Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas, Volume 11, Number 2, Fall, 1999 Page: 12
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the former Mexican president that Preston's niece
later thought he had found on the battlefield at
San Jacinto. There are numerous accounts of
American soldiers visiting the hacienda during
the war and helping themselves to various items
to take home as souvenirs. There is no reason to
believe that Witt and his men were able to resist
the temptation to do the same.
On April 30, 1848, the Dallas County company
was mustered out of federal service at Vera
Cruz, and soon they were on their way home.34
Their precise route is unknown but it is probable
that they first landed at New Orleans, then sailed
from there to Galveston, from which they rode
overland to Dallas County.
ollowing his return from Mexico, Preston
Witt's thirst for adventure seems to have
been satisfied, at least for a time. Although
it appears he did not abandon farming altogether,
it was around this time that he went into business
with his younger brother, Wade Hampton Witt,
building a mill "at a point on the [old] Preston
Road" near White Rock Creek. This enterprise,
which has been variously identified as an inclined
wheel mill, a tread mill, and an ox and horse mill,
was founded sometime near the end of the I840s.3s
The Witt brothers' decision to build a mill is
indicative not only of their desire to further their
ambitions but also, no doubt, of their community's
need for such an operation. Because so
many North Texas settlers had come from nonslaveholding
states such as Kentucky and Illinois,
grains of various types, rather than cotton, were
the crop of preference among Witt's neighbors.
No doubt a mill, where grain growers could go to
convert their wheat into flour or their corn into
cornmeal, was a welcome addition to the area, as
well as a profitable one for the two enterprising
Witt brothers.
In 1850, the State of Texas sent Thomas
Ward, a special land commissioner, to North
Texas to issue patents to any of the Peters
colonists who could prove they had settled in the
area prior to July i, 1848. It was at this time thatPreston Witt received a certificate redeemable for
640 acres. He afterward patented 480 acres in
Dallas County and sold the remainder "unlocated."36
That same year, the federal census taker
found the thirty-year-old mill-owner and farmer
living with his wife and children, which by now
included one-year-old Edward L. Witt, in the
northern portion of Dallas County near the families
of Wade H. Witt and Preston's brother-inlaw,
John Hoffman. Fellow Mexican War
veterans Josiah Pancoast and James Wilburn also
resided in the vicinity.37
In 1853 Preston and his brother Wade formed
a partnership with Alex W. Perry in a steam mill,
which was located north of present-day Carrollton,
obviously named after the town in Illinois
from where so many of its early residents had
originated. At the same time, the Witt brothers
probably abandoned or sold their first mill on
White Rock Creek. The machinery for the new
mill was purchased in St. Louis, Missouri, and
shipped down the Mississippi River, then up the
Red River to Jefferson, Texas.38 From there, it was
hauled overland in ox-drawn wagons. Another
story, which erroneously gives 1842 as the year the
Witt brothers' Carrollton mill was founded,
alleges that "when the crude horse-powered
mill...became too small, Preston Witt sent to
New Orleans to get the equipment for a steam
mill." Afterward, the story continues, he "went
into the woods to square out huge oak timbers to
house the operations" and used a boiler "salvaged
from a wrecked ship, a two-tube affair that had
been fabricated in England by hand."39
At first the new enterprise was simply called
Witt's Mill. Later, the name was changed to
Trinity Mills, on account of the building's proximity
to the Elm Fork of the Trinity River. After
a general store was added to the operation, the
business was formally known as the Trinity Grist
Mill and Store.4 In time, a small community
called Trinity Mills grew up around it. Today,
both the mill and the settlement are gone but the
name lives on in Trinity Mills Road in Carrollton.
In 1854, Alex Perry sold his interest in the
steam mill to the two brothers. Two years later,12
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Dallas County Heritage Society. Legacies: A History Journal for Dallas and North Central Texas, Volume 11, Number 2, Fall, 1999, periodical, 1999; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth35103/m1/14/: accessed April 20, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Dallas Historical Society.