Traded Farm for Sack of Coffee
Dallas Morning News Dec. 20, 1931
(told by L. T. Caton)
"My father, J C Caton, decided to move to Texas in 1852 - I was not two years old then but father told the story to me many times. Many settlers were leaving Missouri for Texas about that time - there were so many wagons ahead of us that we had to wait three weeis to cross the ferry at Denison - it was a crude barge but then the only ferry on Red River along the Texas border.
After crossing father bought some corn from an Indian farmer and headed for Denton County where he built a cabin on 160 acres of land on the east side of Denton Creek - he said that at that time there was just one cabin between ours and Mexico!
Father was one of the earliest freighters from Houston to North Texas points. Before the War he hauled merchandise for merchants in Dallas, McKinney and Sherman . All along the upper part of the trail to Houston were heaps of white buffalo bones. Their phosphorescent glow in the dark guided many freighters who usually traveled together for protection. When the freighters left home, there was no telling when they would be back - certainly not less than 6-9 weeks.
After a few years father sold that land for another near Pilot Point . By that time planters in the southern states, fearing the outcome of the slavery situation, were moving in. The war worked hardships on everyone but it is doubtful that in the whole of Dixieland any other individual was hit harder than father! He was a coffee addict and the blockade of the South cut off his supply . He tried parched grain and acorns and got something that looked like coffee but never tasted like it. Toward the end of the War Mexican smugglers slipped some coffee across the Rio Grande and a few sacks got as far as Sherman. Father traded his farm for a sack of coffee!
In 1868 we moved to Ellis County, settling three miles from Possum Trot (RedOak) and eight miles below Lancaster in Dallas County. We farmed, getting 25 cents a pound for our cotton at Waxahachie and 10 cents a bushel for our corn. What little momey was around then was gold and silver - nobody would accept bills or paper money.
During the War there was no outlet for Texas cattle and the range was covered with them. But by the time we settled in Ellis County they were passing over the trails to Kansas by the thousands. For days and days I watched them go by - one great herd right behind another. Tbe cattlemen and some of the cowboys borught money home and that made times in Texas better. News of our prosperity had a lot to do with starting a stream of immigration from the old south this way."
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