Fletcher's State Rights Farming. (Hondo, Tex.), Vol. 16, No. 5, Ed. 1 Wednesday, December 1, 1937 Page: 2 of 16
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FLETCHER’S STATE RIGHTS FARMING
December, 1937
i
'letcher’s
8TATE RIGHTS
Farming
HONDO, TEXAS
A Farm Journal of constructive
thought and endeavor. Issued
the first of each month.
WILSON COUNTY.
Entered as second class matter
June 24, 1922, at the Postoffice at
Hondo, Texas, under Act of
March 3, 1879.
FLETCHER DAVIS,
Editor and Publisher.
FRED W. DAVIS,
Contributing Editor.
Rt. 3, Box 349
Austin, Texas.
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(Continued from first page)
house and jail, to make it harder to
ever move the County Seat, so that
was done, the work beginning in
1884.
Of the older, sturdy pioneers of
the County, aside from the Spanish,
probably Creed Taylor deserves first
mention, as he was one of the great-
est Texas Rangers and Indian fight-
ers in our history. Locating on the
Ecleto in the east end of the County,
in the late thirties, he built the best
leg-house I ever saw, in the early
forties. John Lorenz now lives in that
house. He sealed it inside and
weatherboarded it outside—making it
one of the best homes in the County.
Creed Taylor’s son, Hayes, was killed
there by Federal soldiers during the
reconstruction period, and is buried
in the old Steel Branch Cemetery
nearby. In 1842 Creed Taylor was
with Ben McCulloch, Jack Hayes,
Bigfoot Wallace and 36 other fron-
boast of, but a fact. In the fifties
Cone-Walker & Cp. established a
store, blacksmith shop, ranch, farm,
and a little later a cotton gin run by
horse-power, on Clear Fork three
miles west of where Nixon now is;
and at one time more than forty of
the family lived happily, harmonious-
Earl West was wounded. Then, there
is what is believed to be a State
record coming out of Fairview, in
the Swift family. Tom Swift has been
Justice of the Peace for thirty years,
there; his ten children all taught
school. J. E. Swift, his son, has been
County Superintendent of Education
ly, contentedly in that home. There is in Wilson County, more than thirty
where my Mother was largely reared,
and where I was born. The house is
gone. Eben'ezer School, built of oak
logs, was nearby. That is where my
mother attended what little school
she did, yet she was the best gram-
marian I ever knew, and a brilliant
writer. Another pupil of that school
was the late J. T. (Tip) Matthews,
the best writer ever in Wilson Coun-
ty, a statesman, philosopher and
philanthropist. For fifty years Tip
Matthews was the Sage of Wilson
County; rough-spoken by choice, but
as tender as a child, one of nature’s
noblemen. You older ones remember
him surrounded by such men as W.
years, the only one since establish-
ment of the office, and there could
be no better one than he made and is
making, for no-one knows the Coun-
ty, people, teachers as he does, and
he has the natural clearness of mind,
understanding of human nature’,
diplomatic turn enabling him to
settle and adjust most differences
arising in school work throughout the
County. He has extended a broad,
liberal guiding hand to the teachers
of the County, allayed friction and
dissension in school boards as no
other could have done. It is largely
to his credit that the public school
system of his County is one of the
Itiersmen and Rangers when they jurist irom ixjuisiana, vvesiey
were ambushed by over 100 Comaii-1'rvln; ,bor" ln T«xas whe" “ was ?
H. McDonald, a profound and elo- best. While he has tried to guide the
quent jurist from Louisiana; Wesley mental training of the youth of his
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d—Circulation
1. Character of circulation:
Rural Homes and Farms.
2. Locality of circulation: large-
ly in Texas.
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jehes in the historic Bandera Pass.
After a bitter, hand-to-hand fight in
that narrow trough, the Indian Chief
was killed and his band retreated, but
the Texans* had five dead and six
wounded, in that battle. Creed Taylor
and Col. John D. Wyatt raised fine,
four-mile racehorses, and trained
them on a mile circle track on the hill
Republic, Texas Ranger at the age of
sixteen, learning to read when his
oldest children did, yet leading
citizen for years; Bascomb Johnston,
Claude Cone, O. A. McCracken; and
later R. R. Smith, a blood nephew of
“Uncle Tip”, now living at Jourdan-
ton and one of the best lawyers and
writers of Texas. That community
south of Sutherland Springs during) fu^ne<^ out a wonderful citizenship
the fifties. Creed Taylor moved to
Kimball County and lived to be 100
years old, I believe.
Stockdale is trade center of a great
farming and poultry section, with a
variety of soil and activities assuring
it a steady income, happen what may.
Tt has never had a boom, but is of a ’
steady, conservative growth extend-
ing back over fifty years. It has
a splendid High School doing credit
to its size and conditions, and which
steadily progressed ever since Pro-
fessor Wood gave her such a high
standard to live up to. The youth of
any community is its most precious
possession, and under our system the
school is second only to the home in
helping direct the child mind, so a
good school is of great value to any
community. Stockdale has done and
is doing well in this, and her citizen-
ship may well be proud of this fact.
Stockdale is one of the greatest
melon-shipping points on earth. The
United States feasts upon hundreds
of carloads of Wilson County melons
every year, and none are better.
Stockdale is also a great peanut,
poultry and dairy center.
At one time there was a mail route
from Sutherland Springs via Nock-
enut and Albuquerque to Gonzales.
Albuquerque wa^ abandoned in the
seventies and mail changed to run
from Seguin via Nockenut to Union.
The old school house and Masonic
•odge at Union still stands after near-
ly sixty years of usefulness, but the
advent of the railroad from San An-
tonio to Cuero almost killed Union as
a town, but they have a good school
now.
J. H. Montgomery did more than
any local man to secure that railroad
and when the railway officials named
the station on hi* land-line “Sikes”
quite a disput
Pandora. Th _
have quite a trade center there, a
good school, and fine surrounding
section that should become one of
the best in the County.
On the Ecleto were the Hobbs,
Bird, Rader, Taylor, West, Lightfoot,
Spurling, Kelley families. Kelley had
a stage stand on the road from Hele-
na to San Antonio, and Kelley Pool
on the Ecleto is named for them;
Spurling Water Hole for Spurling;
Lightfoot Water Hole for that fam-
ily.
On Clear Fork, “Uncle Billie Ben-
ton” lived at a fine spring at the
head of the Creek. He was a nephew
of a great statesman, Thos. H. Ben-
ton. The Smith, McCracken, Mat-
he rebelled, and after quite a dispute,
the company named it Pandora. They
but some of the younger generation
have not measured up to those ideals
and standards of life, we are sorry
to admit.
In the west end of the County
there was a like condition as this in
the east end, with similar results, and
the Fairview community produced
some remarkable characters and
families. One of the cleanest, ablest,
fairest minded, most liberal men- in
the history of the County, was Frank
Henson, partly a product of Bexar
County, but entering the Fairview
section in his youth, as a teacher, to
become of unlimited good to this
County. It is a pity that such a man
could not have served the last half
of his life as district judge, or col-
lege president, but he probably did
more good as it was. Then the Carnes
family came out of that same envir-
onment, with Burt Carnes one of the
best officers of the State for more
than thirty years. In 1902 Gregoria
Cortez killed the sheriffs of Karnes
and Gonzales counties; made flight
west through Wilson County toward
the border, with thousands of men
and boys trying to capture him. As
he passed through Atascosa Co.,
sheriff Avant of that County helped
organize a systematic man-hunt, with
the late Manuel Tom principal trailer,
the trailers guarded from being shot
from ambush, by men on both sides
of them. Hundreds of officers and
men were also trying to intercept
him before he reached the border.
For days that crew trailed him, he
traveling at night they by day, he
keeping about a day ahead of them;
but that kept him moving and located
so those ahead would know where to
expect him. I believe the only sur-
viving citizens of that trailing now
resident in Wilson County are Burt
Carnes and Ace Fuller. Herff Carnes
was one of them, but he was killed
by smugglers below El Paso, in
1933. Will Wright was also one of
th
thews, Wiley Holstein, Cone, Sikes
families as you look down tiie Cr..*ek.
The Sikes family produced the fa: test
horses on earth; one distinction for
Wilson County that some might not
them. J. J. Heathcock was sheriff of
Wilson County at the time, but was
defeated for re-election that year by
Will Wright. On the last day of
this run the trailers learned that
Cortez had reached the border
a day ahead of them, and abandoned
the effort to trail him further,
Sheriff Avant wiring Captain Rogers
of the Ranger Force, that Cortez
had gone to the coal mines near
Laredo, not knowing that Cap-
tain Rogers had captured him before
receiving their message. From then on
the Carnes boys were recognized as
the best of officers; cool, careful,
feci less fair men. One of the broth
ers, Qi irl, wr.s killed while in the
range • service, in 1910, in a battle
with b indits f n the border, at the
tim« Pat Craighead lost his leg and
training of the youth of his
County, it was done in a way only to
encourage mental activity, and
liberalize thought; to teach how to
think, not what to think; trying to
keep propaganda from the schools
and maintain them as strictly educa-
tional institutions. During this thirty
years, he has helped hundreds of boys
and girls toward a better lot in life,
given them better understanding,
made life an opportunity to them to
serve their fellows. All honor to him,
and this family! Is that a record?
Floresville is a live City, with all
that implies; the usual business firms
and enterprises for a good little City.
Modern ice plant, bakery, bottling
works, gins, water-works furnishing
good water from artesian wells, ce-
ment curio maker, and saddle-and-
harness shop that is shipping saddles
to all parts of Texas, and practically
all other States, Mexico and Cuba, as
rapidly as he can make them. Flores-
ville could have a dozen other plants
manufacturing or processing the
great variety of products of the com-
munity, in like manner. She has a
splendid school, also, which is worthy
of mention. To mention it without
giving credit to the late “Professor
John W. Wood”, who taught there
for years and did so much to set the
high standards of honor, industry
and study leading to the best envir-
onment possible, would be a case of
grave ingratitude and miscarriage of
history. Would we had more like him!
Floresville now has a faculty of eight-
een teachers, all of whom, Superin-
tendent ^ Conn says, are energetic,
progressive, conscientious, coopera-
tive, painstaking, and loyal; and he
adds, Our Motto “Efficiency, pro-
gressiveness, and fairness”, per-
meates the entire faculty. Plans have
been laid to add another unit, to the
credit of the school, through the ful-
ly equipped Vocational Agriculture
Department, this year, and when that
is accomplished the school will have
twenty-seven accredited units with
the University of Texas. The school
library contains more than 2,000
volumes, one of the best in the State,
considering the size of the school.
Floresville has four rural mail routes
covering 177 miles daily serving
5,000 people, beside some 8,000
served at the office.
Of late years the rich, black land
section of the County south of the
sandy land strip has been put in cul-
tivation by progressive, industrious,
substantial citizens of Germanic
descent, and that section is now
blessed with the best average of
homes in the County. While Flores-
ville is market place and trade center
for a large number of these people,
the comparatively new town of Poth
probably transacts more of their
business and has made remarkable
progress during the past thirty years,
having everything needed by the peo-
pie, including cotton gins, lumber
yards, mercantile businesses, garages,
blacksmith shop, bank, good High
School and Indt pendent School Dis-
trict with 442 scholastics, 11 teach-
ers, teaching to the 11th. grade, a
fifteen-piece school band, etc., under
liberal management. Poth community
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Davis, Fletcher. Fletcher's State Rights Farming. (Hondo, Tex.), Vol. 16, No. 5, Ed. 1 Wednesday, December 1, 1937, newspaper, December 1, 1937; Hondo, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth555466/m1/2/: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Hondo Public Library.