Dallas County History

THE FIRST SETTLERS ARRIVE

Before future generations can form a correct estimate of the character, achievements and successes of any pioneer people, it is essential that they should know, not only the conditions of the country in its primitive state, its advantages and disadvantages, its dangers, privations and hardships endured and overcome, the character and efficiency of their weapons of offense and defense, and their implements of husbandry, but also the prospective resources of the country to be subdued and brought under the magic influence of civilization, and the means for its accomplishments. Hence I shall endeavor to give the reader such information.

The country was then one vast wilderness, all of which was practically under the control and dominion of cruel and savage Indians of nearly every tribe then inhabiting or roaming over this vast wilderness. So its dangers were wild, roving, irresponsible bands of savages, stealing, intimidating and murdering at every favorable opportunity. Also the diseases of a new and undeveloped country, destitute of doctors or medicine, also uncontrollable prairie fires, fed by prairie grass, which when thoroughly matured was from one to three feet high, with no roads or streams to check its progress, also intense suffering from heat and cold for need of sufficient shelter. Its only immediate advantages were a bountiful supply of wild meats, such as buffalo, which disappeared in 1846, bear, deer, wild turkeys, prairie chickens, quails and squirrels, wild geese and ducks in great flocks in winter. Bees and honey it seemed were in nearly every hollow tree. All it then needed to make it a land of milk and honey, was the milk and someone to provide and use it. Its fruits were wild, such as black walnuts, pecans, persimmons, black haws, winter grapes in the fall and winter, dew berries and blackberries in the spring and post oak grapes and wild plums in the summer.

Their weapons of offense and defense were mostly the old muzzle loading rifle, with flint lock which was very unreliable during a windy or rainy day. Percussion caps with adjusted percussion locks had only a short time been brought into use, and by degrees superceded the old flint lock. Their implements of husbandry were the old fashioned prairie plow, used for breaking and turning the sod, and which required five yoke of good oxen to operate. The old fashioned bull tongue and half-shovel plow were used for years to cultivate their crops, until the turning plow was introduced. Their wagons were wooden axle, with wooden spindles, properly ironed, with linch- pins to hold the wheels on the axle-tree. The spindles on which the wheels turned were lubricated with tar and every wagon had a bucket of tar and paddle for spreading the tar on the spindle, securely fastened on the end of the coupling pole, just behind the rear axle. They had a few crosscut saws, broad ax, hand saws, foot adz, augers, hammers, chisels and frows for riving boards.

The earlier pioneers had to use primitive methods to make meal for bread, some had steel mills, others had to resort to mortars and pestle. They had to cut their wheat and cradle and bind it into bundles by hand using some of the straw for bands. A good cradler could cut two acres of wheat a day and a good binder could bind two acres a day. Until the country was supplied with horses they threshed their wheat with a stick called a flail. After there were horses enough in the country, they tramped it out with horses, using wooden pitchforks to separate the straw and wheat, and winded the chaff from the wheat until the early fifties when Jeramiah Sherwood of Millwood, became agent for McCormick's reapers, and supplied the country with them. These reapers cut the grain and caught it on a platform behind and on which a man with a wooden pitchfork rode and raked it off into bundles. It took five good binders to bind or tie the grain as fast as it was cut and piled. This reaper was used until the close of the Civil War when wire binders were introduced which materially reduced the cost of labor; but did not give satisfaction as in threshing, the wire was mixed with the straw and was soon scattered over the farms. This was, however, the binder and header, which are in use toady.

The prospective resources of the country were great. The soil was deep and very rich and fertile, promising great production. The people were exceedingly anxious to bring it under the influence of the plow and see what it would produce, they lost no time in preparing it for cultivation and testing it with such crops as the seed which they had would permit. When their test crops grew to maturity, all were delighted with its fertility and wonderful productiveness. In discussing this amazing fertility and productiveness, together with its beauty and attractiveness one day, Mr. Harrison Marsh said to William M. Cochran, "Cochran, I can drive a stake down within one hundred feet of where the center of the garden of Eden was located." Indian corn, pumpkins, and melons were first tried. Then sown in the county. When this wheat grew to maturity and ripened, in 1845, Cochran and all his neighbors were overjoyed at its astonishing yield. William M. Cochran then secured some cotton seed from somewhere and in the spring of 1846 planted and cultivated them (only a small area), the yield was wonderful and astonished and elated the entire, settlement, and demonstrated the wonderful fact that nature had failed to draw the distinctive lines of latitude and longitude to such an extent, that the cereals of the north and principle staple of the south grew side by side on the same farm to perfection, the same year. This encouraged and stimulated these ambitious, energetic pioneers to heroic efforts as was manifest in the rapid and unprecedented development of the country, as will be shown later on. Thomas Keenan brought peach seed with him and planted them in the fall of 1842, and raised the first peaches ever grown in Dallas County. William M. Cochran not only brought peach seed with him, but apple and cherry seed, and planted them too late in the spring of 1843 for them to get a sufficient growth to be transplanted in the fall of 1843, at the time Keenan transplanted his. Cochran had to wait until the fall of 1844 to transplant his. Thus Keenan got a year start, and grew the first peaches grown in Dallas County, and William M. Cochran grew the second, which were fine, thus proving it to be a fine peach country. The apple and cherry trees grew fairly well; but the fruit was inferior. This was the first crop planted, the country failed to produce successfully. Thomas Keenan and William M. Cochran grew corn enough in 1843, to bread their families and sold considerable to others, who had located, but came to late to prepare their land and raise a crop. Both Keenan and Cochran grew immense quantities of large fine yellow pumpkins which they divided with their neighbors and dried enough to supply their own families through the winter.

The brave, energetic and industrious people of every country who strive to better their conditions and that of those dependent on them are the flower of their country. This is the class of people who came from Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Mississippi as pioneers, who settled and developed Dallas County. This class of people are always possessed of faith, hope and charity, the three cardinal tenets of the Christian religion. Without faith and hope nothing would be planted or cultivated; the wheels of commerce would cease to revolve and mankind would lapse into a state of despairing barbarism. This, these grand and noble pioneers fully understood and appreciated. Among them were many ministers of the Gospel of different denominations; but all were possessed of charity and all worked not only for the material advancement and betterment of the country, but provided for the moral, religious and intellectual advancement of the people commensurate with their material progress; hence made rapid and successful advancement in everything contributing to a permanent civilization, which their descendants and successors enjoy today.

In the early part of 1845, they erected the first school and church house ever built in Dallas County. This house was built on the north side of Farmers Branch and about five hundred yards west of I. B. Webb's residence in which the first school was taught in Dallas County, in February, March and April, 1845 by Thomas C. Williams. The first church organized was a Methodist church. Its original members consisted of Issac B. Webb and wife, Nancy Jane Cochran and M. F. Fortner and wife. Methodist, Baptist, Christian and members of no church, all joined in building this church and school house, and as soon as it was completed all joined in and built a Baptist church- house near where Farmers Branch depot is now located on the M. K. & T. Railroad. A Baptist church, early in 1846, was organized there and Rev. David Myers and wife, John M. Myers, Rev. William Bowles and wife, A. W. Perry and wife, and others as original members, and Thomas Keenan and wife joining the church and were baptized in Farmers Branch some three hundred yards west of Pulliam's home, which the Baptists used as a baptizing place for several years. There were several joined as original members; but I never saw the list of their original members and therefore am unable to give a correct list.

From the above and foregoing it is evident these early pioneers were possessed of charity and they grew and prospered. Before describing their rapid growth and prosperity, or enumerating their many successful accomplishments, I shall relate four exciting incidents that occurred while in its wild and unprotected state. The first was strictly personal to myself and will amuse the youngsters of today, but to me at the time was not amusing but furnished amusement for the other members of the family and for my young associates. The other three relate to the dangers and depredations of the Indians, all of which made a lasting impression on me.

The one personal to me, I shall relate first, at the risk of worrying my readers. We were then living in the prairie on the south side of Farmers Branch. There stood southwest of our house about one hundred yards from the house, a stately elm tree of dense foliage, which made a cool shade, under which my brothers, A. M. and William P., and I spent much time in the heat of the day. One day in August, 1844, I, after eating my dinner, repaired to this shade in advance of my brothers A. M. and William and I was enjoying the cool shade, when I heard a noise. On looking, I saw a young buffalo about forty yards distant approaching the shade at full speed. I did not take time to say good-bye but ran as fast as I could to the house, and you can rest assured I did not run any jockey race. Or reaching the house, out of breath, I told my mother what had happened. She looked and saw the buffalo enjoying the shade undisturbed. She got the gun and was preparing to shoot it, when two men, newcomers and strangers rode up, my mother pointed to the buffalo, which had discovered the men on horseback and which was running south at breakneck speed. The men immediately pursued, overtook and killed it. Buffalo are afraid of men on horseback but not much afraid of them on foot.

The most exciting and the most ominous, and the one fraught with more danger, and which proved the determination, the courage and the bravery of the earlier pioneers of the country more than any event I now recall, occurred one moonlight night in May, 1843. There were but five men on Farmers Branch, to-wit, Thomas Keenan, Simpson and John L. Pulliam, William M. Cochran and a young man by the name of Steve Webb who came to Texas with William M. Cochran and family. None others nearer than Dallas which was some ten miles distant and but few there. After all on Farmers Branch had retired for the night but had not gone to sleep, the keen crack of a rifle and the rattle of a bell was heard, which was on the only cow on the Branch at the time, and running with her one yearling heifer, and five yoke of oxen, all the property of William M. Cochran, and all of which were resting some three hundred and fifty yards up the branch, east of the Pulliam home in which Cochran and family where living and about the same distance from Thomas Kennan's. On hearing the fire of the gun, the four men at the Pulliam house sprang out of bed hurriedly dressed, grabbed their guns, and Simpson Pulliam and William Cochran went quickly to where the shot was fired and left John Pulliam and Steve Webb to guard my mother and her children. Keenan did not leave home as he had no one to guard his family. When Simpson Pulliam and William Cochran reached the spot where the gun was fired and the bell rattled, they saw four of five Indians run off half bent through the tall grass. On investigating they found one-quarter of yearling and the hide from which the Indians ran. The Indians had worked so fast after killing the heifer, that they had skinned and taken away all except the hide and one-quarter of the beef. The last Indians seen running as above described left so hurriedly that they failed to take and left lying on the ground beside the one-quarter of the beef and hide, two or three bridles and many hair ropes, which Pulliam and Cochran appropriated and carried home with them besides the one-quarter of the beef so hurriedly abandoned by the Indians. A thorough search for these Indians was made early next morning, but they had gone.

The next exciting incident to occur, but not so dangerous, or exciting as the one just described, took place on William Cochran's farm just a few hundred yards further up the branch, and slightly northeast of where the yearling heifer was killed. This too took place on a moonlight night in July, 1843, but was not discovered until about 10 A. M. the next day. It was much more vexing, humorous and amusing than dangerous. William Cochran had large quantities of pumpkins, watermelons and citrons, now called pie melons, planted all through his corn which was the first crop of corn planted in Dallas Country. Many pumpkins, watermelons and citrons were ripe. The Indians going south on a hunting and pilfering raid passed through the farm which seemed to be on their pass way. On striking the watermelons, they cut open and ate many and when, after eating their fill, they moved on south through the farm, promiscuously cutting and slashing and destroying the watermelons. Finally they came to the citrons, and here they broke several blades out of their knives and left the broken blades sticking in the citrons. It seemed all at once to occur to them, that they were doing wrong, as they suddenly quit their cutting and slashing and were gone before it was discovered. The next exciting incident was in November, 1846, which resulted in the Grand Prairie fight in which Captain Preston Witt killed the Indian Chief, which Major Brown so well describes. This ended the Indian troubles in Dallas County, so far as I know. I personally knew every man in Captain Mount's company. Two of this company were working for my father, William Cochran, who had gone on horseback to Tennessee to see his aged mother. They were Thomas Chenoweth and John Mitchell. When they returned they exhibited the Indian scalp and many brass rings which were captured, and told of the fight and their success.

Citizens of Dallas County at Close of 1843
A list of the early pioneers of Dallas County, Texas, who constituted the entire population of the county at the close of the year 1843, together with their location, which may be of interest to the present and future generations. There were on Farmers Branch just twenty-one persons including men, women and children, to-wit: Thomas Keenan and wife and three daughters, Elizabeth, Hannah and Mary, and four sons, William, Marion, David and John: two Pulliam brothers, John L. and Simpson; Steve Webb; William M. Cochran and wife, three sons and one daughter, John H., A. M., William P. and Margaret Elizabeth; James Stockton and wife and George W. Glover; John Huitt and wife and a Negro man named Al. Al was the first Negro that lived in Dallas County. Huitt settled in the prairie near where Carrollton is now located. Huitt and his Negro, Al, planted early in 1843 several acres of corn without any enclosure whatever and raised a fair crop of corn; but in the early fall of 1843, the buffalo came and ate his entire crop up. Huitt then moved to Cedar Springs and spent the winter there with his friends and relatives. There also settled at Cedar Springs in May 1843, Dr. John Cole and family, James M. Cole, John H. Cole, Martin V. Cole, afterwards County Treasurer, and Joseph L. Cole who still lives in Dallas. One of Dr. Cole's daughters married Esquire James M. Smith, brother of J. W. Smith, the first merchant of Dallas. The other daughter married A. G. Walker, surveyor and senator from the Dallas Senatorial District. There were others who settled at Cedar Springs. At the same time a brother of John Huitt came, also Dr. W. W. Conover. On what then was known as Browning's Branch, now called Bachman Branch and near where the M. K. & T.. Railroad crosses said Branch, settled a man and family by the name of Browning, for whom Browning's Branch was named. Also a man and family by the name of Greathouse, who cleared and put in a small farm in the timber north of the Branch and cultivated it for a few years and moved away, as he discovered he had settled on an old survey. Browning moved for the same reason.

John Neely Bryan, the founder of Dallas, James Dumas and family and a few others lived in Dallas, west of White Rock Creek and east of Dallas, lived John Beeman and family, William H. Beeman and family, John S. Beeman and family. East of White Rock creek lived the following; Landon Walker, Henson Walker, W. W. Hobbs and family, R. S. Custer, James F. Reddin, Thomas P. Rattan, J. B. Moore, George Cox, Samuel Beeman, James Y. Beeman, John Bryan and family, Wilson Hilbert and family, Henderson Walker, Crawford Brown and family, Samuel Moss, John H. Cox, George Lamston, A. W. Webb and family, and Mary Rattan, widow, whose husband was killed by the Indians. South of the river lived M. Gilbert and family, also William S. Coombes and family; William Coombes was the father of Z. Ellis Coombes. On Cedar Creek lived George Leonard, who was the father of Captain Jack Leonard, who was afterwards a member of the firm of Adams and Leonard, Bankers, of Dallas; also John W. Wright and George W. Dooley and family. On mountain Creek lived Timothy Carpenter and family. West of White Rock Creek and east of Farmers Branch lived Captain Preston Witt and twin brother, Pleasant Witt. The above list and a few others whose names I am now unable to recall correctly, constituted the entire population of Dallas County at the close of 1843. Those who lived in Dallas County prior to the close of 1845 lived under the Republic of Texas and were here during the war of the United States with Mexico. The increase in population during the next succeeding two and one-half years was so great and the population increased so rapidly that on July 13, 1846, the County had sufficient population to justify the organization of the County.