CHAPTER XXXVIII.

First Cabin Court House-Town Plan and Description-Early Beginnings of Granbury-First Lawyers and Doctors of the Town- The First Sunday School-A.P. Harbin.

The removal of the few scanty records from Stockton, where official life had formulated under the combined influence of Judge Landers and "wet" groceries, to the now established site of Granbury, was in itself but a small affair; but we now had become a county, with authority to levy and collect taxes, hold courts and make a record. A site we had, but a secure shelter for the exercise of this authority and the keeping of these records was now to be provided. A small 16x16 foot one story log cabin with doors on the north and south sides and a chimney in the west end, was provided and built in the center of the court house square of the town, as duly laid out by A.S. McCamant as surveyor. In this single room each and all the county officials kept their offices and records, or rather had a right so to do; and this room, too, was also the headquarters of several lawyers and active land agents, as well as the place for the reception and distribution of the U.S. mails, which latter, however, was a small affair, as mails were received only once a week for a time. This room was found not to be ample enough for all these purposes and also for the holding of district court, but this defect was remedied by the erection, through public enterprise, of a crudely built rock or concrete house about 25x40 feet and one story high on the corner where A.P. Gordon's store now stands; and for some years this was used for many public purposes, such as the holding of courts schools, meeting of all kinds, religious and otherwise.

The forty acre donation made by Nutts and Lambert to the county, surveyed and platted into blocks and lots by McCamant, consisted of twenty blocks, including the courthouse square, each block being 300 feet square and containing two acres, with streets 50 and 40 feet wide between; so that the streets seem to have constituted an excess above the nominal donation. These blocks extended west from the courthouse one block and two blocks in each other direction. Lots were placed upon the market and several public sales made, and down to 1871, the most extensive sale probably occurring about the first of March 1871. The proceeds constituted court house and jail fund.

The entire town site was a forest of post oak and other growth and the river bottoms adjacent produced some very goodly sized trees of burr oak, elm, pecan and cottonwood, which furnished what then was considered very good material to keep a busy little saw mill, erected now by Holland & Anderson, running for several years to supply the incoming population with building material. And as the people came and thinned out the woods, the wild game of deer and turkey, which had so long constituted the chief supplies of meat for the hospitable tables of the early pioneers, perceptibly diminished. And it has now been many years since 'Squire P.V. Rhea has been able, as he once did, to kill, hang to a post oak limb and dress his deer on the public square of Granbury. The under-brush being trimmed away, a number of those post oaks remained on the public square surrounding the little log court house for several years, furnishing welcome lean-backs and shade, where many a trade involving thousands of dollars and cattle was made, and schemes of local politics planned, to say nothing of the great utility to which they were put as hitching posts for the jaded little pony covered with the trappings of a very large saddle, while the rider was helping with all the vim of western life to run the four or five saloons and their adjunctive ten-pin alleys, which now [1871-2] made their appearance around the square, and the saloons returning the courtesy by stimulating him, through day and night to keep the little town well painted a lively red.

The organization of the county brought lawyers, essential to good government and always found in the front of every struggle in civil or military life for the betterment of mankind. The first here were W.H. Millwee, a man of exceptionally good character, sober habits and fair ability; A.V. Shropshire, a man with just enough learning to make him vain and enough ego to make him the hero of all the wonderful yarns and fish stories which occupied the most of his time in relating; E.P. Anderson, a lawyer of good ability, and a man named Blue, who was well spoken of by all, but died after only a short experience here. Later on, toward the beginning of the year 1871, Young, from Mississippi, and Halbert, from Tennessee, two young lawyers just from their schools, came and formed the first firm of lawyers resident in the town. Much seemed to exist in promise for this formidable alliance, but the times were too rough for them and after a few years they fainted by the wayside, as it were, and found their ways back to the haunts of their respective Alma Maters.

The town was not without its representative doctors, too, always abreast with advancing civilization to alleviate the suffering of physical man. Among the first of these, residents of the town, was D.K. Turner, who, being one of the leaders in local politics, followed the county government from Stockton to Granbury; also J.R. Caufman and A.E. Hanna. Caufman left many years ago. Hanna remained here a useful and upright man till his death in 1894. Dr. Hanna, in association with his surviving wife and her sisters, Mrs. Evans, Mrs. Haney and Mrs. Baker, then all the unmarried daughters of Maj. C.H. Blake, who, with other gentlemen, also joined them, were the organizers and supporters for several years of the first Sunday School in Hood county. It had its beginning in the rock house before mentioned in the fall of 1871, and was well attended and doubtless aided largely in directing the current of some lives into proper channels.

Many other doctors and lawyers, teachers and preachers, came about this period into the county; some have gone and some remain. Among the most useful of the teachers of this period was A.P. Harbin, who taught the public school at Granbury in 1871. His school so increased in numbers as to require an assistant during that year, and that assistant, to whom was assigned for training, the female side of the house, can now find near at hand several of his pupils who are mothers of grown up children-too close a scrutiny night reveal grandmothers-and yet he is not an old man. But to return to Harbin: he was a pious Baptist, a faithful teacher, a most trustworthy man and friend. He married Miss Jennie Fincher, a popular lady of Acton, and removed to Ellis county many years ago, and died there in 1894. Many of our best citizens remember Harbin as their teacher and faithful friend.

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