11/22/2024
Spearman Reporter – 11/23/1944
Will J. Miller, Editor and Manager
You Can Learn About Texas and Hansford County from P.A. Lyon
What impressed the editor of the Spearman Reporter as one of the most interesting talks about Texas and Hansford County he had ever heard was given by Lion P.A. Lyon, at the regular meeting held Tuesday noon. We are presenting the readers of this paper with the notes used by the speaker. The fact that these notes are so thorough that they make a dandy running story is just another of the outstanding qualifications of Mr. Lyon.
Here are the notes:
Will everyone who was born in Texas please raise your hand – Thanks.
Now the rest of you are Texans by adoption and I’m not going to ask you where you were born, nor why you came to Texas, but I want to tell you this little story by Boyce House: a father remonstrated with his son because the son had asked a stranger where he was from: “Son, don’t ever ask a man where he is from – if he is from Texas he will soon tell you, and if he isn’t then there is no need to embarrass him.”
Texans are proud of their state and its history and rightly so – six flags have flown over it (two of them, Spain and the U. S. two different times). It was under the flag of France, of Mexico and of the Confederate States; and it enjoyed a brief and stormy history as a Republic in its own right and has its own heroes in Houston, Austin, Travis, Bowie, Bonham, Lamar and many others – and Texans are not backward in bragging about them.
A boy from Boston in a Texas Army camp had heard so much about our Texas heroes that he finally tired of it, and made the remark to a Texan, "Well, you didn’t have all of the heroes – you didn’t have Paul Revere," whereupon the Texan replied: "Paul Revere, let’s see, Paul Revere – oh, yes, I remember him, he was that fellow that rode around all one night hollering for help”.
We, in this area are prone to think of Texas as a relatively new state, yet the beginnings of its history in the explorations by La Salle and Coronado antedate the landing of the Pilgrims or the colony at Jamestown.
Our particular section of the state, however, has been one of the last in development, and I want to tell you all a little something about the history of Hansford County, as reflected largely in the county records, with which we have occasion in our business, to be familiar with.
Hansford County was named in honor of one Judge John M. Hansford, who came to Texas in 1837, and settled in Harrison County, Texas. In 1838 he was elected to the lower House of the Texas Congress and was chosen as Speaker of the House.
On January 31, 1840, he was appointed Judge of the 7th Judicial District of Texas and served until 1842, when he resigned because articles of impeachment were preferred against him. After he retired from the bench he lived on his farm near Jonesville, where was killed by a mob on a Sunday morning in 1844 because of his refusal to give up the possession of some negro slaves which he was holding under a write of sequestration.
Hansford County, before its creation, was a part of Jack Land District, and such instruments as were sought to be recorded prior to 1879, were placed on record in Jack County, and the land was described as being located in Jack Land District, so many miles north and west of Bents Fort, etc. Hansford County was created in 1876 and was attached to Wheeler County, upon the organization of the latter county in 1879, for judicial and recording purposes, and the records from Jack County were transcribed to Wheeler County, and any persons from this area had to attend court in Wheeler County or transact such other business incident to land titles.
These records were transcribed and transferred to Hansford County when this county was organized in 1889.
You will recall that at the time Texas joined the Union, by treaty, in 1845 the state retained its public domain. In other states, all public land was property of the U. S. Government, but Texas retained its public land, so we have a different set of land laws, and a different procedure from all other states in the handling of our lands.
In Texas we do not refer to land by section, township, range, etc., as is true in other states. As you will note, especially in this county the land is referred to as being located in a certain block, and grant, usually a railroad company. It may be of interest to you to know why. In order to stimulate the building of railroads down the state in about the 1850's and 60's, the State of Texas granted to each railroad certificates for 16 sections of land for each mile of road constructed, with the understanding that the railroad company would at its own expense locate the certificates on vacant lands, and at the time of the location of its certificates that it locate a like quantity, alternate sections, for the State of Texas – hence, the odd numbered sections belonged to the railroad companies and the even numbered sections to the state – and these last were called school land.
Also, the state issued quite a few certificates to individuals in appreciation or payment for services rendered for the state, perhaps as veterans of the war with Mexico for independence, or some other cause, and a few of these certificates are located in this county – W. D. C. Hall, Stroud, etc.
Hansford County was first surveyed in 1874 and certificates established, and deeds began issuing covering certain of the railroad lands. Along in 1875 most of the land sales were made on the basis of about $200.00 per section, and trade wasn't very brisk at that figure. Some lands purchased by individuals at that time are still held in the same family and are now used by the third generation. (The Ferguson lands, and Hudson lands.) The greater portion of the railroad lands passed to individual ownership about 1905 – H. & T. C. & T. & N. O. lands.
Speaking of surveying – the story is told that along in the '90s Mel Wright was carrying mail between old Hansford and Ochiltree – that when he hitched up his ponies one morning they ran away, and in order to care for their excess energy he stopped and loaded in a number of big rocks on the edge of the canyon and started out – as the team began to tire he would throw out a rock and in later years settlers coming in used these rocks as established section corners.
The early settlers in the county apparently just came in and took possession of some land, maybe secured a few grass leases from the state, built a house and turned their stock out on free range. Very little land was owned by actual settlers until about 1888 when the first filings on school land are recorded. W. C. McRea, Huff Wright, M. B. Wright, the Cators, and various others. This school land was sold out on the basis of four sections per applicant, at $1.00 per acre, l/40th cash and balance in 40 years, 3% interest. Most of the school land was filed on during the period of 1900 to 1902. The state bet a section of land against $16.00 that one couldn’t stay three years – and the state quite often won.
There are some unusual deals as shown of record which might be of interest to you.
About 1874 barbed wire was invented by a Mr. Glidden of DeKalb, Ill., and a few years later two salesmen. Henry Sanborn and Judson Warner loaded a few sample spools in a buggy and started for Texas to promote the sales. One of their first contacts was at Sherman when they traded some wire (the record doesn’t show how much) to W. W. Purinton for five section of land in Hansford County, which they took at a valuation of $1,000.00 – this was in 1877. Incidentally, Glidden, Sanborn & Warner acquired a big stock of land in the Panhandle just west of where Amarillo now stands and founded the Frying Pan Ranch – as a profit from their barbed wire.
In 1877 Jot Gunter and W. B. Munson of Grayson County, Texas, conveyed to Augustus Sumner 80 sections of land in Hansford and Hutchinson Counties in exchange for 1822 acres of land in Grayson County and 12000 style two, half case, Wheeler & Wilson sewing machines delivered in good order. I have often wondered what became of the sewing machines. Sumner kept this land for many years, and some of it still belongs to the estate of his deceased wife here in Hansford County.
In 1887 one C. F. Mingenback, trustee, acquired title to a section of land in Hansford County, and in later years it became necessary to explain the term “trustee” and Mingenback executed an affidavit in 1927, which reads in part as follows: “During the year of 1887, while on trip in the south, I purchased 640 acres of land in Hansford County, in the name of C. F. Mingenback, trustee. At that time there was a considerable boom in the southwest. The object of the trusteeship was to organize a town company and operate in the Texas Panhandle. The wording “trustee” was used to provide a trust agreement among such persons as wish to become associated as members of a town company, but no organization was ever consummated. In July 1887, hot winds and a cyclone struck the southwest, the Panhandle included, and what was not burned up by the hot winds was swept away by the cyclone. During the ensuing 12 months the trails and roads were full of moving caravans headed for the east and southeast, fleeing from the scourge. After that all southwest booms fell flat and no one thought of resurrecting a boom. Since this land was purchased with my own money, all expenses paid by me, there is no claim of whatsoever nature against the land.”
Speaking of townsites, we have a number of dead townsites in Hansford County: Old Hansford, platted about 1889; Farwell, about 1888; Beaver, about 1909; Oslo, about 1909; all of which have been abandoned. The county seat fight was originally between Hansford and Farwell, but I won’t try to go into that at this time.
During the 80’s and 90’s several rather extensive ranches were operating in this area. Perhaps the largest was the Cresswell Ranch and Cattle Company, an English Syndicate, around 1885, that owned some 175,000 acres of land in Roberts, Ochiltree, Hansford and Hemphill Counties; and the operation of which ceased and the land sold out prior to 1900.
Another was the Hansford Land & Cattle Company, owned by parties in Dundee, Scotland, operating at about the same time in north Hutchinson and south Hansford Counties. It too was sold out prior to 1900, but its holdings were not so large as the Cresswell people.
Perhaps some of the other large outfits operating in Hansford County, as indicated by leases on land from the state, situated in the north part of the county, were: Dutchess Cattle Company; Wilson & Shavalia; & John F. DeLong. These parties apparently never owned any lands, and the lands on which they operated were leased from the state at 3 cents per acre.
Just one little bit more of bragging of Texas, and I have finished: Fold Texas northward, and Brownsville will be 120 miles in Canada. Fold it eastward and El Paso will be 140 miles in the Atlantic. Fold it westward and Orange will be 215 miles in the Pacific. Texas is both south and west, but the inhabitants are neither southerners nor westerners, but they are just plain Texans – which is a God's plenty.
