Grayson County; an illustrated history of Grayson County, Texas. Page: 3
180 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 28 cm.View a full description of this book.
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before the Hon. James W. Robinson, one of the judges
of the District Court in and for the Republic of Texas;
and she having shown to the satisfaction of the Judge
aforesaid, that the defendant Jesse A. Aughinbaugh
resides out of the jurisdiction of this court.
Therefore it was ordered by the Judge, that the
Clerk of the District Court for the county of Harrisburg,
make publication of this order, in some public
newspaper printed in the city of Houston for six weeks
previous to the next term of the District Court, to be
holden in and for the county of Harrisburg at the court
house thereof in the city of Houston, on the "fifth
Monday after the fourth Monday in October next" ensuing;
then and there to answer the petition of the said
Sophia Aughinbaugh, there exhibited against him, or
the matters and things therein contained, will be taken
pro confesso, and the decrees granted as prayed for.
Witness the Hon. J. W. Robinson
Judge of the District Court in and for the Republic
of Texas
Test. James S. Holman, Clk. D.CC.H.
By E. H. Windfield, DEPUTY CLERK
Apparently the divorce was granted in due order,
because the next account of Coffee is found in the same
newspaper, the issue of Feb. 20, 1839. It read as follows:
Married
in Washington County on the 19th
ultimo by
Lusk, Esq., the Hon. Holland Coffee,
late member of congress from Red River, to Mrs. Sophia
P. Aughinbaugh, late of Houton.
Sophia stated that she and Holland traveled 600
miles between Independence and Preston Bend in order
to avoid Indians. Yet this route as she identified it
lay only through Nacogdoches and Old Warren, a
normal enough route for those days, and certainly much
shorter than the distance claimed.
On the way to Preston Bend, Holland and Sophia
were entertained at the residence of Daniel Montague,
described elsewhere in this chapter. From that point to
Coffee's Trading Post the remainder of the journey was
accomplished under the guard of a "company of rangers."
This escort was nothing more than a group of
neighbors under arms.
The first positive evidence that Silas Colville was
with Coffee at Preston Bend is found in November of
1839. But the partnership of the two men was of long
standing, and it is difficult to see how Coffee could
have left his post in 1838 for so long a time as service
in the Congress would have demanded if he had not
had Colville on whom to rely. In any event Silas Colville
formed a third party in the family for the first
six years of Sophia's life with Holland Coffee.
The return ot Coffee to the Preston Bend area with
a wife of whatever status emphasized the permanence
of his settlement. It would seem that the stockade
which is sometimes referred to as Fort Coffee, was
built by Holland Coffee and Silas Colville about this
time. It consisted of a high fence of log pickets. Never
was it attacked by a full war party, and Holland Coffee
in the main kept on good terms with his Indian clients;
but a fortification was principally necessary to prevent
theft. Sophia recalled in later years that her husband
had to stand guard over his cattle while the servants
were plowing, to prevent the Indians from driving the
stock off.
It was probably in an attempt to steal that a group
of fifteen "wild" Indians removed three of the stockade
pickets before sunrise one morning. The proprietors
concluded that the raiders had been frightened away by
the sound of a coffee mill being turned by a servant.SCENE OF MUCH BARGAINING, a part of Holland Coffee's
trading post is shown below. The men are Jim Caddell and the
late Charles P. Newton, who for many years was a photographer
in Denison.3
Nevertheless, there was real danger from the red men,
and their fires were frequently sighted by the settlers
and interpreted as hostile signals. Upon occasion the
men would stand guard all night; and at any public
gathering, such as the religious services of itinerant
preachers, the men retained their arms and kept sharp
watch.
The Indians who came to the post to trade must
have presented a constant problem. Although most of
these would have belonged to the peaceful Choctaws,
who were among the most advanced of the civilized
tribes, nevertheless the Indian's weakness for liquor was
not appreciably mitigated by contact with civilization.
The Indians themselves realized the danger which
drunkenness was to their people and in consequence did
all in their power to prevent by tribal edict the sale of
drink to Choctaws. The effect of these primitive efforts
at prohibition was to encourage the Indians to cross the
Red into Texas for their liquor.
The danger of numbers of half-civilized red men
drinking in the trading post must have been ever
present. Yet it is the amusing incidents rising from the
Indian trade which remained at Preston as the tradition
of Coffee's store. One of these traditions is the game
of "drink and smell." In this game a party of Indians
would buy a bottle. They would then play at poker or
dice to see which would win the liquor and drink it.
The losers were only permitted to smell the empty bottle.
Another form of gambling engaged in by the Indians
was carried out in this manner: all players would
stand on one side of the trading post. One would throw
a handful of coins over the store building, whereupon
all would dash to the other side of the house and look
for the money. Of course finders were keepers; but
there must have been many fights in scrambles of this
sort. On the whole, old timers recalled that the saloons
which were eventually established at Preston Bend were
a source of danger to the citizens because of the rowdy
behavior which they attracted.
Thus it was not a peaceful life to which Holland
Coffee brought Sophia. Neither was it luxurious at
first. The house within the stockade was but a rough
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Grayson County: An Illustrated History of Grayson County, Texas. (Book)
An illustrated history of Grayson County, Texas with numerous photographs and a pioneer name index (p. 120).
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Landrum, Graham. Grayson County; an illustrated history of Grayson County, Texas., book, 1960; Fort Worth, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth24647/m1/7/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.