|
Jesse and Cornelia Griffin Graham
 Jesse and Cornelia Griffin Graham
As soon as school was out every spring, I spent a week with my
grandparents. Fletcher and Rosa Colvin who lived in
southern Coryell County. In 1941 my visit was a bittersweet experience, and in retrospect
I know it was because the exodus from that valley was coming upon us like the ominous
clouds of a storm.
I have made two treks back to my beloved Cowhouse Valley since it was taken into Ft Hood
in 1942. Five of our family drove from Killeen to Cowhouse Creek in February of 1967,
waded the creek and walked to Maples Cemetery and New Hope Baptist Church sites.
As we passed Sugar Loaf I thaught at my pioneer great-great-grandparents, Elder Jesse and Martha Jane Fannin Graham and how in 1855
they braved Indians and the elements to settle there. Elder Graham helped organize the
first Primitive Baptist Church in Coryell County in 1856 near Sugar Loaf Mountain. His
nephew Samuel Graham, son of Gideon Graham, was killed by Indians in 1864 while Sam's
father was taking supplies to his sons fighting in Louisiana in the Civil War.
Elder Jesse and Martha Jane had eleven children. Sarah Emmeline, Isaac Jackson, Curtis
Beason, John Ozias Denton, Martha Jane, William
Smith, Jesse II, Hulda Ann, Benjamin Franklin, and James Monroe.
Jesse II married Cornelia Griffin, daughter of Richard and Hannah Burch Griffin who
settled on Coryell Creek in the 1850s. Cornelia once rode 50 miles on horseback to be with
her family at Christmas. She ran a race drinking eggnog with her brother, Sped, and it
made her tipsy. Jesse and Cornelia had five children: Martha Jane, William Sylvester,
Rebecca Ann, Texanna Elizabeth, and Rosa Ellen and they reared four grandchildren Grover C
Fleming, Hallie Vera Graham and Samuel Theo and Otha Oneta Robinett.
Their youngest child was my grandmother, Rosa Graham Colvin. She married Fletcher Colvin
in 1897 and they had three sons, Barney, Gilbert and Earl.
In the late 1930's they were delighted with the prospect of having electricity. Little did
they know that all the surveying was in preparation for Ft. Hood. They displayed the
courage of their pioneer ancestors in leaving the land and homes that had been in their
family four generations. They received less than half the worth of the land and were paid
nothing for their big house and barns.
In 1971 eleven of our family walked through Tama firing range to old Boaz and Browns
Creek. As I looked down into that beautiful valley I could envision the homesteads of the
McBride, Wolf, Brashear, Colvin, Brookshire, Hopson, Graham, Hill, White, Hubbard,
Fleming, Manning, Curry, Gotcher, Fuller, Lindauer, Fain and Diserenes families and so
many more. It didn't seem right to see an Honest John rocket sticking in the ground where
my grandad's mailbox should have been.
From the Jesse Graham line of my family I can trace the descendants to Louisiana,
Oklahoma, Arizona, California, Washington and all over Texas. They are in all walks of
life, from courthouses to state houses, all very energetic, friendly folk.
-- Wilma Earl Colvin Edwards
|