The Moores Plantation - Queen City

To fully appreciate the beauty of the Moores Plantation one must envision the lay of the land at the time the house was built in 1850. Lake Wright Patman didn’t exist, and the Sulphur River created the boundary between Bowie and Cass Counties.

The Civil War was a few years in the future, most people relied on servants and people slept from dusk to dawn because they had no electricity. The men hunted to put meat on the table and everyone had a garden.

Jefferson was the county seat and it was a two-day horse ride from one end of Cass to the other. Our boundaries were a little sketchy at that time, but the river to the North and Louisiana to the East hasn’t really changed much since then.

Beginning around 1821 many East coast families migrated West to the “New Frontier” of Texas, which had carved itself out of Mexico in a bloody war and proclaimed it’s independence. It was a most attractive land grab.

Most of our area was thickly wooded and swampy, save for the strips of land the railroad companies used to build their tracks on. Caravans came from Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama and the Carolinas to stake their claim and build their dream homes.

Houses were built from trees cut from the land they claimed. In turn, the cleared land provided for a spacious garden and room to build numerous smaller buildings and barns.

It was in this wilderness that David Harrison Moores, born January 18, 1827 in South Carolina, and his new bride, Rachel Perry Godbold, born November 23, 1830 in Alabama, chose to build a plantation just south of the Sulphur River in Cass County.

The newlyweds were married on February 6, 1855 in Columbia, Arkansas. A search on Ancestry. com shows that David’s sister Frances was also born in South Carolina in 1828; and brother Richard was born in Texas in 1834. David’s family had moved to Texas before he was seven years old. To have met Rachel in Arkansas, we can speculate that he was in some line of work that caused him to travel. It was too early to be a railroad job, but he could have been a logger or trader.

The 1860 Federal Census lists the couple and two other white males as residents – S. Griffin, 65, is listed as “Overseer” and B.M. Griffin, age 26. The real estate is valued at $10,000 and the Moores personal estate is valued at $19,635.

The 1880 Federal Census lists the couple as the only residents at the address. David is listed as a Farmer, Rachel is listed as “wife.”Rachel wrote in a diary every day, and the current owner is in possession of a copy of the transcribed pages. Throughout the diary, Rachel speaks of feeling “sickly,” “stupid,” and “poorly.” Even on days she doesn’t write anything else, she mentions her failing health.

The more interesting passages speak of taking a boat to Shreveport and down to New Orleans. Another trip had them sailing around the East Coast to New York.

On February 3, 1864, David enlisted as a 3rd Corporal in the Confederate Army, Nelson’s 2 Bath’s CAV Csa, Company 7Th T S T Tel State Troops.

David died on January 18, 1892 in Texarkana at the age of 65. Rachel died on April 21, 1904 in Texarkana at the age of 73. Both are buried in Rose Hill Cemetery in Texarkana. They were married for 36 years and had no children, presumably a result of her poor health.

The plantation home still stands, just North of Domino on County Road 3659. The 100 year-old crepe myrtles and oak trees partially obscure the home, which doesn’t directly face the road – instead it sits diagonally, facing a long forgotten wagon path that ran much closer to the front porch.

Little is known of the years between Rachel’s death and 1938, other than a Judge Glass owned it. 1938 was the year that Laura Treadway Peavy’s grandfather, Arthur L. and wife, Willie Mae Mason Treadway, purchased the home, along with the 500 acres it sits on and seven servants quarters which have been torn down.

Arthur, who had done well in the Ravanna Oil Fields, owned the home until his death in 1981 when it passed to his son, Doil Treadway. Since Doils death in 2014, Laura has owned the property, which has served as a family reunion destination and currently is being rented to family members.

Many of those relatives swear the house is haunted by the ghost of a young girl that died in the home. Laura and her cousins have all had unusual incidents there, from lights switching on and off, items moving mysteriously, and footsteps when no one else is in the house.

Peeling another layer off of the mystery, it is said that the outlaw Cullen Baker used the plantation as a hideout after he went AWOL from the Confederate Army. Given the proximity to the Sulphur River where Baker would slink along the shore of the river, moving at night, it’s definitely a possibility.

For a 171 year old home, it has held up tremendously well. The interior has had very little done cosmetically. The old wood stove in the back room is still operational. The kitchen, which was added in the 1930s, is the newest part of the house.

The second-floor balcony is still sturdy enough to relax on, and the roof doesn’t leak. One of the more surprising features – the root cellar with bars on the windows – is in excellent shape.

At one time this area was a nice little community with a church, a schoolhouse and a General Mercantile in the brick structure next to the home. Sadly those are the only remnants left of a time when outlaws terrorized the sparse frontier and a trip to the county seat was a two-day trip.

The future of the home is somewhat uncertain. Laura would love to see if spruced up with a Historic Medallion out front, However, that dream is cost-prohibited at the moment.

“I would really like to sell it to someone who appreciates it and will renovate it into something wonderful,” Laura said. “If it truly is the oldest home in Cass County, then it really deserves to be preserved.”