AS TIME GOES BY

Wood County History

By LOU MALLORY — Chairperson, Wood County Historical Commission

 

The Stinson Place

(Ed. Note: The following is taken from an unpublished family history written in 1956 by. Mrs.Ona Wood of Quitman, a descendant of an early settler, Peter Gunstream who was a neighbor and close friend of Colonel James A. Stinson. The information that follows is taken from a chapter entitled “The Stinson Place.”)

The spacious residence was constructed in a style typical of the Old South and surrounded with acreage of heavily pine-timbered land. People a generation, or more, ago came to know this site as the Stinson place and it probably marks an era in the history of Wood County of which little is remembered. However, it was an industrial site in the middle of the 19th century when Wood County came into existence.
 

Mr. Isham Burnett, a native of Virginia, came to Texas from Tennessee in 1840, even while the flag of the Republic waved proudly over the “Land of the Tejas.” He moved his family in 1850 to the deep eastern section of the country that, in that same year, became known as Wood County. He built a millpond and erected an old-fashioned, water-propelled sawmill at the site where lay a body of water that for more than 50 years was called the Stinson pond.
 

Mr. J. A. Stinson, who had served with the rank of colonel in the Confederate Army, came to Wood County around 1868. He brought with him his daughter, Sallie, a very lovely young woman, whose mother a passed away. He settled in the Forest Hill community on the hill south of the point where the FM road leading to the Coke community intersects Hwy 37, about five miles from Quitman.
 

About 11 years previous to Stinson’s arrival in Wood County, two brothers, named Jones, came from Georgia by way of Jefferson, Texas. They brought their families with them and bought up 4,000 acres of land in and around the community. However, fate was unkind. In the following year, 1858, both brothers died within a week of each other.
 

Mr. David Jones left a widow and two sons – William J., who served as Wood County Judge from 1876 to 1882; and John David, who served as Wood County Clerk from 1894 to 1898.
 

Mrs. Nathan Jones was left with one daughter, Mary. She became the second wife of Col. Stinson. To this marriage was born two daughters – Lily and Cliffie, and one son, James F.
 

Colonel Stinson bought the Isham Burnett land in the deep eastern section of Wood County and erected a sawmill. To obtain water power to run his machinery, he built a pond which was fed by the waters of the same creek that supplied the Gunstream pond, further upstream.
 

Grandfather Gunstream and Col. Stinson were neighbor and very good friends. According to reports from neighbors, they cooperated to the fullest extent, considering they were competitors in the milling business. However, they did not compete in the sense as it is know in modern days, but with each helping himself as best he could and those neighbors and friends who saw fit to use the lumber from that section of the county. The old sawmills turned out their products very slowly and heart pine timber was hauled to distant points in Texas.
 

Col. Stinson built his big two-story frame home out of the best timbers that his land offered. This was mostly virgin pine and oak.
 

The parlor of this lovely home had a bay window that looked out over a grove of trees in front of the house. In this room, James Stephen Hogg, later to become the governor of Texas, married the Colonel’s daughter, Miss Sallie. In this same room with its lovely setting, Dr. Rogers exchanged marriage vows with Col. Stinson’s step-daughter, Miss Mary Jones.
 

One of the characteristics of the Stinson family was the high regard they showed other people, regardless of color or creed. Col. Stinson was known for his gentlemanly manner. He was a typical Southern aristocrat and possessed a gentle and kindly nature.
 

Men who worked for him said that he never sat at his table for a meal without first grooming himself properly, which meant wearing a coat. At times, it became necessary for hired men to eat their noon meal at his table. If a worker did not bring a coat along – as they would seldom do in the summertime – Col. Stinson would step into a small hallway, where he kept extra coats for just such a need, and bring one for the guest to wear during the meal.
 

Workmen on the Stinson place said that the Colonel had been known to step out of his millstream when the dinner horn sounded, dripping wet, then walk inside the millhouse and don dry apparel including a bow tie and coat and walk up to the main house, ready for dinner.
 

Life on the Stinson place was good. It was a world unto itself to the families that lived there. There are men living in this modern day of 1956 whose brows bear the mark of time, who sit in pleasant conversation and tell of the days when they romped the hills, swam in the creeks, hunted in the woods and grew up to work on the farm and mill on the historic old farm that they call the Stinson place.
 

Col. Stinson’s place was popular through all the days that he lived. The home was often thrown open for entertainment for young and old. It was quite an event when neighbors round about received invitations to attend a party at Col. Stinson’s home.
 

Col. Stinson worked unceasingly to make life good and keep his people happy, not only those in his own household and also those of his neighbors. However, he knew much sorrow. Death claimed his wife and his daughter Cliffie just when she had grown into a beautiful young woman.
 

His daughter Sallie who became the wife of Governor James Stephen Hogg had been faithful to visit him often. But she too passed away.