REMINISCENCES OF MRS. A. H. CARRIGAN

Wichita County Pioneer

My Father and Mother came to Wichita Falls in 1878, but did not stay that time. In 1879 my brother Joe came and stayed with a little herd of cattle, so he is called the oldest citizen. While father was here on that first trip he bought the land where our home now stands. He just had $80.00 so he bought 80 acres at $1.00 per acre. We lived near Dallas then in a little village named Cedar Springs, and we children went to school at Oak Lawn.

We moved to Wichita in the early part of 1880. There were five boys and myself in our family. During all those years Mother never one time mentioned that she was uneasy about her family, though there was not a physician in town or anywhere near. Besides our own family, Mr. Huff came to stay with us when he arrived in town, and stayed with us for years. Mother always took in every stranger that had no place to go and needed a home. Mother and I did all the housework in those days, for there was not a servant to be had, even if we had had the money to pay for one. I used to iron my father's shirts, and I still have the form on which I ironed the stiff bosoms. We had to go to Gainsville for all supplies, a distance of 65 miles.

Judge Seeley lived here in the very early days, and my brother Joe stayed with him before we came. Judge Seeley lived in a little store building on Ohio Avenue. He was a very stately old gentleman, who had been a state representative in Wisconsin, and thought he must dress the part even in Texas. I shall never forget how he looked when he went out on horseback to help get 150 names to a petition so that we could get the county organized. A man so tall and stately, wearing a tall silk hat, riding a small roan pony, was indeed a funny looking sight. He was a very wonderful old gentleman.

In the year 1886 there came for the annual picnic and celebration a Miss Lizzie Burroughs, and stayed in our home. I introduced Mr. Huff to her before the picnic, but I think she went with my brother Myron. There was a big bonfire out on the hill that night and an Indian War Dance. Sombody had put a cartridge in a log and it exploded during the celebration. The Indians were quite unsettled for a little while, and it was all Mr. Fox, the interpreter, could do to quiet them. A little later a terrible storm came up and scattered the crowd. Miss Lizzie Burroughs lost a shoe on her way back to our house. I remember that night she said: "And how do you like Mr. Huff?" He had lived at our house for so long that he seemed just like a brother to me: I told her all the nice things I could think of, and it was not long before they were engaged to be married.

One outstanding character of the early days was a boy about eighteen or nineteen named Steve Reynolds. He had a buggy and team and carried the mail in from Henrietta, delivering it to Mr. Seely. He had a little hand printing press and used to get out a little news sheet which he called "The Wichita Mirror". I am sure that must have been the first newspaper ever printed in Wichita Falls.

In the year of 1880, the village of Wichita Falls consisted of a dozen cabins, an occasional log room with a lean-to kitchen, one or two buildings made of unplaned boards known in early days as box-houses. One of these buildings had been intended for a store but because of lack of supplies with which to open the business to the public, it was used by an early settler as a dwelling.

A large open well, without so much as a curb around it, was one of the necessities of the community. It had the time honored windlass, around which a heavy rope kept in safety the "old oaken bucket". As newcomers, we were disposed to look upon this well as somewhat unsanitary. The wall of it only extended a few feet above the water; the taste of the water was most disagreeable, containing much gypsum as well as red sand. But like the early settlers of Palestine, whose community life centered around the village well, we found ourselved before many months enjoying the water from the only municipal water works of that day. This well was located in the center of the street in the 600 block of Ohio Avenue, and until the city fathers saw fit to desecrate the spot by putting paved streets in the city, it continued to be a public watering trough.

On the west side of this block was the store building of which I told you, occupied by Judge Seely and his family.

Across the street stood the cabin of three rooms where the Barwise fluctuating family lived in those early years. I use the term "fluctuating" advisedly, for the latch string of that cabin door hung ever on the outside and a genial, cordial welcome to all who needed a place of rest and refreshment came from the great-hearted little woman in the cabin. The quality of her welcome and the excellency with which she prepared the food from her meager larder, made this home one whose hospitality will ever be remembered.

Down the roadway, which was originally but a cattle trail, lived several neighbors. There in the neat little log house lived Mr. Jarvis whose wife had so recently died, leaving him the care of Alice, the two year old child.

On the other side of the street was a small cabin made of lumber occupied by Mr. Wattenbarger, the village blacksmith.

A new log cabin of hewn logs was built to house the family of Parson Zellers, the only circuit rider Wichita Falls ever boasted. The Parson's wife, a neat, bright-eyed little woman, made an everlasting impression on the younger minds of the community because of her perennial youth and happy smile. An infant daughter consumed much of her time: though the mother posessed no knowledge of Holt, no yet had counsel with a baby specialist, nevertheless the infant Zellers might have been very modern, from the amount of care the doting mother bestowed upon her offspring. A small store stood by the pathway near where the old McClurkan store once stood at 7th and Ohio. This village store with its floor of dirt, covered by large native flagstones, and its crude dust-covered shelves, catered to the needs of the early settlers, but particularly to needs of the cowboys and ranchmen who came for miles around to purchase high-heeled, handmade boots, stake ropes, wagon sheets, frying pans, saddle blankets, gay colored handkerchiefs, and a few necessary drugs - - it all seemed to add the quality of the individual cowboy, and many a one sought and found cheer in that old store. It was the community center when twice each week the mail hack would deposit the mail bag brought from Henrietta.

Major Harris, whose home had been on Red River, built what seemed in that day a real mansion, so large and commodious was the dwelling. It was the first house in the town to be built of weather boards: the first house large enough to have a parlor and sitting room as well; the first to have smooth plane flooring. The Harris family represented every good principle of Methodistism and it was in their house, which you will find today located on Lee Street, that the Methodist Church was organized. The Harris House became one of the substantial hotels in our community.

Miss Seely's bedroom was the educational center. With her splended intellect and excellent educational advantages, she was fitted to be the Community Teacher as well as the Sabbath School Superintendent. Bishop Garret, that grand old patriarch of religion in Texas, had been early on the scene and had supplied Miss Seely with much valuable literature with which to hold the early Sunday services.

Just out on Holliday Creek lived the family of Tom Williams. It was he who came in our wagon train from Dallas.

Outside of the village lived the Flemming family, whose thoughtful mother provided each of her growing sons with sunbonnets, to keep the deadly rays of our western summer sun from their heads. They came to town in an oxcart occasionally, and no children ever had happier advent into Fairyland, than did these Flemming bonneted boys. Miss Della, the eldest Flemming sister, kept the first country school in a neighboring dugout.

Old man Scott owned a crude log cabin on the bank of the Wichita near where the present bridge now stands. This was our first manufacturing establishment. You could see the old man in the fall of the year, feeding the cane hopper of the molasses mill, as a time-worn mule paced round and round, the beaten path-- making the motive power for grinding. The voice of the proud owner could be heard at frequent intervals, as he punctuated his remarks with generous expectorations of tobacco juice: "This here mill of mine makes the durndest sorgum, you ever put your lip over !" As this was the only mill in the country we were forced to believe him and accept our sorgum, which was delicious. The entire Scott family bore a peculiar trait which in psychological terms might be called a "tongue-tied complex" - they all spoke of the "duce" of the sugar cane, for they could not pronounce a "j".

On the hill top, where Mrs. P.J. Lea's home now stands, was the house of David Craig, a Wisconsin farmer, who came with his family to find cheap lands for his three sons. Mother Craig had died years before and home was looked after by a widowed daughter. Carrie Craig, the youngest daughter, was the village belle and many a cowboy lost his heart when he looked into the face of the charming blue-eyed lassie. Father Craig was a real Scotch gentleman whose brogue was as broad as the Tam Oshanter he wore. He could not look upon idleness with any degree of tolarance, wove fishing nets for pastime, and the villagers enjoyed many a fishfry on a summer day because father Craig was expert in weaving seins.

One country man of those early days, I recall with mingled feelings of pleasure and pathos. Pleasure in thinking of the keen witted bright eyed Irish boy who lived alone in a cabin up in the breaks of the river; always ready with his humorous wit spoken in his pure Irish tongue. But a feeling of pathos, when I remember the winter evening, preceding the Christmas of 1880, when the heart of the community was saddened at the appearance of John Dillon, brought into our midst just at sunset by the officer of the law from Clay County. John was hand cuffed and with a dogged, determined look, said not a word to anyone. Avoiding all eyes of his former friends, with head bowed in humiliation and embarassment, the young fellow bore his burden of suspicion alone, and was take to the Henrietta jail, there to wait his trial for having stolen a wagon. Justice in those days could not stand for so gross violation of the law, that took from a neighbor, without his consent, such a necessity as his wagon was in pioneer days. Of all the tragic happenings of those early days, this left an impression on the minds of the young never to be completely forgotten. One of the blessed traditions of our community is, we have shown unlimited faith in our fellow man until he has proven, beyond a doubt, that he is no longer worthy of it. We can overlook his faults, frailties, and shortcomings, and put forth untiring effort to help him over the rough places, but certain it is, the pioneer community could not, and did not, compromise itself by sheltering a thief, nor a bank robber, over night.

When we consider the effect in our country of the terrific drouth in summer, with the scarcity of food caused thereby, when money was so hard to earn that the mention of it was rarely made. When the wagon train that brought freight from the nearest shipping point 65 miles away; with men making the trip on foot, urging their poorly fed animals over rough, hard roads, fording rivers and creeks en route. Only when the generous rancher replenished the empty purse of the freighter, did the women and children feel the real assurance of the coming meal.

To those who weathered the years from 1880 to '84 in Wichita Falls, the war period of 1918 meant nothing. Eating black bread, cutting down on the sugar, abstaining from the food we felt our boys "over there" might need, was no sacrifice compared to that made by the pioneers, who awaited the coming of an occasional oxwagon, to bring supplies necessary for a family of ten. A biscuit could replace the regular cornbread, and the aroma of real coffee substitute that of the parched black-eyed peas, and a real fruit pie might claim the place of the one made of vinegar, which it had been our good fortune to have.