085, valne $1,388; goats 2,171, value $2,154; hogs 14,017, value $15,547.

Wool .- Number of sheep sheared, 90; pounds of wool clipped, 295; value of wool clipped, $55.

County Finances .-- The rate of county tax on the $100. valuation for 1890 was 50 cents. On December 31, 1890, there was a balance in the county treasury of $35,521.74. The indebtedness on December 31, 1890: Outstanding courthouse bonds, $35,500; road and bridge bonds, $2,000; all other bonds,$2,000. Total bonded indebted- ness, $39,500.

The county expended during the year $104.60 for repairing public buildings, $2,181.42 for roads and bridges, $3,857.91 for support of paupers, $2,000 bonds re- deemed, $810 for grand jury, $3,224 for petit jury. Total amount expended for the support of the county government, $24,191.52.

Criminal Statistics .-- There were incar- cerated in the county jail of the county during the year 254 persons-males 234, females, 20; white 84, colored 170-on the following charges: Murder 8, theft 34, ar- son 1, robbery 1, burglary 10, forgery 3, assault to murder 10, assault and battery 5, rape 2; all other charges and crimes 180.

Miscellaneous .- There are in the county 15 lawyers, 2 dentists, 75 mercantile es- tablishments, 1 wholesale liquor dealer, 4 beer dealers, 1 flour mill, several sawmills, 1 ice factory, 12 retail liquor dealers.

LIMESTORE COURTY 1

GEOLOGY.

HE economic value of these chalky clay marls, says the geologist, Ro- bert T. Hill, in referring to the Exo- gyra ponderosa marls, -so called from a large fossil oyster found in them at certain points, and which are so charac- teristic of the section in which this chapter is concerned,-" is that they are the foundation and source of the rich soil of the main black waxy prairie of Texas, the largest continuons area of residual agricultural soil in the United States, apparently inexhaustible in fertility; for as the farmer plows deeper and deeper he constantly turns to light the fertile marls which renew the vitality."

Here is his description of it: "The surface of most of the black prairie region is a deep-black clay soil, which when wet becomes excessively tenacious, from which fact it is locally called ' black waxy.' 'It in general is the residuum of the under- lying clays, and contains an excess of lime, which, acting upon the vegetation by com- plicated chemical changes, causes the black color. It is exceedingly productive, and nearly every foot of its area is susceptible of a high state of cultivation, constituting one of the largest continuous agricultural regions in the United States. Large crops of cotton, corn and minor crops are annu-

ally raised upon its fertile lands, and if there were facilities for proper transporta- tion it would soon be one of the leading districts of our country. "

As this almost covers the entire area of Limestone county, it will be of interest to note Mr. Hill's divisions of it. "The black prairie is subdivided longitudinally," he writes, "into four parallel strips of country, differing slightly, and distinguishiable only by slight differences in topography and in the underlying rocks. The easternmost of these divisions north of the Brazos river is distinguishable by the occurrence of sand in its black soil, and occasionally purer belts of sand. Between the Brazos and Colorado rivers, however, the sand is hardly perceptible. Immediately interior of this is located the largest and most characteris- tic area, which is marked by the stiffest of the black, waxy, calcareous clay soils. Upon digging through this area the sub- structure is found to consist of a light blue or yellow calcareous clay, called by resi- dents ' soapstone' and ' joint clay,' from its jointed and laminated structure. The sur- face, especially of the high, undrained di- vides, is also accompanied in many places by minute depressions, known as hog-wal- lows, which are produced by the drying, cracking and disintegrating character of these excessive calcareons clays in poorly

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drained places. This, the main portion of the black prairie, constitutes fully two- thirds of its total area. The cities of Greenville, Terrell, Corsicana and Kauf- man are situated near the border of the sandy and black waxy strips. Manor, Clarksville, Taylor and Temple are all situ- ated in the main black waxy belt."

Of the four divisions of it he mentions, this sketch is most interested in the fourth, or marls above mentioned, and the eastern outcrop of it, or glauconitic division. And before giving the well-borings of Marlin, the geologist's account of the marls may be noticed. "The eastward continuation of the Austin-Dallas chalk is covered by what is the most extensive and valuable, but least appreciated, geological formation in the United States-a remarkable deposit of chalky clays, aggregating some 1,200 feet in thickness, according to reported well-borings and estimates of the normal dip. In fact these clays are so little known that no popular name has been found for thein, and hence they are called after the immense fossil oyster which is found in them. These clays occupy the whole of the mnain black prairie region east of the Austin-Dallas chalk, and form the basis of the rich black waxy soil. Notwithstanding their areal extent, good outcrops of the unaltered structure are seldom seen, owing to their rapid disintegration. Usually they are seen only in ravines, creeks or fresh diggings. However, at the Blue Bluffs of the Colorado, six miles east of Austin, a good exposure is afforded, where these clays can be readily studied and diagnosed. They are of a fine consistency, unconsolidated, and apparently unlaminated until exposed to

weathering, when their laminated character is developed. They are light blue before atmospheric exposure, but rapidly change to a dull yellow, owing to thie oxidation of the contained pyrites of iron. Their chief accessory constituent is lime in a chalky condition, and they are more calcareous at their base than at their top. Near the top of these and other exposures there is to be seen a rapid transition into the black cal- careous clay soil, characteristic of chalk and chalky clays, whenever their excess of lime comes in contact with vegetation. The minute details of these clays have not yet been ascertained, and from the nature of the problem it is not evident that they can be discovered speedily; but it is apparent that they are calcareous and fossiliferous at their base, where they probably graduate into the Austin chalk. Their middle portion is apparently void of well-preserved fossils, yet impressions are abundant in places. Toward the top, as seen one mile north of Webberville, ten miles east of Austin, they become slightly arenaceous and concre- tionary and very fossiliferous, indicating a gradation into the glauconitic division." Of the latter lie says: "This division is of the upper continuation of the Ponderosa marls, its chief difference being that the clays graduate into sands and glauconite as we ascend, and there are conspicuous changes in the fossils, which become more plenti- ful, and the species partake of the same formal characteristics that distinguish the Cretaceous of the New Jersey and Alabama regions. * * Like the black waxy prairie lands, from which they are hardly distinguishable, they are fine agricultural lands, possessing an advantage in being

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less sticky and tenacious. The glauconite or greensand will no doubt be found in greater and purer quantities in some locali- ties than others, and will prove of great local valne as a fertilizer."

The water conditions of the Cretaceous period, to which this belongs, are neatly summed up by Mr. Hill thus: " A ques- tion of great importance to the Cretaceous region is that of water conditions, and much attention has been given to it. The ascer- tainment, utilization and improvement of these, instead of being a matter entirely of rainfall, as is nsnally supposed, is more a question of structural conditions of the rock that underlie the region. It may strike the reader as a bold proposition to state that a fall of fifteen inches of rain in proper season per annum upon one field may be of more value than a hundred in:ches upon an adjacent one, if they be of two different formations. One formation may imbibe nearly all the rain that falls upon it; another may imbibe less than one per cent. of it. Another stratum may be- come saturated and slowly yield its moist- ure to agriculture, as in the case of the Ponderosa clay marls underlying the main black waxy area; while another, like the upper cross timber sands, may give up its moisture so rapidly, owing to its porosity, that it is poorly adapted to stand drouth and heat. Again, as has been said, one rock sheet may drink in much of the rain- fall and convey it through pores to a lower region, where by boring from above they may be tapped and come forth as abundant artesian waters for a streamless and spring- less region. By the study of the dip and extent of such a sheet, we have been en-

abled to accurately predict the extent and importance of an artesian area, the value of which, when fully appreciated, to the people in the region in which it lies, will be greater in dollars than the cost of the survey; for by the simple knowledge of this fact artesian water can be supplied to an area of 30,000 square miles of one of the most fertile districts in America."

In view of the fact that underlying layers dip so rapidly to the south, it has been with some hesitancy that the borings have been attempted to the southward, on account of the increasingly greater depth that seems almost certain to be met in sinking wells for the layer of Trinity sands, in which the real artesian supply is to be found. The city of Marlin, however, has undertaken the experiment, and at the present writing the borings measure as follows and in the order given from the surface down: first, 1,160 feet of blue Ponderosa marl; next down to a depth of 1,260 from the surface, chalk; from there down to 1,325 feet from. the surface, blue marl again; then to 1,375 feet, limestone; then to 1,660 feet, blue marl with streaks of limestone; then to 2,050 feet, hard, white limestone; then to 2,230 feet, blue marl again and streaked with limestone; then to 2,630, the depth at this writing, white, hard limestone. The Trinity sands, it is thought, will be reached between 2,700 and 2,900 feet. A flow of 86,400 gallons a day has already been reached, however, having a higher temper- ature and increasing with depth. The first flow of importance in this well was struck at a depth of 2,390 feet. This temperature is much higher than that of the Waco wells. There is no doubt that Limestone

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county can be equally successful in this line, as she covers the artesian latitude of botlı Waco and Marlin.

Turning now to the surface drainage of the territory under consideration, as Lime- stone county alone, its distance somewhat midway between the Brazos and the Trinity rivers gives it a unique drainage of its own, nainely, the supply for the head waters of the Navasota river. This river is but a little to the east of a middle course through the county southward and does the great bulk of the county's drainage, and with its bottom and the elevations like Tehuacana Hills serve to give the prairies a beautiful diversity of landscape.

The county is of a somewhat regular form, surrounded by Hill, Navarro, Free- stone, Leon, Robertson, Falls and McLen- nan counties, and with an area of 974 square miles. While its crops are diversi- fied and rich it leads the middle Trinity valley in cotton, with 27,274 bales in 1889. Its cotton record has been quite remark- able for the past four decades, in that it has about trebled its production in every succeeding decade. In 1859 it raised 1,303 bales, and advanced this to 3,414 in 1869. Ten years more and these figures were nearly multiplied by three, for 1879 showed a product of 9,037 bales. The dec- ade of the '80s was still more positive in its multiplication and raised the product of 1889 to more than three times that of 1879, giving a round total of 27,274 bales of cotton, raised on 64,868 acres of Lime- stone's farms in 1889. This places her among the two dozen Texas counties that raised over 20,000 bales in that year, and in the list of nineteen that raised over 25,000 bales.

This made her rank fourteenth as a Texas cotton county in 1889, the record being: Ellis, 42,701 bales; Hill, 38,175 bales; Fayette, 37,559 bales; Bell, 37,473 bales; Collin, 37,094 bales; Williamson, 33,945 bales; Robertson, 32,307 bales; McLennan, 30,383 bales; Travis, 29,744 bales; Wash- ington, 29,158 bales; Milam, 28,891 bales; Grayson, 28,669 bales; Falls, 28,228 bales; and Limestone, 27,274 bales in 1889. The fourteenth place in 226 counties of the greatest cotton State in the Union is an enviable position. As the entire product of 1889 was 1,470,353 bales for the State, and these first fourteen counties totaled 461,601, it will be seen that these counties raised but little below a third of the State's entire crop. When one-sixteenth of the counties of a State can raise practically one-third of the entire crop they are right royal counties, and such a county is Lime- stone.

INDIANS.

"The whole Indian population of Texas, when Austin colony was planted," says Mr. Kennedy in his excellent work on Texas published in 1841, "may be estimated at 30,000 souls, of which, however, bnt a small portion ranged in the immediate neighborhood of the settlements, or resided within the bounds of Texas proper." This was in the early '20s; and, judging from the large amount of hostile attention of the white settlers that the Indians required in the whole early career of Texas, these figures seem surprising in these days of great populations; but the estimate is no doubt accurate.

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HISTORY OF NAVARRO, HENDERSON, ANDERSON,

There are really two periods of Indian life in Texas; that of the native tribes at a somewhat indefinite time previous to the '30s, before what were known as "the Chero- kees and their twelve associate bands" had entered, an entry extending back as far as 1822 and '24, and the period since. About five-sixths of the native tribes were in the western half of the State. The chief of these were the wild and vigorous Co- inanches, a powerful and well trained na- tion on the look out for large enterprises, and, unlike some of their offshoots, the Te- huacanas, the Wacos,and a few other tribes, who later became petty farmers and still more petty thieves. In early days the Te- huacanas were chiefly on the upper Colo- rado river, later in Limestone and McLen- nan connties, and the Wacos on the upper Brazos, with a village headquarters at Waco Springs. In alliance with the Wacos were the Towashes or Pawnee Picts to- ward the Red river. Still farther up in the northwest were the Tonkawas. The Keechis were in Freestone. The Bidais and Anadarcos were weak, roving tribes also. These are the only early native tribes, with which this chapter need have any con- cern, and that only with the offshoot tribes who were in later days very degenerate, and all enemies of the main Comanche na- tion in the west and southwest.

Into this situation, in the middle and later '20s, came from the East about 4,000 of "the Cherokees and their Twelve As- sociate Bands," -- " Kickapoos, Conshat- tas, Delawares, Shawnees, Beluxis, Chero- kees, Ionis, Alabamas, Choctaws, Unata- quas, Quapaws, Tohooktookies, and Cad- dos,"-tribes considerably stronger and

more intelligible than the offshoot native tribes, and with considerable property in negro slaves and a more or less civilized form of agriculture. They had some money, too, from sale of their lands in the East. This made thein somewhat ag- gressive and independent toward both the whites in east Texas and the Wacos, Te- huacanas, Keechis and others in central and west Texas. They were all the more successful because of the distracted condition of the government of that tinie. So between the whites and the Chero- kees, the Wacos and their allies were driven from their village at the spring and the Cherokees took their places, in the woodland opposite the Waco Spring after they had ruined the Tehuacan coun- cil house at Tehuacana Springs in Lim- stone's territory.

At this point the relations of the Te- huacana Indians to the Wacos may be noticed, and the account is given in the words of a Texas pioneer writer in " In- dian Depredations in Texas," the facts having been received from a Spaniard who had lived much with these Indians, and who proved his faithfulness to Texas by a fearful death at the hands of Mexi- cans in 1843. "During the year 1829," says the writer, "the Cherokees who had crossed Red river from the Cherokee na- tion into Texas, determined to remain in that portion of the State until they could make a crop and then move to a more suit- able locality the next spring. They set- tled in two villages a short distance apart, planted their crops, and everything was going on prosperously, when a body of Wacos who were on a robbing excursion

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discovered the new settlement, and also no- ticed the fact that there was a large num- ber of fine horses corraled in the vicinity. They determined to appropriate these fine horses for their own use and benefit, and they therefore concealed themselves in the vicinity until night, when they slipped up and succeeded in stealing the whole drove. As the Cherokees could not well leave their crops, and the Wacos besides had carried off their best horses, they thought best to postpone following the thieves to a more favorable opportunity. It was resolved in council, however, that as soon as their crops were laid by they would visit their red brethren, recapture their stolen horses, and inflict such punishment on the Wacos as would teach them a lesson they would not soon forget.

"Accordingly, in April. 1829, fifty-five well armed Cherokees left on foot to visit and punish the Wacos, whose principal village was at the place where the city of Waco is now situated. Close by their vil- lage they had built a kind of fortification by scooping out the ground and raising a circular embankment around the depres- sion thus formned, several feet high. The remains of this fortress were still visible a few years since on the outskirts of the city of Waco.

"The Cherokees came to the Brazos .

river, about forty miles above the Waco village. Finding no signs of the enemy at that point, they continued down the river until they discovered that they were in close proximity to the village. They then concealed themselves in the brush until night, and sent out scouts to ascer- tain its exact position.

"About daybreak the spies came back, having obtained, the desired information, and the chief told his men that the time had come to wreak vengeance upon the thieving Wacos and to recover from them the horses they had stolen. In order to take them by surprise the Cherokee chief led his men quietly and cautiously down the bank of the river to a point about 400 yards from the village. This was done a little before daylight, when the Wacos were asleep, and the Cherokees were thus en- abled to approach very near thein without being discovered. They were halted until daylight.

"As soon as it was light enough to see distinctly, the Cherokees moved forward as noiselessly as possible, each one with his rifle in his hand. But one of the Waco warriors, it seems, was an early riser, and while in the act of building his camp-fire his keen Indian ear detected the sounds of approaching footsteps. Rising to look, he discovered the Cherokees advancing with- in rifle-shot of the village. He gave one loud, shrill yell, which brought every Waco to his feet and ready for action.

"At this juncture the Cherokees fired a volley in their midst which laid many a Waco on the ground. The Wacos, how- ever, greatly outnumbered the Cherokees, and for some time they inade a stubborn resistance. The fight lasted for several hours without intermission. At length, however, the Wacos, finding that their bows and arrows availed but little against the deadly rifles of the Cherokees, and a considerable number of their warriors having already fallen, they retreated to the fortress before mentioned, where they had

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a great advantage over their assailants. They could lie down behind the embank- ments and shoot their arrows at the Chero- kees without being exposed to the fire of their rifles. The Cherokces held a council of war as to what was best to be done. One proposition was to strip themselves naked, rush to the fort, discharge their guns, and then with their tomahawks in hand kill every man, woman and child in- side of it. The Cherokee brave who made this proposition, in order to incite his comrades, did actually strip himself, and, fastening several belts he had found in the Waco village around his body, he boldly charged up to the breastwork surrounding the fortress, sprang on top and cursed the Wacos for being a cowardly set of thieves. After performing this act of bravado he jumped down and returned unhurt to his comrades, amid a shower of arrows that were hurled at him.

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Author: Publication date: 1893 Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Publishing Co. Number of Pages: 954

Author:
Publication date: 1893
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Publishing Co.
Number of Pages: 954