Freestone County, Texas Reflections Freestone County Past/Present By J.R. "Sonny" Sessions Jr. William Carter House In 1994, thru an inquiry in the Freestone County Genealogy publication I learned that a home built by my great-great grandfather William Carter in 1825 at Pine Flat, Alabama was still in existence. I also learned it had been restored in 1992 to its original simple, but elegant Southern charm and beauty by a distant cousin, also a descendant of William Carter, Mrs. Jane Carter Inge of Mobile, Alabama. This information aroused my curiosity, I contacted Mrs. Inge and later made arrangements to visit there in late October. Peggy, our son Ken, his wife Tina, and I joined other cousins from Atlanta and Fort Worth for a most pleasant visit to this historic home. We also met and were entertained by many distant cousins still living in this area. The Carter house exceeded our greatest expectations with the restoration excellently done. Our cousins were all found to be most hospitable and pleased to meet their Texas cousins they had heard about for generations. It was a very fulfilling experience and would love to return there again. William Carter and family migrated to Texas in the early 1850's with his brother Oliver. Each purchased acreage in the present day Kirven area. Oliver Carter, a large property holder, became known as "The Baron of Freestone County", I have been told he was a very heavy man who always rode in a carriage with a servant along to place a ladder or such so he could get in and out. Oliver Carter worried about all his gold as the war clouds gathered, reportedly tried to put it in the County safe at the Courthouse. Carter Cemetery in Freestone County is located where the Oliver Carter plantation home was before it burned. Both are buried there. The elaborate marble memorials in Carter Cemetery indicate the wealth at the time of their deaths. While at Pine Flat, Alabama, we also visited the Alfred Carter home and Carter Cemetery located nearby. The Alfred Carter home, older then the William Carter home, unoccupied at this time but in fair condition. Alfred Carter is believed to be the father of David L. Carter and granfater of Alfred Payne Carter who also lived in the Kirven area. Our Alabama cousins have original land grant documents issued by the United States of America, some are signed by the President of the United States, some are on leather parchment. William Carter built a fine plantation home near Woodland after coming to Texas, he died shortly after. G.A. Sessions married his daughter Martha and it became known as Sessions Place. An account of its burning was published in the 1895 Fairfield Recorder. AN OLD LANDMARK GONE Jan. 9, 1895 The old family residence of Hon. G.A. Sessions, one mile east of Woodland, was destroyed by fire last week. The residence at the time was occupied by Mr. Eugene Campbell. The fire occurred about 2 o'clock in the day, but we believe nearly all the contents of the house were saved. The building was a large two story structure and was one of the oldest and largest residences in the county. The four main rooms were twenty feet square, with wide halls and galleries. Situated near a public road on a commanding elevation, it was a prominent landmark of the county for over forty years. In antebellum days, and many years since the war, it was an ideal old southern planter's home, such as novel, a delight to describe. Belonging to large hearted, liberal owners, its hospitable doors swung open alike to rich and poor, calling as friendly visitors and in long gone yeasrs many were the way faring strangers who found shelter under its roof from the blasts of winter or the scorching suns of summer. For many years it might be said the voice of company could always be heard within its walls, so hospitably were all recieved and entertained, by days or weeks, as they chose to remain. For family reunions and as a meeting place of kindred and mutual friends there was, perhaps not a more historic old residence in this portion of the State. Many in this and other counties knew it well, all that knew it will long remeber it. In the future those whom circumstances may cause to pass that way cannot help but look with a feeling of half sadness at the vacant spot, and will think of the old house as a dear friend who has passed away. The old original mansion may be gone, but to family and kindred who may oft again stand under the trees that once shaded the old family well as pleasant hours of triumph and disappointment, days of sorrow constrasted with days of joy, all bringing to mind those scenes and circumstances that go to make up the sum total of life, both in sentiment as well as in reality. This is Time's effacing finger changing the scenes of the past and destroying the cherished idols in which Memory often turned in meditative hours. This was originally the home William Carter built after coming to Texas. G.A. Sessions, Carter's son in law, was a member of the 1876 Texas Constitutional Convention that did the Constitution Texas still operates under to this day. ____________________________________________________ SILVER TREASURE Every area has a lost Treasure story, here's one of ours: Before the Texas Revolution, Mexicans sometimes brought silver by packtrains to New Orleans for minting. The route was along the old San Antonio Road to Nacogdoches, then to New Orleans. On one of these trips, a train of sixty pack mules discovered, before arriving at the Trinity River, that it was being followed by warlike Indians. In order to avoid the savages, the Mexicans turned northward through Freestone County for a river crossing. Burleson Hill and Pilot Knob, two conspicuous elevations, served as landmarks guiding them toward the river crossing at Pine Bluff. But the Indians discovered the detour and followed. Hastily, the silver was buried this side of the river, between Pilot Knob and Pine Bluff, and in the vicinity of the big cave. Shortly thereafter, the Indians attacked and killed all but two of the Mexicans. Years later, an old Mexican came to Pilot Knob and hired himself to a planter whom he told of the tragedy. He sought the silver but claimed he could never find it because the country was grown up so. The late Captian W.B. Waldrom, who heard the story in 1879, stated that the neighboring Malones and Olivers searched for the treasure over a period of years without success.