MR. WILLIAM SECREST
Uncle Bill Secrest was operating a store with Uncle Bob Shockley out at
Gentry’s Mill. He would come in
to Hamilton and ask how much it would cost just to close the saloon for
the evening. Maybe it would be fifty, maybe seventy-five dollars. He would
engage the place and throw a big party, with Joe Roberts, lawyer who drank
himself to death, Marion Graves, Jack Allen,
his brother Siras said, no, "it wasn’t brother Jack.") J. B.
Allen, a popular young lawyer from Georgia, who first taught school, died
early, John Boynton, Henry Allen, able lawyer, they say, who went west. et.
al. Uncle Bill would furnish the drinks and they would have a big
time, and would sing.
This doesn’t sound like the Uncle Bill I knew--slow-going,
conscientious, cautious, working in hardware stores, serving as tax
collector, very good on frontier history. Regret that I did not take down
his stories. Old Uncle Bob Shockley was conservative, and heard Uncle Bill
nearly broke him, wanted to over-extended the business at Gentrys Mill.
When he [F. C. Williams] told King and
Fortran he wanted to quit, they prevailed on him to stay ’till
Christmas, which he did. Then they hired Tom Stidham, but he didn’t do
so well. He went to Galveston lots of times. He reported on the business
every week. In those days they ran excursions to Galveston for five
dollars. (Catch Santa Fe at Moran.) When these men hired him to work
in the saloon, he was rounding up cattle down at Bark’s Ranch Timber on Alexander
Creek.
Mr. Hearne, later the merchant, had gone broke farming down in the
Brazos Bottoms.
The Stidham referred to above was about the size of Bill Stidham. (He
was a very fat man, worked cattle, used to run the old Black from Livery
Stable. Once took him out to carry a small Jersey bull from one farm to
another. Had quite a time of it. Called generally "Stick"
Stidham, Jim and Ernest (Nesty) Stidham were good fellows. The old man had
put in the old Stidham Hotel, frame building, out in S. W. Part of town.)
They would have him and the boys to run footraces to the salon and bet
on them.. Mr. Williams said, as I suggested, that they could run faster toward
a saloon. Said that Jobe Cooper as I recall, and others would lock hands
till they got to an old liveoak tree on the square and that would break
them apart.
There were about five saloons here then. Could get along somehow on one
or two grocery stores. Pap Reinhert, Bob Matheson, and maybe Manning and
Watson were running them. (Ones I recall were Talley’s up the street
where there were usually many barrels stacked against the wall; Tony
McQuire’s, the "Ideal saloon," I believe. Down Rat Row to the
east, Watson’s saloon and Restaurant, separated by a partition, were
about midway of the street. Later, Seagle’s was down what is now Bell
Avenue, sometimes referred to as "The Baptist Saloon," being
down toward that church. When they finally voted the bars out, about World
War One, Mr. Watson stated if people didn’t want him in that business he
would close up. Later knew two brothers of his at Jonesboro,
ardent prohibitioners. Mr. Watson was a good man, had a boy Bob, in my
class in school from the beginning, a fine fellow. They moved to
Raymondsville and were in the hardware business.
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CHESLEY'S HAMILTON COUNTY INTERVIEWS
BY
HERVEY EDGAR CHESLEY, JR.
Born: 21 November, 1894
Died: 17 July, 1979