Recollections of Gilmer As It Was Sixty-Five Years Ago
By Mrs. Donie Rees
It is hardly necessary to mention the fact that sixty-five years ago, we had none of the modern conveniences, such as electricity, gas, city water, pavements, railroad, and so on. Nor did we have any daily newspaper in Gilmer.
At that time the printing office was a rickety affair, propped up by three large pine logs. “Old” Judge Lyons, once county judge, was editor, and the office stood about where the postoffice now stands. His death was a tragic one, and here are the details as I remember them: His partner was a man named Arthur Ashley, who resented Lyon’s use of profanity, especially toward him. Ashley’s wife was boarding with my parents, Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Culpepper, nine miles east of Gilmer, and was teaching at Emory school house, about three miles away. One afternoon, soon after she and the children had returned from school, all tired out from her day’s work and the walk home, her husband walked in and she went to the door to greet him with a kiss. At once he began telling her, “Judge Lyons called me a —— after I had warned him not to curse me. I picked up a side stick and killed him! Then I locked the door and walked out.” Mrs. Ashley fell back across mother’s bed in a dead faint. They worked with her till they revived her, and my parents prevailed on Ashley not to leave at once, as he meant to do, but to remain overnight with his family. This he did, but in the morning he sought safety in flight. It was two or three days before Judge Lyons was missed, and officers broke down the door of the printing office and found him dead. Ashley had got away by this time. Later he was captured in Alabama and brought back here for trial, but he broke jail again and was never heard of any more. (Note). If you will go to the city cemetery you will find the grave of Judge Lyons surrounded by an iron fence, and lying in the shade of a big magnolia tree, just about thirty steps from the Coffeeville road. At the head of the grave is a weather-beaten, lichen-covered graying marble stone which reads: “My husband, J. J. Lyons, died April 5, 1882. The strife is over, the loved of years hath left me with the gathering fears to struggle darkly, and lone....” Mrs. Lyons struggled 17 years before she was laid beside the judge, and the grave stone reads: “Sarah S. Lyons, wife of Judge J. J. Lyons, died January 20, 1899.” None of the stones give the date of birth or age.
In these days the courthouse was a wooden structure, and when I was about ten years old, my parents allowed me to spend the weekend with my teacher, Mr. Joe Martin, in his father’s home about a mile north of town. There, with the Martin family, I saw the courthouse burn to the ground. Later a brick one was built, and this one was re-modeled and covered with concrete stucco, to be replaced a few years ago by our present handsome and modern building.
What few stores Gilmer had then were built of plank with board walks in front. The late Judge Sid Moughon had a water well and a large water trough in front of his store for the watering of the farmers’ teams, as also did Roberts and Oliver. A big bell was used to sound fire alarms and closing time for the stores was six o’clock in the evening.
It was a little over sixty years ago that the Cotton Belt Railroad was built through Gilmer. And early in this century, another railroad was built from Winnsboro to Elysian Fields and came through Gilmer. It was called the Marshall and East Texas Railroad, or the M. & E. T., and the service was so poor it was dubbed, from its initials, “Misery and Eternal Torment.” I have made trips on the M. & E. T. when the passengers had to go to the woods and help bring up pine knots to fire up so we could continue our journey. Or, if someone had a nice orchard, we would stop and gather peaches, and in the fall, the train would stop so that those aboard could get ribbon cane to chew.