A poster for the 2012 Agriculture census
I answered the phone the other day to hear a recorded message stating that my husband and I would soon receive a 2012 Agricultural Census form to complete and return. Now, I have four raised beds where I grow vegetables. Altogether they encompass about 432 square feet. Someone at the Census Bureau will have a chuckle out of that. Then I remembered that my husband and his brother have about seven or eight head of cattle on their mother’s farm. Again, I could visualize the bureaucrat falling out of her chair.
Agricultural Schedules of the 1850, 1860, 1870, and 1880 censuses on a regular basis. Who knows, a hundred years from now one of our descendants will think we were big Texas ranchers.
On a more serious note, I have wanted to write a blog regularly since I worked at the library. One thing after another prevented me from doing so. Now, however, I think I will have time to write something at least four or five times per week. The topic is a subject that has disturbed me for sometime. I feel that North Texas is not considered a historical area. Yet, one of the early Anglo settlements in Texas, if not the earliest, was near Clarksville in the Red River County.
In 1816 Claiborne Wright moved his family on a hand made keelboat down the Mississippi to the mouth of the Red River. There the family poled its way upriver to Pecan Point where they built homes on the south bank of the Red River. All the time the Wrights and others really believed they were in the United States, on land acquired through the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Prior to 1836 the residents regularly sent representatives to the Arkansas legislature. Richard Ellis represented the area at the Convention of 1836 in Washington-on-the-Brazos. At the same time, his son, who lived in Richard Ellis’ home, represented the area in the Arkansas Legislature. Once Texas became a Republic, the citizens of Red River County dropped their claim to being a part of Arkansas and were satisfied to be Texans.
The Red River settlers arrived and settled in Texas three years before Moses Austin began his campaign to obtain a colonial contract from Spain in 1821. Many of the early settlers here in Hunt County came through Red River County.
In thinking over this plan for an Old North Texas blog, I determined that I would use the Red River as the northern boundary, obviously. The Louisiana-Arkansas lines are a natural east boundary. But the south and west boundaries were a conundrum until I arbitrarily decided on Interstate 20 westward to Abilene. At that point I have chosen to head my imaginary line straight north to the Red River west of Vernon. Yes, this area is also part of West Texas and the area east of us is definitely East Texas. But since this is an arbitrary imaginary line, who cares? I have lots of stories about the region of Old North Texas. Enjoy! And please let me know your thoughts.