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Old
Settlers Association
of Grayson County The Sherman
Democrat
July 4, 1976 American Always Edition PIONEER STORIES ENLIVENED MEETINGS Come full moon in August and old timers from miles around gather for their annual reuion at Old Settlers' Park in Sherman. The Grayson County Old Settlers Association, oldest social club in Texas, was founded in August 1879 by pioneers meeting on the McKinstry farm for a two-day picnic. The country was changing, war wounds were healing, deer and turkey were disappearing from prairie lands, the railroads were coming to North Texas, towns were growing, days of the early settlements were being forgotten. Old settlers wanted them remembered. They wanted to tell and retell the old stories. They wanted a "love feast of Grayson County graybeards fashioned after the olden times," as the minutes of the first meeting said. Those first picnickers formed a permanent association, write their names in the minute book and the names of all other settlers whom they could remember. An Old Settler was defined as one of the speakers on that August 28, 1879, as, "Onewho spent the first winter of his life in Grayson county in a wagon bed." Though the day of those hour-long speeches has passed, the noise from the gentleman's game of "bullpen" has given way to the voice of the carnival barker, each year in the full moon of August, the Old Settlers Association reunion is held at the park in east Sherman. A remmant of the old time "love feasts and glorious reunions of the sons of Texas" survives in the meetings each year of the board of trustees. Records of the reunions held from 1879 to 1900, what the speakers said, expenses, incidents, detail after detail, are left in ragged old cloth-bound book, written in the fine Spencerian hand of the first secretary of the association, Jesse P. Loving. One 1879 speaker struck a 1917 note when he said: "The people of this country are living extravagantly, they should get rid of superfluities. The expenses of the county government are entirely too high." Another told the story of a poker-playing county judge of the 50s who charged his grand jury to let no crime go unpunished. A few days later he adjourned court when the grand jury brought in two true bills indicting His Honor for gambling. There was reference to an absent old settler, a Colonel, whose defender said, "This man is being demeaning and ridiculted by some of low down little presses." The newspapers referred to were probably the Denton Monitor and the Austin Statesman, as these early journals were denounced by another Old Settler in unsparing, invective. He called the Denton paper, "a foul sheet with a one-horse editor." An apology for his "manner of speaking" was made by one orator who attributed his poor diction to the fact that he was "raised in Arkansas." There were repeated references to the only early road in Grayson county, that running from Preston to Dallas. Minutes of the 1890 meeting gave a list of the campers on the picnic grounds a full report of the Address of Governor Throckmorton on the second day of the reunion. Said Secretary Loving: "People poured in from every direction and in every conceivable mannner." Governor Throckmorton must have mad a hit, for the next year the Old Settlers were addressed by Gov. R.B. Hubbard. He was the chief drawing card of the two-day program which included also singing choirs, speeches and more speeches by pioneers, not overlooking several ladies; the Sunday School children of Sherman which Uncle Jesse describes as "looking beautiful in their white dresses and blue sashes." The Confederate veterans had a reunion one day and music was furnished by a German brass band from Dallas at a cost of $60 and railroad fare. Oil for the lamps was listed at $1.25. Quoted as amusements offered were swinging, croquet, Punch and Judy shows and fireworkd. In 1883 a horse race between two Sherman favorites was a drawing card. Jerome Turner, one of the great horses of his day, defeated Jim Trimble. After the first few years the written minutes were supplemented by newspaper clippings describing the reunions. Said a reporter of the early '80s: "The dancing platform was thronged all the evening, some watching the dancers as their delicate feet twinkled around, others let their feet follow their hearts in beating time to the merry tune, while their eyes were restless, and lips parted with sweet signals of 'hands across and down the middle'." A description of dininer-on-the-ground: "At the conclusion of the speeches, the hour for dinner was proclaimed and the Old Settlers soon forgot the pangs and tales of bygone yeras, of wounds received and tales of sorrow told, while feasting on the many good things at the different tables. Yes, a good dinner and on such an occasion what feelings it can subdue! Certainly venison must be greater than Caesar, beef than Alexander in it way, mutton is no doubt a good mediator, and with the assistance of chicken, turkey and ham, pies, cakes, and custard to cover the interstices, could conquer all the vaunted horrors of the heart, and completely triumph over grief." Early Sherman fire companies drilled at the picnics, Lamar Rifles exhibited, there were "spirited games and marbles," and after supper "some chose to pair off and ramble arm in arm about the shady grove to do a little old-fashioned courtin'." In 1902 the typewritten notes were added to those written by Secretary Loving. A significant statement of that year: "nothing rowdyish has occurred to disturb the tranquility of the gathering. The Old Settlers Association was granted a charter...state in 1898. Soon after....park in east Sherman b....the permanent home...group.  Old Settlers Association History Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |