This information was copied from The Cass County Genealogical Society, 1976, Vol III, No. 2, pg 4-7.

THEY WERE HERE (Queen City)
John D. Hanes

Mrs. W. D. (Aunt Teal) Mapp, 91 died at her home at 1708, New Boston Road, Texarkana, Texas. Date of death: March 9, 1950. She was survived by a number of nieces and nephews including Mary, Hazel, and Annie Mae Kennedy, with whom she made her home.

Mrs. Mapp was a native of Doddridge, Ark., and had lived in Texarkana, for 20 years. Services were held at the Queen City Baptist Church, with the Rev. L. L. Burkhalter officiating. Burial in the Queen City Cemetery.

This dear lady was our next-door neighbor at the time of my birth in Queen City Jan. 26, 1911. For a birthday gift, she gave me a little pair of overalls - my first! Also, she was my first Sunday School Teacher. Queen City young people never had a better friend.

The opening half of the nineteenth century found people coming to this part of the country. For America this was a period of extravagant growth. The new means of communication, the steamboat and the railway and presently the electric telegraph, came just in time to carry forward the movement of the population across the continent. But for these mechanical aids, the United States even today might not reach westward beyond the Rocky Mountains and as entirely different people might be in possession of the western coast.

Had the people who came to this part of the country with only horse traction, rough road, and letter-writing to keep them together, the States would have fallen apart into a loose league of independent and divergent nations.

But the steamboat, the railway, and the telegraph arrived in time to prevent this separation, and the United States became the first of a new type of modern transport state. This part of the country had steamboats coming almost daily to Jefferson. Queen City was linked to other parts of the country by the new railroad and the telegraph.

But on the way to its greatness and security the American people passed through one phase of dire conflict. Many of our early citizens became a part of this conflict. I will name a few: John McWilliams, Col. Bill Lee, Doctor McClung, Bill Dunlap, Bill Henderson, Mr. Eargle, John Draper, Rich Wilson, Josh Baker, Baldie Smith, Tom Teal, Quilla Miles, Dave Johnson, John Fletcher, A. C. Smith, Jim Prator, Ike Wright, Pink Orea, Anderson Pritchard, B.F. Smith, Dr. Mathus, John Adams, Polk Hanes - an elder brother of my grandfather Dave F. Hanes - - and many others.

The river steamboats, the railways, the telegraph, did not come soon enough to avert the deepening conflict of interests and ideas between the southern slave-holding states and the free industrial north....
every territory was organized into a state, became a field of conflict between the two ideas, whether it would have become a state of free citizens or whether the estate system should prevail. The issue flamed up into conflict over the admission of Texas to the union. Texas had originally been a part of the Republic of Mexico, but it was largely colonized by Americans from slave-holding states. People had settled in this section who came from Miss., Alabama, Tenn., Georgia and North Carolina. Most of the early settlers in this immediate section came from Georgia. That is why we have many Cass County towns and communities named after Georgia towns.

Texas seceded from Mexico and established its independence in 1836. A vigorous agitation for the annexation of Texas followed and Texas was annexed in 1844 and admitted as a state in 1845. Under the Mexican law slavery had been forbidden in Texas, but now the south claimed Texas for slavery - - and got it.

The extension of slavery was the chief issue before the country in the presidential election in 1860, and the return of Abraham Lincoln as an anti-extension President decided the south to split the union. The war began with the bombardment of Fort Sumpter on the 12th of April 1861.

In this section, our ancestors experienced trying times during the Civil War. My grandfather Hanes was seven years old when the war began. His brother, Polk Haners went off to the war. My grandmother Hanes was thirteen years old at the start of the war---living near Avinger, Cass County, Texas. Her name, at that time, was Avarilla Duncan. As I said, they experienced trying times. There were days when they did not have enough to eat.

At the February term of the Commissioners Court in 1863, a committee was appointed in each precinct to investigate and help the destitute families where their husbands and fathers were in the Civil War. The amount of $25.00 worth to be given each woman and $5.00 extra for each child in the family, same to be reported to the court and a draft on the county treasurer.

The Committee was as follows: Precinct No. 1, John Givens, A.G. Stone, and Thomas J. Foster, Sr.; Precinct No. 2, Mr. Sturdivant, Dr. H.J. Avinger, and H. Duncan - a relative of my grandmother, Avarilla Duncan Hanes; Precinct No. 3, S. P. Woodward, James Brown, and F. S. Betts; Precinct No. 4, Samuel Oliver, A. Collins, and Thomas Lockett; Precinct No. 5, M. G. Bowles, R. H. Moore, D. M. Davis, E. D. Stevens, and James Norwood; Precinct No. 6, L. E. Watson, A. F. Armington, Dudley, Moore; Precinct No. 7, James Moon, Spencer Shelton, Young Stevens.

One record states that Rev. Nelse Porterfield built and ran the first hotel. Others following him and at other hotels were Ed Story, Mrs. Mary Dunson, C. W. Powell, Hendrick, S.W. Harwell, Ciscero Smith, Mrs. Orphey Boney, Dr. Dunson and F. L. Duncan.

Crocket Boon published the first newspaper. Subsequent publishers were J. Carleton Tripp, Jim Williams, Mason Cleveland, W. H. Wright, Adamson & White and W. H. Mathews, Sr. Mr. Mathews published his paper in the 1880's. It was called the "East Texas Rambler". His son, Mr. William Mathews, Jr., Texarkana, TX, gave me one copy of this paper. It is dated Jan 20, 1887.

First Justices of the Peace were E. M. Griffin, H. C. Roberts, Watt Finley and C. W. Powell, the latter serving many years, to the time of his death.

Following is a more complete list of these early physicians: Drs. G. H. Salmon, Furlow, Joe Matthew, Cunanne, Ware, Rivers, Swarrenger, Y. A. Matthews, W.W. & Mortimer Woodward. A sad incident in this story of the town was the death of Dr. Salmon, Sunday, Oct 12, 1889 and Dr. W.W. Woodward, the following day. These good men were followed by Drs. J. D. Carroll, Hooper Ellington, J. N. White, A.M. Neal, J. D. Gowen, J.C. Strawn and F. R. Roach. Early dentists were Drs. T. R. Cook, R. H. Gibbons from Brighten, England, and L. M. Rush.

Another industry in those days was a tan yard run by Perry Hawkins and Dave Lucas. The first livery stable was owned by Butler and Story. In those days the livery business was a big thing. They were succeeded by Eiddleman, Babe Powell, W. C. Powell, Tom Stanley, lastly, J. P. Booles, as the autos replaced the livery business.

The first great loss to the town came on its fifth anniversary, Aug 11, 1881, when fire destroyed two blocks of business houses, including John C. Hutchison, Matthew & Hood, Alex Pace, Mark Ford, W. B. Boney, Mrs. T. M. Ray, Sam Smith, Jas T. Fox and Smith and Crocker. The alarm was given by Wm. McDonald, who risked too much in seeking to save goods and was killed by a falling wall blown out by an explosion. These buildings were rapidly replaced by larger ones, only to become victim of a second fire about three years later. These were replaced by the brick blocks in 1884. J. L. Griffin operated the first brick yard at the present site of the John Beaver, Sr. home. C.P.A. Powell ran a brick yard later for several years.

Allen Bros., Brown & Wadley moved their large sawmill from Texarkana to Queen City in 1885, put up on south side of town; with seventy-five M daily capacity. They built a railroad to Rodessa, La.

The fast growing sawmill interest around Queen City contributed a great deal to the citizenship of the town, in money and many splendid families coming here. Other mill men were Capt. Allison, Jno. Swell, Hendrick, Ciscero Smith, W.F. Wickham, Jim Houston, A.M. Grady and others.

Among the early contractors in building Queen City, most prominent, were Pharr and Cade, J. M. Cauthen and Fred Simmons. Bob Cauthen was drayman for most of the lumber in the buildings. He came to a tragic end; was killed on the T. P. Railroad tracks.

Saddle and harness shops were run by Dean Thomas and Murry. Ben Glover and John Prator made and repaired shoes for the early citizens of Queen City.

Jack Barnes, for thirteen years (to the time of his death) ran a busy blacksmith shop. That blacksmith shop was on Houston Street - just east of the present post office.

Here are a few names who with their families were important builders of Queen City. Among them were Lovic P. Clements, Sr., (and eleven sons and daughters); Wesley Patillo; Bob Frazier; Mrs. Martha Dodd; Dr. Mitchel; Sid Ragsdale; Chas. Hutchison; Milton Hutchison; Col. John James Ellington; Dick Brown; G. A. Knowles; Colon Harris; Watt Crawford and Clay Cabe.

Letter of Mr. Wadley's

There are only a few of the "old timers" that I knew that you did not mention. One of the prominent families you did not mention was the John A. Bryan family. John Whickham married one of the , - Sallie Bryan, another, was Frank Ford, a brother of Mark Ford that was engaged in the general merchandise business on Houston Street.

My father and family moved there during 1884 or 1885, and with the others members of the Texarkana firm of Allen & Wadley, built and operated the Sawmill, that was located in the southern part of the town, near the Clements farm, referred to in your article, and under the corporation name of Queen City Lumber Company. The pile of saw dust referred to by you, was deposited there, a large part of it, by me during vacations out of school, associated with a mule and a dump cart. The saw dust was accumulated below the sawmill and carried across the boi8lers by a link chain, the part needed for fuel was dropped in the furnace and fuel house and the surplus dropped outside in a hopper where it was loaded into the dump cart and carried out on the premises and deposited in the low places.

I understand that a good portion of this saw dust was later hauled away by farmers and used in furrows were Irish potatoes were planted to make the soil loose so the potatoes would grow larger.

It may be of interest to you to know that the logging rail-road that was constructed by my father, to furnish logs for the mill, was the first one built in the south. This road extended east to Bloomburg and south almost to Vivian, Louisiana. the K. C. S. Railroad now uses the right of way of the old logging road from Bloomburg quite a distance South. Later, a branch was built to Atlanta, Texas, and a mill belonging to Ed Rand was also furnished logs by it.

Mr. Allen, a partner in the Queen City Lumber Company, built a house on the corner of present Olan Harper home - on west side of Second Street, Block 19. The trees that were set out in the front of this house are still living.