|
Sherman, Texas Excerpt from: The Great South: A
Record
of Journeys in Louisiana, Texas, the Indian Territory, Missouri,
Arkansas,
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, South Carolina, North Carolina,
Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia,
and Maryland (1875) By Edward King, Illustrated by James Wells Champney "So, faring forward through forest and brake, over creeks and under hills, beside smiling fields and along mournful wastes, into primitive clearings and out of forsaken nooks, and crannies where civilization had only made the wilderness look worse, we reached Sherman, the forty-year-old shire town of Grayson county. " "Glorious sunlight enlivened the town as we entered it, and intensest activity prevailed, the county court being in session. The town is built around a square, in the centre of which stands a low, unpainted wooden building, known as the Court-House. The "grand jury" was not far from the aforesaid building, as we drew up at the hotel opposite it, and was to outward appearance a collection of rough, sensible farmers, impressed with a full sense of their duty. The horses on which half-a-hundred of the neighboring farmers had ridden in to attend to their marketing and upon the sessions of the court, were hitched at a common hitching frame not far from the court-house; and in the centre of the square a noisy auctioneer, whom the Texans were regarding with admiring eyes, was bawling out his wares. The plank sidewalks were crammed with tall youths, in patched homespun; with negroes, whose clothing was a splendid epitome of color; with spruce speculators--Northerners and Westerners--dressed in the latest styles; with dubious-looking characters, who shrank a little apart from the common gaze, as if afraid of the day-light; with swine, that trotted hither and yon; and with the hook-nosed and loud-voiced Israelites, who are found in every city and hamlet throughout the South."  "Large numbers of people seemed diligently engaged in doing nothing whatever, or in frankly enjoying the delicious sunlight, which gave new glory and picturesqueness to everything upon which it rested. Now and then a soft breeze came gently from the uplands, and softened the effect of this generous sun. The excited gambler came out to bathe his livid face in zephyr and sunlight; the negro crawled to the side-walk's edge, and with his feet in the mud, blinked like an owl in the fierce glare; the stage-drivers swore round but rather jocund oaths at the rearing and plunging mules drawing the coaches for Denison, McKinney, and other little towns; and the big negro who guarded the court-house door twirled the great key majestically, and looked ferocious." "Although it was midwinter, the day was as perfect as one in June at the North; but the languor which stole over us was purely Southern, as I imagined myself to be dreaming away the afternoon in lazy abandon and irresolute comfort, spiced only with the charm of studying new types of a common nationality. Toward evening there was absolute tranquility all over the place. Not even a loud word was spoken. The dusky figures who sat crouched in the porch of our hotel, mutely regarding the glories of the setting sun, seemed almost in the act of worship" Sherman History Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |