Telephone, Texas

Telephone is at the intersection of Farm roads 273 and 2029, twelve miles northeast of Bonham in northeastern Fannin County. While settlers had moved into the vicinity as early as the 1870s, the community was not established until around 1886. It was named for the fact that the only telephone in the area was in the local general store owned by Pete Hindman. Apparently postal authorities had repeatedly refused Hindman's applications for a post office in his store because the names he submitted for it were already being used by other Texas post offices. The merchant finally submitted the name Telephone. The name was accepted, and the post office was opened in 1886. By 1890 the community population had reached thirty, and it reached 100 on the eve of World War I. The number of residents remained at about that level through the mid-1930s, when the population stood at ninety-nine. The community had eight businesses in 1936. Unlike many rural communities, however, Telephone grew noticeably during the late 1930s and early 1940s. By the mid-1940s it had ten businesses and 280 residents, a population that was reported through the 1960s. Eleven businesses operated locally by 1967. In 1990 Telephone reported a post office, six businesses, and 210 residents. The population remained the same in 2000.

https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hlt05

If you do a Google on Telephone and access photographs, you will see downtown Telephone with fallen down buildings and old houses, weeds growing in the streets. One building is signed Dew Drop Inn Bakery, but the place looks closed. There are newer buildings, churches and a post office. Monkstown is six miles away.

 Northeast Texas was a long way away from the fights of the Texas Revolution in 1836, but the area did send fighters south. After the Revolution, the northeast got the names of several Revolutionaries -- Lamar County for Mirabeau M. Lamar, second president of the Republic of Texas; Bowie County for James Bowie, who was killed by Santa Anna's soldiers at the Alamo; Fannin County for James Walker Fannin Jr., murdered by Santa Anna's soldiers, along with more than 300 other Texians after surrendering at Goliad; and the city of Bonham, for James Butler Bonham, killed at the Alamo on March 6, 1836.

Hard times

Bonham Daily Favorite, April 8, 1915

Civil War Times Are Duplicated, Says L. C. Penwell of This City, Who Was Here on the Ground At Time.

We are experiencing some very hard times just now, because of a partial failure crops, together with the low price of cotton and the great European war.  A feeling of uneasiness and doubt seems to prevail, but I believe we have crossed the Rubicon, that the worst is over and that the bright sunlight of prosperity will soon shine again.  God's chosen people can not be kept down long.

We are partly to blame ourselves for these hard times, because of our extravagance.  Besides, I think sometimes that our imaginary wants bother us more than our real ones.  We are living in an advanced age, and all, whether able or not, are trying to keep up with the procession.  I think it is about time to call a halt and take a retrospective view of the situation and profit by our experiences.  As I can scarcely write an article without referring to the past, this will be no exception.

​The present hard times remind me of the sixties, the dark days of the Civil War.  We were cut off from the outside world and forced a rely almost entirely upon our own resources.  People lived pretty hard, but you did not hear half the complaining that you do now.  We dressed in home-spun and home-made clothing and lived at home and boarded at the same place.  Our victuals was plain but wholesome and not much of a variety, and consisted in many instances of corn bread, mast-fed pork and beef killed off the range any time of the year, and far sweeter and more tender than meat we have now.  We had sorghum molasses and many raised fruit.  Never since a boy have I tasted anything that will compare with the large, blood-red, juicy Indian peach of early days.

For awhile biscuit were a rarity, and you would often see a cow-lot full of calves and not enough cream could be gotten from the cows for coffee.  For coffee we used barley or rye, toned up with a little okra.  Sure-enough coffee cost $8.00 a pound in United States or $16.00 in Confederate money.  It was, therefore, just about as scarce as hen's teeth.  We made our own candles, and quite a number had honey.  Many raised barley and the bees lived on that and the sweet prairie flowers that bedecked the earth like Joseph's coat of many colors.

As I have said before, times were hard here, but not as hard as they were further east, near the war zone.  For an eye-opener I will quote the rules and regulations of the Confederate Hotel at Withville, Virginia, November 14, 1864.  This is authentic, and was given me by a neighbor who was living there at the time.  Of course Confederate money was used in this transaction:

Board and lodging per day        $30.00

Single meal                                          10.00.

Lodging per day                                 5.00

Keeping a horse per day                15.00

Single horse feed                                 5.00

Extra charge for fire in room       10.00

How is that for high?

Women slave owners, or another thing that never happened

Feminists often compare the servitude of women to that of black slaves in the United States, especially alluding to the U.S. South, where women supposedly must have sympathized with slaves, since both were in similar circumstances.

History, as it often does, disagrees with propaganda.

Women who owned slaves in Fannin County Texas, 1850: Catherine Bain, 3; Elizabeth Bell, 2; Sarah Bush, 1; Matilda Clark, 2; Mary Daugherty, 1; Mabel Gilbert, 9; Mary Lyday, 10; Rebecca McClure, 1; Jane McKee, 10; Mary Rowlett, 2; Louisa Sowell, 4; Nancy Story, 1; and Emily Williamson, 1.

http://www.txfannin.org/census.php?type=slaves&year=1850

1850 was an important year in Texas history, as the state had its first Federal census.

Proper count of slaves was important. Slaves were personal property and taxed accordingly.

Comparison is also made between American Indians and black slaves concerning treatment of both groups by white men. Those who make that comparison ignore or are ignorant of slave ownership by Choctaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Seminole and Muskogee-Creek, the historical Five Civilized Tribes. The five tribes signed treaties with the Confederate States of America in 1861, with both sides pledging cooperation in the war against the Federal Government.