Part 2 of a three part letter written by Virginia "Ginny" (Durant) Nettles
Submitted by
Carolyn Harrelson Buckley, March 5, 2008
Written by Melton E. Durant
| My father and mother
came to Texas in 1856. They were both born and raised
in South Carolina, and their four oldest children were born
there. My oldest sister, Hannah Jane was born January
11, 1849. I was the next oldest, Virginia Caroline,
born April 23, 1850. The oldest boy was William
Bethel, born May 21, 1853. The next was John Marsden,
born August 21, 1854. These were born in Horry Co.,
SC. We came to Texas in 1856. We started in
February. Stopped in Mobile, Alabama awhile, then in
Alexandria, Louisiana. I do not know how long we
stayed, but we got to Centerville, Texas April 1st, 1956.
My father rented a place near town that year and there
sister Mellie was born. She was born September 1,
1856, and was named for Mrs. Jake Horn and Mrs. Irvin
Barnes, and, our nearest neighbors, Mary Millicent. We
lived on the Jerry Horn place and went to school in
Centerville. Sister Hannah and I were six and seven
years old. The only ones old enough to go to school.
My father bought a place 9 miles from Centerville, we moved
there the 24th of December. There was a crowd of young
fellows came there that night and cut up much. They
stole some of mother's hens, caught the only rooster she
had, tied a shuck to his tail and set it on fire. When
they got out of gun shot of the house, shot off their guns,
you would have thought it was a battle. My mother was
much displeased. Said she was going back to Carolina.
My father was tickled. I believe he would liked to
have been with them. He said they were only having
some Christmas fun. They had done no damage. My
mother said they had stolen her best hens, chickens were
scarce and hard to get, and tried to set the place on fire,
but the buildings were all new and would not burn. The
Stegalls were our nearest neighbors. My father learned
that Tom Hardy (sic Hardee) led the gang of rowdies that
visited us on Christmas Eve night. He had been in
Milam Co. several years at Uncle Ned's. He did not
like the prairies. In Leon County there was water and timber in abundance. My parents had known him from infancy. My father hired him. He was a good worker at almost anything. Our house was his home for several years. People were coming to Texas. There was a demand for men who could work in timber. Tom Hardy only hired to my father one year, but my mother had his washing and ironing done and he called my father's house home. Several years after the war he married Bettie Long, a pretty girl, Rueb Long's daughter. They had a large family. They lived near us for many years. He lived to be an old man and died in Leon County. There was no school near us and my mother taught us at home. In the later part of 1857, an Englishman named Nickleson started a school at Union, three miles from us. Sister and I walked and went the first week. Sister was eight and I was seven years old. One morning there was a great bunch of deer across our path. They would not run from us and we were afraid of them. We went as close to them as we would venture. There must have been a hundred or more. There were many big bucks with big horns. Sister shook our dinner bucket at them. The bucks would rear up, come down on their fore feet, kick up and whistle. We retreated. We went home as fast as we could and told about the deer. My fater sent Tom Hardy with us, but the deer had gone. He said it was the red in our shawls that attracted them. Some of the men wore red hunting shirts. My father then got out an old mule for us to ride to school. Brother Billy was only four years old, but begged and cried to go to school every morning. He wanted to ride. They first let him go. All three of us rode old Jack to school. It was my job to stake and water him. But Nickleson only taught two weeks. He stole a mule from Mr. Adkisson, where he boarded, and ran away. He was the illest, cruelest man I ever knew. He made a small boy lay a sore finger on a bench and came down on it with a big switch until the bench was so bloody it had to be washed. All the children were glad when he ran away. We never heard of Nickleson again, but Mr. Adkisson's mule came back necked to a better mule. Mr. Adkisson advertised for the owner, but never found him. In 1858, Joe Moody got up a school at the same place. He was very unpopular with the pupils and patrons, proved incompetent, he only taught for a short time. Then another Englishman, a Mr. Blatmerwick taught a ten month school at Union. He was a good man, a competent teacher, respected and loved by pupils and patrons. In 1859 they built a school house near us, not more than a half mile. John Lewis Shaw, a young man from Georgia taught there in 1859, then again in 1860. He had a full school, but some did not like him. Mr. Shaw put in good time. He taught the young men to be polite. We all had to bow when we entered in the morning. At noon he taught singing. Every Friday afternoon and evening he had dialogues and speaking. I think he did more to polish thos rough Texas boys than any teacher ever had. He got a school in 1861, but the country was all stirred up for war. There was about twenty young men in the school. They kept going to fight. Mr. Shaw dismissed his school and went too. Mr. Shaw boarded at our house. In 1859 Uncle Daniel G. (Graham) was visiting us, then Uncle Hosea Graham moved from South Carolina to Texas. He brought his family to our house untill he bought a place. Uncle Aaron Howren came to Texas, and Mr. Shaw's brother, Jim Shaw, and his brother-in-law, a Mr. Barnett, visited him from Georgia. We had a full house all that year. The men had a fine time hunting. My father kept a pack of hounds. He would get on his horse, blow his horn, the dogs howled. Then the neighbors for miles around would join in the hunt. My mother would prepare a big dinner, for a crowd was certain to be there for dinner. Tom Hardy killed the only bear that was killed in our neighborhood after we came to Texas. There were bears, panthers, deer, turkey and other game in abundance here then. I think it was in 1860 the deer took the black tongue and were never so plentiful afterwards, but the wolves are here yet. Occassionaly, a panther passes through and will kill a calf or two. There are only a very few wild turkeys in 1870. Wild geese and ducks used to be abundant, but they are scarce now. The wild geese nearly destroyed a crop of corn for Mr. Josh Rosser. His farm was on Blisses Creek. He poisoned them with strychnine and got all the feathers they wanted. Mr. Rosser poisoned a great many wolves. My father said they were the largest wolves he ever saw. The coyote or prairie wolves are small, not like the wolves of Leon County. My father bought the place we were living on from Stegall. There was five hundred acres of land and a little cabin was the only house. He paid 500 dollars in cash for the place, but Stegall was slow in giving him a deed. After awhile the deed came from the Land Office in Austin. Stegall had sold him public land. (Stegall) had got 2 witnesses to swear my father had lived on and cultivated the place for three years before he had been here three months. The deed was made to my father as a Pre-emption. He (my father) was very angry. He went to Stegall for his five hundred dollars he had paid for the place, but Stegall had paid his debts with it. My father went to the witnesses. One was Stegall's son-in-law, a Campbellite preacher named Harbison. The other was a very ignorant man named Rance Raynor. Raynor could not read or write and he declared his mark was a forgery. My father forbid Harbison preaching anymore, but he left our county and preached on. A young man came here from South Carolina. He had a little negro boy six years old. His name was George Platt. He sold the little negro to my father for the place, but father was not to give possession for several years. My father said he could make Platt a deed, but it had been fraud and was hateful to him. He then Pre-empted a home, had 160 acres run out, and began building on it. We lived on the place he got from Stegall for five years then moved two miles north of there on the Centerville and Fairfield road. We moved February 21st, 1861. My mother had planted peach seed and had small trees enough to set out a good sized orchard. There was only enough land cleared for a garden. So the peach trees were set out in the garden the first year. My mother always wanted at least an acre for a garden. I was eleven years old in April of 1861. We liked the new place, but there was not enough land for my father. He bought 640 acres from George Butler, a man living in New York. Everything on the place that could help was put to clearing land and by 1862 there was a good sized field of rich bottom land cleared. My mother's five hundred dollars that her brother, Daniel, gave her made the first payment on the land. The field was a half mile from home, but my father prospered there, although the war had come on. My father got to drinking before I could remember, signed heavy securities for irresponsible men and had to pay their debts. His negroes were all sold, but five. My mother selected a family, two boys, Frank and Bill and their sisters, Mary Jane, Lavonia and Louisa, from a number of others. I never knew how many. My father had their ages, Frank, the oldest, was eighteen when we came to Texas. They were all likely young negroes. My mother did not think it right for my father's negroes to be sold for other people's debts. She tried to get him to send his negroes to her brother George in Texas. My father wanted to come to Texas, but he said he would pay all his debts if it took the clothes off his back. He would not leave a single debt unpaid. My father had his father's name and grandfather willed him all his personal property. Nearly everything was marked with the monogram BD. All the silverware had BD on it, the trunks, chests, bureau and dining table had the monogram in silver headed tacks. The dining table, and the end table that went with it, a small center table and the bureau were mahogany and quite a lot of pure china dishes. I have never seen any like them since. No wonder everything looked coarse and common in Texas to my mother. But, when she heard how Sherman's army had destroyed homes and farms, everything where she had been raised, she did not want to go back there anymore. In 1861 the war clouds darkened the homes of all Texas. Our State was never invaded like Georgia and the Carolinas, but there was gloom and sadness in every household. When a relative or friend crossed the Mississippi River they rarely ever came back. Many of our best young men died or were killed in Virginia. It seemed we never heard from them, only when they were mortally wounded, killed or died. The Dezell family in our neighborhood was very unfortunate. There was Tom, John, Young, Egbert, Ira and Will, all in the Confederate Army. Young was killed in Virginia, Egbert sent home mortally wounded and after he got home, broke out with small pox, at that time a very dangerous disease. It killed his mother. He died regretting he had come home, but he said when the doctors told him he would die of his wounds, he felt like it was so hard to die away from home and mother. One of his hips was shot away. He did not know he had small pox untill he got home. He was isolated, none of his friends were allowed to see him. Will Dezell died in Arkansas. I don't know what became of Tom. John and Ira were the only ones that came back from the war. Some people thought that there was a benefit in Texas and came here for refuge when their homes had been destroyed. We called them Refugees. Some of the best citizens came from Mississippi and Louisiana. A great many came from Missouri and Arkansas where there was guerilla warfare at home. Texas was no longer thinly settled. We were glad we had near neighbors. But so many had friends and relatives in the army that there was always news of some death or some one lost that they could not hear from. I was only eleven years old in 1861, but when they began to spin and weave cloth, I did my part. Some of the most helpless people I ever knew were those that had had servants to do everything all their lives, were learning to cook, milk, spin and weave and every kind of work. But all seemed determined and tried to make the best of the situation. When soldiers came in for clothes and blankets our people flocked to the rescue. Made clothes for him and sent clothes and socks to his comrades. My mother was adept at cutting mens clothes. She had learned from a tailor. She cut by measure. If whom she cut for was absent, she would measure someone about his size. She was always busy working for the soldiers. There was a small bunch of sheep on the place, Charles, the negro boy my father bought, was the shepherd. He had to follow those sheep all day to keep the wolves from getting them. There was a carding factory in Corsicana. Not a pound of wool would my mother sell. She had a good part of it carded, but some of it was carded at home and made into jeans and blankets for the soldiers. We knit a great many socks, wool and cotton, for the soldiers. Some of them, in fact, most of them preferred cotton socks. When my father joined the army my mother told him to take Bill with him. She could not manage Bill and my father had always been used to a waiting boy. He told Frank to manage the farm, everything about the place, hogs, cattle and horses. Frank was a valuable servant. My mother said he was a better farmer than my father. He made big crops of cotton, corn and Irish potatoes. At first it was difficult to keep enough Irish potatoes for seed. Frank would cut down a large hollow tree, saw it in four and five feet lenghts, work out the inside smooth, nail a bottom of oak boards that would hold sand. He would fill some of those gums (he called them gums) with dry sand in summer and after curing them, stow away the Irish potatoes for seed. He also used those gums to put peas in. I have seen a whole row across the smoke house full of thrashed peas. He then would hew a wide gum or linn puncheon to cover them to keep the mice and rats out. We had plenty during the war. They could readily swap a bushel of sweet potatoes for a bushel of wheat, have it ground and bolted in Dallas. We got our coffee and sugar and some dry goods from Mexico. The Mexicans would come in a great train of wagons, our money was no account, but my mother always managed to sell them corn or peas, some times a little gold or silver for coffee, when she could get it no other way. She was liberal with the coffee for very few were able to get it. When a neighbor came, she would have coffee made, and they would drink it before the neighbor left. Times were very different here from times where the country was invaded by the merciless foe. Some of those refugees told us pitiful tales of how they had been treated before they came to Texas. Their houses with their clothes and bedding, everything they had had been burned. Some of them did not have a change of clothes, but the people here were ever ready to furnish them homespun with which to make them clothes. No doubt it was coarse and ugly to those who had always worn the finest, but they all seemed to make the best of their bad situation. Some of our best citizens now, are descendants of those refugees. All of them that I know are in good circumstances. My father volunteered in 1862, but he could not stand a camp life. I think he spent most of his time in the hospital. He was discharged, came home a few days before brother Henry was born, January 9, 1863. A recruiting officer came in February that same year and he volunteered again. He belonged to Liken's Regt., Company A, Capt. Jerome Black. I think he joined the same command he had been discharged from, anyhow, he had the same Captain. They were in active service then in Louisisana. My father was only in two engagements, the Battle of Mansfield and Yellow Bayou. He was sent to the hospital again, and sent Bill home for fresh horses. My mother happened to see Bill first, riding up, leading his master's horse and she fainted. Bill knew at once what caused it. He dismounted, rushed up to where we were all around mother and said, "Master is not dead, he ain't goin' to die. He's in the hospital a little sick, and sent me home for fresh horses. Our horses about give out. Hard work and not much feed." My mother roused up, put Mary Jane and Lavonia to cooking. She had new clothes, socks, blankets and towels. She had Bill on his way to Louisisana before day the next morning on a fresh horse for himself and leading the beautiful black horse Uncle Daniel gave mother for father to ride. The war did not last much longer, but father was discharged the second time before the war ended. On June 20, 1864, Bill and Frank, his brother, ran away. They could both read and write. They knew that Lincoln's Proclamation had declared them free the 19th of June. My father was not surprised, said he intended to tell them they were free. He then called Mary Jane, Louisa and Charles, told them they were free, could go where they pleased. We thought they would be glad, but instead, the two women busted out crying. Mary Jane spoke after a minute. She had a little girl 3 years old. She said, "Master, I am your nigger. I was born yours, this child is yours, and now you goin' to turn us out without a home. Let us be yours till we die." She had married Abe Loper, a very black man, but quit him before their child was born. She said he was no account and told her so many lies. She could not believe anything he told her. Father told her they could stay there until she found her a home. She was smart, a good cook, milkmaid or washer woman. It would not be difficult for her to find a home. She replied that she had as good a home as she wanted right here. They remained until 1869. The women left, but Charles stayed several years longer. Lavonia died January 6th, 1885. My father had to hire men to cultivate the land and seemed to get along as well without the Negroes as he did with them. He made good crops and had two large freight wagons, and I do not know how many oxen broke (oxen he had broken for hauling.) It took six yoke to pull one loaded wagon. He hired a young man, a neighbor, Ebby Wadford, to drive one wagon, and brother Billy, then twelve years old, to drive the other. He would carry potatoes west, swap them for wheat, then send flour to Houston and bring back freight for the merchants in Centerville. But very little flour got to Houston. It was generally sold on the way. There seemed to be a great demand for it everywhere. My father had rich bottom land and he and one of the neighbors, Hiram Smith, planted wheat. But it rusted and smutted so bad, it did not pay. I think they planted it three years before they gave it up. But father drank worse all the time. Whiskey was his ruin. August 9th, 1868 my mother died. There was eight of us left motherless, with a father that was seldom sober. It seemed he could not resist his craving for drink. |