Memorial and biographical history of Dallas County, Texas, Part 16

Author: Lewis publishing company, Chicago, pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1128

USA > Texas > Dallas County > Memorial and biographical history of Dallas County, Texas > Part 16

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

This association has met annnally ever since 13

its organization. We have been unable to get the proceedings of each meeting.

The following is the report of the last meeting of the association at Garland as printed in the Dallas News; also incidents that occurred in pioneer days of the county, as related by different members.

GARLAND, TEXAS, JULY 13.

Dallas county pioneer association, organ- ized July 13, 1875, in reunion here. The officers are John Henry Brown, president; Win. II. Hord, Elisha McCommas and Mrs. C. B. Durgin, vice presidents; Rev. John M. Myers, chaplain; Gabriel A. Knight, treas- urer; Win. C. McKamy, secretary.

Executive Committee-M. D. L. Gracey. John HI. Cole, Win. H. Beeman, Dr. James II. Swindells, Mrs. Rhoda Ann McCommas, Mrs. Martha Beeman and Mrs. Martha E. Gracey.

Committeeon badges and printing-W. H. Bceman and Mrs. Martha Beeman.

Garland committee of arrangements-T. F. Nash, John H. Cochran, John H. Whitfield, John T. Jones, B. J. Prigmore, James H, Pickett and J. S. Strawther.

Hon. T. F. Nash welcomed the gathering.

Mrs. Mary Guilliot Potter's poem was read as follows :

The mem'ries of years, To braye pioneers,

Are dearer and brighter each day; As dreams of a song, The past that is gone,

Comes back to your heart alway.

In a land wildly new, Your stout hearts and true,

The banner of progress unfurled, With hands brave and strong You labored full long- A lesson of thrift to the world.

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HISTORY OF DALLAS COUNTY.

Tho' dangers were great, Tho' none knew the fate In a country to Indians a prey, Your strong frontier arm Protected from harm

Your dear ones thro' perils each day.

Your labors are done; The glorious sun

Of prosperity shines in its power ; And cities have grown From seeds you have sown,

And the country develops each hour.

Where little homes stood, Made of stout forest wood,

There are mansions and churches with spires ; And carriages roll On streets where of old

Patient oxen slow drove thro' the mires.

There is life everywhere- Sounds of work in the air,

Of forges and factories full blast ; And lights brightly gleam Where of old the stars beam

Thro' shadows of forests were cast.

The years have brought change ; Where wild cattle ranged

There are hamlets and picturesque towns; And Dallas the queen Of our county, serene

On her river enthrones, and is crowned.

With hopes brighter still, - For boat whistles shrill

Will re-echo her green shores along; And factories grim Will rise on the rim Of the river, with hum and with song.

In every age There's a brighter page To each country and nation dear; And historians write With a pen of light The deeds of the pioneer.

Hon. J. H. Cochran was elected secretary.

The president announced the deaths, since the last meeting, as follows: Captain Middle- ton Perry and his wife, Mrs. Ellen Perry, one of the vice presidents; Mrs. Nancy P., widow of Pleasant Taylor; Mrs. Sarah H. Cockrell, Mrs. Emily Beeman (the oldest fe-

male resident of the county, having settled in it in April, 1842); Ethiel S. Miller, Hamilton MeDowell, Colonel Charilaus (Crill) Miller, Thomas M. Williams, Mrs. Adaline Newton, J. H. Holloway, I. C. Atterberry, Mrs. Mary A. Martin, J. H. Moss, Mrs. Virgie Rawlins, Mrs. Rosa Anderson and Mrs. W. P. Arm- strong.

The event was celebrated by two weddings: Mr. Jackson was united to Miss Amelia Rainey and Mr. Mike C. Roupe to Mrs. F. P. Williams.

GARLAND, Texas, July 14.

At 4 o'clock this afternoon the eighteenth annual reunion of Dallas county pioneers closed its session, and the pioneers are leav- ing for their homes singing the praises of Garland and community for the unbounded hospitality and good cheer that has been be- stowed upon the visitors. Yesterday there were fully 2,500 people in attendance, and to-day's attendance was estimated at 2,000. Dinner was spread under the beautiful shade trees in Garland park both days. Everybody was fed, and there were taken up several basket- fuls of fragments. A vote of thanks was passed by the association to the Garland peo- ple for their hospitality.

Dr. Arch Cochran's memorial of the dead was pronounced a tonehing and eloquent ad- dress, and it brought tears to the eyes of many of the old pioneers. He spoke nearly an hour and a half. The remainder of the day was spent in short talks by various members of the association, including President John Henry Brown, C. H. Patrick. Jack Cole, T. F. Naslı

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HISTORY OF DALLAS COUNTY.

Colonel J. S. Strother, Gustave H. Schleicher of Cuero, Dude Knight and others.

Major John Henry Brown, the pioneer his- torian and the president of the association, delivered a short address just before the ad- journment. Touching elaims of Baptist his- tory recalled in a short address by Chaplain Myers, Major Brown said that his mother's father, a Baptist preacher in 1799, preached where St. Louis now stands the first Protest- ant sermon ever delivered west of the Mis- sissippi river. He (the speaker) came to Texas, he said, in 1834, " and," he proceeded, "iny old mother would have thought it as bad as a grave robbery to charge a man for a night's lodging. I never charged a man and I never will. You old pioneers never charged. Things have changed. People are grasping. They are in a hurry to get rich. We were contented with what we had and we enjoyed it with our neighbors and our fellow man. When a boy went to see his girl he rode a pony, and if he didn't have a pony he walked. He went on Sunday; people were busy every other day. They were hard-working and honest."

Major Brown advised the young men to be industrions, to observe and adopt the simple habits and sterling integrity of their ances- tors, for in those qualities, he said, lie the true principles of noble manhood and royal citizenship.

The election of officers resulted in the re- election of the old board, as follows: John Ilenry Brown, president; William II. Hord, Elisha McComas, Mrs. C. B. Durgin, vice- presidents; Elder John M. Myers, chaplain ;

Gabriel A. Knight, treasurer; William C. McKamy. secretary. Executive committee --- E. A. Gracy, John II. Cole, William H. Bee- man, Tolbert Lavender, Mrs. Rhoda Ann McComas, Mrs. Martha Beeman, Mrs. Mar- tha E. Gracy, Mrs. Emily Gray, John Bryan and Elisha Halsell.

Farmers' Branch was selected as the next place of meeting and the eighteenth annual session of the Dallas County Pioneers' Asso- ciation then adjourned with the benediction of the chaplain, Rev. John M. Myers.

Soon after adjournment the old pioneers and their descendants and guests began to scatter in every direction to their homes. Some drove as far as ten miles in two-horse wagons to attend the reunion.

At the Missouri, Kansas & Texas depot, people for Dallas were congregated in num- bers sufficient to fill three coaches. When the train rolled in it had only two cars and they were already partially filled. The scramble of the crowd on the platform for seats and standing room in the cars exceeded anything of the kind ever seen in Dallas, not excepting the Confederate re-union. One lady carrying a little three-year-old girl in her arms was knocked down and knocked off the platform in the mad rush. A gentleman picked her up. She was not seriously hurt. The crowd gave no heed the placard " For Negroes," which greeted the view in each coach; and a gentleman remarked that if the governor prosecuted under this infringement of the separate-coach law about fifty ladies would appear as defendants. The excursion

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train to Dallas was crowded like a street ear during the State Fair.

The pioneers were full of the history and tradition of Dallas connty. much of which was sacred to the memories of the past.

Mr. W. P. Overton, although seventy-one years old, has a light step, lithe form and clear blue eyes, while his flowing white beard gives him a patriarchal appearance. IIc came to the county in 1844, and a few years afterward opened a farm five miles south of the city of Dallas, which is his home to this day.

"When I first came to Dallas," he began, his mind stretching back nearly half a cen- tury, "there was a little pole hut on the bank of the Trinity, occupied by John Neely Bry- an, and a rough courthouse made ont of post- oak logs, and that's all there was of Dallas, John Neely Bryan was living under bond to marry his wife. It was to far to go to get a marriage license then. I think license for the first marriage in Dallas county was is- sued from Nacogdoches, in 1845. There were very few preachers in the country in those days. Among the number was Amy McComas of Missouri, long since dead.

"My father put up the first gristmill ever built in the county. It was a horse-mill and the first bushel of wheat ground was for old uncle John Cole, Jack Cole's father. Before the mill was put up the people ground their corn and wheat in mortars or hand mills. Coffee mills were frequently used to grind the meal. When we put up our mill people brought grist to it from 100 miles away, and I have seen as many as twenty-seven wagons

there at the same time waiting for their turn. We ground out about 100 bushels a day, which was considered a good day's work. 1 have lived in Dallas county ever since I came here except two years that I was in Califor- nia along in 1849-'50. Texas is the best country in my opinion under the sun. Cal- ifornia is a good country, but it has only two seasons, wet and dry. I don't think that God ever made a better country than Texas. Take a belt throngh Grayson, Collin, Dallas, Ellis and Navarro counties and you have, in my opinion, the best country in Texas. In its early settlement it was dry, but we al- ways made enough to do ns and sometimes something to spare. We have as fine crops this year as I have ever scen in the county. We had better times before the railroads came, we could sell everything we raised, money was more plentiful and every body had it then. A ten-year-old boy had more money then than the average farmer has to-day. It has gone into the hands of the few and we can't get it as we used to. The winter that I re- turned from California I bought pork, but I never have bought any meat since, though I have sold thousands of pounds. When I first came to this country it was no more like it is now than chalk is like cheese. Men were not trying to swindle each other. I could go to Dallas and lie down with $100,000, and it would be there next morning. There was no stealing those days, and if you wanted to borrow $500 or such an amount you didn't have to give a mortgage to get it. I knew men to borrow $500 and never give a note. "I was a member of the first jury impa-

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HISTORY OF DALLAS COUNTY.

eled in Dallas county: Mrs. Dalton, a dangh- ter of John Ilewitt, asked for a divorce from her husband. We gave it to her. and before sun down that day Ilenderson Couch, fore- inan of the jury, married her! Bill Ochiltree was the judge. The first legal hanging was in 1853 or 1854. A negress was executed for knocking a man in the head with an ax at Cedar Springs. He had her hired and she murdered him while he was asleep. I can't reeall their names.

"The town of Dallas burned July 8, 1860. A lot of men had been smoking that Sunday around Sam Prior's drug-store, and I think the fire started from that. Crill Miller's house (the burning of which was mentioned in last Sunday's News) was not burned, but his wheat stacks and cribs were burned. A chunk of fire had been placed on a bed beneath the mattress, but when the mattress was turned baek it smothered the fire out and the house did not burn. Crill's negro boy, Bruce, told about another negro, Spence, giving him a dollar to fire the house. I think the hanging of the three negroes for burning the town was unjust, because I don't believe they were guilty. At the courthouse, when the com- mittee was investigating the fire, there came near being a squally time between Judge Nat M. Burford and Colonel John C. McCoy. "I am a broad and a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, and I am a Clark Demoerat. £ I believe in giving every man a show at office."

Calaway 11. Patrick settled in Robertson, now Leon, county, April, 1841. November, 1846, he removed to Dallas county and set- tled five miles southeast of Wilmer, where he

has sinee resided. He is an old Mexican war veteran and an Indian fighter. "One evening in the year 1843," he said, "I was engaged with others building a flatboat at the fall of the Brazos. I went out of camp a short dis- tance and I thought I heard an owl hooting. I listened, and I soon decided that the owls which I thought I heard were Indians, be- cause when a man mimies an owl there is an echo, but there is no echo to a genuine owl- hoot. I got lost from eamp, and not long after I heard the Indians I saw some deer running from me. I wouldn't have fired at them for any money, but it was a good oppor- tunity for me to run and I took after them. I swam a bayon and found my way into the town of Bucksnort. The next morning we made up a party there and went out to look for the Indians. We found that they had followed me the evening before up to the bank of the bayon, but they had left the locality and we conld not find them. In 1843 a treaty was held with the Indians at Grapevine prairie. I was there, and after the treaty a party of us went to Cedar Springs, and we came on down the trail now known as MeKinney avenue to Jolin Neely Bryan's log cabin, which was located at the foot of what is now Main street in Dallas. I bought eight quarts of whisky from him, at 25 cents a quart, and it was whisky, too. Ile had about a barrel and a half of whisky, a keg of tobacco and some lead, powder and caps, which he had hanled from Shreveport. That was his stock. When you went to a man's house in those days, if he was fortunate enough to have a honse, you slept in the

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HISTORY OF DALLAS COUNTY.

same room with the family. There was no house of several rooms and a stairs; it was all one room. Of course the men folks would leave the room while the women went to bed. Yon would go up to a man's house and he would ask you to have your horse hobbled or staked. There were no stables to put them in. I have struck many a place where they didn't have a bite to eat, but after people had been here a year or two yon generally found thein with plenty to eat. The early settlers lived on game, which was plentiful, and they got bread the best they could. We had no use for money mueh, because what the country couldn't get and didn't have money wouldn't buy, no matter how much a fellow had of it. In those days we had for money the ' Texas red-baek.' It was money of the Republie, and it was something like the old Continental money. Then after that we had the Republie exchequer bill. Now many people will tell you that Texas was annexed to the Union in 1845, but it was not annexed until 1846 , the 19th day of February, when J. Pinkney Henderson was sworn in as gov- ernor and Anson Jones retired as president of the Republic. The convention met in July, 1841, and framed a constitution which was submitted to a vote of the people, who ratified it the first Tuesday in November, 1845. After the meeting of the House of Representatives the constitution adopted by the people of Texas was sent to the Congress of the United States, and it did not get back to Texas until February, 1846, when the change of government was made. I voted against annexation at a voting box where

Oak Cliff now stands. I was a member of Colonel Tom I. Smith's company of rangers; six of our company voted against it and five for it. I opposed it because I wanted the Republie to continue."

Mr. W. H. Beeman, while a quiet and retired old gentleman, was one of the most interesting of the old pioneers attending the reunion at Garland. He came to Texas from Illinois with his father in 1840, and settled. in what is now Dallas county in 1842. Mr. Beeman was the first to break the sod for agricultural pursuits in the county, in the spring of 1842. It was a plat of seven or eight aeres about four miles east of the city of Dallas. At the same time he ereeted the second house built in Dallas county, the first being a log strneture put up by John Neely Bryan, the founder of Dallas, a few weeks before, whose eabin stood, Mr. Beeman says, at the foot of Main street. Speaking of early life in Dallas county, Mr. Beeman said to a News reporter: "We lived very hard at first. We had wild meats and bread. I dressed the buckskins and made my moeea- sins and clothes, except shirts, for three years. We finger-pieked eotton which the women used in weaving clothes and shirts for the men. For two years we beat our meal for bread on a mortar or ground it in a hand mill. We had to bny eorn in Fannin county. I rode in the first wagon and ent the road as we went into Dallas. We came in after eedar timber, which we eut to build a fenee around HIam Rattan's grave. Rattan, who was a brother-in-law of Governor Throckmorton, was killed by the Indians on Ehn Fork while

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HISTORY OF DALLAS COUNTY.

out bear hunting. He was buried twenty iniles west of Dallas, at Bird's fort, but no- body knows to-day where his grave is."

Although Mr. Beeman was one of the most active participants in the organization of the county and has been a constant resident of the county, he has nover held and never sought office. "When the county was organ- ized in 1846," he said, "I went and got the order from the county court of Robertson county at Franklin. I rode a mustang and went alone. It was an Indian country then, and the trip was attended with considerable risk. I camped out each night. When I was returning home one night on the other side of Richland creek, I saw a herd of buffa- loes. A storm approached that night and the buffaloes gathered in a great herd, which became wild with fright, and I could not tell the roar of the storm from the sound of the moving buffaloes. I sought protection in a skirt of timber close by.

"I assisted in building the first ferryboat that was ever put in the Trinity at Dallas. We took two large cottonwood logs, and after digging them out like canoes, we fastened them together with puncheon. This was the floor. We had no rope; buffalo rawhide stretched so that we could not use it, so we took buffalo hair and twisted it into a rope with which we towed the boat. The boat was located at what is now the foot of Com- merce street bridge, and we carried across the river in it all the early settlers of the county.

" The Indians used to give us a great deal of trouble. When we came to Dallas county

we left our teams of horses at Honey Grove, fearing the Indians would get them if we brought them farther. We drove oxen from Honey Grove to Dallas. Once the Indians made a raid just across the river from Dallas and stole about eighteen head of horses. A party of nineteen of us followed them to Wise county, and there we lost track of them among the friendly Indians. When we started home we ran out of provisions and bought some meat from the Indians. It was said to be horse meat, but it tasted good to a half starved man. We traveled the next day without anything to eat, and that night I shot a wild turkey on Denton creek. Nineteen men fed on it and we got up hungry. When we struck Elm fork I killed a deer, which we roasted and ate without salt or bread; but, fortunately for us, we reached home the next night.

" We lived peaceably and enjoyed ourselves those days. We had no trouble. Everybody was honest. I remember the first case of stealing that I ever heard of in the county. A young man was driving sheep down Elm fork to Dallas. On the way down he entered a place and stole a butcher knife and comb and some other little articles. He was over- taken and the parties gave him his choice be- tween a certain number of lashes and prose- cution in the courts at Dallas. He said that he would take the lashes, but he wished a thousand rails that he had not committed the theft. That was a common expression of re- gret those days. To split a thousand rails was a big task. I believe if more of that

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HISTORY OF DALLAS OOUNTY.

kind of punishment was inflicted to-day we would have less stealing.

"I remember the burning of Dallas in

1860. I was not in town that day. The fire started on the west side of the square at Wallace Peak's drug store. While the people were at work trying to check it at that point it broke out on the east side, and then they told me it broke out here and there so fast that they could not keep up with it. There is no doubt but the negroes fired the town. They said they did, and the two white preachers, whom they said had put them up to it, were whipped and sent out of the country. Just before the fire Alex. Cockrell had built a three-story brick tavern. The building was 50x 100 feet, and it was the largest and finest building in all North Texas. It burned. A brick ware- room on the north side of Commerce Street covers the spot where this tavern was built .. I kept the first tavern in Dallas in a small house on the north side of the square. Old man Tom Crutchfield rented it, and finally he built the old Crutchfield house on the north- west corner of the square, which was burned several times. But speaking of the hanging of the three negroes for setting fire to Dallas, in 1860, when excavations were being made for the Texas & Pacific railway bridge across the Trinity at Dallas, their bones were un- earthed. They were buried there after they were hanged. I remember the first legal hanging in the county. It was the first trial for murder, and the negro woman, who had split a man's head open with an ax, while he was asleep, was hanged.

"I remember when steamboats were on the Trinity. I made the trip on the Sallie Haynes from Magnolia to the month of East Fork. I am a firm believer in the navigation of the Trinity to Dallas. I think it can be done with the expenditure of a little money in eleaning out dritts and cutting overhang- ing timber, and I believe that boats can be ran here six to nine months each year.

"We were subjected to many privations and many hardships in the early days. When we left home we did not know but that on onr return we would find our families butchered by the Indians or that we ourselves would be shot and killed. A part of the time we were in constant dread and fear and we invited immigration. We welcomed the new- comer and divided what we had with him. We wanted him to increase our numbers and help keep back the foe."

Mr. Beeman married Miss Martha E. Dye near now what is now the town of Garland in 1851. They have eight children and a num- ber of grandehildren. His sister Margaret, who is yet living, was the wife of John Neely Bryan.

Mr. M. D. L. Graey, who now lives at Mineral wells, was one of the forty-divers that settled in Dallas county near the present town of Lisbon. He was at the reunion of the old pioneers, renewing old acquaintances and reviving past memories. " When I came here," he said, " I ran away from my home in Illinois at the age of fifteen years, and I began freighting. The first trip I made was from Shreveport to Dallas, and then I com- menced hauling from Houston to Dallas.

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HISTORY OF DALLAS COUNTY.

The first two or three years I worked for wages and drove an ox team. After that I got a team of my own. We charged from $4.50 to 85 per 100 pounds for hanling from Houston, and we hauled about 6,000 pounds at a load. We used bois d'arc wagons with iron axles, drawn by five and six yokes of steers; and in the spring and summer, when the roads were good, we made the trip in about four weeks, though I have been as long as six weeks on the road. After hauling awhile I bought a certificate from the State and located 320 acres of land which I have held ever since. Corn, wheat, watermelons and pumpkins were about the only crops we tried to raise at first. There was little mar- ket for anything and we only raised enough for ourselves and to supply the settlers as they came in. We used to spend Sunday grinding our week's supply of meal before dinner, and after dinner we would go hunting and kill game enough to last us through the week.

" When the first railroad came to Dallas I know some men in the county who took stock in it and who never saw it. I am seeing the fourth courthouse put up in the county. The first was a pole building, with only one room, about sixteen feet square. It was burned by some boys who were on a spree one night.

" Times have changed since then. I be- lieve the grand juries in Dallas return more bills of indictment in one day now than were returned in a whole year then. We scarcely ever heard of anything being stolen then. Sometimes the Indians would steal horses, but our people were a quiet, industrions,

law-abiding class, and when anybody did do wrong punishment was sure to follow."

ORGANIZATION OF DALLAS COUNTY.

The first legislature of the State of Texas passed an act March 30 th, 1846, creating Dallas county, consisting of a territory em- bracing 900 square miles, or 576,000 acres.

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Memorial and biographical history of Dallas County, Texas, Part 16

Author: Lewis publishing company, Chicago, pub. [from old catalog] Publication date: 1892 Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company Number of Pages: 1128

Author: Lewis publishing company, Chicago, pub. [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1892
Publisher: Chicago, The Lewis publishing company
Number of Pages: 1128