Freestone County, Texas
Reflections



Freestone Past/Present
J.R. “Sonny” Sessions

Sam Houston & Waldrom

  Captain W. B. Waldrom and The Hero of San Jacinto –Sadie Kirgan l931 
  Captain Waldrom’s mind is clear on details of the history of Texas, and 
especially on the vivid and colorful career of Sam Houston. Waldrom met
Houston the first time in l857, when the Hero of San Jacinto began his 
quaint campaign for governor, a race that took him up and down the length 
and breadth of the state.
  I was on my way to Nacogdoches on land business,” Captain Waldrom said 
“and had stayed all night at an inn in Palestine, when I left I had been given 
a lunch, as was the custom at that time. About noon I became very weary 
and hungry, and I had come to one of the very beautiful wooded creeks in 
East Texas. I dismounted and, letting my horse graze on the heavy grass, I 
threw myself down to rest on the bank of the stream, my lunch at my side. I 
must have drowsed a little in the warm air, but suddenly I was aroused by 
the sound of a carriage approaching. When the carriage rounded the curve in 
the road, and I saw that a Negro was driving, and that the other occupant was 
a tall, well built man wearing a dusty linen suit and a blue hickory shirt. The 
carriage stopped and the man called out: Good morning! You look very 
comfortable there, and if you don’t mind I’ll stop and have lunch with you. I 
have a very good lunch here myself”.
  I didn’t know who he was but something about the man impressed me 
profoundly. He climber out of the carriage and we ate our lunch together 
there on the banks of that creek, and we talked of Texas, and I marveled at 
the ideas and knowledge of this man in the hickory shirt. Presently he said to 
me: Do you know who I am: I assured him that I did not and he told me, I 
am Sam Houston”.
  By a small vote that campaign was lost, but hardly had it become history 
than another was on its way, and the second time that Waldrom met Sam 
Houston he was speaking again for the governorship of Texas, and this time 
his voice lifted in a serious and warning cry against disunion. Captain 
Waldrom was returning from Houston where he had gone to purchase 
supplies, and at Centerville he found Houston speaking at a barbecue, 
holding a crowd spellbound by the force of his personality.
Houston had said “Let me tell you what is coming … your fathers and 
husbands, your sons and brothers, will be herded at the point of the bayonet 
you may after the sacrifices of countless millions of treasures and hundreds 
of thousands of lives, as a bare possibility, win Southern independence, but I 
doubt it. I tell you that, while I believe with you in the doctrine of state 
rights, the North is determined to preserve this Union. They are not a fiery, 
impulsive people as you are, for they live in colder climates. But when they 
begin to move in a given direction they move with the steady momentum 
and appearance of a mighty avalanche and overwhelm the South.
  The old Captain shifted a little on the wooden bench of the store, and his 
voice took a deeper note. “He was a wonderful man, and he knew what he 
was talking about more than most people thought. He loved Texas, and it 
was Texas he was thinking about always”.
  The show down came, the die was cast, and Waldrom went out of 
Freestone Co. with a company in gray under the command of Peck. A few 
months later Waldrom assumed command of that company and held it as 
part of Walker’s Division until Gen. Lee surrendered and the war was over.
  Waldrom returned to Pine Bluff, married, farmed and lived a long eventful 
life.

           ******************************************

Whisky Days

 Corn whisky was made in Freestone Co. on smaller scale until prohibition 
became the law. There were a few families who manufactured it for several 
generations; some used the same equipment during this period.  For many 
years it was the custom to load up the wagons and go to the River at least 
once yearly, even before prohibition. It was the custom of many to purchase 
a half-gallon or so of whisky to carry with them. I have been told of one 
place where a barrel of good whisky was always on the back porch ready to 
be dipped out as needed, if there no one home you could pay for it later.

                        ********************