1860 - Slavery is causing tension throughout the United States

Isaac Hudson was a plantation owner, living near the Oklahoma border.   Isaac and his son, Edward Murray and family had migrated to the Grayson County, Texas from Talladega, Talladega, County, Alabama after September 31, 1850.  Both father and son were slave owners ~ Isaac, 30 slaves and Edward Murray owned 33 slaves.

Isaac Hudson (listed a "J.  Hudson") owned 54 slaves in 1860.  It was customary each spring for Hudson's neighbors to gather on his large front porch to watch his slaves dance.  The only source of water on for human consumption was a 40-foot deep well, 12 feet in diameter, located next to the front porch where the owner and visitors sat watching the slaves dance.  As boys will do, they decided to play a prank; however, this prank was on the slaves and turned deadly.  The boys removed the cover of the well and place it several feet away from the hold, hoping to fool the slaves so that they would not be able to locate the water well.  Among the boys who devised the deadly prank was W.J. Young, son of an early settler and land owner on the south banks of the Red River.

Exhausted from the heat and dancing, several young slaves, as expected by the boys, make a dash for the well and a drink of refreshing water.  Most of them did run towards the displaced old iron cover and discovered the prank.  However, five young men ran towards the well, falling into and disappearing into the cavernous hold and a watery grave.  The Hudson plantation was surrounded by large, looming shade trees; this was the spot chosen for the burial of the five deceased slaves, after they had been pulled from the well.

Isaac Hudson, angry at the loss of his slaves valued at $150 each, sued the fathers of the boys to compensate for his financial loss, including W.J. Young's father.

According to the September 23, 1860 census for Post Office Sherman, Isaac Hudson, born South Carolina, aged 62, is a wealthy farmer, living next door to his son, Edward Murray Hudson, born Alabama, a 38-year-old widower with four children ranging in ages 10 - 2.

Throughout his boyhood and youth, W.J. Young visited the Hudson plantation many times, but always refused to drink from the well located next to the front porch.  

Isaac Hudson died March 13, 1865 and his plantation was acquired by the state of Texas. Isaac Hudson and his son, Edward Murray Hudson, are buried in Fairview Cemetery, Denison, Texas.  

W.J. Young, now a grown man who owned land and was a businessman, purchased the acreage and settled on it as his homestead.  When Lake Texoma was built about 85 years later, the Hudson-Young home place had to be moved down the road.  The well was covered up and the house was moved about one mile down the road to another section of the Young homestead and on land that would become the site of the Eisenhower State Park.  Time passed and the Slave Cemetery on the old Hudson plantation was forgotten.

Mr. and Mrs. Oscar Thornton, direct descendants of Mrs. Thornton's grandfather W.J. Young, inherited 32 acres of the original Young estate, which included the site of the home setting on the tract of land to become the Eisenhower State Park .