Mr. Williams still had, he said, the receipt where he gave five dollars to build the Presbyterian Church in 1883 signed by C. S. Doubleday, a very fine man, a Republican, and Civil War Veteran from Illinois, he thought. He had a brother here. They had a grocery store on the North side, though they lived in the country first. The brother was with Charlie Day and others in Yellow Hole on Bear Creek. Day shot a water moccasin. Doubleday stirred his foot around to find it and was bitten by it under the water and died several days later. (Understand this was the frame church used by other congregations at first. Mr. Sherrill of Haskell told me he was here at the dedication and was delayed in returning home by overflow of the Leon River.

Mr. Williams also gave six dollars to build the old Church of Christ Church across town a little later on. He thought the old stone Baptist Church, built largely by Colonel Freeman on what is now Bell Avenue next. It was in ‘93 [1893] that the Christian Church split. The old branch gave the next Central Christian Church $700.00 or so and Mr. Williams bought the lot from Graves and they built the church where it is now.

They split over music and the organ. The Boyntons were musical and fine folks and so were the Sparkmans fine people, but they opposed music. Old Preacher Tant was here then. Preacher Roberson, or Robinson, preached a revival and brought in the Crews from the Methodist Church.

It was with Reverend Roberson and Doctor Crews that Mr. Williams left May 6, 1880, for a hunting trip. They thought they were at Devil’s River but it must have been the Guadalupe. They went northwest from Fredericksburg, and came back by Boerne. The ground was covered with young half grown guail. Said he used to see prairie chickens here by the thousands.

(Mr. Sid W. Ross, "Uncle Sid," told me the prairie chickens were here one year and gone west the next. His theory was that burning off of the grass killed the "periwinkles," snails on which they fed, which he said caused them to migrate.

(Colonel Freeman, mentioned above, lived in the stone house he built across the street from the present Episcopal church, used to drive about town with Mrs. Freeman, a fine lady, in a Victoria carriage. Formerly at Austin he was instrumental in frustrating an attempt to rob the state treasury. Small, bearded, punctilious land lawyer, thought a little tedious in court. The Crews family with Doctor Crews, a fine old gentleman, and his brother, Captain Crews, who lived in the southwest part of the county. The Sparkmans originally were James (or Williams). Forrest and Ione originally blacksmiths. One became the pioneer photographer.

His Uncle Tom Pierson, brother to the judge, beat Mr. or Professor Ralph Edgar for county clerk about ‘87 [1887]. And he, Mr. Williams, went down to Falls County to work in the store for an uncle, near Marlin, at Cedar Springs. Had a good time there. Took care of the mortgages. The Grange did trading there. He would take the montages to Marlin for record every Saturday and had a good time. There were the plantations and the Negroes. He wrote both copies of the instruments with pen and ink. There were no carbon or typewriters.

When Mr. Edgar was clerk he signed the copies of the proceedings in the estate of S. S. Swenson, which I always saw in abstracts to the lands in Jones, and adjoining counties. The story is that when Swenson owned the old Avenue Hotel in Austin, which he had built, a guest who could not pay his bill in money did so with a land script. Swenson had it located and surveyed in Hamilton County. This must have been the first of his lands which, of course, later included a vast ranch, part of which still exists. His will was probated in New York. I believe Dr. Curry Holden told me his first good money was made furnishing supplies to Houston’s army. Once I was staying in the old two-story Avenue Hotel. Was taking the bar examination, in 1922, and it chanced my father was named by Pat Neff to serve on the Court of Civil Appeals in a case in which Judge John Brady was disqualified. In the lobby he pointed out to me Mr. McLane Secretary to the Railroad Commission and said he had occupied the same room for about thirty years. I read later that he was one of the close friends of Sydney Porter (O. Henry) at the time he got into his difficulties in Austin. Wish I had introduced myself and asked about him.

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