 The Sherman Courier Wednesday, August 15, 1917 Pg. 19 Fiftieth Anniversary edition UNCLE BUCK TOLBERT TELLS OF EARLY PRICES OF BLACK LAND AND GENERAL OPINION CONCERNING IT The following interview with Buck Tolbert first published in The Courier seven years ago will be found of interest, especially as it shows the value placed on the fine black lands of Grayson County in the early days: "I came to Grayson county in 1857, and one of the first men that I saw when I got here was Dick Randolph whom I had met two or three years before in Nashville, Tennessee. I was surely glad to see Dick when I first met him here and I have been glad to meet him every time I have met him since then which has been thousands of times. When I came here this county was all outside with just an occasional little patch here and there being cultivated, and lots of people put no value on the land. A few years after I first came, I bought one tract of 320 acres of land and paid $2.50 an acre for it, and there was quite a little patch, probably 40 acres in cultivation and a pretty fair shack of a house on it. Later I bought another tract of about 500 acres at public sale at the court house door and it cost me $2.00 an acre in green back, and the green back then was worth only 60c on the dollar in gold which made the land cost me on $1.20 an acre. Just about the close of the war I traded Joe Huffman a pony horse I had for 170 acres of land he owned down here close to where Dorchester now is, and a year or so ago I sold part of that land I got from Huffman for $50 an acre. All before and during and even after the war, people generally put no value on these prairie lands in this county and lots of them would not have paid the taxes on it if you had given it to them. There has been a wonderful change in this country since I came here 53 years ago, and most of the people who were here then are gone and that makes me gladder when I met one of my old time friends like Dick Randolph. Biography Index Susan Hawkins © 2024 If you find any of Grayson County TXGenWeb links inoperable, please send me a message. |