Coryell County Texas Archives History .....Grimes, F.  M.  Family 1850
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Virginia Crilley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00003.html#0000642 November 10, 2007, 4:59 pm

The following was told by Samuel W. Grimes to Fred Acree Feb 19, 1929:  Copied

by Virginia Day Stevens June, 1964 from Fred's wife, Anna Byrd Acree.



S.W. Grimes moved to Pasadena in 1913, not sure if Fred visited him out there or

how they were together.





 LIFE ON THE OLD HOME PLACE



Father, Frederick Miller Grimes, married Elmira Susan Farley in Washington or

Austin County. [Feb 1, 1837] Mary Ann, Martha Jane, Thomas Farley, I [Sam],

Henry Archer, and Fred, Jr. were born there on a farm on the county line.  The

other children were born in Coryell County. [County organized in 1854. Nancy

Ellen born Feb 28, 1852.]



People lived in small groups for protection against Indians and Mexicans.



Father was in the Battle of San Jacinto and relates how Sam Houston kept

retreating, to the disgust of his men, then sent ahead to burn a bridge.

[Vince's Bridge over Buffalo Bayou] to keep the Mexicans from escaping when

trapped.  He then asked his men to step across a line if they wanted to

fight--all did except the teamsters. Father was in the cavalry, which charged

the Mexicans, and the Texans clashed with the Mexicans. The Mexicans ran for the

bridge and were trampled by men and horses. Santa Anna put on a Mexican

soldier's uniform, was captured and recognized and saluted by his own men. 

Father used a sabre which Fred Acree inherited, and I do not remember of his

being wounded in the hip in that battle. He got land in Coryell and Navarro

Counties for battle duty, and Mother had land on which they settled near Fort

Gates before Gatesville was founded. [Elmira inherited the unfinished Land

Patent claim of her father, Henry F. Farley when he died]  They put up a house

at Fort Gates, but later moved to the old place which was bought from Hancock. 

Then they bought more land there from (unreadable to Virginia Stevens)



We first put up a single room house with roof slanting one way, and later we put

up the present old house with a hall between two rooms, and it had two or three

shed rooms for sleeping quarters. We had one spring that often went dry; and

another, a cave spring, 1/4 mile from the house, that always flowed. Later I

[Sam] blasted a well that has a constant water flow.



After Father moved to Coryell Co. he had to go back to Austin Co to finish up

business and he rode through Cameron on horseback. He'd stop at night at a good

place with water, grass, and trees or shelter. There were not matches then, so

he used steel and flint. He took rope, guns, a blanket, a gourd of water on the

saddle or double leather saddle bags.  He knocked sparks into dry cedar bark,

etc. to start the flame and then he placed the lighted bark under small sticks

to start a fire. Before such a trip, the women cooked him plenty of bread and

hoe cakes and meat; but he preferred to cut a piece of lean bacon to fry or

broil over the fire. My brother, Fred Jr. probably has the steel and flint used

by Father. It would take a week or more for Father to make the trip back to

Austin Co and return.



When a new family came in and the man had got his logs or lumber together, all

the men around would help him one day or more to put up his house of one or two

rooms with porch, and a barn.  The women provided a great dinner for the men. In

Coryell County the roofs were made of oak boards, which were split straight with

the grain to form good boards about four feet long. These were overlapped, and

each layer was held down by a pole; hence, the roof was called a pole roof.  The

poles were probably held in place with wooden dowels carried into the rafters.

The first floors were also made of such oak boards, and they moved and creaked.

When lumber came, people put down oak lumber floors. The smokehouses were of

logs or boards with dirt floors and low roofs.



Cloth was of homespun thread until thread and mil-woven cloth were common.

Wooden buttons were made by (unreadable) wood turners, and drilled for sewing,

as on Father's wedding trousers. His trousers have only two pockets at the side;

they are probably of English broadcloth, lined with handwoven cotton cloth and

hand-sewn. They have four suspender buttons in the back, because men wore knit

suspenders which had one strand in front and a forked strand for two button each

behind.



The women spun the cotton or wool into thread and wove the cloth, and they could

make several yards of cloth per day. They also made wool blankets and quilted

covers. The wool was closely woven, hard and warm. Before oilskin slickers came

in, we used wool blankets with a hole in them to slip over the head and down

over the body to keep a person dry on horseback. At first we used only oxen to

pull wagons, plows, etc.



At the old place we raised wheat, corn, and some cotton. We went to Belton or

Waco to sell it about twice per year, and then we had part of the flour or corn

ground, the miller to keep 1/6.  There was at first a flour mill at Aiken, a few

miles south; also one at Belton and at Waco. We also had a small corn mill at

home to grind corn in between trips, as corn meal got weevils in it and spoiled

easily.



We had one large wash boiler for washing clothes, scaling hogs (at butchering

time) and making soap; and we had a smaller 5-gallon one for making souse or

head cheese, cooking pig's feet, fruit preserves, etc.  We had a large baking

oven or skillet with a lid and eyes to hold it up on a chain, and we could put

coals on top and underneath to bake bread, turkey, roast, etc.



When a sow had a litter of pigs, some were allowed to run with the sow in the

woods to get fat, and the other little pigs were put into a pen with a wooden

floor, fattened on milk, slops, and corn, then killed during spring and summer

when we needed fresh meat. The other pigs were brought in toward fall and fed

corn to harden the fat and were killed in winter. The smokehouse was filled with

hams, bacon, sausage, etc.  Calves were killed at intervals with the lambs to

give fresh meat for us and the neighbors. We had milk, butter, eggs, curd, hoe

cakes, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, and pies, watermelons, yellow and green

mushmelons, peaches, pears, peas, plums, wild grapes, black and yellow hawes,

pecans, walnuts, popcorn.



I [Sam] was a dead shot with a pistol--always shot the heads off the quail and

squirrels. Father was a better shot with a shot-gun or rifle. Once Father and I

went out for wild turkeys. We saw five in a path in the weeds, and Father used

the small shot-gun that you (Fred Acree)  have and he killed all five with both

barrels. I was regularly sent out before breakfast to get one or more wild

turkeys for Sunday or other dinners, although we had plenty of tame turkeys,

chickens, ducks,pigs and geese.



I killed turkeys at night by looking up and seeing turkey's outlines against the

sky and shooting their heads off. I also killed deer, bears, bobcats, and

panthers, but there were no buffaloes around then. Father had a long flintlock

shot-gun before getting his 1843 shot-gun; he had one rifle, and each man had a

cap-and-ball pistol constantly with him on horseback.



We bought the round-head bullets and powder and caps and loaded the revolvers

and guns at cylinders or muzzles, respectively.  This 1843 gun has a pocket for

caps, a metal end with a keyeye to hold a rag for cleaning.  Fred Grimes, Jr.

has the powder -horn and belt and shot-pouche.  We did not waste ammunition in

target practice by riding around a tree and girding it with shots.  Father and I

went after Indians even at Fort Gates when they stole horses or killed men. The

Indians rarely killed whites then unless they were opposed.  The Tonk (Tonkawa)

Indian were at or above Fort Gates. Once Father and others banded together to

drive off the Indians around Fort Gates, and they found the chief to be an old

acquaintance who agreed to return to the reservation.  The Indians would come to

house to beg food or presents and come back if they were well-treated, like hobos.



There were Uncles Jim and Bill Grimes near Fort Gates, but they later moved away

and track of them was lost. When I went from Tennessee to Missouri some

gentleman told me of knowing them in Missouri and of their resemblance to me. I

knew cousin John Harrison.



We had slaves: one named Green who was a nurse for us boy; Jane, a cook

(daughter of or mother of one-legged Dinah;  George, a hand; Hannah; and Grace,

a housemaid. Green accidentally hit me with a hatchet once, not seriously. 

Father finally sold Green to Mr. Skinner of The Grove because Green kept running

way to see other negroes, especially his wife, who was owned by Steven D. Mays.

 Grace the housemaid, spun cotton rolls.  Once my sister, Bettie, about five,

was twirling a lighted stick and fat Grace threatened to tell Mother because she

was afraid Bettie would set fire to the cotton rolls.



Tom and Henry and I [Sam] went to school at Station Creek School and boarded

with the Stricklands during the week.  We walked home to the old place on Friday

afternoons and then back Sundays.  The girls went either to Eagle Spring School

or to Aiken School.



We boys played town ball with a ball made by winding woolen yarn tight and

covering it with deerskin or sheepskin as now. The bat was a flat blade with a

round handle.  The older boys or leaders chose sides by spitting on one side of

the bat and throwing it up into the air, after choosing the wet side up or down,

to determine the winner of the toss.  Rubber balls came in around 1860 or 1870,

followed by the round bat and then the regular baseball about 1870 or '75.  



Even then, the boys tied broomweeds across paths to trip people. We had jousting

and ringing with lacers [lancets?] at Fourth of July and other picnics, but not

baseball at such times.  We generally had basket picnics once or twice a yar,

but barbecues only on rare occasions such as the Fourth of July. We did not have

platforms to dance on at picnics, but in the homes we had the darkies to play

fiddle, banjo, and accordion at dances.  We had only wagons and horseback for

travel, and no buggies till about 1870.



Bettie, your mother, was born on May 26, 1857, at the log house, of seven rooms

by that time, on the line of Bell and Coryell Counties at the mouth of Horse

Creek, which empties into the Leon River. The land fronted on the Leon.  The

post office was at Eagle Sprigs, about 3 meters north of the farm.  A slave

named Jane was the midwife and personal slave and attendant at and after

Bettie's birth. 



In 1863 Bettie was started to school by a private teacher in the school house by

the Grimes house, and the first teacher was George Grimes, who had had his right

leg shot off in the Civil War. He was about 35 years old and was a cousin of

Father's from Moffat or Belton.  In May, 1864, she went to school to David Cohen

at the school building built by May, Marshall, Meadard, Grimes et al. The

teacher received pay from each child: $2.00 for an older child and $1.00 for a

younger child.



Father never took the girls to Waco to shop.  Waco had about 300-400 population

at that time. A man named Aron Rotan had a mill there.  There were no mills or

blacksmiths' shops at Aiken or Belton.  Gateville probably got its merchandise

through Belton, Cameron, and down to Houston; and Waco its merchandise through

Marlin down to Hempstead and Houston.



Tom and I went into the artillery at Galveston in the Civil War; and blockade

runners brought in powder, gun-shots, etc from England. The Union ships fired on

the forts at times, but there was not much action. When the war closed, the

Union soldier stayed in Texas about a year, and 100 soldiers were stationed at

Waco. There was some friction between civilians and the Union Soldiers. [See

separate account of the brothers murders]



There were no traveling photographers, but at each settlement a photographer

settled and people went to him to get photographs made. People did not often

have their photographs made in those days.



George Wren Acree and Elizabeth Virginia (Bettie) Grimes first met in 1874. He

lived in Bell County on his farm. They had a brief courtship and married on Dec

16, 1874 at the old home place (Grimes). Rev. Joiner officiated.



I went to Navarro County and married [Dec 4, 1875 Navarro Co, father's home, HJ

Sears]  Susie Fannie [Sears] who was born in 1825 on the farm next to the one on

which Bettie and George moved with little Sol.  They had first lived on a farm

George bought from (unreadable on original) but later moved to the farm given

Bettie by Father -- which was close to mine and Susie's.  



[Sam was previously married June 1, 1866 to Sarah Evaline Hardin and had two

children, Sarah Evaline (Feb 13, 1869 and Frank E. (May 21, 1872)both born in

McLennan County. This marriage ended in divorce.]



We visited together constantly. Susie and Bettie were close friends; they sewed

and quilted together. We all went to church at the school house on Sundays.

There was no Sunday school. We gave Sunday dinner to fiteen to twenty people who

came to church from a distance.



At Cross Roads, at our first farm, Susie remembers "Soshie fallin" off the

smokehouse when you  (Fred Acree) were a baby a few days old.  And she remembers

Sol's putting the only spool of thread into the molasses jug at a quilting party

and the women's retrieving the thread and rewinding it for further use.  She

remembers also how Sol was into everything forbidden; he removed nuts and bolts

from gates, and such tricks. But she doesn't remember Bettie's getting caught

with Sol in a sleet storm on a horseback trip.



At Cross Roads I put up a cotton gin and mill on the old pon and I ran them

until 1878 or 1880. We went to Italy two years, 1880 or 1882, and returned to

Blooming Grove.



Bettie's husband, George Acree, was a hard worker who got up and milked, plowed,

and got his own breakfast while Bettie took things easy and tended the babies. A

Mexican woman nursed Johnnie.  George made friends with everyone and was good

natured. He started the small merchandising store at Cross Roads, probably in

1880, and sold out to go to McGregor.  Father and Mother moved to Blooming Grove

about 1880 to be close to us. Money was found in the beds, etc. but the amount

was small in comparison with what they had.  Mother probably gave it to Sallie,

her favorite, along with other things.



I could rid just about any wild horse and "busted" many of them. Once I had one

to break and took him, blindfolded, off ito the large pasture and saddled him

and got Jim Netley to go along on his horse to steer mine away from trees,

fences, etc. When my horse had bucked till he was tired and was close to a

fence, I looked around for Netley and found that he was sitting some distance

away. He probably was enjoying the exhibition too much to remember his duty to

help me if danger arose.  Sol Acree remembers another occasion when a horse was

similarly saddled, blindfolded, and ridden in front of the house at the second

farm at Cross Roads. Two other riders helped steer the bucking horse from danger

that time, but Sol is not certain whether his father, George Acree, was one of

the men.

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