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R.K. Smith  The Whitewright Sun Tmursday, May 27, 1937 pg. 8 First Job Held by Pioneer, 84, Was Cutting Wood For Early Texas Trains Sherman Democrat One of the two last survivors of a train of 21 wagons that came to Grayson County in 1872 from Tennessee, R.K. Smith, formerly of Whitewright celebrated his 84th birthday, May 18, at the home of his son, C.F. Smith, 421 South Charles, with whom he makes his home. Mr. Smith operated a grocery store in Whitewright for 20 years, retiring in 1908. He came to the Whitewright area before there was a town and now numbers on one hand the surviving friends he made there. The only other member of the wagon train is his sister, Mrs. Ida Richey, of Orangeville. Grayson county presents a different physical panorama and political picture now that it did 65 years ago to the young man who came west with his parents from war destitute Tennessee. Then there were no roads, no towns. Mr. Smith recalls frequently riding from Orangeville in Fannin County to Dallas in a single day without crossing a single lane. The wide prairies and herds were new to the boy from Tennessee. He recalls watching two dogs herd 500 sheep on the prairie near Plano with no men in sight. After watching the dogs work the sheet for almost an hour, he rode on toward Plano and encountered the two herdsmen returning from lunch. Another time he remembers a single dog working several hundred head of goats past a fork in the road to a point where a lone herdsman had gone to inquire the right road to Bonham. But the most vivid memories of the pioneer merchant are of his boyhood in Tennessee. His father, the late J.H. Smith, joined the Confederate army "with the first sound of the drum" and returned home only once before Lee surrendered. Mr. Smith recalls his father coming home for a night while Bragg's army of 60,000 was stationed at Murphreesboro. He returned with his father and spent a night in Bragg's camp to watch the soldiers parade. That trip caused considerable worry to his mother. Mr. Smith recalls. He was to return the same night he left home, but his father let him remain a night in camp. The next day, after passing through Confederate lines, he was stopped at John Morgan's camp within 7 miles of home. The boy spent the night in the armed camp and then circled the forces next morning to return to his home. Mr. Smith and his 6 brothers and sisters and slaves belonging to a relative, operated a Tennessee farm for his mother while the father was at war. His first recollection of Texas is of a beautiful warm prairie by day on which his wagon train almost froze to death the first night when a "blue norther" struck. The family lived 2 years in Collin county before moving to the Whitewright area. The rich blackland from which farmers were to build comfortable fortunes was cheap then and sometimes rather troulesome. He recalls on numerous occasions seeing wagons bogged down in the mud in McKinney streets, 6 yoke of oxen unable to move them. One of his first jobs in Texas was cutting wood for a wood burner train on the old Central line into McKinney. He and his cousin cut 4 cords a day at $1 a cord. Mr. Smith was born May 18, 1853 in Wilson County, Tennessee. He was first married to Miss Minnie Russell December 27, 1876 in Whitewright. He married a second time September 5, 1913 at Whitewright, this time to Mrs. America Frances White. His children are C.F. Smith and Mrs. Don Fuller of Sherman and F.A. Smith of Whitewright. Mr. Smith has 4 grandchildren, Robert Smith of California; Don Fuller, Jr., student at Fayetteville and Miss Lodene Fuller of Sherman and Norma Lou Smith of Whitewright. He was surprised on the Sunday before his birthday with a dinner at the home of his son in Whitewright with all his children present. Mr. Smith died in July 6, 1940 and was buried Whitewright City Cemetery alongside his first wife who died in 1910. Biography Index Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |