Today was a frustrating research day for me.
Remember how excited I was last time when I was able to finally pin down exactly when Amelia Virgina Blackshear Cheatham died? Well sometimes it seems like my every triumph is followed by defeat. While doing a search for a comment I made about one of the articles in my last post, I came across an 1879 survey map for Taylor County. And I was like, Yay! W. C. should be on there, since he was one of the earliest settlers and was purportedly living there before 1878. So I thought I'd share that with you in this post. But guess what? I spent a half an hour reading through every single name on that thing and he wasn't there. Now, I suppose there is a slight chance I just missed him, but I tried very hard to be careful so I don't think that's what happened. Here is the map, along with a link to the actual web page so you can zoom in and move the thing around, in case any of you want to check and see if I just missed him or something:
So, after spending all that time looking for and not finding him, I had a conversation with myself that went something like this: Okay, so this map is from January of 1879. Maybe he just wasn't there yet. But the family history says he was there when the first three children died in 1876, so that can't be right. Although, I did come across some evidence while researching A. D. Cheatham that I haven't shared yet that suggests maybe they weren't in Buffalo Gap until after he was born. So maybe they moved there later than everyone thinks. I also have an article saying that Fred Brookreson, the father of W. C.'s wife, Mary, was one of the original settlers of Buffalo Gap, and he's not on this map either. (Think, think, think.) A year and a half after this map was made, W. C. was stockraising, which means he needed land. Maybe he was there, but just leasing land at this point. An awful lot of it belonged to the railroad companies, so maybe they just leased it out before it was sold. A whole lot of it was set aside for schools or belonged to absolutely nobody, so maybe a lot of those stockraisers (like W. C.) were doing the open range thing on land that wasn't even theirs. Or maybe W. C. was doing his carpentering thing when he first moved there, helping to build the new town of Buffalo Gap. The town portion of the map is shown very small with no lots listed, after all.
So then I decided to check the 1880 census and see how many of the names of landowners shown on this map actually lived there in 1880. You know, because maybe they were just investors or something, which would mean that even if W. C. didn't move there until later in 1879, he would still be one of the earliest 'settlers.' I took 30 random names from different parts of the map, and guess how many turned up in the 1880 federal census for Taylor County, Texas? Only one. One out of thirty can't just be error on Ancestry's search tool. That tells me that, either those early settlers didn't last, or the people who owned the land weren't living there (at least by June of 1880 anyway). Either way, that would qualify W. C. for being one of the earliest settlers even if he didn't arrive there until after January of 1879.
So theeeeen, I looked to see if there was a later, but not too much later survey map. There was. It was dated 1883. And guess what? There was still a lot of land owned by the railroads, by the same named individuals as before (the ones who didn't actually live there, so, investors), and by nobody at all. I still didn't find W. C., but I did find Fred Brookreson on section 36. (If my calculations from using a different map are correct, section 36 would be one square mile, which is 640 acres, which is a lot of land!) Here is the map:
I was so sure I was going to find W. C. on this one! But I didn't. (Big sigh!) This was the kind of day that makes me want to throw my hands up and say Enough already! and give the research a rest for a couple of weeks. Or months. But, I am going to trudge on, because I still have a ton of stuff to share!
The maps are interesting in and of themselves, though. In addition to what we can discover about land ownership and settlement in the area, we can see huge amounts of land set aside for the Blind Asylum and Lunatic Asylum. We can also see from the zoomed view just how many rivers and creeks and streams ran through the land. (It seems crazy to someone who has lived in the Phoenix area her entire life!) I can see why the land would have been so desirable for farming and ranching.
Okay, enough about the maps. This is supposed to be a newspaper article post! Before we get into the new stuff about W. C.'s life, though, let's review what we know about his time in Taylor County so far.
W. C. Cheatham moved to Taylor County, Texas sometime after the middle of 1876, maybe not until after January of 1879, but definitely before June of 1880.
1880: He was raising stock.Oh, and if you remember, he was only secretary of the Alliance Association through August 15 or so of 1890. Let's see what else he was up to.
1885: He was living in Buffalo Gap and farming.
1886: He lost his wife Amelia Virginia.
1887: He married Mary Brookreson.
1888: He was farming and keeping the county poor farm.
1889: He was living in Abilene by the end of the year, working as book keeper at the Alliance Association cotton yard, and as the business manager for the Alliance store.
1890
The Taylor County News
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
31 Jan 1890
It looks like W. C. took on another secretary role before he finished the other one. He must have been a very busy man. I looked up the Aberdeen, Dakota Building and Loan Association. It was basically a bank, founded in the city of Aberdeen in the Dakota Territory. In order to be a member of the association, one had to purchase stock at $100/share, and then pay 60¢/share each month in dues. (So in 1890 money, that would be almost $2800/share with monthly dues of $16.62. Yikes!) (I found that information in an 1894 book, American Railroad & Corporation Reports.) I'm guessing that, since W. C. was the secretary of the Abilene branch, he must have been a member, which means he bought stock. Notice that one of the directors was a Brookreson, one of W. C.'s in-laws.
While looking up this building & loan company, I came across a commentary on the company in The National Building & Loan Herald, 1894:
I sure hope W. C. didn't end up losing his investment!
The Abilene Reporter
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
21 Feb 1890
Here we see again the committee dedicated to the progress of Abilene. The beginning tells us that they wanted more railroads, factories, artesian wells, and electric lights for the city, so it could be modern and the people could be happy. Notice that W. C. is still managing the alliance store. I read that, at some point in the 1890's, Abilene achieved electricity in the downtown area, but as for the wells, the water kept coming up salty, and the town had to have water carted in from the creeks and stored in barrels outside their houses until 1898, when a dam was built and water piped in.
The Taylor County News
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
21 Feb 1890
Here is another article showing W. C. getting paid by the county. For what, I have no idea. (That $22.40 would be equivalent to $640 today.)
The Taylor County News
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
2 May 1890
It looks like W. C. was getting somebody to help him run the store. The same man would later serve as chaplain for the alliance.
The Taylor County News
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
2 May 1890
Well, if this article doesn't emphasize how W. C. lived in a different time and place, I don't know what does! (If you only read the last portion of this, go back up and read more. The part about the prairie dogs is too funny.)
The Abilene Reporter
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
23 May 1890
Here we see W. C. and his wife selling five lots in Abilene for $425 ($11,727 in today's money). And this is the perfect opportunity for me to insert more maps!
Remember this map from last time?
Remember, the red star (and the three blocks north of it) shows the downtown area where W. C. was going to work each day. The section outlined in green is where those lots that W. C. sold were located. I'm guessing that these lots were purchased as an investment, since he was selling them. The little orange box shows the courthouse (which will become relevant soon).
23 May 1890
So, I'm guessing that if W. C. was opening his own business, that means he was no longer working at the Alliance store. If any of you out there are wondering what a commission business is, it basically means that W. C. was acting as an agent/broker/salesman, facilitating/initiating/executing commercial transactions. He would have received a fee or percentage for each sale he made on behalf of the owner of the goods/property sold. Since the town was so new, it was probably cheaper for a lot of entrepreneurs to have a commission house sell their goods for them than to have to build their own place of business. (Or to use a commission business while their building was being built.)
I did some more digging and found out where the McKean & McCabe building was. Take a look at this map showing both sides of the main street in the north downtown area (I showed this to you in two separate maps last time.) You'll remember that the yellow store in the far upper right that says 'Photo Gro' was the location of the Alliance store. If you head north up to the corner of Pine & Third St., the pink (brick) store on the very northwest corner that says 'Gro' is where the McKean & McCabe Grocery was located up until 1890. I guess W. C. snatched it up as soon as it became available.
The Taylor County News
30 May 1890
That's strange. W. C. just opened a commission business, but he was working at a wholesale grocery house a week later. I saw another article dated May 2nd saying that Walshe's lost their (only?) employee, so maybe they were in a pinch and since W. C. was just getting things up and running he stepped in at Walshe's part-time.
The Taylor County News
20 June 1890
This is just one month after W. C. opened his business and he was already moving locations! Remember how I mentioned in my last post that there was a north and south downtown area?
Here is a map of the downtown south of the railroad tracks:
You can see that it has pretty much the same types of businesses as the north section. You can also see that there wasn't anything at all in the block with the county courthouse (well, that's not technically true, because the jail was in a separate building behind it, but I cut that part off the map!), so maybe there was space for businesses in the actual court building? Wait. I just noticed that the article says he moved to the "old courthouse." Maybe that means wherever it was housed before they built the huge brick and stone building. Hold tight while I go check. Okay, so after a half-hour of searching, I came up empty-handed. Everything says that the court house on the map was the first one, but that doesn't really make sense because the city wouldn't have built one until they were sure the county seat was going to be moved from Buffalo Gap, but once the issue was decided, they would have had to hold court in a temporary building while the real one was being built, wouldn't they? Besides, the article says there was an old courthouse, so it must be true. Anyway, the article says the old court house was on the "south side" (which means it is not referring to what is today called the "Old Court House" which is the original one in Buffalo Gap), so W. C.'s new location was somewhere on this map.
The Abilene Reporter
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
25 Jul 1890
So this is a little weird, because these are the same lots that W. C. and his wife sold to S. G Tipton just three months prior. And here he is buying them back from somebody else for only $225. That means he made a profit of $200 (about $5,500 today) between the two transactions.
The Taylor County News
24 Oct 1890
It looks like W. C. was mostly selling farming equipment at his store. It's interesting that he was selling an entire train car of wagons and another of vehicles. (Like what - traps, gigs, carriages, bicycles? Although automobiles had been invented, they weren't being mass produced and sold yet in 1890.) It seems like W. C.'s business was like a 19th century version of Costco! Oh, and the fact that his business is called "W. C. Cheatham & Co.' implies he had at least one partner.
The Taylor County News
28 Nov 1890
Here we have two more bits of advertisement about W. C.'s consignment business. Not only was he selling things shipped in from out of town, but also things from people in town. And, he was adding a real estate agency to his business. This article also gives us a bit of information that could have saved me a whole lot of frustration had I read it before I started looking at those maps at the beginning of this post - he had lived in Taylor County for 12 years. That means he did not arrive in Buffalo Gap until 1878. This still doesn't explain why he wasn't on the survey maps, but at least now we know for sure when he moved there.
The Taylor County News
5 Dec 1890
Okay, so it seems a bit ironic that W. C. is going to be redeeming lands sold for taxes when he himself had had his own property sold at auction for unpaid taxes. But ... this advertisement tells us that his business was located on S. 2nd St. Looking back at the map above, that is the street that is a block north of the 'new' courthouse. Looking along that street, there is a fairly large building that says 'Agric'l Implem'ts.' According to the articles, that is a large part of what he was selling - now that I think of it, even some of those 'vehicles' could have been those things farmers rode on to work the fields. See?
This is a photo of an actual Taylor County farmer from around that time.
Anyway, the building was relatively large, so it could have served as the original courthouse. Of course, it just dawned on me that the south downtown map I showed you is only the east side! So let's take a look at the west side.
1891
The Taylor County News
27 Mar 1891
Here is another business venture by W. C.! This time he has a company that is putting up fences around domestic properties, not farms. I found it interesting that along with purchasing the fencing machine, they obtained exclusive rights to sell or use it in Taylor County. Notice that the ad says 'Brookreson & Cheatham,' not 'W. C. Cheatham & Co.' and H. T. Brookreson is listed as the manager, so maybe this is a separate partnership from W. C.'s other company. H. T. Brookreson was W. C.'s wife Mary's younger brother, Henry Thaddeus. He would have been only about 25 years old at the time, so this might have been his first business venture. I would also like to point out the spelling of his last name - 'Brookreson, ' not 'Brookerson.' (Most family trees on Ancestry, as well as our Family History spell it the second way, but I think we've seen it in primary sources enough now to know that the first way is actually correct. I saw one family tree on Ancestry (which I know I bookmarked but now can't find) that explained that Mary's father Fred, who was from Holland, came with a last name spelled entirely different, but chose to have the new, English version spelled with an 're' instead of 'er' because it was closer to the original. Anyway, this is just another example of how primary sources can help us get our facts straight.
I feel that I must digress for a moment to comment on my last comment. The one about primary sources and getting our facts straight. While looking for the aforementioned family tree on Ancestry, I found a different tree with a copy of a business directory with a listing for Lizzie Cheatham, widow of Wm. This document was attached to W. C.'s wife, Mary Brookreson Cheatham. (If you remember, she was listed on the 1900 Census as 'Lizzie.') The problem is, the document was from 1907 in Waco, Texas. Of course our Mary was not widowed in 1907, nor was she living in Waco. I'm telling you all this to point out that sometimes we come across a document and our first thought is Oh! I've found him! But if we just spend a minute to consider the facts, we realize that it can not possibly be the same person. See, this is what I was talking about when I started this blog, because I come across stuff like that all the time! Okay, back to the articles!
The Taylor County News
10 April 1891
Make sure you read this whole thing! The first parts seems more relevant now, after having looked at all those maps! The next three are all about those fences W. C. and Henry were putting up. I like the little testimonial at the end!
The Taylor County News
1 May 1891
So now we know just what the fencing machine and the 'woven wire' fences looked like! This ad ran in the paper for many consecutive weeks.
The Taylor County News
21 Aug 1891
This was, I guess, basically a summons to appear in court. It was summoning a customer of W. C. Cheatham & Co. (Notice that it names one other partner in the firm.) for failure to pay the commission on the sale of a cotton gin, wagon scale, and related equipment. Actually, now that I reread it, it is summoning him for nonpayment of commission for the sale of another cotton gin and related equipment as well. And it implies that they received judgement on a previous case, because they received a writ of garnishment against a different company (which I looked up and concluded was a store, not a farm related company). The amount owed to W. C.'s commission business from the sales was $177.80, which would be equivalent to almost $5,000. So it looks like the business had the potential to do well, as long as they were paid their commissions.
The Taylor County News
27 Nov 1891
This is a very long article, but I would encourage you all to read it, because it is very interesting. It is about the execution of a criminal in Taylor County. In case you are wondering after reading the first paragraph, embalming was barely being experimented with in the 1860's, and was obviously still a novelty in 1891. We see from this article that W. C. was a deputy sheriff in 1891! (And just in case you are interested in finding out exactly what happened to get this guy the death penalty or want other details about the case, you can read about it here.)
1892
The Taylor County News
19 Feb 1892
I was going to save this one until I did the post on Edmund Calvin Cheatham, but the fact that he is visiting from Lampasas is going to be relevant by the time I am finishing up with W. C. So hold this tidbit of information in the back of your mind until then.
The Abilene Reporter
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
11 Mar 1892
This article is doubly good, because not only does it mention W. C., but it is quite entertaining as well. This is exactly how it appeared in the newspaper, which makes the categories a little confusing, but it looks to me that W. C. was in favor of allowing cows to run wild in the streets. Bizarre, if you ask me. While looking in the newspapers to see how the issue was resolved, I discovered that people were having their yards ruined and fences knocked down by the offending cows. Maybe W. C. thought they should continue to let them run wild because it would bring more business for those fences he was selling!
The Taylor County News
22 Apr 1892
So, this one just says 'Cheatham,' not 'W. C. Cheatham' like nearly all of the other articles. There was one other Cheatham in Abilene by this time, so I guess it could have been him instead of W. C. However, W. C. seems to have had his hands in everything, so it wouldn't surprise me if this was actually him. (By the way, Waxahachie was the county seat of Ellis County, about 200 miles east of Abilene. Annnnnd, now that I am proofreading this post for publication, I would like to share the fact that, after I wrote that first part of these comments, I found an article mentioning a W. C. Cheatham involved in a court case in Waxahachie in 1904 - so MAYBE the Cheatham mentioned here was actually a different guy living in Waxahachie who came to Abilene to buy the swing. Of course, the lawsuit could be against our W. C., for some kind of case left over from before he moved to New Mexico. Sometimes research makes me feel like a dog chasing its own tail - going around in circles and never getting anywhere!)
The Taylor County News
8 July 1892
Here we see W. C. running for public office again, this time for Justice of the Peace in (I'm assuming) Abilene.
The Taylor County News
15 Jul 1892
This is just the announcement of all the men running for office. The gentleman running against W. C. was the incumbent (He is the one who issued that "citation by publication" we saw a little bit ago.), and W. C. never seemed to do well against someone running for reelection, so we'll have to see what happened.
The Abilene Reporter
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
29 Jul 1892
This was the announcement from a different newspaper, and it shows W. C. running for constable, but the following announcement was from the same paper and it says justice of the peace, so I guess the above listing was a mistake!
The Abilene Reporter
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
5 Aug 1892
See? They corrected it the next week!
1893
The Abilene Reporter
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
10 Mar 1893
If this is another lawsuit over non-payment of commission, it seems like the business was pretty risky - that $3,988.22 would equal $111,274.44. Holy cow! But maybe it is someone trying to get back their property of profits from their property being sold in the commission house. I don't know, because I don't really understand legal-speak. ( I tried to find out what John B. Neil did for a living other than running for sheriff in 1892, but all I came up with is that he was a resident of Taylor County who was periodically a guest in the Palace Hotel in Abilene. So I guessed maybe he did something agriculturally related, and then I found an article saying John Neil -without the middle initial- shipped two hundred head of cattle out of Abilene, so, maybe. Oh, but later I found a snippet implying that he was the county assessor at one point, so . . . )
The Taylor County News
17 Mar 1893
The Taylor County News
5 May 1893
So this makes two months in a row that Calvin Malone was on the honor roll. (And there's "Elma" again, three names up.)
1894
The Taylor County News
9 Mar 1894
Remember this case? From back in MARCH of the PREVIOUS YEAR?!?!?! And I thought the courts were backlogged today! I tried to find an article with the outcome to the case, but I had no luck. (I did a bit more looking, and found that John B Neill lived three miles north of Buffalo Gap, and he raised pigs and horses in addition to the cattle I mentioned before. I also saw a notice from about a year later that said the bank had foreclosed on his property in Abilene, so maybe this lawsuit had something to do with a real estate transaction.)
The Abilene Reporter
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
13 Apr 1894
Remember how I said it was ironic that W. C. was buying back land for people who had lost it for non-payment of taxes? Well, maybe that is actually what this one is all about. At first glance it looks like the same lots as he was selling and buying previously, but if you take a closer look, you'll notice that it says lots 25 to 33 in block 189, lot 3 division 2, whereas the previous one said lots 26 to 30 in lot 2 of the same block. That means they are different. See?
But then again, this tax sale notice shows no 'original grantee' for those lots, which I THINK means that he was the original purchaser of the lots when they first went up for sale when Abilene was established. Either way, it seems kind of ridiculous that he would lose NINE pieces of real estate for nonpayment of $8.51 in taxes. (Of course that was like $237, but still!) (My husband always says nobody REALLY owns their land if it can just be taken away if you don't pay your taxes. I think these articles prove his point.)
The Taylor County News
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
27 Apr 1894
Here's another school achievement article, this time for W. C.'s son Elmer.
The Taylor County News
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
8 June 1894
Okay, I'm not sure what this means that they were going to be 'selling territory' for a windmill. I tried looking it up and got a whole bunch more books with legal-speak, like this:
I think the article MIGHT mean that they were actually selling the right to sell that windmill in other places, like W. C. and H. T. Brookreson had with that fencing machine. That makes sense, right? (If I'm wrong, and any of you know what it really means, leave me a comment!)
The Taylor County News
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
14 Sep 1894
The Taylor County News
(Abilene, Taylor County, TX)
23 Nov 1894
Huh. Well it looks like things had come full circle for W. C., and after five years of jumping from one venture to another in Abilene, he moved back to Buffalo Gap. Which makes this a perfect place to wrap things up for today.
Whew! I've shown you more than thirty articles so far in this post, and I've got about fifteen more to go before the family left Taylor County. So I think I'm just going to end things here and give you the rest of them next time!
- Therese
Note: Almost all of the articles above came from the Portal to Texas History: Texas Digital Newspaper Program website; you can find the links for each edition in the left sidebar. A few came from Newspapers.com, so they do not have a link.
Update: Since publishing this post, I noticed that there are months of missing editions in the newspaper database. It is likely that W. C. was mentioned in numerous articles for 1893, they just aren't available for us to look through. For example, editions around the time in which his son Early was both born and died are lost. There were condolences for the death of children published quite regularly, so I'm sure, since they were living in Abilene at the time, that their loss was noted in the newspaper.
