Hopkins Co. TX - Early History of Reilly Springs - Hurley Submitted by: June E. Tuck ************************************************************************ USGENWEB ARCHIVES NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization or persons. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material, must obtain the written consent of the contributor, or the legal representative of the submitter, and contact the listed USGenWeb archivist with proof of this consent. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. http://www.usgwarchives.net/ *********************************************************************** From the historical files of June E. Tuck, who does not validate or dispute any historical facts in the article. Early History of Hopkins County, Reilly Springs by J. Allen Hurley 31 May 1921 My father and mother, James and Elizabeth Hurley came to this country in years 1857 and settled near Reily Springs (sic.) They came from Tennessee, McNairy County. My father^Òs farm lay in the Tennessee River bottom. They were from North Carolina to Tennessee and from Tennessee to Texas. When we moved here there were twelve families came with ours and settled in Texas. Some went one place and some another, but we settled near Reily (sic) Springs. This bunch came in ox wagons with from two to three yoke of oxen to the wagon and it took eight or ten months to make the trip. When we got here we stopped at Sulphur Springs a little while, or rather where Sulphur Springs now is, as there was not much there at that time. We moved down near where Reily Springs now is , but all there was here then was a world of fine land and but few people. I will give the names of those that were here and how many of them are here now. Vin and Perry Thrasher, only two left, balance all dead or gone; McGills, all dead; Blankenship, all dead; Tuckers, all dead; Garretts, all dead or gone; Martins, one here is all I know of; Starrs, all dead or gone. When my father settled here he bought his place from Dr. Sullivan. There was no mill to grind our corn nearer than old Tarrant, and the county seat was at Old Tarrant. There was only a few old clap-board shacks at Sulphur Springs. My father built the first brick house in Sulphur Springs and made the first brick in Hopkins county in 1859. As to the churches, there was a log house that was used to preach in and to hold school in. It was a Methodist house and there was another down on Glade Creek. It was a Baptist house. It was the same kind of house - 16 x16 log house - later there was one built at Reily - 16 x 16 log church and school house. The first mill was built up on the head of Running Creek, not far from where Iven Darby now lives. It was built in 1862 by a man by the name Fobish and he sold it to Steve Tucker and it was moved to Reily Springs in the year 1863. This man Tucker put up a dry goods and grocery store also. But in the year 1872, he sold out to Col. Weaver and went to Tyler, Smith county. Col. Weaver ran the gin for a number of years and sold out to Yantis; Yantis sold to Bertram; Bertram to Walker, Walker to Johnson; Johnson to Hurley & Knox. Jno. Bussey being the owner of gin now. As I said, this was a fine country when we came here. Where the country is covered with timber and farms now, the grass was from knee to waist high, and horses and cattle would winter them selves and come out fat in the spring. Deer and turkey were as plentiful as cattle are now. Land was so cheap that nobody wanted it. It was worth from fifty cents to one dollar per acre. My father got 50 acres to boot in a horse swap and the same land is worth now $75. an acre. Roads back then were few and far between. The Black Jack road used to run south of Reily. It was opened up in 1860, and changed to where it is now, in 1872. The Sulphur Springs road was opened up in 1859. We had a stage going from Sulphur Springs to Mineola in the years of 1872 and 1873. The drivers names were Sturgeon and Frank Mounts. Yes, we had a preacher, his name was Lovelady, Methodist. He was our first preacher. Later we had a Christian preacher named Vernon. Our first doctor was Dr. Sullivan, then Dr. Holmes, but the first doctor that lived right in Reily was Dr. Kemper. The first school teacher at Reily was Vernon, but the one that learned me my letters was Old Man Corbin. The first wedding I remember was Jess Curlin and Pink McGill. The first birth was George Blankenship. New people came in and new enterprises started up. Moses Starrett put in a tan yard and a little later Jim Yantis put in one. Bill Yantis put up a shoe shop, and Crabtree & Henderson were our carpenters. There was a whiskey shop put up, and the boys would get a quart of booze and go to the Scarborough Glade and run pony races for from $2.50 to a barlow knife. Myself and the Willett boys, Guinn boys, Bussell, Lee Jones^Ò boys and Britton boys put in the tracks on the old Tarbutton field. We would have our dances. We would get on our old mule and go invite the girls, then we would hitch two mules to a wagon and go get a load of girls and carry them to the dance. Our fiddlers were Dick and John Young, and Mack Fry, but sometimes when couldn^Òt get them we called on Old George Foster and Old Jack Gorman, two old negro fiddlers. We had a fine time back there. Of course it was different to the times now, but it did for that day and time. People were a little rough, but they were mighty good, you knew just where to find them. I don^Òt think that way would do now, as I have been to church and seen men come in and pull their pistols round and heard them chuck against the bench, but nobody seemed to care, as it was the way of the times. There was a place called Bucksnort about four miles east of Reily on the Black Jack and Winnsboro road where people would meet and drink and pitch dollars, and shoot their pistols. It consisted of a dry goods and grocery store and a little shack where whiskey was sold. Garvin sold dry goods and groceries, and the Chancey boys sold booze. Now at that time there was a great deal of game between Running Creek and Coffey^Òs Creek, and of course, that was the best hunting ground. The boys would go and kill a buck or doe and come by Bucksnort, for it did not matter which way they lived, that was the nearest way home. They would get a few drinks, and of coarse the bucks would snort - I mean the two-legged bucks - so you see where she got her name. It was called Garvinville and Chanceyville at first. Now at that time there was as good men went to that place to trade as ever lived, but as I have said, times were different then to what they are now, they were honest and truthful, and they were all right. Yes, they would shoot their guns and pistols for the drinks and some ran pony races and such like, but if they borrowed your money they paid it back the exact time it was due and you didn^Òt have to take any note or anything but their word. If a man killed a beef the neighbors came in and got what they wanted without money and without price. It was not weighed. And the next week another would kill and so it went on. If a man were stock hunting he would ride up to your house and if the man of the home was not at home he would pull off his saddle and turn his horse loose and lie down in a shade until the man came in, and stayed all night without even a thought of having to pay. Now we go back to Reily. Of course you want to know where it got is name. As I said, our first church was a 16x16 log house, but about the year 1872 there was a frame house built at Reily. It was a Methodist church, but was used by all denominations. Now, there was a man name of James Reily that owned a great deal of land about this place and when this church was built his wife donated two acres of land to the church if the people would call it Reily Springs. A man by the name of Henderson was the first to be buried in the Reily Springs cemetery. I remember the Civil War and remember seeing the boys leave home. Father and mother had three boys in the war, William, James, and Thomas. They fought all through and came out all right except Thomas had his arm broken by a shell. My parents kept a good many orphan children during the war and helped to hold up this part of the country along with the balance of the old timers. They cut out the roads, built the bridges, cleared up the land, built the churches and the school houses, and in short, made Hopkins county one of the best counties in the state. I remember the Klu-Klux and I think they were needed and did good in this part of the country. I think they were a blessing to the better element of the blacks. After the war, and the negroes knew they were free, there was a class of blacks that thought they would go to school with the whites and to church with them and be on an equality and would soon be marrying each other. Now, about this time the blood of the people of the South was pretty warm. Not about the negroes, nor about the loss of the negroes; they had been the property of the South; but about the loss of the fathers and the sons and the principles that they had fought, bled and died for; for the places that were vacant at the tables, for the children that were left fatherless, and the farms that were torn to wreck There were people in this country that went through the war that were Union men and it was said that they put the blacks up to this notion. The better class of blacks paid no attention to this talk, but there were some that did. There were a great many threats supposed to have been sent out, and I know that the people looked for an uprising of the blacks, and there were people in different part of the state that went to killing negroes as they came to them, to such extent that United States troops were sent to Sulphur Springs. I remember one night the Klu-Klux came to my father^Òs. I was a small boy and I heard something in the yard and I ran to the window. About the same time I got to the window they began to whistle and cry and groan. I never heard such a fuss. They had sheets wrapped around them and caps made of paper that ran way up two or three feet high. I heard afterwards that they wanted to see if my father would know them. Well, they went on down to Reily, and there was an old darkey named, Ambrose, and his wife^Òs name was Susan, and the Klu-Klux stopped to see them. Susan had been talking of starting her children to the white school. The Klu-Klux asked Ambrose how to get to the moon and the seven stars, and Ambrose told them to go from the east to the west, and from the north to the south. They told him they had been dead for several years. They broke down the door and took Aunt Susan out and gave her a thrashing and took a young fellow and thrashed him, and went on. Ambrose said when Susan got in bed that night she said, "Ambrose, I^Òse a changed niggah." It may be that saved the lives of a good many of the blacks. Out of a large family there is now only three of my father^Òs children left, James H., Mrs. E. C. Sykes, and myself. I was the youngest. As I stated, I was just two years old when we came to this country from Tennessee and strange to say, in 1860, a girl from Franklin County, Tennessee, came to Texas, and the year of 1879 she agreed to be my wife and take care of me as long as we both lived, and she has done pretty well in keeping her word. So much so that I am pretty well satisfied. My woman^Òs name was Mary Elizabeth Guinn. We have had 12 children, 7 are dead and 5 are living, Bertha, Julia, Vestal, Horace and Alonzo. I have said these old time people were good people and they were. Sometimes a pretty bad one would come in, but they had a way of getting rid of him. I remember one fellow and his family who came in there and they were accused of not being honest and they told him to move and he did. I remember three others that were not honest and they were taken out and hung. That was the way we did back there. I have said that land was cheap; but everything else was the same way. A cow and calf brought from $8. to $12.; chickens, 8 to 10 hens and a rooster for a dollar; hogs, $1. apiece for the pigs and sow thrown in; fruit, no market at all; cotton seed no price; 1 ½ to 2 cents per bushel. So you see that it was just as hard to pay for land then as now. The people had to haul their groceries from Jefferson in ox wagons. I want to say right here that the Sulphur Springs Gazette was the first paper that I ever read. When I was a little boy my father took it and I would read it to him. I think Bill Wortham was the editor. I have been here 64 years, and if I live and get along all right, I may just stay here.