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| History
in a Pecan Shell
The application for a post office had been filled in with the name Swayback,
for nearby Swayback Mountain. A misspelling resulted in "Wayback" when the office
was granted in 1884. The townspeople lived with this until 1890, when it was re-named
after Pearl Davenport, the SON of a store keeper.
Pearl had three doctors in the early 1900s. The rivalry resulted in a price war
for services and as a result, the cost of delivering a baby was $2.50. Telephone
service arrived in 1908 although subscribers had to buy their own equipment, including
wire, and posts. They also had to string the wires.
In 1875 Ellen Reily
deeded land for Cowhouse School. By the 1890s, the name was changed to Sweet Home
School. In 1917 a four-room brick school was built and named Pearl School. The
building is now the Pearl Community Center.
The population of Pearl
peaked in the 1970s with 220 people.
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Comanche
Raids in Coryell County
by Mike Cox
The Army, both in its absence and its presence, has
had a big impact on Coryell County over the years.
The establishment of
Fort Gates on the Leon River in 1849 is what helped stimulate settlement of the
area as folks in Bell, Burleson, Milam and Washington counties began to move into
the eastern and southern parts of Coryell County. Hostile Indians wisely steered
clear of the vicinity.
The military abandoned the stockaded garrison (one
of the few Hollywood-style military posts ever actually built in Texas) in March
1852, but the settlers drawn by the protection it had offered did not. By the
1860s, some of the county’s early settlers had moved westward, building cabins
near what soon became the community of Pearl.
With the soldiers
gone, and most of Texas’ fighting men tied up in the Civil War, the Comanches
felt free to raid all along the state’s western frontier. Texas’ Confederate state
government fielded companies of Rangers to patrol the outlying counties, but they
couldn’t be everywhere at once.
That’s how things stood on April 26, 1863
when a Comanche raiding party came up on a settler named Steven Williamson, who
lived several miles southeast of Pearl.
When Williamson didn’t
come home that night, worried family and friends went looking for him. They found
his arrow-studded body lying near a large tree that he may have tried to use for
cover. The Indians had scalped him and then pinned his thighs together, a sign
that he had defended himself gamely. Likely he wounded or killed some of his attachers
before they overpowered him.
His family carried his body home in the back
of an ox-drawn wagon, built a coffin, lined it with black calico and took him
to the southern part of the county near the community of Eliga for burial.
Years
later, Gordon Shook, Williamson’s great-grandson, could still find what was left
of the liveoak where his relative’s body had been left by the Indians and posed
for a photograph there. Charles E. Freeman used the image in his book, “A History
of Pearl, Texas.” Gordon Williamson’s grandfather, J.W. Shook, in 1875 had
settled the land where the attack had occurred.
Freeman also included
in his book a couple of accounts from Coryell County oldtimers who lived through
those bloody days... more |
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Saturday
afternoon bluegrass in the old school building
Photo courtesy Ken Fortenberry,
July 2006 |
Pearl
Texas Forum Subject:
Pearl, Texas
Dear TE, The Pearl Blue Grass Jam is every first Saturday of the month, except
for September when it's the second Saturday. All bluegrass performers are welcome
to come and play and the public is invited to come join the fun and enjoy a great
afternoon of music. The ladies of the community fix wonderful food and sell it
at reasonable prices. It's worth a trip to spend a nice Saturday afternoon listening
to some "downhome" music. - SAMANTHA AND JASON STRINGER, May 18, 2008
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