CHAPTER FOUR

In the early days of their lives on Honey Creek, the main source of food for Thompson and Abby was black bear, which was found along the river bottoms and the timbers. Hunted in the winter by men on foot with trained dogs, the bears were a substitute for bacon and provided oil for cooking and other home uses. ¹ Since Thompson was "a hunter for hides and a trapper by trade" ² bear meat saw them through their first winter. Thompson’s success as a bear hunter was attested to by his son Jim’s memory of "the days when his only bedding was bearskins." ³

Hunting and trapping took Thompson away from home a great deal of the time. In addition to bear, Thompson hunted panthers (also called mountain lions or pumas), wolves, deer, bobcats, coyotes, foxes, squirrels, opossums and raccoons. ⁴ Some of these, such as foxes, preyed on poultry and young livestock. So hunting and trapping served a threefold service: food, hides and ridding of pests. Thompson’s dogs also helped keep small animals, like raccoons, away from home. The dogs also served as hunting companions and a means for alerting the family to danger. Cats kept away small rodents like mice and rats.

When at home Thompson gathered and cared for the livestock. Without fences the livestock wandered in search for food. If left to wander too long, they would eventually be lost. The only fencing available for the cultivated fields was wood fencing made by Thompson to keep livestock out of the fields during the growing season. Fencing not only served to keep the livestock out, but satisfied Peters Colony requirements. The settlers built worm fences, which zigzagged along a strip six to eight feet wide. To make the rails for the fences the rail maker split and resplit a log which had already been divided in half lengthwise. The ground rails were placed on stones to retard rotting and each tier was added on to these. ⁵ These fences were tedious to make, requiring long labor, but were easily broken down by the livestock. Later the settler planted osage or bois d’arc hedges to serve as fences. ⁶ Since firewood was used as fuel, Thompson also had to cut down trees, haul them and chop the wood to supply plenty of firewood for Abby to use. While the settlers were able to provide for most of their needs, supplies were sometimes needed and Thompson had to travel to the nearest settlement to bring back needed items such as salt and coffee.

To settlers like Thompson and Abby, North Texas was a "land of plenty". One early author felt this had a negative aspect. He said "that the major part of the settlers have suddenly entered into plenty, from privation; independence, from servility; and have therefore set aside much of their former industry, and seek pleasure rather than labour. Their land yields a fair crop of corn, with the most superficial and careless tilling and sowing imaginable. Their hogs fattened upon the mast of the woods and river bottoms. The fish fill the creeks and the wood abound in game. Thus they can readily have food without labour, and they are too frequently content to take it from these sources...his table is therefore supplied by his rifle on one hand, and on the other, by hogs and poultry." ⁷

Nevertheless, clearing the fields and fencing them was labor, especially for a young man without sons old enough to assist him. Clearing the fields started as soon as the problem of shelter was resolved. During the first winter, and later, Thompson had to clear land to make it ready for cultivation. While it was not necessary to clear forest as in Indiana, "the ground in its wild state was covered with grass, weeds briars and timber. Brush and briar patches were cut and burned. The prairie was then broken by oxen, four to ten of them, hitched to a large plow with a cutter in front to crack the surface...[and] the soil had to lie until the sod was dead and rotten before much crop could be raised." ⁸ With the crude plows available, the farmer could only break about one acre of prairie a day. When harvesting, one man could reap about two acres a day. ⁹ This was hard labor.

Corn was the crop most important to the settler’s family, but he also planted wheat and later cotton, crops for which the land proved especially suited. In the early days of settlement, flax may have been grown to provide linen, which combined with wood from sheep, made linsey-woolsey, a cloth more suitable for the hot Texas summers than wood cloth. There are two flax plants native to Collin County, ¹⁰ which indicates that flax could have grown here, although flax usually requires a cool, moist climate. Another cooler material was jean, which was a combination of wood and cotton. ¹¹

While Thompson hunted, trapped, farmed and cared for the numerous chores around the homeplace, Abby also worked hard. Child care, of course, was on constant. After Jim was born, William was born in 1846. Then came George, born June 15, 1847. The five children required a sharp eye to prevent mishaps, and the growing family of seven had to be fed every day. Corn was the mainstay of their diet. Breakfast might consist of corn mush, much like a hot cereal, cooked over a fireplace in iron utensils and perhaps sweetened with honey. Leftover mush was poured into pans to cool. Later this was sliced and fried in fat. The noon meal, called dinner, and the evening meal, called supper, were often fried meat, either wild game or home-grown meat from cattle or chickens.

Women were responsible for the garden where vegetables were grown, for making soap, milking, churning, drawing water and during hog-killing time in the fall, for making sausage. Early lighting consisted of grease lamps, crude affairs with a wick in grease, which burned with a smoky flame. Candles followed these, which required candle-making chores. In these days fires were never allowed to burn out, as restarting them was tedious, sometimes requiring a trip to a neighbor’s to retrieve a burning coal. Fires were banked at night and hot coals were raked out in the morning to start the fire for breakfast. Cooking over a fireplace was regulated by "S" hooks, whereby the heat could be adjusted. Adding hooks would bring the utensil down closer to the fire and raise the heat; fewer hooks would allow the pot’s contents to simmer farther above the fire.

All grease and animal fat were saved to make soap. Water dripped through ashes saved from the fires in the ash hopper would produce lye. Lye added to grease and fat stirred and cooked made soap. Washday was also a major responsibility, requiring water hauled from a creek or a spring, a fire to boil the water in the kettle, and a paddle with which to stir the dirty clothes, as well as a paddle for beating out dirt. After rinsing, necessitating more hauling of water, clothes were spread out on hushes or whatever to dry in the sun. As her children grew, they helped Abby in these laborious chores.

Abby also had to provide clothing for her family. Cotton, wool and perhaps flax provided the basic ingredients. From these Abby made thread on her spinning wheel and wove the thread on the loom to make cloth. Using native plants, like nuts, to dye the fabric, Abby would then make clothing, cutting and sewing by hand. Very little was wasted by these pioneers, who would carefully reuse things until finally, no more use could be devised for the items. Quilts were often the last use of materials reused many times.

The year 1850 is the first time for which there is evidence concerning the education of Thompson and Abby’s children, though the children may have received some previous schooling. By this year, the three oldest, Axie Ann, John and Jim, were of school age. Thompson and Abby were both literate, that is, able to read and write, which many settlers were not. Thompson and Abby would want educations for their children. Education, for the time and place, was one of basics, a practical education readily useful in that environment. Emphasis was on teaching student basic reading, writing and ciphering skills.

The first known teacher of the Helms children was Benjamin E. Blackwell, ¹² a fifty-two year old Peters colonist born in Virginia. The southeast corner of Blackwell’s headright touched the northwest corner of Thompson’s land, but exactly where the school was located is unknown. While Mr. Blackwell may have held school in his home, in most cases a simple log cabin was erected by the settlers to use as a school. These log structures had little light, perhaps only what came in between the logs. Benches for the students were split logs with wooden peg legs. Books were kept under the benches when the seats were full and were shared by the children in the family, passed down from the eldest to the youngest. Heat, as usual in log cabins, was provided by the fireplace, while water was hauled from nearby streams. The children had to walk to school, carrying their books and lunches. It was not wise to go too far as Indians were still in evidence, even if they were not warring bands. The teachers themselves frequently lived with the families of their students. ¹³

All of the schools were subscription schools. That is, the parents paid the teacher directly to teach their children. Public schools did not come into existence until close to the turn of the next century.

For the year 1850, Benjamin E. Blackwell charged Thompson $5.30 for tuition. There is no note as to how many children the tuition covered or for how long school lasted that year. As a rule, school terms were short and were held at times the children were not needed at home or for farming chores. Typical of most settlers, Blackwell had a large family, in his case six children, ranging from sixteen to one year old in 1850. Some of his six children, probably sixteen-year-old W. O. Blackwell and fourteen-year-old James L. Blackwell, did some work for Thompson in 1850 and charged him $2.31.¹⁴

Settlers were not completely isolated from civilization as a post office opened in McKinney in 1848, and before that letters were sent by travelers and others. While communication was slow and the roads made travel difficult, merchandise was hauled into Collin County and was available to the settlers. In 1820 mills in the east were producing calico cloth, ¹⁵ an event which would eventually exile spinning wheels and looms to attics and save much time in the lives of the women.

Cash was scarce and banks nonexistent, so the settlers used the bartering system, an economic system whereby goods and services were exchanged without using money. Whatever cash was available was used in situations where bartering was not feasible. Examples of situations when cash was needed would be when the settlers needed to pay taxes, pay for supplies brought in, or pay for court fees.

Thus, in 1851 Benjamin E. Blackwell gave Thompson $29.00 cash, three plugs of tobacco (value $1.35) and a gun lock (value $4.50). While Thompson paid $16.54 cash for some items, he also used other forms of payment. He did three days of hauling for Blackwell for $4.50 and gave him six bushels of corn for $4.50 and one yoke of oxen for $50.00. That totals $59.00 and covered the $5.30 tuition of 1850 and the $2.31 work done by Blackwell’s sons in 1851 as well as money he owned for the items in 1851.

Blackwell did several other things in 1851 for Thompson. He made a "waggon" tongue ($1.00) and a horse collar ($1.75); he gave Thompson three plugs of tobacco (90 cents), lent him $13.75 at "sundry times" and sold the Helms thirty-eight pounds of salt ($2.32). Blackwell charged $3.15 for tuition to Thompson in 1851. Blackwell’s son did some more work for Thompson ($4.50), while Blackwell did two days of hauling ($2.50) and three days of plowing with his team ($2.00).¹⁶

In the year 1852, Thompson had been "paying off" his 1851 bill to Benjamin Blackwell which had amounted to $31.87. Blackwell in 1852 had given Thompson fourteen pounds of salt (56 cents) and made a saddletree ($1.50). One of his sons had worked for Thompson (37 cents) and Blackwell had done some mustanging ($8.33) for a total 1851 and 1852 bill of $42.63. During 1852 Thompson in return had given Blackwell nineteen pounds of pork (95 cents), one plug of tobacco (50 cents) thirteen pounds of bear meat (65 cents), seven and half pounds of back (94 cents), four sows ($3.00), one bull ($6.00) and three and three fourths bushels of wheat ($1.84). He had spent two days cutting poles ($1.50), done mustanging ($17.50) and one day’s work (75 cents). Apparently Abby had also made Blackwell a pair of pants. The charge was fifty cents. That left Thompson owing Blackwell $7.81 at the end of the year 1852.¹⁷

Also in regard to the Blackwell-Helms transactions, the term "mustanging" should be explained to be, at least, the catching of wild horses. In far western Collin County there was an area called "Mustang Flats" where wild mustangs ranged. ¹⁸

During the winter the settlers, with more free time from farming, turned more attention to hunting, especially bear hunting. Highly esteemed by the settlers, bears had always been plentiful, but by 1849 were only found along the river bottoms. In the early days of settlement, bears had substituted for bacon and had supplied oil used in cooking and making soap. Hogs eventually came to replace bears, but at this time bears were still useful. ¹⁹ Bear hunting must have been a thrilling sport for the hunter. The men took their dogs on the hunts and tracked the bears on foot. Once the dogs had the bear scent, the dog pack would take off after the bear, yelping and barking, leaving the hunters to follow. Sometimes the hunters had the dogs chase the bear to where another hunter waited. Either way, the bear hunt meant chasing the bear and dogs through thickets and underbrush as fast as possible. The hunter tried to stay as close to the dogs as possible, hoping the dogs would cause the bear to climb a tree. Backed up a tree, surrounded by jumping, barking dogs, the bear could inflict considerable damage on the unwary dogs who got too close. In a frenzy after treeing the bear, sometimes the dogs would attack each other. The hunters who managed to stay close to their dogs could dispatch the bear and separate the dogs, minimizing the damage to the dogs. ²⁰

While much of Thompson and Abby’s time was taken in various labors, they still had time for religious and social activities. Abby’s family had been Methodist in Indiana, and probably the Helms were also Methodists. While there were no churches in the earliest days, people soon got together to meet in homes for services and camp meetings soon became popular. Camp meetings, lasting several days, were held in various places in the county, including one place on Honey Creek near the Helms land. ²¹ People brought provisions and camped out, listened to preachers, sang, prayed and visited together.

Yet the times were not all peaceful and quiet as this was a frontier area. As Charles Snider observed to a newspaper reporter many years later, his first visit to McKinney when he was young, around 1857, was anything but quiet. "He told of seeing men ‘sitting around in front of the grocery store and shooting across the square as a pastime, just making the bullets buzz’." ²² Jim Helms, one of Thompson and Abby’s sons, remembered his parents taking him to church in a brush arbor and "all the male members took their rifles with them and stacked them against the center pole of the tent, while someone outside kept a vigilant lookout for redskins." ²³ Men were accustomed to guns and thought little before using them. Law and government were not a daily presence and a man was expected to protect his family and possessions. Drinking sometimes added a dangerous element. "By 1830, when citizens were feeling their oats on the frontier absolute alcohol consumption was seven gallons per capita, nearly three times the present level (1985)."²⁴ Given this situation it is hardly surprising that "on his way to Texas in 1845, a highly respected and wealthy farmer, preacher, and county official, who later organized a number of churches in Collin County and elsewhere, purchased a large quantity of supplies, including a barrel of whiskey, at Little Rock, Arkansas." ²⁵ Nevertheless, it was a beautiful and bountiful land on which these pioneer had settled. Whatever troubles, most settlers wanted to remain.