Freestone Co. TX - Stewards Mill Store in 1968

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Freestone Co. TX - Stewards Mill Store in 1968


Dallas Morning News - 28 Nov 1968 edition

"Tolbert's Texas
Serenity Called Stewards Mill

Only 49 miles of Interstate 45, between Dallas and Houston are unfinished.
These 49 miles of narrow old Highway 75 are in Freestone and Leon County, where
motorists fresh from freeway style exuberance suddenly find themselves involved
in heavy traffic scrimmages.

These 49 miles are among the most dangerous to drive in this province.  Already
in '68, according to a sign just south of Streetman, 28 drivers have had their
trips interrupted by death somewhere within this 49-miles scope.

Other monrning I wandered on Highway 75, just below Streetman.  And I was
caught up in a broken field of cars and trucks driven by humaniods who seemed
in a bigger hurry to get to Houston than Tolbert.  Anyway, I excused myself
from the race by turning off on a farm road in Freestone County, through an
oilfield with J. Paul Getty signs, and that's how I wound up in front of the
"south" gallery of the Stewards Mill store in the village of the same name.
(The ancient store also has a west gallery.)

There's little left of Stewards Mill except the sprawling frame store and the
pure white frame of Harmony Church built in 1870.

Coming from the cruel tide of motor vehicles on Highway 75 to the serene
atmosphere of Stewards Mill is quite a change.  Fellow named Marvin Watson was
sitting in the bright sunshine in a rocking chair.  Mr. Watson was sharing the
south gallery of the store with a heavyweight of a dog named Tap.  Mr. Watson
was reading.  And sometimes he would use Tap for a foot stool.  Inside, Marvin
Watson's sister, Mrs. Frank Bragg, was running the store.  They're direct
descendants of one of the original, 1867 owners of the store.  And there have
been few changes, except for electricity and butane, in the establishment since
1867.  
  
Dorothy Bragg showed me several volumes of the general store's day book entries
in the 19th century.  In those days this merchantile was also a liquor store
(one customer seemed to require several gallons a week), a drugstore (morphine
with no prescription required) and a bank.

The Stewards Mill store in the 1870s would advance loans for some unusual
purposes.  For example, the day book shows that the ancestor of a famous
contemporary oil operator was given a $20 loan "to go visit The Widow".
According to the day book, Stewards Mill  (as the name implies) once had at
least one grist mill on Tehuacana Creek's east fork.  And there was at one
time, a shoe factory and, perhaps, a brick kiln.
  
Didn't see Mrs. Bragg do too much business while I was in Stewards Mill.  But
she's certainly operating a relaxing and charming social center.  With
cattlemen Carter* Thornton and Roy Ferguson when they settled in the old
captain's chairs in the store, the principal topic was Old Tap, the huge "cow
dog".

Marvin Watson's pet is definitely "part Leopard dog," judging by the weird,
crockery, pale blue eyes, such eyes being characteristic of the cow-handling
Leopard dogs.

"I'd rather have Old Tap working with me than most cowboys", said Roy Ferguson.
"Other day down on Keechi Creek that dog would just go into the brush and grab
yearlings by the ears and escort them to the pens."
 
Carter* Thornton said that Tap will sometimes "just show up where my bunch is
working and help us with our cow handling."

After the calm of Stewards Mill, I couldn't think of getting back in the mad
pace of Highway 75.  So I cut off to the south on some farm roads.  by Frank K.
Tolbert"

*=Should be Carder Thornton instead of Carter Thornton.