Fannin County TXGenWeb
An Alternative
Theory for the naming
of Windom, Texas
By
Having spent a good number of my formative years in
Fannin County, my interest in its rich history has been piqued since my
wife, Debbie, and I relocated here in March of 2003. An amateur genealogist
and historian for two decades, I am often curious as to the origin of the
names of people and places. As an historian in the purest sense of
the word I deplore revisionism unless new facts (or old facts seen in a
new light) overwhelmingly support previously unseen truth. With that
said, I wish to share some thoughts and research concerning the naming
of Windom. I encourage any comments that the reader may wish to share
in relation to the subject at hand in hopes that our common goal is further
enrichment of our local heritage.
It is first apparent from local historical writings
concerning Windom that the true story of its naming has become somewhat
legendary, as no single theory prevails. There are two views that
remain the most quoted. The first concerns the topography of the
area surrounding Windom. Due its elevation (just below 700 feet above
sea level) in comparison to the rest of the county, this theory proposes
that the windy nature of the high point resulted in a reference to wind
in the selection of a town name. While it is impossible to completely
discount this legend, it seems more likely when examining the names of
communities formed in the same time frame that a name such as Wind, Windy,
Winddome or Windy Dome would have resulted. Following the same nomenclature,
Honey Grove may have become Hongrov.
A more likely origin would involve a memorial approach
such as the one suggested by the second view. Some local examples
are Bonham, Dodd City, Bailey, Boyd, Ector, Lamasco and Edhube. While
Lamasco and Edhube were created by the combination of more than one name,
a thorough examination of the families living in the Windom area during
the times of the 1850, 1860, 1870 and 1880 United States censuses reveal
no such local candidates for this nomenclature. A surname of Windom
or any variation thereof does not appear in Fannin County until the time
of the 1900 census, which lists a 31-year-old Melvin Windom, a farm laborer,
and his family very recently arrived (after 1896) from Georgia. They
were living in Honey Grove. If Windom was derived from a surname,
it becomes apparent that the honoree must have been from outside Fannin
County. The second legend corresponds with this same reasoning and
states that the town was named for an early conductor or engineer of the
Texas and Pacific Railroad, which first arrived in the area in 1872.
The only source that actually places a name on this alleged honoree is
“A Pictorial History of Fannin County, Project of Bonham Daily Favorite,
Lyle Becker, Editor and Publisher, Historical Briefs by John Frair”, a
copy of which exists in the Bonham Public Library and at the Fannin County
Museum. According to that publication, “Many stories have been told
about naming the town. One, that it was named for the conductor of
the first train, Thomas H. Windom”. There are no references listed
for this information, and I was unable to obtain a response from Mr. Friar
to my email and telephone requests as to his source for the first name
of "Thomas" in this reference. Because there are no known existing
records of the employees of this division of the Texas & Pacific prior
to 1884, there is no way to completely prove or disprove the validity of
this claim. According to another publication, “Our Town, Windom,
Texas”, written in 1972 by Ruby Wigley Pulliam and sponsored by the Windom
Book Club, “Others say that the conductor’s name was Windom and they named
the town for him”. The reference for that statement is given as “Elizabeth
Patton Posey. Theme of 1936 ”. In a telephone interview with
Alice Patton, a sister of Elizabeth Patton Posey and a current resident
of Windom, I discovered that the reference was to an essay that Elizabeth
had written as a school project in 1936. Elizabeth had interviewed
some of the older residents of Windom and had consulted the 1936 Texas
Almanac in writing her essay, the original of which is still in the possession
of her sister, Alice. Ms. Patton has graciously provided me with
a photocopy of the same.
The 1870, 1880 and 1900 United States censuses list
numerous candidates around the United States with various spellings of
the first and last names of Thomas Windom and in the proper age range to
correspond with the alleged railroad employee. None of these are
listed as employees of the railroad except for Thomas C. Windom, born November
1847 in Virginia, who is listed as a railroad brakeman on the 1900 Clay
County, Indiana census. This same Thomas Windom is listed as a coal
miner on the 1880 Clay County, Indiana census and as a farm laborer on
the 1870 Clarke County, Virginia census. His geographical location
and occupations during the 1870-1880 time frame make it unlikely that he
was employed by the T & P railroad in 1872, but not impossible.
Additionally, his middle initial is shown as “C” on both the 1860 and 1850
Clarke County, Virginia censuses. Another candidate is Thomas H.
Windham, born May 1855 in Alabama, who is listed on the 1900 Shelby County,
Texas census as a farmer. He is listed on the 1880 and 1870 Dale
County, Alabama censuses as a farm laborer. Again it is unlikely,
but not impossible, that he worked for the railroad between the two censuses.
It is also conceivable that one of the other Thomas Windoms/Windhams listed
in 1870 could have taken a job with the T & P by 1872 and died or taken
another occupation by 1880, but in the absence of more supportive evidence
my inclination is to search for a more likely honoree.
The exact date on which the name of Windom began to
be used for this community is not addressed in any of the references I
have researched, but the town was laid out in 1876 or 1877 and established
in 1880. Honey Grove was the post office listed on the 1870 census
for the area around present day Windom. It is noteworthy that when
Walton A. Carter wrote his “History of Fannin County, Texas” in 1885, Windom
was not included as one of the “Cities and Towns”. Nor was Windom
listed on the official post office list for 1882 Fannin County cited on
page 18 of “Fannin County Folks & Facts”, a book published by the Bonham
Public Library in 1977.
There is no doubt that the arrival of the railroad
in 1872 brought a great deal of excitement to the area, largely due to
its economic impact. At the suggestion of Tom Scott of the Fannin
County Museum, I obtained from the Center for American History at the University
of Texas in Austin a photocopy of the “Bonham News Annual” of 1888.
The very brief description of Windom included therein begins with, “Windom
is a station on the Texas and Pacific railway eleven miles east of Bonham”.
It makes sense that a town formed in response to the railroad might be
named to honor those responsible for bringing it. In fact, the previously
mentioned essay of Ms. Posey clearly states on two occasions that "the
railroad officials called it Windom" and "the Texas and Pacific railway
people called it Windom". Lacking the luxury of having been in attendance
(or having interviewed someone who was) when the name of the town was chosen,
the truth may be forever mired in antiquity. In the absence of significant
evidence to support either of the prevailing legends, I wish to offer a
plausible alternative theory.
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William Windom was born on May 10, 1827 in Belmont
County, Ohio. He was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1850 and elected
as prosecuting attorney for Knox County, Ohio in 1852. In 1854, he
called for a Republican Party Convention in Mount Vernon, Ohio, where he
launched an unsuccessful bid to become Ohio’s attorney general. He
afterwards removed to Winona County, Minnesota where in 1859 he was elected
to the U. S. House of Representatives. Windom served in the House for ten years, trying unsuccessfully in 1865 to run for the U.S. Senate. In 1870, he assumed a vacant U.S. Senate seat for one
year before being elected to the Senate in his own right in 1871 and again
in 1877. He was a candidate for the presidential nomination at the
1880 Republican National Convention in Chicago, Illinois. In 1881,
President James Garfield appointed Windom Secretary of the Treasury, a
post Windom resigned in November of that year following Garfield's assassination.
Windom then picked up where he left off, reassuming the Senate seat he
had vacated to join Garfield's cabinet. He served out his term, failed
to secure reelection in 1882, and moved to New York City, where he practiced
law until 1889. |
That year, Windom reprised his role as Secretary of the
Treasury, this time in President Benjamin Harrison's administration.
Again, he did not hold his post as Secretary of the Treasury for long.
He died in office in 1891. His portrait appeared on the U.S. $2 silver
certificate in the 1890’s.
William Windom's biographer, Robert S. Salisbury,
reveals numerous facts about Windom which are noteworthy relative to the
subject at hand. Although Windom was a Republican and Fannin County
voters were largely Democratic in the 1870-1880 time frame, he was a staunch
and outspoken supporter of cheap transportation, having made numerous speeches
on the Senate floor in favor of government land grants for the railroads
and government funding for expansion of the waterways and other infrastructure
improvements to enhance the ability of farmers and other land-locked industries
to move their products to the coasts for export. The proposed result
would have been more jobs and a thriving economy, which would have appealed
to Texas Democrats and Republicans alike. Although Windom's proposals
stood in contrast to the exorbitant pricing and the aspirations of Jay
Gould and other railroad monopolists of the time, the average railroad
official would have been endeared to Mr. Windom's ideas to increase the
use of the railroads.
There are at least eight towns in eight different
states named Windom. At least two of these, in Kansas and Minnesota,
are known to have been named for Senator Windom. Minnesota would,
of course, seek to honor one of her own, just as we have done with James
W. Fannin and James B. Bonham. It is interesting to note that Windom,
Minnesota was named, not by the local inhabitants, but by General Judson
W. Bishop of St. Paul, Minnesota, the chief engineer for the construction
of the railway in Minnesota. In the same way, the names for Fannin
County and Bonham were originally intended by the local inhabitants to
be Independence County and Bloomington, respectively, according to the
Handbook of Texas Online, but the Texas legislature wanted to honor heroes
of the Alamo. That Windom, Kansas was named about the time the Santa
Fe railroad arrived and was one of the town sites the railroad marked every
six miles is not likely coincidental. Those events closely parallel
the history of Windom, Texas. What is coincidental is that both towns
lie on an east-west highway numbered fifty-six. As with Windom, Texas,
other naming legends continue to exist for Windom, Kansas. It is
certainly conceivable, and in my opinion very likely, that Windom, Texas
was named by someone outside Fannin County, in this case officials of the
Texas and Pacific railroad who were largely Republican in their politics.
The inhabitants around Windom would therefore have had little interest
in the origins of the name due to their lack of involvement in the naming
process. A naming authority outside the county would thus have led
to the formation of local legends concerning the origins of the town name.
As history often goes, the naming of Windom, Texas
may forever remain legendary, but the beauty of legends lies in the freedom
to choose that which we wish to believe. Legends aside, I place my
silver certificate on the late, great Secretary of the Treasury, William
Windom.
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