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Preston Goins and his wife, Annie Smith Goins were residents of Campbell County in 1889 when their son, John Peter [Preston] Goins was born. John Peter Goins, at a very young age, fell under the spell of a West Texas land agent and his life was changed forever, according to an article in the March 12, 1961 edition of "The Crosbyton Review" of Crosbyton, Texas: J. P. "Johnny" Goins was a Tennessee schoolboy when he overheard a West Texas land developer, B. W. Ellison, expounding on the merits of Crosbyton-area land owned by the C. B. Livestock Co. Ellison told J. C. Ausmus about the future of this new land and unfolded a map showing 90,000 acres being offered for sale. Ausmus was convinced, and so was young Goins on this September day in 1908. The youth who was born March 21, 1889 in Campbell County, excitedly raced home to inform his parents of his plans to migrate west. His father was less than enthusiastic. "I don´t guess you will," he firmly told his son. But the determined Johnny Goins won out. He left his parents´ home on November 4, 1908, the day William Howard Taft was elected president of the United States. Although he failed to realize fully the impact this decision would have on the remainder of his life, Johnny Goins became a pioneer in a developing country. The Tennessee farm boy informed his parents, "I´ll be home in one year." He didn´t! In fact, it was 16 years before he returned to Tennessee for a visit.Goins and the Ausmus family bought railroad tickets to Texas. They changed cars in Kentucky, and stayed overnight in Kansas City where they turned south. The group landed in Seymour, Texas on November 4 and stayed at the B. W. Ellison place three days. On the 11th, they hired John Bradford to drive them to Crosbyton in a horse-drawn wagon. Ausmus paid Bradford $25 to deliver his family and possessions, and Goins´ fee was $10. Camping overnight at Benjamin, Texas, the Tennesseeans-turned-Texans met Henry Leatherwood and his hired hand. Mr. Leatherwood was the first Crosby County man I met, the slightly-built Goins remembers. He also got acquainted rapidly with the rawness of West Texas, observing Leatherwood handling wild mules. Stock back home in Tennessee was ´raised right in the pen and was always tame. Goins recalls that Mrs. Ausmus cried the night they were camped at Benjamin, expressing a desire to go back home to Tennessee. The Ausmus family didn´t stay long; they went to Illinois.
Despite the adversities of this pioneer land, J. P. Goins stayed! The 19-year-old lad had $15 in cash when I got to Crosbyton. I bought a little food, and we stayed that night in a half dugout on B. W. Ellison´s place west of town. Along about midnight, Harley Coffey, Ewing Lawson and Luther Collier reached the dugout to overnight.´ Early the next morning, Harley Coffey made breakfast. He cooked the first biscuits I ate in Crosby County. Ausmus killed an antelope, and we had fresh meat.´ Saturday afternoon, Goins came to Crosbyton where he met Julian M. Bassett, general manager of the C. B. Livestock Co, R. D. Wicks and others. Loyd A. Wicks was the livestock company´s attorney. When he returned to town Monday morning to ´mail a letter to my parents. Mr. Boggs took me to the supply store.´ Here, young Goins was offered a job by Mr. Craddock for ´$25 a month and board. The employment lasted until Craddock tried to cut my wages $5. Again, the newcomer was jobhunting.
He met ranch foreman Jay Walling, one of the finest men I ever knew and became a cowboy. Ironically when Mr. Walling hired me, he sent me to Crawfish Ranch to feed cattle. That ranch was the same section in Fairview Community where Goins six years later purchased land, which has since been his home for 63 years. While working for Walling on the ranch Goins helped lay off the route from Crosbyton to Petersburg. A sled pulled by four mules was utilized for developing the road. We went across many farms; most land owners were agreeable. All molding out civilization in a rugged. new land was hard; there also were fond memories. Johnny Goins remembers driving a chuck wagon with the crew which was building the road. Other crew members were Walling, A. R. Dees, the cook and several cowboys on horses. Goins jumped from the chuck wagon to open a gate. He was unprepared to see the horses running off. The mounted cowboys soon had the runaway team under control.
Goins´ roots sink deep into this agriculture country which he literally helped build. In 1909 and 1910 the C. B. Livestock Co. was erecting Crosbyton´s second school. Goins hired on and worked making concrete blocks. The late Lige Ellison was one of the men hauling sand from the canyon for the construction job. This sand was screened to make blocks. Goins explains that ´kerosene was poured on the cylinder before each block´ was produced. The blocks then were wet down each day until they were cured. An early-day Presbyterian preacher of whom Goins became fond was another employee. The blocks were produced in a pit which was covered with a tarp.
After the C. B. Livestock Co. had completed the school building, the school board voted bonds for its purchase. This became the basis for one of the area´s first major lawsuits. The structure was condemned in 1914, and the school board filed suit against the livestock company for reimbursement. C. B. Livestock Co. won, but the school board appealed, and the case went before Judge Dix in New Orleans. The federal judge reversed the earlier decision and ruled in favor of the school board. Goins remembers that Bassett said "this was one of only two cases he ever lost."
Crosby County and neighboring counties were beginning to change somewhat from grassland to farmland by 1910. Mr. Hayden was the first ag man employed by C. B. Livestock Co. Goins was employed on the C. B. farm when the second manager was hired. It didn´t work out because he hired men on an hourly basis--they quit before dark. C. P. Sanders was the "third ag man" employed by C. B.
Another landmark came for Goins on Jan. 1, 1909 when ´a bunch of us poured the foundation on the first bank [now the site of the present Citizens National Bank]. The men were mixing concrete by hand on the foggiest day you´ve ever seen. Another first was seeing Frank White distribute the first issue of the "Crosbyton Review" in January 1909. In fact, he had spent part of Christmas Day in White´s office watching him set type for that initial publication by hand. A copy of the first issue of Crosbyton Review was sent to my father in Tennessee. Johnny Goins, who has been taking the Crosbyton papers most of the time since then, must surely be The Review´s longest subscriber.
The former Tennessee farmboy worked as a freighter in 1909. He hauled freight on a wagon, going to Plainview on a route. The job had its good points. You could get good meals for 25 cents at a boarding house run by a family in Plainview. It also had its bad features. I had a full load of Irish potatoes when it came up a freeze, and they all spoiled. The ´bad´ finally won out! I burned out on that job because of the weather. One night, me and my team nearly froze. Despite the advice of Uncle Joe McCarty. a fine fellow who was staying with the Ellisons, Johnny Goins had an even worse job experience. Uncle Joe warned the youngster that I was making a mistake working for a man who couldn´t pay me.´ The advice rang true. After several weeks work, I gave the man my watch to help him out, and I never got paid. Soon after, Uncle Joe McCarty, another of Johnny Goins favorites, got a splinter under his fingernail, took blood poisoning and died. Although Johnny Goins admits ´I never had a chance to go to school much,´ he was rapidly learning the ways of foundling West Texas.
In 1910, he had an opportunity to vote for the first time. The decision was whether to move the county seat from Old Emma to Crosbyton. Did he vote for the change? I sure did, Goins replied without hesitation. After seven years in Crosby County, Goins, now a full-fledged Texan, became a landowner. He made a deal with Bassett of C. B. Livestock Co. for 160 acres of land in the Fairview community. Actually it was an agriculture lease for five years. The agreement called for $1 per acre lease the first year, $1.25 the second year, $1.50 the third year, $1.75 the fourth year, and $2.00 the fifth and final year. The lease money was to be deducted from the $5 an acre. The transaction was finalized in August 1916, and Goins took possession of the land December 31, 1916. The diligent little man moved to the site January 17, 1917 and ´broke out the sod with a walking plow.
Actually, Goins moved to Fairview community in 1912 and was self-employed until 1959. Exceptionally dry years prevailed across West Texas in 1917 and 1918. And World War I was declared in 1917. These were troubled years. Goins ´registered at Cone´ for military service on June 7, 1917. He was re-classified three times and never did have to go into the army. The war ended November 11, 1918. The situation was improving. The drought broke, and we had a good crop in 1919. He planted and harvested wheat, oats, and high-gear [heigera, a form of maize].
Goins bought my first car´ October 11, 1921. His first registration papers were issued by the late B. W. Mitchell, then sheriff and tax collector. Goins, who has a penchant for recalling events from the early years in Crosby County, also has a tendency to keep items from yesteryear. He has in his possession my first poll tax receipt from 1910 and the last one I ever paid.´ He also, kept his first auto registration papers and auto tags, his registration cards from the first world war and World War II.
About all the early settlers are gone, he remarks sadly. Uncle Ben Ellison has three daughters living, he states. They are Tina Harvey and Moda Reed, both of Crosbyton, and Viola Gray of Hereford. The spry pioneer points out that he vividly recalls events from his childhood in Tennessee -- recalling the Bible verse from his final Sunday school lesson there-- and things when I first came out here are fresh, but I don´t remember other things´ more recent. Addressing the changing times, Goins says people started gathering at Fairview before sundown to get a seat for plays presented at school. Community life was strong in those days. A Presbyterian church was founded at Fairview, followed by a Baptist church after the other church folded. With no church in his home community, Goins now is a member of the Cone Baptist Church. He served 12 years on the Fairview school board before it was consolidated with Ralls in 1948. Admitting that he strongly opposed the consolidation move, Goins is emphatic that when we lost our school, we lost our community life.
After braving those rugged early days -- "I took 90 hides to Plainview one time, hides of cattle which had froze or starved"-- Goins has some other firm opinions. Rugged physically and mentally, he was the only one of five friends to survive typhoid fever. Goins comes down hard on farmers who talk about hard times. "Lord o mercy, in the early days, many people lost their land and did well to just live. We didn´t have disaster payments, or Social Security, or anything." He recalls that during the depression, Pres. Roosevelt ordered cattle killed. They dug a big pit and buried the stock. I remember seeing this government man kill calves with a .22-calibre rifle. Continuing on the changing times, Goins remembers I helped break out lots of sod land. I had three horses to a plow and walked behind. The first cotton I raised hauled to Floydada in 1921 and sold for six cents a pound. This pioneer man who will celebrate his 92nd birthday on March 2 ´if the Lord let´s me live, sees many people being pushed off the land--the little man is being squeezed out--everything´s so high. He says when farmers lived on a quarter or a half section, they had milk cows, chickens, and meat hogs. They had their living at home. They took milk and eggs to town on Saturday and sold them. This kept the little man on the farm.
Goins "put in my last crop in 1959." His land was leased to Louis Garcia and sons. who "bought my equipment and pump and had a three-year lease." A second irrigation well was added the following year. Garcia and his sons farmed the land 20 years before it was sold last October to Jesse Reese of Ralls. Goins and his wife, the former Alice Holmes who I met by accident November 14, 1964 and married June 18, 1966 will be allowed to maintain their residence on the Fairview farm for the remainder of their lives. "I hated to sell the land, because I knew we´d never own another home," the pioneer admits. But, remembering Sept. 5, 1929 when the stock market broke, he appreciates the financial security. One thing he will never relinquish is his independence. Only eight years shy of his 100th birthday, Goins is proud and independent. For example, he has few thoughts of not being able to drive his pickup when and where he desires. "I´d rather drive a pickup-- you have better vision in a pickup than in a car," he declares. But why shouldn´t J. P. Goins be proud? After all, he helped build this pioneer land and has moved through its various stages of development--for 73 years! He is not physically large, but in many ways Johnny Goins is a giant of a man!
By Dallas Bogan
This article was published in the LaFollette Press.
John Peter Goins, son of Preston Goins and Annie Smith Goins, was born in Campbell County March 21, 1889. He arrived in Crosby County, Texas in 1908. He was married about 1910, wife´s name, Nora L. "John Goen" was the father of an infant born in Crosby County November 30, 1911, according to BVS File 19418. John Peter Goins appeared in the deed records of Crosby County August 30, 1916. John Peter Goins deeded land to S. M. Walker May 21, 1921, according to Crosby County Deed Book 27, page 569. He also deeded land to C. K. Wilmeth January 5, 1933 according to Crosby County Deed Book 48, page 312. John Peter Goins and Nora L. Goins deeded 1.41 acres of land to the State of Texas for highway right-of-way March 7, 1935, according to Crosby County Deed Book 51, page 560. John Peter Goins declared his residence his homestead January 27, 1936, according to Crosby County Deed Book 52, page 257. Nora L. Goins appeared in real estate transactions in 1937, 1939 and 1940. She gave a warranty deed to D. R. Couch December 14, 1939, according to Crosby County Deed Book 60, page 62. Nora L. Goins received a warranty deed to Medina Irrigated Farms July 20, 1938 in Bexar County, Texas, according to Bexar County Deed Book 1637, page 577. John Peter Goins, plaintiff, and Nora L. Goins, defendant, were parties to a divorce trial in Crosby County´s Seventy- second District Court November 2, 1940. In the divorce settlement John Peter Goins received 160 acres of land in Crosby County described as the northwest quarter of Section 31. Custody of their child, Samuel Preston Goins, age 25 and "mentally deficient" was given to Nora L. Goins. John Peter Goins was married to Miss Ruth Pratt February 15, 1942, according to Crosby County Marriage Book 3, page 451. John Peter Goins entered into an oil lease with Barnsdall Oil Company May 5, 1945, according to Crosby County Deed Book 71, page 522. He entered into an oil and gas lease with Gulf Oil Company July 29, 1969, according to Crosby County Deed Book 27, page 420. Of Ruth Pratt Goins nothing more is known. Children born to John Peter Goins and Nora L. Goins include: Samuel Preston Goins born in 1915. He was named in his parent´s divorce action as a 25-year-old mentally deficient. He was listed in Bexar County Probate Court File 35886 as "feeble minded." He died February 22, 1944 in Travis County, Texas according to Travis County Death Certificate No. 10758. CANNON COUNTY, TENNESSEE Thomas Gaun was enumerated as the head of a household in the 1900 census of Cannon County, Enumeration District 27, page 7, 8th Civil District: "Gaun, Thomas 27, born in TN, July 1872 Della 22, born in TN, in 1878 Lillie 3, born in TN, July 1896 Martha Ann 1, born in TN, September 1898"On July 18, 1855 Laborn Goen was married to Artine Clark in Cannon County. Of Laborn Goen and Artine Clark Goen nothing more is known
Note:His last marriage was to Alice Holmes. She moved from the farm into Crosbyton after he died and a few years after that to the nursing home in Lovington, NM then to San Marcus TX where she died in 1991. She is buried in Lawrence KS. Submitted by Dennis Minton
A Tennessee farm boy who left home for Texas as a teenager and saw this area develop from its infancy, John Preston Goins, died at 4:3 a.m. last Thursday in Crosbyton Clinic Hospital after a prolonged illness.
At 92, Mr. Goins, a Ralls resident, was among Crosby County´s oldest residents.
Memorial services were at 11 a.m. Saturday in the Cone Baptist Church with the Rev. John Goss, pastor, officiating.
Burial was in the Crosbyton Cemetery, under direction of Carter-Adams Funeral Home of Ralls.
Born March 21, 1889, in Campbell County, Tenn. John P. Goins moved to this county in 1908 from Tennessee. He was married to Alice Holmes on May 18, 1965, in Cone.
Mr. Goins was a retied farmer and a member of the Cone Baptist Church. He had served for 12 years on the Fairview school board and was for many years a clerk for the Fairview Baptist Church.
Lubbock Avalanche Journal, October 30, 1981
Record provided by Crosby County Pioneer Memorial Museum
transcribed by Linda Fox Hughes
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