CHAPTER THREE

The first order of business for the new settlers was shelter, building a log cabin. The first cabins were rather crude affairs of unfinished logs built in the square single-pin style. "The simplest and most basic floor plan in American log houses is the ‘single-pin’ with side-facing gables. A ‘pin’ in log house terminology, refers to the unit of four log walls fastened together with corner notching." ¹ The first cabins were windowless, with earthen floors and mud and stick chimneys and most commonly measured sixteen feet by sixteen feet. ² This shelter saw the pioneers through their first winter.

Later a more substantial log house could be built, frequently with the help of neighbors. This house was a variation of the log cabin first built but with windows, split-log floors, a stone chimney, and perhaps more than one room.

It was here in this first cabin that Thompson and Abby’s third child, James, was born on October 2, 1844. Family stories stated that James (Jim) was the first white male child born in what, in less than two years, would be Collin County, Texas. In 1906, when Jim died, he was referred to in a McKinney, Texas newspaper as "probably the oldest native-born citizen of Collin County." ³

The cabin was close to one of the springs that fed Honey Creek, since availability of water was of great importance. Also, along the creek were trees of suitable size for logs to use in building the cabins.

The young family was barely settling into their new home when the advent of the new year, 1845, brought trouble. In January a party of about twenty-five Indians, perhaps Creeks or Cherokees, had shot and scalped a boy near Rowlett Creek, far south of where the Helms family lived. Norman Underwood and his son were killed on the same day in western Grayson County. ⁴

On February 9, 1845, Thompson had been hunting when he came across a band of six Indians near Wilson Creek, north of one of McGarrah’s land and west of present-day McKinney, Texas. Thompson took off on foot running for his life as the Indians had gotten his horse. Fortunately, he had his gun with him, although it only had one shot without being reloaded. Nevertheless, the Indians knew to keep their distance from a muzzle loader as its range was much farther than their bows and arrows. Thompson "could run a ways and the Indians, running faster, would gain on him. He would turn and they would back up. He dared not shoot as it took too long to reload. Finally he did not turn quickly enough and they shot with an arrow." ⁵ Thompson still managed to escape them. Later he said he got the one who shot him. As the area newspaper, the Northern Standard of Clarksville, Texas reported, the settlers organized a posse and caught three of the Indians, who were Caddos and who blamed the troubles on the "damned Wichetaws" (sic).⁶

Outside of direct confrontation with the Indians, the settlers also had to contend with the Indians killing their cattle and stealing their horses. Many a snowy winter morning, Abby Helms would open the cabin door to find Indian tracks around the cabin. ⁷ Some say that Indians were buried in the small Honey Creek cemetery. ⁸ Raids by Indians continued to be a problem for many more years, and Thompson and Abby’s son, Jim, recalled seeing the last white man killed by Indians in Collin County, four miles south of Weston, in 1850.⁹ He was about six years old at the time.