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FOLKLORE
Mrs. Ada Davis, P. W.
McLennan County, Texas.
District No. 8.
No. of words 960
File No. 240
Page No. 1
Reference
Interview with Mt. B. E. Jenkins, Waco MeLennan County, Texas.
Mr. B. E. Jenkins was born in Georgia, 1859, Twelve families left
Rock Mart, Georgia in 1862 and came to Texas in ox -wagons. They were
four months making the trip, One ox was lost on the road. Mt. Joseph
Jenkins pulled in place of the ox for five miles, until they could buy
another, They paid about ten dollars for an ex. The colony was led by
B. L. Dehay, whose grand -son is Waco City Secretary. They came to East
Waco and crossed in a ferry boat, where the new county bridge ii, at the
foot of Washington Avenue, They went to the Bob Wilson farm, now on
Fifteenth and Herring, where Mt. Jenkins built a double log house of
cedar. Mr. Jenkins later moved to Bosqueville where he remained until
the Civil war broke out.
War was brewing in Georgia at the time thry sold out to come to
Texas. They thought they would probably miss the war by coming to Texas.
However they had been in Texas only a short time, about four months, when
they were all conscripted, except a crippled man. They had to go back
to Georgia to join the home regiment. The men went back to Georgia on
horse back. Mt Jenkins' mother, grand -mother and two aunts with five
little boys from eight to twelve years of age were left in Texas, Most
of the slaves in Georgia were sold. When the war broke out, Mt. Jenkins
and his mother moved to the old Blocker farm which is now the summer
home of Wm. Cameron on Bosque Bluff. With the help of Mt. Blocker, the
slaves ran the farm. The farm was managed by an old colored man named
Lewis Friday. Every one called his wife "aunty Creasy," she would steal
roasting -ears and bakid pies and sweet potatoes and slip them to the bops
unmindful of old Lewis. The five boys grew up like baby bears on the
Basque hills and cedar brakes especially Lover's Leap. The cedar brakes
FOLKLORE
Mrs. Ada Davis, P. W.
McLennan County, Texas.
District No. 8.
File No. 240
Page No. 2
were full of wild Spanish goats which the boys tried to catch. They would
hide up on Lover's Leap bluff and holler, the goats would jump over the
bluff, and even though the boys were like squirrels, they could not catch
them. They would climb up the bluff from the bottom and dare the goat and
each other to jump. It wets very dangerous, because the bluff was from
fifty to seventy -Ave feet high. They would have just toe hold on the 4,114
cliff, but they were little dare devils. The cattle and horses would run
in every direction from the scent of Indians and thus earn the people,
But the Indians around Waco were friendly. The white bushwhackers stole
during the war. The settlers had to bury meat to hide it from thee, His
family ran out of salt during the war, so they dug up the dirt floor of the
old smoke house boiled it end skimmed off the top to get the salt' They
used parched wheat 17Jid corn meal for coffee. The second year of the war,
they got coffee at Richey's store on .Bridge Street, About one -thousand
Tonkaway Indians were loc ted at the Bosque Bridge for about two years
during the war. One _very cold day, an Indian squaw same to the Zenkin's
home with two papooses, one naked and blankets around the other. Mrs.
Senkins put her dress on the squaw and dressed the children likd white
people. The next day, the squaw returned with the dress ripped up and made
into a blanket.
The boys aayed with the Indians every day at that time Mrs. Jannis
Sparks was a girl and played with them. The Indians taught them how to
make a short bow and arrow. They were lots of white hopping-grashoppers
which had no wings. The Indians would catch these by buckets full and fry
them crisp, rut salt on them and eat them with pancakes. They would cook
stacks of pancakes and pans of grasshoppers. The Indians would beg the
boys to eat them li but they couldn't stand the idea. Turkeys, deer and
prairie chickens were plentiful but they had to go to Coryell county for
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FOLKLORE
Mrs. Ada Davis, P. W.
McLennan County, Texas.
District No. 8.
File No. 240
Page No, 3
buffalo meat to eat. Dye for clothing was mact from dry cedar and shumato
bark. The spinning wheel and looms were used to make cloth for clothing.
They raised a patch of cotton and n garden. The seed was picked from the
cotton by hand, the the cotton was carded, srun and wove into cloth. The
boys !Went barefooted and wore a big, long shirt something like a cotton-
picking sack, they wore (Ally one garment until they were grown. They had
no trouble about dressing. They wore underwear in winter but no shoes till
:after winter, and it had snowed some.
Mr. Senkin's mother bought green coffee and had to parch it in a
skillet on the tire -place, then beet it with pestle. Coffee sold for four
dollars a pound about the close of the War. There were no wood 000k-stoves.
Mrs. Jennings bought a "four-eyed" 000b-stove from Mt, Richey, t the time
there were only four houses on Rat Row, which is now Bridge Street. She
learned how to "fire up that stove", Mrs. Clinker, who lived lithe Mtge of
the cedar brake on what is now nineteenth Strcet at the old Tom Price hone,
get a stove P.nd wouldn't use it. She sent for Mts. Jenkins to show her
how to "fire the stove ,a,nd warm it up gradually as it might explode.
Two years after the war, Jenkins bought a farm, from Price standifer,
near Speogleville. HA built, a log house which had to ltIrge rooms and a
shed, with puncheon -floor and clap board rood, fastened with peg fasteners.
The doors were made out of nu cheon boards, :3nd there were wooden hiAges;
the windows had wooden shutters. There were two plank doors with wooden
hinges and one window, but there were -not any porches or steps. They had
home made furniture. The bed had rope cord for spring. Their bed was
somewhat better than "oat of the beds at that time, bee use it was a frame
entirely separ to from the wall, They used straw mattresses and feather
beds to sleep on. They had just two home made chairs.
Mk. Xenkind married fifty-eight years ago, when he and his wife began
housekeeping they started in a one -room log house and. EI
coke on timpliire-
plaee bee use there wore very stoves at that time. Mr. J 13111 T1
4`k
FOLKLORE
Mrs. Ada Davis, P. W.
McLennan Connty, Texas.
District No. 8.
File No. 240
Page No. 4
lives m the Old Prather farm, on the hill above Lake Waco where highway
number seven crosses highway numver silty -seven.