The history of the Ephrim Fargason Family - Part 2

The Move to Texas

In the Fall of 1872, the group left McDonough, Georgia by wagons for New Orleans, Louisiana, a distance of several hundred miles. Upon arriving in New Orleans, they sold their wagons and teams and bought passage by steamboat to Jefferson, Texas. The boat trip took them up the Mississippi River to near Natchez at the mouth of the Red River and from there to near Shreveport, Louisiana where through bayous and locks the boat entered Caddo Lake and landed at the turning basin in Jefferson, Texas in the fall of 1872.

Papa was nine years old and related some of the details of the trip. One story was seeing the gamblers tossing oranges to the children on the boat while docked in New Orleans. He said his sister, Mary, was a tall girl about fifteen years old and because of her height caught many of the oranges tossed by the gamblers.

Another interesting event that Papa related was that near the end of the boat trip food became scarce, especially fresh meat. The boat moved very slowly so when bends in the red.

River came up the men and boys left the boat with their guns and walked to hunt birds, squirrels, and rabbits. They then boarded the boat when it came around the bend.

Members of the Texas group included Capt. Fargason, his wife, Amanda and five children previously named. Aunt Georgia was married and had her first child, Homer Lindsey, who had been born in Georgia. He husband, Sam Lindsey, had fought in the Civil War, Others in the group were the Flemings, Laneys, Goodmans and possibly others whose names are unknown.

After landing in Jefferson, which was the largest city in Texas at the time with a population of over 30,000 and the leading steamship port in Texas, the group of newcomers settled principally in East Texas within a range of fifty to

Sixty miles. [Editor’s note; Jefferson’s top population was 4,190 on the 1870 census. Galveston was Texas’ largest city and port until 1900. It lost to Houston]

Leading West from Jefferson was the Jefferson-Dallas Road over which freight was hauled west by wagon to Dallas. It appears that our family moved up this road to Camp County. In Upshur County about forty miles west of Jefferson, the Jefferson-Dallas Road crossed the Cherokee Trace which led north into Camp County and on to the Indian Territory in Oklahoma. The Cherokee Trace had been the route the Cherokee Indians had traveled to Indian Territory when driven out of East Texas in about 1840. The Trace had become a road where settlers had built homes that led across Camp County. The family settled near Leesburg, Texas. My grandmother, Amanda, is buried in Leesburg Cemetery.

The next move was to Simpsonville in Upshur County on the Jefferson-Dallas Road. While here, Grandfather who was a millwright, built gins and sawmills. The Masonic Lodge of Simpsonville A.F. and A.M. last reported Grandfather as a member in 1900. Exact records of his death are not available, but it is believed to have occurred around 1900 - 1901. He was buried at Perryville with a C.S.A. marker at his grave.

Aunt Georgia, the oldest child, settled in Perryville where her husband, Uncle Sam, was a Deacon in the Baptist Church organized in 1888. They are buried in the Perryville Cemetery. Their youngest daughter, Dee Walling, is the only surviving child.

Aunt Mary married Hiram Goodman and settled in Cass County near Linden, Texas. They had a large family with no children surviving. They are buried at Kildare, Texas.

Aunt Cordelia married Clayton Lawrence of Perryville and had four sons. She died at an early age and her sister, Aunt Viola Fargason married Clayton Lawrence. They are buried in the Perryville Cemetery. None of the children of the Lawrence family are still living.

William Ephrim “Will” Fargason married Ella Nora Pennington in 1888 at County Line, now Perryville. My mother moved to Perryville in 1887 from Hope, Arkansas. She was born in Northern Louisiana. Her brother, Eugene “Pete” Pennington, lived in Simpsonville. My Mother joined the Perryville Methodist Church in 1887. She had some half-sisters whom we know very little about and were left behind in Arkansas.

Papa received very little formal education. He attended Jefferson Academy for a short time where he learned to read and write. However, he did considerable reading including the works of Shakespeare and other well-known writers. He was self-educated and well educated for a man of his time.

As a young man (age 18), Papa worked at his Uncle Jim Bevin’s sawmill at Bivins, Texas, a town named for Uncle Jim, where he helped to cut the bridge timbers for the Texas and Pacific Railway being built across Texas in the 1880’s. The runners were 36 feet long, 8 inches thick by 18 inches deep and had to be handled by manual labor.

During his courtship with my mother, he lived at Simpsonville and would walk five miles each way to Perryville to see her. After their marriage there were six children. Namely: Marshall E. “Marsh” who married Lizzy Hester and had five children, Ruth who married Sidney Brown and had four children (her son, Harold died as an infant) , Lillie who married Cloddie Henson and had three children, Mercer E. “Merce” who married Ester Ruth Shirley and had no children and John H. “Jake” who married Sara Jo Moore and had three children.

After marriage, my parents lived at Perryville for several years engaged in farming and sawmill work. Around the year 1900, they moved to east Point Community located ten miles east of Quitman on the Jefferson-Dallas Road. Here they were farmers and later owned a store and operated a cotton gin. Merce and I were born at east Point. Dr. W.T. Black from Quitman delivered me. Shortly after my birth, December 13, 1907, Papa sold the store and gin and moved to Carter’s Mill where he and my brother, Marsh were employed for two or three years.

In 1910, just before the mill was closed down due to the cut out of timber, Papa and Marsh combined their resources to buy the Wes Bailey farm located about two miles south of Perryville. The farm consisted of 200 acres of cleared and wooded land where the family lived for many years engaged in farming and sawmill operations. All the children were single except Ruth. I was three years old and spent most of my younger days at Perryville. The farm was bought for $500 dollars. When Wes Bailey was questioned about selling the farm for so little (two hundred acres, two houses and a barn) he replied, “All of my D____ dogs died there”.

Our nearest neighbors were the Hesters, Greens, Corbitts and Bryces. Uncle Pete Pennington lived nearby. It was two miles to school over an often muddy road. We had to wade Caney Creek after a rain. Our chief recreation was baseball, basketball, hunting and fishing. Merce and I graduated from high school and later college.

Papa lived to the age of 76 while Mama died at the age of 84. Both are buried in the Perryville Cemetery where four generations of the family are buried. The old family farm has been sold. However, a small portion of it remains in the hands of Bill Fargason, a grandson of the son of Marsh Fargason.

The family name is being continued through my son, John Jr., who has a son named John Mark Fargason, the last great-grandson and male left in the family.

By John H. Fargason