TXGenWeb Robertson County Books & Master's Theses

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Volunteer Jo Ella Snider-Parker (SPJPVine@aol.com) purchased a copy of this thesis from Texas A&M's Cushing Library & beautifully re-typed this work.  Mrs. Carson's niece, Janis Hunt, has been contacted to obtain the needed copyright permission.

CHAPTER V:  ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

Farming     Brazos Valley Problems     Pioneer Farm Homes     Transportation

Farming

The first settlers lived in a primitive manner.  Situated far from markets, they grew for home use small patches of potatoes, corn, and vegetables, and raised a little stock.  There was a tendency to settle in communities for the advantages of mutual protection from the Indians.  Generally the most convenient lands were cultivated.  The sandy timbered soils were preferred for vegetables, while the “red lands,” were selected for corn.  Prairie land was not so generally sought after, as it was considered harder to cultivate and not so productive.  It was soon learned that hogs and cattle could be successfully raised with little attention on the timber ranges and on the prairies, stock raising became the dominant industry among the early settlers.  Steers were driven to Houston, where they sold for about $1 per hundred pounds.  Settlers were not slow in recognizing the adaptability of the soils to cotton, and its cultivation began in the late thirties, slave owners being among the first to take it.  The establishment of a cotton gin at Wheelock in 1839, properly speaking, marks the beginning agriculture in Robertson County.  The production of cotton was quite limited at first, only about 429 bales being produced as late as 1849.  The Brazos bottom soils were among the first to be used for cultivation of cotton.  The first crops were hauled to the Trinity River and rafted to Galveston.  Agriculture made very little headway before 1845, on account of hostilities with Mexico.  Oats were introduced in the Wheelock neighborhood about 1845.  Wheat was later introduced and made some good yields on the prairies and “red lands,” but owing to the absence of mills and a general belief that climatic and soil conditions were unsuited to it, the crop has never found much favor.[122]

The most destructive cotton pest in the history of county has been the boll weevil.  The year 1903 is commonly referred to as the “boll weevil” year, when large fields failed to produce enough to warrant picking.  This cotton failure caused a serious depression in the area.  This pest compelled farmers to turn their attention to diversification and to better methods of soil management.

During the earlier years of the ravages of the boll weevil the large number of deserted houses gave evidence of the uneasiness that existed.

In the efforts to meet the ravages of the boll weevil the farmers of Robertson County have become imbued with a new spirit and are generally working out better methods and enlarging the scope of agriculture.  When it is considered that there is great room for soil improvement and restoration through rotation and the use of vegetable manures, that susceptibility to drought can be appreciably reduced by deeper preparation and shallow cultivation, and that diversified farming is yet in its infancy, it becomes quite evident that there is good opportunity for a much greater agricultural development in this county.  Fruit and truck growing, particularly the production of early Irish potatoes, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, and a great variety of vegetables, can be successfully carried on in conjunction with general farming, and to a certain extent with stock raising, over a large portion of this area.  The great variety of soils and the great variety of crops to which these soils are adapted, coupled with the low price of land, makes the county one of the most desirable of the eastern Texas counties to the man of moderate means who desires to engage in diversified farming.  It is easy to make a good living here; and there are excellent opportunities to make money.[123]

The farms in Robertson County varied in sizes.  Some of the upland farms were small while others contained as many as 2,000 acres, or more.  The farms in the Brazos bottom were generally large; many contained more than a thousand acres.

The typical Robertson County land-owner and raiser of crops was a slave-owning planter.  Throughout the Brazos bottom the plantation was the great center of labor and industry.

In size, the plantation ranged from a few hundred acres to a thousand or more.  The owner lived in the big house, and ruled, in one way or another, all those who lived on his land.

Behind the big house, or along the turn-rows, were the quarters for the slaves who tilled the fields.  The quarters consisted of one-room or two-room cabins.  Men, women and children worked the fields from dawn till twilight.  They received no pay, but received food and clothing, and some planters allowed the slaves to cultivate small plots for their own use.

Cotton raising was the inevitable pursuit of the people who came to Robertson County from the deep South.  As soon as the development of the rich valley lands became feasible, these hardy pioneers built large plantations and brought in Negro slaves to work and harvest the crops.  About 1850, the county had its first gin, and was fundamentally devoted to farming.[124]

The only recorded crop failure of the pre-Civil War period was in 1857.  This was the year of the severe drought.  An old settler and his wife gathered all the corn that grew on his ten-acre field and took it home in his wife’s apron to cook as roasting ears.  Despite the drought, stock raising continued to be important.[125]

Robertson County, as well as the entire South suffered from the labor problem following the Civil War.  During the year after the close of the was it was said of the freedmen: "there are many doubts regarding their profitableness; they perform about two thirds of what they did previous to the emancipation; their wages range from $8 to $12 per month, or one third of the crop."[126]

In 1870 there was a general report that:  "Freedmen do not improve, but are disposed to be idle and improvident.  They usually hire for wages, which are usually $15 per month in coin for the year and board."[127]

With the coming of the railroad in 1869, cotton production increased tremendously.  In one day the trains could easily transport as many bales over the fifty-mile road to the nearest market as one thousand ox-teams could haul in two weeks.[128]  In the West, centers for cotton buying grew rapidly, facilitating marketing of cotton grown in Robertson County.[129]

Numerous rains, some resulting in floods,[130] early proved serious setbacks to farming.  Early in the twentieth century many acres of excellent farm land along the Brazos River seemed likely to be ruined by frequent inundations.  Just before the first World War, levee construction was undertaken along the river banks in Robertson County and much land was reclaimed.[131]

In recent years there have been numerous attempts to obtain an appropriation to clear the channel of the Brazos River.  In so doing it would be made navigable again.  The Brazos River Conservation and Reclamation District was organized and is considered an important step in this direction.[132]

Brazos Valley Problems

Men like Dick White, Buck Watts, Tite Westbrook, and the grand old patriarch Louis W. Carr, the Astins, Ed and Alf Wilson, following the lead of the Hearnes and Lewises, have made the Brazos bottom a rival of the Valley of the Nile.[133]

These bottom farmers had their share of labor troubles.  There were always too many acres for too few men.  The story of this condition constitutes a very serious chapter in the history of the merchants of Hearne.

In this emergency the farmers made contracts with the State Prison Board for the labor of Negro convicts.  There were only a few at first, but as the successful tests were made, most of the bottom farms secured them.  The pay-rolls went to the State Prison Department, and many of the supplies came from the same source.  For the first time friction arose between the merchants of Hearne and the Brazos bottom farmers.

Petitions from the merchants were sent the State Officials, asking that the practice be stopped.  H. L. Lewis, usually a loyal and able worker for his town, announced that he was a candidate for the Legislature.  He ran on the platform of “more and cheaper convicts,” and was elected.  The contracts were renewed for a number of years and the young and struggling town of Hearne languished.  Finally, however, the prices for convict labor were raised and since most of the farm owners had cleared all their land, and since there was no method of employment for the convicts between crops, and with a full payment required while the men were in the guard house during inclement weather, the situation cleared itself.

Following the convict era came good times again.  After the farmers lost their convict labor other workers had to be secured from some source.  Rasche Hearne solved the problem in this way:  with one of the managers, he went to North Carolina and recruited a train load of farm laborers.  This was continued for several trips with the labor and expenses being prorated among the farmers.

This was an excellent “set-up” for the Texas end of the route, but a bit disturbing to the people of North Carolina when they found that they were losing their laborers.  Rasche Hearne discontinued the practice after members of a vigilance committee walked him out of North Carolina between suns.

Alabama experienced the same practice, until the shortage of labor was overcome in the Brazos bottom.  Today if you happen to ask an elderly Negro if he were born in Texas, he will very likely reply, “no, suh, Mr. Hearne fotch me out here from North Calina.” 

About the turn of the century labor was plentiful, most of the land was under cultivation and heavy crops were being produced.  The harvest from the crops and all the farm supplies had to be hauled over roads frequently impassable, which created another problem for the farmers in the bottoms.  To solve this problem the merchants and farmers worked together, and with able citizens representing the two classes of settlers the condition was overcome.

In 1893, the Hearne and Brazos Valley Railroad was built from Hearne to Steeles Store in Brazos County, a distance of about sixteen miles.  Hearne merchants, headed by men like H. B. Easterwood, R. A. Allen, and John Sailors, paid for their stock in cash, thereby creating a fund that would enable the builders to buy rails, ties, bridge materials, and other needed goods.  The farmers paid for their stock with right-o-way, labor and grading with their teams.  To avoid the expense of bridging Little Brazos River, an agreement was made with the I & G N for the use of their trucks over the river, as well as for the use of their freight cars. and for the tonnage this road would receive from this H & B V.  The H & B V bought and owned outright, one passenger car, one caboose, and one engine.  A dispatcher’s office was constructed where the new rails began and the conductor was required to act as the dispatcher.  The conductor, of course, was the logical one who could clear the I & G N when the tracks were left, and at the same time get orders into Hearne on his return.

The road was a success from the very beginning and as it was locally owned it was also an accommodation route. It made stops at every “turn-row,” to mail letters, transact all types of business, carry out the pay-rolls; it did the marketing and delivered ice.  At first a white face was automatically a pass, but this had to stop when the Railroad Commission discovered the little sixteen-mile railroad and took over.  It became the duty of the Commission to regulate discrimination in freight rates and passenger tariffs.

On Saturday mornings when the train pulled into Hearne, colored passengers filled the coach; filled several flat cars to capacity; and often climbed to the top of the coach.  On just such an occasion the little train was given a new name, “xxxx Pacific.”

The little road filled its well-worth purpose from the very beginning, in 1891, and did much to help develop the lower bottom, especially that region around Steeles Store.  Unfortunately for the owners, the Southern Pacific, in 1913, took a fancy to the short road and in a sub rosa manner bought it for an especially arranged price.  Soon after it changed ownership, the house in which the small engine was kept was destroyed by fire and the little engine was completely ruined. 

Pioneer Farm Homes

The bottom lands were largely in timber at this time with poor drainage and malarial conditions generally prevailing.  The bottom was considered no place for a white man to live.

Rasche Hearne built his home in a large group of oak trees about five miles from the present town of Hearne and in the community of Sutton.  In this typical farm home the man of the house added much to the natural beauty of his home and grounds by placing imported shrubs at vantage points over his estate.  He looked after the yards and displayed much interest in the gardens where all types of fruit trees flourished and every vegetable known to the early settlers grew in abundance.  “I have seen Rasche Hearne cut as many as six water melons before getting one to suit him.”[134]

Priscilla, Rasche Hearne’s wife, while leaving the pigs and cows to her husband, had every kind of fowl.  They were distributed over the large yard where there were chickens of several different kinds, ducks, geese, and large flock of peafowl, plus the always noisy guineas.

Into the making of this home, in the heart of Robertson’s colony, Rasche Hearne turned to the timbered lands for his building material.  A saw mill was set up on his farm and in this mill he made all his lumber from prime cedar logs.  This typical planter’s home was a two-story structure with rooms twenty feet square and containing very high ceilings.  All windows were of cedar made by the carpenters at the work bench.  The walls, ceilings and floors were tongue and grooved and made with home-made planes at the bench.  The studding was made from cedar saplings squared on the two sides to receive the sides and ceiling and left in the natural state on the other sides.

The studs were fitted into the heavy plates and were fastened with ash pins.  Every part of house was cedar, from the ten by ten squared sills to the shingles on the roof.

For many years Rasche Hearne was a regular traveler from his home to his several farms in the bottom and not infrequently he would have his weekly payroll in the back of his buggy, and yet he never had a robbery.

After the death of his wife, Rasche Hearne gave up his Sutton home and moved to one of his other farms where he built a fine house.  In the second home from an artesian well he developed natural gas which was used in his household.  However, the old gentleman lived only a few years after the death of his wife and was never able to forget his Sutton home.  His death closed an eventful life and left a large estate.

Ebenezer Hearne made his home in the uplands and was nearer to his farms.  He had to cross Little Brazos River to supervise the farm work and to this day the place where he regularly crossed the stream is known as the Ebb Hearne Ford.  The Ebenezer Hearne home was not so pretentious as the Rasche Hearne home and was gone a number of years before the Sutton home.  Some of the modern homes in Hearne are decorated with bits of wood from the “old Rasche Hearne Home,” such as a hand rail for the stairway, or molding.

Today, not a single board from the Ebenezer Hearne house can be found out near the old house site. There, there surrounded by an iron fence, is the old Hearne cemetery where a number of Rasche Hearne’s children are buried.

All around the old Ebenezer Hearne homesite there are deep holes that have been made in the red hills by people searching for buried treasure.  The story is as follows:  Ebenezer Hearne came to town one day and sold his season’s cotton crop and got the money in twenty-dollar gold pieces.  He carried the entire amount home with him and when he got there he took down an inch and a quarter auger from the porch plate and went into the timber back of the house.  He came back with the auger stained with red soil.  Shortly thereafter he fell dead in his lot and carried the secret of his gold deposit with him.  Many people with money finders, and some with hunches, have dug up all the hills thereabouts, but the gold, if any, remains safely hidden.[135]

William Hearne, the only son of Ebenezer Hearne acquired his own farm and made his home on the farm for many years.  In the early 1890’s he sold out to his uncle, Rasche Hearne and moved to Wharton.  He never returned to live in the bottom. 

Transportation

In nothing has there been a greater change in the last one hundred years than in the means of travel.  The nineteenth century brought the river steamer, the ocean steamer, the trains, and the beginning of the interest in the horseless carriage.

In the early days of Robertson County, pioneer travel by land was in the old-fashioned stagecoach, on horseback, or afoot.  The roads were usually execrable.  Many of the towns were wholly without roads, being connected with their neighbors by trails beaten out by the moccasined feet of the Indians and Indian traders who traveled these primitive trails with packs of furs and trading goods on their backs.

A favorite mode of travel was on horseback.  The Robertson County farmer, in many cases, went to church astride a horse with his wife sitting behind him on a cushion, called pillion; while the young people walked, often stopping to change their shoes before reaching the meeting-house.  Great quantities of grain and other farm products were brought from the settlements in the remote parts of the county on pack horses, winding their way through the lonely region, by Indian trails.

The great highways of those pioneers were those that nature had furnished--the rivers and bays.  Without these and the Indian trails the people of the different settlements in Robertson’s colony would have been isolated indeed, and would scarcely have known of the existence of one another.  Even as it was, only a few ever traveled far from home; the majority of the common people lived and died in the neighborhood in which they settled.

The scarcity and poorness of the roads may have been either the cause or the effect of the slow resort to wheel transportation.  Such roads as existed during the early days of our county were little more than trails, barely wide enough to permit two horses to walk abreast.  The stumps of the trees that had been cut away were often just low enough to clear the axles.

Throughout the days of its early history, Robertson County was located not only on the principal route from San Antonio to the East Texas settlement, but also on the course traveled from the gulf coast to the rich river bottoms in east-central Texas.  Ox-carts and covered wagons, on their way to markets, or bringing families to the new frontier, labored along the streets of Old Franklin and Sterling.[136]  For convenience, the population centered along the roads as the county developed.  Old Franklin, established as the county seat because the site was near the center of the county, surrendered the courthouse to Wheelock, which was on the San Antonio Road.  Over the level prairies to Sterling (Calvert) the farmers carted their produce and there sold it to teamsters who hauled it to San Antonio in wagon trains.[137]  Benchley, then called Staggers Point, was on the San Antonio Road, and by 1850, it had become an important community.[138]

When the first train of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad came into Robertson County it brought with it, among other things, an official name for Staggers Point, the temporary terminus.  The Irish settlers agreed that the conductor’s name should be adopted as the name of the station.  The conductor was a man by the name of Benchley, so in his honor the village is still known by that name.[139]

Despite the fact that the residents had eagerly awaited the coming of the railroad, when the first train rolled in horses wheeled and ran, and many farmers did likewise.   W. S. Allen, pioneer business man of Calvert, relates the following experience:  It was between Hearne and Bryan that I saw my first railroad train.  I had seen long wagon trains coming through Port Sullivan en route to Houston....All produce was sold in Houston because it was the nearest market, and the best.  It sounded wonderful to think that a locomotive could cover a distance of fifty miles and carry loads that a thousand ox-teams could not take in two weeks.  The inhabitants of our county had been compelled to drag their produce over the level prairies with sixteen yoke of oxen.  Many times the prairies and bottoms were submerged in water.  It was a slow, difficult, uncertain and expensive method of carriage.  Naturally we were all watching with interest the laying of the tracks.  I was riding my pony the day I saw my first train.  I heard this terrible puffing and blowing noise and it frightened me and my horse.  He squatted as if ready to make a wild jump and run away.  I put the quirt to him and got him away from the scene as fast as I could.  It was a construction train.  The first trains that came through Calvert burned wood in the engines, and traveled twenty miles and hour.  One engine did not pull over twenty cars.  I can remember when passenger trains did not run on Sunday as people in those days did not believe in desecrating the Sabbath by riding on the train.[140]

The people of the rural community recognized its advantages, but the railroad did not affect their everyday lives for some time.  For years the settlers rode the trains and shipped their goods during the week-days, only.

The towns followed the railroads and resulted in a general redistribution of the population.  The entire town of Sterling moved to meet the railroad, and even took on the new name of Calvert to honor Judge Robert Calvert, who had been instrumental in getting the railroads to come into the county.[141]  In 1870, it became the county seat.  Its main street was lined with saloons, cowboys, cotton wagons; and stacks of gold were a common sight on the tables of the famous gambling houses.  This village was one of the greatest trading points of the county.[142]

The early 1870’s saw the birth of three towns along the right-of-way of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad:  Hearne, Hammond, and Bremond.  The International and Great Northern gave new life to Franklin, and in 1879, it was voted the permanent county seat.[143]

The Old San Antonio Road which forms the southern border of Robertson County is now a modern highway.  State Highway 6, which connects Benchley and Bremond, by a route that passes through Hearne, forms the main course of north and south motor travel.  From northeast to southwest runs State Highway 43, linking Easterly, Franklin, and Hearne.

The first vehicle of inland water transportation was, of course, the Indian canoe.  The coming of the white man supplemented, but did not replace, the canoe by the introduction of the row boat, keel boat, and barge, or flatboat.  The keel boat and sometimes flat boats were, at times, propelled by sails and oars, but commonly the boatman used long poles, with which they pushed along against the bottom of the stream.  The canoe had the advantage of lightness and being easily portaged from stream to stream, but its carrying capacity was small.  Therefore, it was not adapted to carrying bulky goods of low value.

Most of the hauling was in carts or wagons drawn by oxen, but horses and mules were sometimes used for this work.  Where navigable, the rivers provided a satisfactory means of travel and communication, even before the revolution steamboats were sometimes seen on the lower courses of the Brazos, Colorado, and other Texas rivers.

The “trip of the Washington” was made in the winter of 1850-51.  At the time, the father of J. W. McCown was engaged in business in Cameron.  After a particularly heavy rain, when Little River was considerably swollen and gave promise of remaining up for several days, he began preparation for the ascent up the river.  He hastily constructed a skiff and put out for the Brazos country in search of a steamer to make the attempt.  At Washington, he secured the steamer “Washington,” owned by John Woods, and commanded by Hatfield, the captain.  After a bonus of $500 and guaranteed amount of freight at stipulated rates, the trip was undertaken with a cargo of merchandise, comprised of groceries, provisions, and whiskey.  The “Washington” did not excite much interest along the Brazos, but when Little River was reached the sound of a steam whistle, never before heard in these parts, instantly attracted attention.  Curiosity quickened into interest and interest grew into excitement, widespread and prolonged, when it became known that a real steamer, duly equipped and fully loaded with merchandise was in the river making its way to Cameron.  Word passing rapidly from house to house sent people flocking to the river banks from all directions.  Curiosity seekers, man women, and children, all ages, sexes, and conditions, in all stages of dress, and undress, came pouring from the settlements.[144]  As the Washington puffed and wriggled along the winding stream, dodging a lot of drift-wood here and clearing a sharp angle there, knots of sight-seers would greet it with a great profusion of shouts and hurrahs, and much waving of wool hats and calico bonnets and aprons.  Passengers were taken at each stop, anyone being at liberty to ride, and when stops were not made some of the more ambitious swan out into the river on horseback and climbed on the steamer while in motion.  In this way the boat rapidly filled up until it came to be a mass of surging, shouting, rollicking humanity.  It stopped when it reached the shoals, about two and a half miles from Cameron, was made fast to a tree, and in accordance with instructions, the decks were cleared and a general jubilee of feasting and dancing set in.  For two days and nights this went on until all were surfeited with fun and frolic, then the captain cleared away the debris, turned the nozzle of the Washington down stream and glided back to the waters of the Brazos.  The event left a lasting impression on the settlers and its incidents afforded topics for conversation for a long time afterward.[145]

[122] Soils Survey, op. cit., p. 20.
[123] Ibid.
[124] “Origin of Names,” op. cit., p. 1.
[125] Inventory, op. cit., p. 11.
[126] The Texas Almanac for 1867, p. 150.
[127] Ibid., p. 145.
[128] Rogers, “Calvert,”, op. cit., p. 582.
[129] J. W. Waller, “The Overland Cotton Movement, 1866-1886,” Southwestern Historical Quarterly, XXXV (1931-32), p. 141-44.
[130] Inventory, op. cit., p. 12.
[131] Ibid.
[132] Texas Almanac for 1939-40, p. 136.
[133] Warren A. Wilkerson, “History of Hearne,” p. 8.
[134] Warren A. Wilkerson, 308 Magnolia Street, Hearne, Texas, personal interview.
[135] Wilkerson, op. cit., p. 5.
[136] Inventory, op. cit., p. 12.
[137] Foster, “Sterling,” op. cit., p. 8.
[138] “Origin of Names,” op. cit., p. 1.
[139] Ibid.
[140] Rogers, “Calvert,” op. cit., p. 582.
[141] Ibid., p. 581.
[142] Foster, “Sterling,” op. cit., p. 8.
[143] Rogers, “Calvert,” op. cit., p. 581.
[144] Rogers, “Calvert,” op. cit., p. 584.
[145] Ibid.

Note:  This chapter is reproduced as it was originally written.  Some of the language used reflects the tenor of the times and is considered offensive today.