 TRIBUTE PAID TO OLD MANTUA TOWN
Important Part Taken by Place in Early History is Recalled: To The Democrat: About 2 miles south of Van Alstyne on the old McKinney road is a deserted square, donated, I am told, in 1852 by Uncle Billy McKinney for a public plaza to the flourishing, ambitious little frontier town of Mantua. There are no ruins, no monuments - solitude, desolation and oblivion. No one acquainted with the history of this deserted village would ever dream that before the Civil War and until 1872 this wind-swept square was a place of any importance - that it once resounded with the hum of industry and held high hopes of a continuing city - that wagon trains serviced by pioneers and drawn by many oxen and loaded with merchandise and lumber plied regularly from Jefferson to this hopeful and seemingly permanent prewar city - that many merchants and professional men who later became wealthy and famous once resided in this town - that officers of the famous 6th Texas Cavalry and later Dick Taylor's home guard infantry once drilled their troops on this spacious and forgotten square. Here was the old Manuta seminary; a pretentious 2-story building with ample class rooms below and the Mantua Masonic Lodge above and students for many miles around came there on horseback to gather wisdom from scholarly pedagogs, among whom were the Greers, Keytes, Cartwrights, Cunninghams, Collins, Patties and others. Some students of that old seminary held high places of honor and trust - not a few of them resided in Sherman, one of whom is still living,, has been a leader and builder, a mayor and conceded by everyone a foremost citizen, an outstanding contribution of the city. Here was Capt. Newton Taylor's tan yard, where in lieu of bark he used bois d'arc apples, placing many hides in pits and filling the pits with the Osage apple and water. Here was the Stinnett mill where wheat was ground before the Civil War and cotton gins operated on the same spot by the same family until 1880. One of the first Christian churches established in the state was built by the McKinneys and others at Mantua. It was early serviced by Uncle Billy, the Halls, the Wilmeths and later R.C. Horn of McKinney. There was a small stream with many trees on either side. The northern boundary of the old townsite and a draw on the west which flowed northward and emptied just west of the old Echols homestead - the western boundary of the town. In the 20 years of its existence no one can remember the many inhabitants who called Manuta home. The McKinneys, Leslies, Rollins, Sampsons, Kellys, Griffiths, Stinnets, Creagers, Slaughters, Hendersons, Carters, Greers, Woffords, Enloes, Browns, Bryants, Taylors, McGoverns, Washams, Burneys, and many others who gave Van Alstyne her early prestige and a few of whom still live there. In 1872 the H. and T.C. Railway established a town plot at Van Alstyne and the merchants of Mantua began to move - some of them selling goods in tents until they could build; by 1876 the last business house had disappeared, some of the dwellings were occupied for years but one by one they were torn down or burned and left no trace of existance. I doubt if any one now living can point out the exact spot where the Methodist church stood or the location of Bud Kramer's famous blacksmith shop. Mantua - woman's gown, discarded now but all the dazzling splendor and charm of Venus in the naked waste to those who knew her once and love her still. Mantua: Sweet cadence falls on the ear with an undeniable charm, like the murmur of a fountain or the soft accents of an angel's whisper. What matters if strangers fail to visualize this spot once bristling with bayonets, once home to hopeful happy pioneers as real? Some of us knew it in decay and will remember and reverence it to our last breath. No other place can ever have the deep strong charm and haunt one sleeping and waking through all the years as this one has done. No memories picture so longingly and lovingly cherished. No air is so soft and sweet as the gentle breezes of homeland. No birds sing so gaily as the first notes we hear in life's early morning - no flowers so beautiful, no grass so green, no friends so lovable and true, no summer rains so gentle as childhood's - happy heritage and...sweet memory brings back the old familiar faces - the...schoolboy spot, every path, land and tree a God and the deserted town a grave. F.H. Lair Route 2.  Mantua History Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |