Hopkins Co. TX - Sulphur Bluff Prairie From: 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. SULPHUR BLUFF PRAIRIE HAD THREE LARGE FAMILIES By Frank Brame - Oct. 1930 The night before Christmas, 1869, the wagon train with which I had traveled from Tombighu river on the eastern edge of Mississippi, landed at Sulphur Bluff, Hopkins County, Texas, at which place I was destined to live and learn just a few things. About the first thing I learned was the settlement of Sulphur Bluff in the middle of Sulphur prairie and was, roughly speaking, about twelve or fifteen miles wide and about twenty or more miles long, was entirely settled and practically owned by three of the largest families I ever knew of before or since. These were the families of Greggs, Hargraves and Hopkins. They were married and inter-married for several generations and today there are hundreds of these families that can not exactly tell to what degree of kinship they are related. LAID OUT SANTA FE TRAIL The chief of the Gregg Clan and one of the foremost men then living in Northeast Texas was old "Uncle Joe Gregg." His name in the early histories of those days was Josiah Gregg and it was this Josiah Gregg, together with Col. Becknol, that laid out the Santa Fe trail from Saint Louis to old Santa Fe and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Both of these men had traded with the Indians of the Southwest until they got all the gold they needed and they decided to settle down and ranch the balance of their lives. Col. Becknol had laid about ten or twenty thousand acres of land in the extreme eastern portion of Hopkins County. Sulphur prairie begins just east or northeast of Sulphur Springs and runs east nearly to Black Bridge across White Oak on the old Jefferson Trail and is about 40 or 50 miles long. This prairie lies between the waters of Sulphur river on the north and the stream known as White Oak and the prairie varies in width from five or six miles to eight or ten. BUILT LOG HOUSE About ten miles east of Sulphur Bluff, a narrow strip of timber grew across this prairie, connecting the timber growth of Sulphur and White Oak. Col. Becknol^Òs land took in this strip of timber and this was then known and is now known as Becknol^Òs Gap. Col. Becknol did not live long enough to start his ranch, but Uncle Joe Gregg lived for at least thirty years after I came there and his ranch house north of where the village of Sulphur Bluff now stands and his lands lay on the south bank of South Sulphur and was four or five miles wide and some six or eight miles in length. He built what was then the biggest house in Northeast Texas. His home was a two-story affair with some twenty or thirty rooms, but the rooms in the second story was never finished. By the time I arrived on the scene, the J. G. brand on cattle and horses could be seen for miles and miles in every direction. And around him for fifteen or twenty miles were gathered many hundreds of Greggs, Hargraves and Hopkins. LARGE FAMILIES Of the Gregg Clan as I now recall are grown and heads of families, there are the following Greggs: Uncle Joe, Little Joe, Milton, Samuel, John, Bill, John, Hammon, Jack, Bud, Will and Little Will, Alvin and Louis. The families of Hargraves and Hopkins were equally as numerous, in fact, too numerous to mention here. All of these families had anywhere from six to sixteen children, and everything was lovely and the goose hung high. Besides the Greggs, Hargraves and Hopkins families there were some forty or fifty more wedged in and around where daughters, nieces and granddaughters and grandnieces had accidently married some one not of the cognomen of either the Greggs, Hargraves or Hopkins but they all belonged in the clan. I am giving you all this data so that you measurably grasp the immensity of a job that I was to find put on my sturdy young shoulders. Just such a task or job I had not dreamed of before. And as I now look backward some sixty years, I am amazed at the incongruity and everlasting folly of it all as well as to wonder how I lived through it all. HAD SHOOTING MATCH After I had been there a while, the men of the settlement had a shooting match. They gathered one Saturday at George Hinnant^Òs store with long barrel muzzle loading rifles and shot a hundred-yard target all day. The winner would get a $20. gold piece or a five-year-old steer, each participant paying a fee so that the whole would cover the cost of the prize pot. The man selected to load the rifles with the same charge of powder and the same size bullet and the same kind of patching which he himself furnished, got his chance free. Mr. John Hinnant usually did this because the Hinnant family was about the only one not related to the Greggs, Hargraves and Hopkins kinship. Of course the sport was for grown men and all I could get out of it was to look on. After the shooting got well under way, a freckled faced boy motioned me to come over where there were some fifteen or twenty others about my size. As I walked up to where they were, one of them stepped out and made a mark with his toe on the ground. I didn^Òt know what he did that for, for not a word was spoken. He stood a moment and pointing at the mark he made, asked me did I see it. I told him of course I saw it. He then said, "What on earth are you waiting for?" Just at that time I wasn^Òt waiting for anything and I told him so. He then said, "I might have known that you were afraid to cross it." I told him that I wasn^Òt afraid. "Well," he said, "if you are not afraid, let me see you cross it." Of coarse I stepped over only to get the surprise and shock of my life, for I hadn^Òt gotten across until he whacked me on the head. I sailed in and for the first time in my life I was in the middle of a fight, and, believe me, it was some fight. After about two weeks (as it seemed to me) some of the old men came over there and told the whole bunch to get going after which George Hinnant took me in the store and washed me up and put liniments and turpentine on the numerous cuts, bruises and gashes with which I was adorned. And it was quite a time before Mr. Hinnant could make me understand that every boy that came into the settlement to stay was expected to fight every other boy in the settlement before he could be adopted. And that the rules were that no gun, knife, stick or stone was to be used, but that one could bite, kick, scratch, and gouge all he could. This was certainly news to me. I had never fought with a white boy before. On the plantation where I was born, I was fighting the little negro boys nearly every day. I had to do that for there wasn^Òt any white boys to fight with. I was the youngest of the family and next older than I was six years my senior and all of my brothers were either off at war or at college, so, of course, I had no one but Squires Beverly, Hamp and George. Most of it was done with Squires. Then I had journeyed clear across more than two states to find that I was to spend about all my time getting beat up or trying my best to break any one or more of about 100 of the hardest heads I believe ever grew. One fight per boy usually settled it, but one old bullet-head, grinning piece of development named Louis Huskey engaged my company pretty regular for two or three years, during all of which time I wanted to whip him so bad that my teeth ached, as well as my head for he would shine up to Cora Cain who was the prettiest blue-eyed girl on all the earth (as I thought then.) GIRL MARRIED I expect Louis and I had twenty or twenty-five fights but I never could whip him. After a time we just quit because Cora acted plumb foolish and married Jim Stevenson. Good old Louis is now living at Mineral Wells and I am going over there the first chance I get for a long visit. He passed through here last summer and hailed me on the street. It had been so long since I had seen him that he had to tell me who he was. He tried to get me to go home with him then. When I get over to the other world, I believe I will meet old Louis for he is a good old scout and deserves to inherit the best. Cora now lives at Wichita Falls and she has a boy that fought in France and she gave him the name of Brame. So, if I am lucky to reach the promised land, I am hoping and believing I^Òll meet her and Jim there, too. Frank Brame