Bishop's First Families

Bishop, Nueces County, Texas 1910 - 2010 One Hundred Years of South Texas Heritage!

Bishop’s First Families

[The following are from the Bishop News of 1960 in a series written by Mrs. Gail Tubbs for Bishop's

then upcoming Golden Jubilee celebration.]

The J. N. Harned Family, made up of the parents and six children, Rosie (Mrs. John

Hargrove), Bessie (Mrs. John W. Wilson), Elbert, Ethel, Luther and Auddie, arrived in

Bishop on Valentines Day, 1913, after a 19-day trip by wagon and buggy through

mid-winter's cold, rain and mud, from Llano.

"There were no houses available so Uncle Bob Burt doubled up and gave us a

bedroom", Mrs. Wilson, the only member of the family that still lives here, writes. "We

shared the kitchen and each family had their own dining table. We would share and

exchange food, as we had brought along our home-cured meat, dried fruit by the

flour sack full, and a big barrell of homemade sorghum syrup.

"We worked at whatever any of us could find to do, until we got a place to farm the

next year", Mrs. Wilson continued. "We moved to the Bartlett place in the Fall of

1914. We always had a garden, chickens and cows. We helped our neighbors harvest their crops after ours was in,

and each one of the children made their own money to buy school clothes and supplies.

"I missed out on school that first year, but started the first day classes were held in the new three-story brick building",

Mrs. Wilson tells. "One great thrill was getting to ride in Mr. E. L. Sanders' car when he was taking his children to

school. By the time we all got in, or on, the car was completely covered, but it surely did travel fast compared to our

wagon or buggy.

"We really thought we had found something wonderful in the new Baptist Church, where there was preaching every

Sunday, instead of just once a month, as we had had in Llano County. I don't know where else we could have lived so

long and done better than we have here in Bishop, with all the wonderful people we know here", she concluded.

Rosie Harned, aided by Bessie, wrote a day-to-day account of that "trip to the coast", and here are a few extracts

from their journal:

"We started Monday, January 27, 1913, got as far as Ira Bailies, at dinner, went on to Llano, traded a little, lost one of

the dogs, and when we started out of town Old Bill (the horse) set back and broke the reins, and I had to get out and

walk about a quarter of a mile to catch up with the wagon. After all that was over we didn't go but about four miles

from town, camped at the Oatman Creek school house, stretched the tent, cooked and ate supper, and when we got

ready for bed I got cold, my teeth got to popping together, it scared Mamma and she didn't sleep much, and two of the

children like to have fallen in the fire. I think that's doing fine for the first day.

"We saw more Saturday than any day", the journal continues, "we got into San Antonio about two o'clock and were

over three hours getting through town. When we got on one of the main streets all we could see were automobiles,

street cars and policemen. Some of the buildings were eight and ten stories high and fixed up prettier than any I had

ever seen. It was a beautiful place, but I was glad when we got through it. It was misting rain and we like to have got

lost".

They passed through little towns where crockery and bricks were made, through Floresville with the courthouse with

the statue of a woman on it, through Karnes City, where they camped near railroad tracks and long, long trains

passed, deer ran across the fields and "little sweet williams were blooming just like spring", and came to Beeville, "the

prettiest town we have seen except San Antonio", and saw their first orange orchards.

Then it started raining, and soon they struck "pure old black mud". They were held up several days in St. Paul, and

after the first night when the children slept in the wagon and the parents sat up all night in the buggy, they were able

to get a vacant house to use until the rain stopped.

Two uncles came to help them, and "we were getting along fine until the mud began to stick on our wagon wheels,

and it kept two men busy pushing mud off the wheels", the journal tells. They reached the Nueces River. "It is a deep

but not very wide river, and we had to cross on a ferry boat, and it sure looked scary", the young journalist says. "We

hadn't traveled far that afternoon when we saw a big cabbage patch, about 3 acres...from there on all the rest of the

evening we could see cabbage growing, the prettiest I'd ever seen, also saw about 10 acres of English peas in one

patch and patches of onions", the little farm girl noted.

The last camp before reaching Bishop was made about a mile from Robstown. "After we went to bed we heard a

terrible crash. A train had wrecked about 200 yards from our camp. Men worked all night trying to clear the tracks, and

with all the excitement, no one slept much".

Next morning they were up early and soon on the move. "We had hit the flat country, nothing but running mesquite

and cactus, passed through Driscoll, just a depot and a few buildings, our last town, before coming in sight of the little

white houses and tall water tower of Bishop just at sundown on the 14th day of February, 1913. All tired and weary,

but glad we had had such a nice trip", the journal closes.

J. N. Harned Family