The Town of Calvert - Frontier Times

All credit for this article goes to
Marjorie Rogers, Marlin, TX
and
J. Marvin Hunter - Publisher of 'Frontier Times'

The Town of Calvert

By Marjorie Rogers, Marlin, TX

Frontier Times

Published by J. Marvin Hunter

October, 1931

Many years ago this little town enjoyed the reputation of having the largest cotton gin

in the world. Its main street was lined with saloons, cowboys, cotton wagons, and

stacks of gold was a common sight on the tables of the famous gambling house. This

peaceful village was the greatest trading point in this section of the country even

though it was almost depopulated by yellow fever which took its toll in Texas 63 years

ago.

Back in the days when the Brazos bottom was a free range, and the woods and prairies

were full of wild cattle; when school houses were considered somewhat of a novelty in

Texas, and the settlers were scattered sparingly over this hunter’s paradise; when the

chief business in Central Texas was that of driving beef-cattle from the interior of

Texas to New Orleans and other markets just a few years after Robertson County had been

sliced off the great Milam Land District, Judge Robert Calvert and his wife, Mary

Keesee, heard and read the wonderful stories of Texas and her opportunities and packed

their wagons, waved goodby to their friends in Saline County, Arkansas, and drove away

to Robertson county.

In Alabama and Arkansas Judge Calvert had engaged in agricultural pursuits, and was

considered a successful farmer. He owned thousands of acres of land in the vicinity

of the present town of Calvert. Although he moved to Robertson county in 1850, it was

not until the coming of Houston and Texas Central Railway through the county that the

town was established. With that same keen foresight that prompted him to move to the

Brazos bottom he advocated the extension of the Houston and Texas Central Railway

through his county, and, as contractor in connection with Judge William Davis and Major

William Hanna, he graded several miles of that road. This infant town was on one of

the oldest routes of travel in Texas. During the Colonial period there was a Mexican

garrison and a few stores at Tenoxtician just below the county line.

Before the coming of the “iron horse” the commodities were hauled by ox-wagons and

horse wagons to Houston, Nachitoches, Louisiana; a distance of 300 miles, and other

points. Old Sterling, Franklin, Wheelock, Eutaw and Owensville, were the leading

trading centers until Judge Calvert saw the advantage of a railroad through the county.

At this time the Stroud family owned the present site of Calvert but because of the

part that Judge Calvert took in getting the tracks through the Stroud site, the town

was named for him. It was a common sight to see six or eight wagons drawn by oxen

slowly passing through the one and only street of these towns enroute to Houston to

dispose of their cotton. These wagons averaged ten miles a day. The team-masters

usually owned their teams and were paid so much per hundred pounds for hauling freight.

It was between Hearne and Bryan that I saw my first railroad train, said W. S. Allen,

pioneer business man of Calvert. I had seen long wagon trains coming through Port

Sullivan enroute to Houston. These wagons were loaded with cotton and other

commodities for Houston market. All produce was sold in Houston because it was nearest

market, and the best. It sounded wonderful to think that a locomotive could cover a

distance of fifty miles and carry loads that a thousand ox-teams could not have taken

in two weeks. The inhabitants of our country had been compelled to drag their produce

over the level prairies with sixteen yoke of oxen. Many times the prairie and bottoms

were submerged in water. It was a slow, difficult, uncertain and expensive method of

carriage. Naturally we were all watching with interest the laying of new tracks. I

was riding my pony the day that I saw my first train. I heard this terrible puffing

and blowing noise and it frightened me and my horse. He squatted as if ready to make a

wild jump and run away. I put the quirt to him and got him away from the scene as fast

as I could. It was a construction train. The first trains that came through Calvert

burned wood in the engines and traveled about twenty miles an hour. One engine did not

pull over twenty cars. I can remember when passenger trains did not run on Sunday as

people in those days did not believe in desecrating the Sabbath by riding on the train.

The musty old records of Franklin show that an order of election for the incorporation

of Calvert was given for July 5, 1969. All qualified voters under the reconstruction

laws of Congress of the United States residing in the limits of said village as herein

described shall be permitted to vote at said election. Returns showed that majority

voted against incorporation. It was believed that a fair expression of the qualified

voters was not had. So it was ordered that the previous election be set aside as void,

that a new election be held on Saturday, July 24, 1869. Returns showed a majority for

incorporation, so Judge Ellison ordered the town incorporated, Aug. 13, 1869.

“The town was twice as large when I first came and went into business as it is now; the

store buildings were frame but as they were gradually destroyed by fire, brick

buildings took their places,” said Mr. Allen. “Our sanitary conditions were not so

good then. The hogs bedded under the stores and the cattle ran at will over the town.”

“For many years Calvert had the distinction of having the larges cotton gin in the

world,” said Scott Fields, Sr. “The gin was built by John H. Gibson in 1876. Later

his sons P. C. and J. H. Jr. took the business in charge, and enlarged it. It had

twenty-one stands and an oil mill in connection. Farmers brought cotton to Calvert

from all parts of the Brazos bottoms to be ginned and sold. There were 32,000 bales

received in 1882.”

The people of Robertson county had a time locating their county seat. After the

county was organized in 1838 the people chose Franklin. By the time a courthouse and

jail had been built an election was held to move it again and it was moved to Wheelock.

The courthouse build by A. L. Brigance was accepted sometime in August, 1853. Robert

Calvert was one of the five commissioners appointed by the Court November, 1854, to

procure from the District Surveyor a certificate showing the precise center of the

county and selected two or more places within five miles of the center of Robertson

county for another county seat. Owensville was selected and courthouse and jail built.

About the time these buildings were finished the county seat was again moved to Calvert

in 1870. Nine years later another election was held to move the county seat again and

Morgan was elected.

“The town of Calvert was almost depopulated by the scourge of Yellow Fever in 1873,”

said Judge Fields. “The disease was brought to town by a traveling printer from

Louisiana where the fever was raging. He took a room over the restaurant in the Bailey

building and died there. As many persons as could made an exodus before the town was

quarantined. We lost between three and found hundred persons. The fever was a

terrible epidemic, and out people suffered because we did not know how to treat the

disease. The trains were not allowed to stop in Calvert then and the windows of the

coaches were closed until they were far out of town”.

The first shoe shop in Calvert was established by E. Conitz of Posen, Germany, who

moved to Calvert in ’71. According to W. S. Allen, Mr. Conitz made fancy boots for

all of the cowboys. It was the fad for men to wear high heel boots that made their

feet look small. “In those days men were vain over their small feet. We paid Mr.

Conitz fifteen and twenty dollars a pair for French calf-tongue boots with quilted

Morocco leg tops. The tops were quilted in colored roses and other designs. When we

put those fancy boots on and went to church at Little River, we felt mighty dressed

up.”

One never talks to an old settler of either Robertson or Milam county without hearing

of “the trip of the Washington,” being the ascent up Little River of the first and only

steamer that ever plowed the waters of that stream. According to J. W. McCown, who had

the distinction of residing in the second brick house built north of the old San

Antonio road and west of the Trinity river, the trip was made in the winter of 1850-51,

and was the conception of his father, who was engaged in business in Cameron. “It

seems that he had mentioned several times to some of his acquaintances the possibility

of navigating Little River with small boats during the winter freshets, but his

suggestions had generally met with ridicule. At last, just after a particularly heavy

rain, when the river was considerably swollen and gave promise of remaining up several

days, he hastily constructed a skiff and put out for the lower Brazos country in search

of a steamer to make the attempt. He secured one at Washington called ‘The

Washington’, the property of Captain John Woods and commanded by Captain Hatfield. The

trip was undertaken on the payment of a bonus of $500 and guaranteed amount of freight

at stipulated rates. The boat was loaded with a cargo of merchandise, consisting of

groceries, provisions and whiskey, and the ascent begun. It did not excite much

interest along the Brazos, but when Little River was reached the sound of a steam

whistle, never heard before in these parts, instantly attracted attention, and when it

came to know that a real, live steamer, duly equipped and fully loaded with

merchandise, was in the river making its way to Cameron, curiosity quickened into

interest and interest grew into excitement, general and prolonged. My father, who was

enjoying something of a personal triumph in the success of the enterprise, spared no

pains to spread the news as to what was going on. Word passed rapidly from house to

house, and it began at a timer of the year when the people were idle, crowds soon began

to flock to the river banks from all directions. Men, women and children, all ages,

sexes, and conditions, in all stages of dress and undress – a motley company of

curiosity seekers came pouring out from the settlements.

“As the Washington puffed and wriggled along the winding stream, dodging a lot of

drift-wood here and clearing a sharp angle there, knots of sight-seers would greet it

with a great profusion of shouts and hurrahs, and much waving of wool hats and calico

bonnets and aprons. Passengers were taken at each stop, any one being at liberty to

ride, and when stops were not made some of the more ambitious swam out into the river

on horseback and climbed on the steamer while in motion. In this way the boat rapidly

filled up until it became a mass of surging, shouting, rollicking humanity. It stopped

when it reached the shoals, about two miles and a half of Cameron, was made fast to a

tree, and, in accordance with instructions, the decks were cleared and a general

jubilee of feasting and dancing set in. For two days and nights this went on until all

were surfeited with fun and frolic, when the Captain cleared away the debris, turned

the nozzle of the Washington down stream and glided back into the waters of the Brazos.

The event left a lasting impression on the settlers and its incidents afforded topics

for conversations for a long time afterward.

Like the passing of the cattle industry, and the Indians from the vicinity of Calvert,

the pioneer settlers, who once started at the shriek of the “iron horse” as it for the

first time penetrated the wilderness of Robertson county and rushed north to make

neighbors of heretofore unknown counties, are leaving their ranks and giving their

places to their children and grandchildren. Just a few more years and the strange and

wonderful stories of pioneer days will be heard no more from these true builders of

civilization. Men with vision of that like Judge Calvert saw the advantage of a

railroad. His town lived on while Owensville and Wheelock perished. He was past the

age for military service during the Civil War but he fitted the wagon trains and

supplied the soldiers with horses and other equipment. His only public service in

Texas was that of a Representative from Robertson county in 1853 and 1860. He died

September 20, 1867, but he left his name for a guiding torch for courage, vision and

progress.