Carol C Taylor Blog

Even more than a hundred years ago, citizens were complaining about roads in this part of Texas, and probably in other areas that received winter snows and rain. Our blackland soil, often referred to as gumbo, is not receptive to all that rain. Mud and standing water are everywhere. I always believe the current year is the worse ever. I definitely do this year.

The City of Greenville is debating a bond election for road repairs where they are terribly needed. Dallas is full of potholes and road repairs. Interstate 30 is almost always in the midst of road repairs somewhere east of Dallas. It is a way of life in the 21st century.

But guess what? As long as Anglos have inhabited this area they have had to cope with mudholes, roads that looked and felt like washboards, and road work done by “volunteer” help. If you owned the land, you or your sons, or your slaves worked the roads. That was a Texas law in the 19th century. Somehow, the Native Americans were savvy enough not to accumulate enough belongings to interfere with travel.

With the introduction of automobiles and trucks in rural areas the winter problems became worse. Hunt County, where I live, had more than 100 small school districts until after World War II. Children had no means to get to the schools. There were some school buses but some students and teachers, like my mother, rode a horse on bad days. Yet, not every family owned a horse or mule. It was really a mess.

Before the First World War civic-minded men formed Good Roads Associations. Their intent was to create a network of decent roads across the United States. Were they worried about school children needing a ride to school or school teachers needing a horse to cross streams? No, the motive behind the move was economics.

Trains had crisscrossed the country side since the 1870s, yet there were great areas that had no rail systems, especially where large farms and ranches were located. It was farmers who needed means to haul cotton to gins, to bring produce to local stores, and to be able to shop in towns. Ranchers found that it was much quicker to move cattle to market by trains, but still had to get the cattle to a railhead going to the nearest slaughter house.

At one time a group of farmers and their families lived in the northeast corner of Hunt County. Years before trees were removed to allow all of the land to be cultivated. Trails led to schools and to town, but during a very wet year, the trails became impassable. The residents had no communication with the outside world. Once the local newspapers learned of the situation, they stirred up the awareness for better roads.

After World War I, many soldiers returned to find no jobs. Newspapers again got busy this time promoting building roads as help for veterans. The vote on March 25, 1919 passed 5,129 to 482, a big turnout and a big majority. At six polling places no votes were against the issue.

However, the Blackland Prairies are a clay-based soil that shifts throughout the year. In the summer the ground shrinks while it expands in winter with all that moisture. Asphalt does not shrink and expand, explaining while we still have roads needing repairs.

This year we have new tax laws, the federal government closed for the longest period ever, and everyone is complaining. But I found an incredible letter from Henry Banta, the first Hunt County Tax Accessor and Collector to the State Comptroller recently. While it was originally hand written and well over 150 years old, here is a transcription I made.

Hunt County, Texas

Sir in Answer to your Last Communication to me I now take the Liberty to answer as regards the assessment of the Past year. You seem to think strange of the small amount enclosed therein but Sir, I have to say to you that at the election of July 1846 (to organize the county) there was but 54 votes polled in this county and the assessment for the past year was certainly fair and correct the amount that was forwarded to your office was the exact amount assessed by me for the past year. (For) one thing the line between Hunt and Henderson was not established at the time the assessment was made and the assessor of Henderson County came over where the line was afterwards established and assess Several of the citizens which after the line was Established was in this county. Also the county court examined all of my proceeding parts (particular) and closely before they gave me a certificate for the same and they was certainly sure that it was just and true or they would not certified they was Right to the Balance of the assessment I mailed for your office on the 12th of this month. You will Please direct further communication to me
To Greenville, Hunt County.

This was written early in 1847. What Henry Banta did not mention was that in 1846 Hunt County didn’t even have a county seat. The location was still in debate. There was no courthouse. County boundary lines were not run. Yet the Comptroller wanted his money.

The 54 votes in July of 1846 were those of the 54 white men age twenty-one and over who could legally vote. By December of that year, those same men and maybe a few more voted to accept the donation of M. H. Wright for the present site of the courthouse; the downtown area known as Original Townsite. But there was no courthouse at the time Banta wrote the letter.

It appears that Banta sent an amount of money to Austin by mail. Sometimes the Tax Collector took it to Austin by himself, but this was a rather dangerous trip. Mail was equally unreliable. It often remained at a “post office” for days if the stage coach lacked enough room for both passengers and mail. The “post office” was not a stand-alone structure but a simple box in corner of a mercantile store. There were no boxes like we see today. To get your mail, you rifled through the box of letters and packages until you found what you wanted. Maybe that was why some tax collectors took the tax money to Austin themselves.

One of the earliest churches to still be at its original site is Kavanaugh United Methodist Church. The red brick structure with white columns has served congregations since that particular church opened in 1924. The church congregation was organized in 1896 as an offshoot of Wesley Methodist Church and held services there until 1921 when construction of the present-day church began. In 1896, an anonymous gentleman suggested naming the new church Kavanaugh in honor of Hubbard Hinde Kavanaugh (1802-1884), a highly esteemed Methodist Bishop from Kentucky.

Bishop Kavanaugh presided at the Annual Meeting of the North Texas Conference here in Greenville in 1881. For an hour and twenty minutes Kavanaugh “held the congregation spellbound, his imagination vivid, his voice clear, his strength unimpaired” another minister wrote. J. M. Binkley, another esteemed Methodist preacher called it the “most powerful and overwhelming sermon” he ever heard.

At an early age Kavanaugh began his ministerial career as a circuit preacher riding his horse over 200 miles to 25 appointments in 28 days. For five years he continued this rush on horseback from one point to another on the circuit. During this time, he became distinguished for his dauntless energy and untiring zeal in his work. He focused on preaching to both Black and White congregations. He served as Superintendent of Public Instruction in his native Kentucky in 1837, 1839, and 1840. He believed the concept was a good idea, but it was not accepted by locals.

By 1850 H. H. Kavanaugh had preached 3,330 sermons. In 1854 he was elevated to Bishop, a rank he held for almost fifty years.

Kavanaugh was a staunch supporter of temperance, Sunday Schools and the need for churches to provide parsonages for ministers and their families. He was active in supporting Camp Meetings, and retreats for ministers.

In 1845, political dissention in the United States disrupted the Methodist Church. Two separate branches formed. In those states that supported slavery and fought for the Confederacy sixteen years later, the branch became Methodist Episcopal Church South.

Bishop Kavanaugh was frequently called to communities to organize Methodist Churches. One such call was from San Francisco. In 1864 the Bishop was arrested as an enemy of the State of California and charged with interference in political matters in the war. The evidence was based on the name of his denomination since he was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South and a resident of Kentucky. (Kentucky never seceded from the Union.)

To show his allegiance to the United States, Kavanaugh offered to take the oath of allegiance to the United States of America and disclaimed any alliance to the Confederacy. After interviews with Captain John S. Mason, US Army, and Brig. General John S. Mason, Provost Marshal, Bishop Kavanaugh was vindicated of all charges.

He returned to his home in Kentucky and advised church leaders to remove the word “South” from the name of the denomination. He continued his work as a bishop, traveling throughout the South and the West. His visit to Greenville was one of his last. He died peacefully in March 1884.

I really hate to complain about my cold feet with others throughout the United States and Canada having such frigid cold weather this winter. But the truth is, my feet are cold.

Years ago, I found this contraption in an antique store. I had never seen one before. And I have never tried to use mine to warm my feet. Instead, it is a door stop, not that I have wind blowing through the house that might make doors slam. It is simply a clever piece of trivia I own.

Watching “Little Women” on NPR recently, I saw the mother put the exact copy of my foot warmer wrapped in cloths under the bed covers when one of her daughters was ill. The March family owned at least one earthenware foot warmer like mine.

As time went on, fancier styles were created, especially in Europe. Smaller stoneware pieces were used as handwarmers, much like hunters use today. The earliest hand and foot warmers held hot coals or glowing wood. Another devise was the bed warmer, a round thin brass basket attached to a long pole. The bed warmer was usually filled with embers and placed between the sheets shortly before bedtime. The use of hot water came later.

If you were travelling in cold weather you would hope to have a foot warmer of some sort with you in the unheated carriage, sleigh, or train compartment. A pierced metal basket of hot coals was a common solution for those who could afford one. Poor people travelling by wagon or sled carried pre-heated stones and bricks with them, or even baked potatoes, under the piles of quilts and blankets. Baked potatoes were common in bed when earthenware was not available or too expensive.

Later if you were fortunate to afford a ride on a first-class rail services, you enjoyed a cabin with built-in foot warmers. Some had larger earthenware pieces on the floor for heat. Others were equipped with areas on the floor with heated piping that ran underneath the floor. I suspect Edward H. R. Green, owner of the Texas Midland Railway that came through Greenville and Commerce, furnished such comforts for his passengers.

Stoneware or metal boxes filled with hot coals were really more efficient than fireplaces in homes. The heat from the boxes stayed in the room rather than escaping through a chimney. However, the danger of household fires was a constant fear.

While I truly appreciate central heat, I sometimes curl up in a blanket in front of the fireplace and read a good book for hours. But you can bet I have on a pair of thick socks.

Driving east from Greenville you will see the Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum. Also visible is the Ende-Gaillard home built 160 years ago. If you have spent much time in New Orleans and south Louisiana, you will recognize the Creole Cottage architecture of the early 19th century definitely in the Ende Home.

Charles Frederick von Ende (late known as Fred Ende) arrived in New Orleans from Hesse, Kassel, Germany in the late 1840s. That was a time of great immigration from Europe to the United States. New Orleans was a major port and entry point. Many German families settled east of the Mississippi near the Gulf Coast. However, it was not unusual for young German men to go traipsing through the Mississippi Valley, marveling at their new homeland. Fred Ende was such a young man.

He decided that Texas should be his home. When he arrived in the young town of Greenville in at the age of twenty-five, he knew this was where he wanted to spend the rest of his life. He also knew he would open a mercantile business. He also knew he was going to marry a young lady, Emilie Amelia Reinecker, he met in New Orleans. All of his plans came to fruition.

Ende’s store was located on the southeast corner of courthouse square in a red brick building with his name on the top. Not only did he open the store, but he went into partnership with Dr. S. J. Cooper in the Cooper and Ende Drug Store. In the back room of the Ende Mercantile Store Fred organized an IOOF Lodge in 1858. IOOF stands for International Order of Odd Fellows, still active in the second decade of the 21st century.

Before he married Emilie, he bought a lot north of the courthouse. There he built the Creole Style home. Construction took two years to bring materials and labor to Greenville. Ende wanted something substantial for a home.

Times were tough for the Ende family, like all families throughout the South, during the Civil War. But they survived intact. The store gained a good reputation. Fred Ende became known as a man of integrity, an outstanding pioneer community builder. For the next twenty-five years Ende’s progressive and public spirit led the town.

Fred Ende was a banker, a member of the city council, president of the school board, and owner of the first brick hotel after the first railroad arrived in 1880. Two years later Mr. and Mrs. Ende sold the Creole Cottage to their oldest daughter Louise and her husband Dr. David L. Gaillard. Louise Gaillard lived in the home all her life.

When she died in the 1945 her heirs donated the house to the Hunt County Historical Society (now defunct). The house was later moved to Graham Park in north Greenville before arriving at its final resting place on the grounds of the Audie Murphy/American Cotton Museum. It is truly a gem in Greenville history.