Milam County Historical Commission
Milam County, Texas
Milam County, Texas
Cabin Houses Decades of History
by Jeanne Williams
Temple Daily Telegram - July 21, 2008
CAMERON - When the Milam County Historical Museum
board acquired the Sneed log cabin in the early
1980s, there was little to suggest what it would
become other than a donated family heirloom too
large to bring indoors.
At the time, the cabin - though eminently
historical in its own right - was merely
architectural leftovers of the Sneed Farm, 1,500
acres of river bottomland that produced cotton
and cattle, and prospered from the mid-1800s
into the early 20th century, boasting a commissary
for farm hands, sharecroppers and their families.
The Sneed family, however, knew its value as a
historical relic and secured its future through a
museum donation. Today, the cabin is believed to be
Milam County’s oldest single-family dwelling still
standing.
Learning of the log cabin donation, Virginia Schuhsler, then-museum curator, organized a July 31, 1980, safari with photographer Liza Forster and Liza’s parents to the Sneed Plantation north of Cameron in the Cross Roads community.
Mrs. Schuhsler’s notes compiled from a “field observation” spoke of a local curiosity: a rainbow of alternating, naturally occurring soils of Blackland, red clay and sand, as well as the normal fixtures of an abandoned farm, overhanging limbs and brush with chimneys peaking over treetops in front of overgrown cotton fields.
Mrs. Schuhsler and her group came to explore, document and photograph the pioneer cabin in its original setting before it was relocated to Cameron. She described a screened porch, padlocked wooden door, one window on the south end, and a chimney on the north: “intact and bricks appear fairly new.”
“A round stone, apparently a grinding stone for gristmill serves as the front door step … cement steps, freestanding are at the back door which was open … one room with wooden beams or rafters. An iron swinging hood for pots is fastened to the fireplace.”
Sometime during its long life, the cabin was modernized with a new brick chimney, wall plaster and linoleum covering holes in the floor, and had been occupied only a few years before becoming a museum piece. Mrs. Schuhsler reported in her “field observation” that the cabin obviously shifted from a cozy domicile to a storage room for cast-offs such as a baby bed and odds and ends of old furniture. The Sneed family gathered at the log cabin in the early 1970s for a reunion of Sneed descendants from across the U.S. States.
Milam County Historical Museum Board Chairman Kay Green organized a restoration and preservation effort for the old cabin, which boasted a new roof, porch and floor after its arrival to the museum complex in downtown Cameron.
Iron ore stones from the Oxsheer Smith farm near Cameron were rescued from the fallen chimney of a tumbledown house, hauled in and crafted into a fireplace by Cameron residents Sonny Raymond and Charles Brady.
As a museum piece, the cabin probably gets more visitors today than when it served as a home, said Charles King, museum director.
“We get a lot of brides coming here to have photographs taken on the front porch,” King said. “It seems that cabin is the ‘in’ place to have your picture taken. When there are family reunions and parties downtown, we get a lot of visitors who come and walk around the cabin and look in.”
The cabin will be getting even more visitors by next year when it becomes Milam County’s official El Camino Real de los Tejas visitor center, King said. The old cabin will be repaired, and the one-room open to the public to walk in. Now visitors only may look in the front doorway. The tourist center will house brochures and maps benefiting visitors wanting to learn about the El Camino Real de los Tejas as it passed through the county, King said.
A rustic aerie of 15-by-15 feet, the cabin was tightly constructed of hand-hewn square logs, with corners notched to resemble a horizontal “T,” then lain on top of each other and pegged together, King said. It was among several antique buildings left behind by the Sneed family who settled at Washington-on-the-Brazos seven years before Texas became a republic.
The Rev. Joseph Sneed and his wife Ashsah Harris Sneed moved to Port Sullivan in northeast Milam County, and after 11 years moved with two sons and a daughter to the Cross Roads community.
The museum also was given the Sneed home - a house built of rough planks on hand-hewn timbers with two rooms opening off a central hall, and one room with a fireplace built of stone and chunks of petrified wood, which was an abundant product on Sneed land.
The house also was occupied by overseers, foremen, field hands and last by the Jimmy Hernandez family in the 1930s. The museum lot was not large enough to accommodate this historical house, which remains on the Sneed Plantation, preserved in a cloak of corrugated tin siding.
In 1849, Sneed, a Methodist circuit rider from Tennessee, directed his slaves to build the family a cabin, which after a larger home was built, became the quarters of their favorite servant and companion, a slave they called “Aunt Frances.”
The Sneeds willed Aunt Frances five acres and the log cabin, where she lived until her death in the 1880s. When Sneed heirs sold the plantation to Harry Marcus of Houston, they asked that the family cemetery where Sneed and his wife were interred remain outside the sale, and that the log cabin the couple bequeathed to Aunt Frances be given to the Milam County Historical Museum.
Sneed, who is chronicled in the family history as preaching the gospel with marked ebullience and a great deal of flailing his arms and shouting, was founder of the First Methodist Church in Waco.
The church history reported that in 1850, Sneed preached in a little log cabin owned by the village of Waco on the commonwealth, located on the west bank of the Brazos, named by the Spanish as “Brazos de Dios” or Arms of God. Sneed slept on a saddle blanket under a tree and was awakened by the howling of wolves, but being a circuit rider, he probably had guns for protection and to kill game for food.
***************************************************************************************
REBUTTAL: 2015-08-06
Sharon Marcus
marcussha(AT)live(DOT)com
Cameron, Texas 76520
two54-62seven-0three57
The Sneed cabin was donated by my father, Harry Marcus. Not by any of the Sneed family. My father did this to attempt to keep trespassers off of his land and he did take a tax write off as a result of his donation. If you look up the deed, the Sneeds did not even own the land at the time my father made this donation
*****
2015-08-06
Sharon, I'll be glad to post this correction but I don't know which page shows it was donated by the Sneed family. There are several places on the site about the Sneed cabin.
Jerry Caywood
MCHC website Administrator
*****
2015-08-07
It is on the Milam County Historical Commission site under Sneed Cabin. Site is "Cabin houses decades of history Sneed Cabin by Jeanne".
Under Sneed Log cabin it leaves a blank where my father, Harry Marcus'" name should be.
There are several sites that maintain the cabin was purchased instead of donated. I have attempted to correct this in Milam County but to no avail. I don't care if they call it the Sneed Cabin but please correct who donated it.
If I can be of further help, please inform
Thank You
Sharon Marcus
*****
.
by Jeanne Williams
Temple Daily Telegram - July 21, 2008
CAMERON - When the Milam County Historical Museum
board acquired the Sneed log cabin in the early
1980s, there was little to suggest what it would
become other than a donated family heirloom too
large to bring indoors.
At the time, the cabin - though eminently
historical in its own right - was merely
architectural leftovers of the Sneed Farm, 1,500
acres of river bottomland that produced cotton
and cattle, and prospered from the mid-1800s
into the early 20th century, boasting a commissary
for farm hands, sharecroppers and their families.
The Sneed family, however, knew its value as a
historical relic and secured its future through a
museum donation. Today, the cabin is believed to be
Milam County’s oldest single-family dwelling still
standing.
Learning of the log cabin donation, Virginia Schuhsler, then-museum curator, organized a July 31, 1980, safari with photographer Liza Forster and Liza’s parents to the Sneed Plantation north of Cameron in the Cross Roads community.
Mrs. Schuhsler’s notes compiled from a “field observation” spoke of a local curiosity: a rainbow of alternating, naturally occurring soils of Blackland, red clay and sand, as well as the normal fixtures of an abandoned farm, overhanging limbs and brush with chimneys peaking over treetops in front of overgrown cotton fields.
Mrs. Schuhsler and her group came to explore, document and photograph the pioneer cabin in its original setting before it was relocated to Cameron. She described a screened porch, padlocked wooden door, one window on the south end, and a chimney on the north: “intact and bricks appear fairly new.”
“A round stone, apparently a grinding stone for gristmill serves as the front door step … cement steps, freestanding are at the back door which was open … one room with wooden beams or rafters. An iron swinging hood for pots is fastened to the fireplace.”
Sometime during its long life, the cabin was modernized with a new brick chimney, wall plaster and linoleum covering holes in the floor, and had been occupied only a few years before becoming a museum piece. Mrs. Schuhsler reported in her “field observation” that the cabin obviously shifted from a cozy domicile to a storage room for cast-offs such as a baby bed and odds and ends of old furniture. The Sneed family gathered at the log cabin in the early 1970s for a reunion of Sneed descendants from across the U.S. States.
Milam County Historical Museum Board Chairman Kay Green organized a restoration and preservation effort for the old cabin, which boasted a new roof, porch and floor after its arrival to the museum complex in downtown Cameron.
Iron ore stones from the Oxsheer Smith farm near Cameron were rescued from the fallen chimney of a tumbledown house, hauled in and crafted into a fireplace by Cameron residents Sonny Raymond and Charles Brady.
As a museum piece, the cabin probably gets more visitors today than when it served as a home, said Charles King, museum director.
“We get a lot of brides coming here to have photographs taken on the front porch,” King said. “It seems that cabin is the ‘in’ place to have your picture taken. When there are family reunions and parties downtown, we get a lot of visitors who come and walk around the cabin and look in.”
The cabin will be getting even more visitors by next year when it becomes Milam County’s official El Camino Real de los Tejas visitor center, King said. The old cabin will be repaired, and the one-room open to the public to walk in. Now visitors only may look in the front doorway. The tourist center will house brochures and maps benefiting visitors wanting to learn about the El Camino Real de los Tejas as it passed through the county, King said.
A rustic aerie of 15-by-15 feet, the cabin was tightly constructed of hand-hewn square logs, with corners notched to resemble a horizontal “T,” then lain on top of each other and pegged together, King said. It was among several antique buildings left behind by the Sneed family who settled at Washington-on-the-Brazos seven years before Texas became a republic.
The Rev. Joseph Sneed and his wife Ashsah Harris Sneed moved to Port Sullivan in northeast Milam County, and after 11 years moved with two sons and a daughter to the Cross Roads community.
The museum also was given the Sneed home - a house built of rough planks on hand-hewn timbers with two rooms opening off a central hall, and one room with a fireplace built of stone and chunks of petrified wood, which was an abundant product on Sneed land.
The house also was occupied by overseers, foremen, field hands and last by the Jimmy Hernandez family in the 1930s. The museum lot was not large enough to accommodate this historical house, which remains on the Sneed Plantation, preserved in a cloak of corrugated tin siding.
In 1849, Sneed, a Methodist circuit rider from Tennessee, directed his slaves to build the family a cabin, which after a larger home was built, became the quarters of their favorite servant and companion, a slave they called “Aunt Frances.”
The Sneeds willed Aunt Frances five acres and the log cabin, where she lived until her death in the 1880s. When Sneed heirs sold the plantation to Harry Marcus of Houston, they asked that the family cemetery where Sneed and his wife were interred remain outside the sale, and that the log cabin the couple bequeathed to Aunt Frances be given to the Milam County Historical Museum.
Sneed, who is chronicled in the family history as preaching the gospel with marked ebullience and a great deal of flailing his arms and shouting, was founder of the First Methodist Church in Waco.
The church history reported that in 1850, Sneed preached in a little log cabin owned by the village of Waco on the commonwealth, located on the west bank of the Brazos, named by the Spanish as “Brazos de Dios” or Arms of God. Sneed slept on a saddle blanket under a tree and was awakened by the howling of wolves, but being a circuit rider, he probably had guns for protection and to kill game for food.
***************************************************************************************
REBUTTAL: 2015-08-06
Sharon Marcus
marcussha(AT)live(DOT)com
Cameron, Texas 76520
two54-62seven-0three57
The Sneed cabin was donated by my father, Harry Marcus. Not by any of the Sneed family. My father did this to attempt to keep trespassers off of his land and he did take a tax write off as a result of his donation. If you look up the deed, the Sneeds did not even own the land at the time my father made this donation
*****
2015-08-06
Sharon, I'll be glad to post this correction but I don't know which page shows it was donated by the Sneed family. There are several places on the site about the Sneed cabin.
Jerry Caywood
MCHC website Administrator
*****
2015-08-07
It is on the Milam County Historical Commission site under Sneed Cabin. Site is "Cabin houses decades of history Sneed Cabin by Jeanne".
Under Sneed Log cabin it leaves a blank where my father, Harry Marcus'" name should be.
There are several sites that maintain the cabin was purchased instead of donated. I have attempted to correct this in Milam County but to no avail. I don't care if they call it the Sneed Cabin but please correct who donated it.
If I can be of further help, please inform
Thank You
Sharon Marcus
*****
.
All articles from the Temple Daily Telegram are published with the permission of the
Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Jeanne Williams and the Temple Daily Telegram
Photos by Shirley Williams -
Temple Daily Telegram photographer
Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Jeanne Williams and the Temple Daily Telegram
Photos by Shirley Williams -
Temple Daily Telegram photographer