Hopkins Co TX - Grandma Henderson Tells Her Story

From: June E. Tuck 1224be@neto.com>
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From the historical files of June E. Tuck, who does not validate or dispute
any historical facts in the article.

Grandma Henderson Tells Her Story

Grandma Henderson tells the story as she knew it in the days of long ago. Mrs.
E. Henderson, of Gough, Delta County, Texas, passed away in April 1913. Her
children had the story printed in the Sulphur Springs Gazette, May 16, 1913.

My husband, J. G. Henderson, came to Texas in 1848, from Kentucky and procured
us a home and built us a little one room hut, and in 1849, he returned to
Kentucky and we were married, and he and I moved from Kentucky to Texas in
1849, and settled in what was then Hopkins county and I lived in a little
quaint log hut like all the rest of my neighbors. About twenty years later the
county was divided and I lived in the portion called Delta, and have continued
to live here to the present day, and since then there have been many changes.

The first settlers did not settle on the prairie on account of not having
water. The only way they had to get water was to live close to the creeks or
haul it. There were no Indians in this immediate vicinity when I came here,
though it hadn’t been long since the women and children had to fort up on
account of them, but they had all been chased away when I got here.

There were no churches or school buildings then except one little log house
about three miles away that was used for a house of worship and school too,
the place is known now as Shiloh. Some children had to walk three or four
miles to get the advantage of the school, as the neighbors were so far apart
and the schools few. The buildings had puncheon floors and benches were made
of logs split open and holes bored in them for legs to go in. There were no
buggies here then, though we brought a one-horse hack from Kentucky with us
for the benefit of the women and children to ride in that came with us, but we
never used it after we got here because or neighbors had none, so we went in
an ox wagon like the rest of our neighbors.

There were no mills or post offices nearer than Paris, Texas, and it was then
just a little place about like the place called Gough. People had to buy
little steel mills to grind their corn on at home, they somewhat resembled a
coffee mill, only more so, for in the place of one crank they had two.

There was no wheat raised in this portion of the country. I visited one of my
uncles and he gave me two bushels and we ground it on our little steel mill
and the flour to make flour doings when company came; as for a biscuit, if any
one of us had seen one, I expect we would have struck fire to it, thinking it
was a terrapin.

There were no horseback riding or working horses either after the sun rose on
the account of a little fly called the green head fly, which was very severe.
There was no traveling in the day time in summer, unless you went after night,
those flies were so bad you couldn’t ride horseback.