Bain - Honaker House
Historical marker
Recorded Texas Historic Landmark 1996
BAIN - HONAKER
HOUSE
ANNA HICKS BAIN (1834 - 1906), WIDOW OF JOHN
ALEXANDER
BAIN, PURCHASED 6.75 ACRES OF LAND EAST OF THE TOWN
SQUARE IN FARMERSVILLE IN 1865. SHE HAD THIS HOUSE
BUILT THAT YEAR AND REARED HER FIVE DAUGHTERS HERE.
AN ASTUTE BUSINESSWOMAN, ANNA BAIN DIVIDED HER PROP-
ERTY INTO LOTS, BUILT COMMERCIAL BUILDINGS AND SOLD
SOME UNDEVELOPED LAND. IN 1881 SHE SOLD PROPERTY TO
THE RED RIVER RAILROAD COMPANY. MRS. BAIN SUPPLEMENTED
HER PROPERTY INVESTMENT INCOME BY PROVIDING ROOM
AND BOARD HERE.
IN A 1902 REMODELING OF THE HOUSE, THREE PEAKED GABLES
AND A NARROW PORCH WERE REPLACED BY AN ASYMMETRICAL
FACADE AND NEW PORCH AND THE NORTHEAST BEDROOMS WERE
ENLARGED. LATER THE FRONT PORCH WAS REPLACED WITH A
SMALLER ENTRY.
ANNA BAIN’S DAUGHTERS MARY AND CATHERINE(CASSIE)
MARRIED BROTHERS, HENRY DICKENSON HONAKER AND ANDREW
JACKSON HONAKER. CASSIE BAIN HONAKER LIVED HERE WHILE
HER HUSBAND WAS IN MEDICAL SCHOOL. SHE REMAINED HERE
AFTER HIS DEATH AND HER SECOND MARRIAGE TO JAMES
JONES, UNTIL HER OWN DEATH IN 1928. FIVE GENERATIONS
OF THE BAIN-HONAKER FAMILY LIVED IN THIS HOUSE. A
HONAKER FAMILY DESCENDANT DONATED THE HOUSE TO THE
FARMERSVILLE HISTORICAL SOCIETY IN 1989
BAIN FAMILY
From historical
marker application
In 1865 Anna Melissa Hicks Bain, the widow of John
Alexander Bain, a prosperous cattleman, moved her family six miles south from
the farm she and her husband had developed on Indian Creek to the new settlement
of Farmersville in Collin County, Texas. There she had purchased six and a three
quarters acres of prime real estate, which included the entire east side of the
village square and land adjacent o the south side of College Street for a
homestead. [...] It was to be her home until her death in 1906. After her
husband died in 1862, she never remarried. At the home on College Street she
reared five daughters; Mary Clorinda (1853-1927), Martha (1856-1921), twin girls
Catherine (1859-1928) and Christina (1859-1921), and Margaret (1861-1874).
Christina, an invalid, never married, and Margaret, the youngest daughter, died
in childhood. Mary Clorinda and Catherine married brothers, Henry Dickenson
Honaker and Andrew Jackson Honaker. Martha married William Sayles Aston. All of
Anna Bain’s children remained in Farmersville throughout their lives.
Anna Melissa Hicks was the daughter of Absalom and Christina Matheny Hicks. She
was born in Roane County, Tennessee in 1834. Her father, Absalom (1793-1877),
was a native of Surry County, North Carolina and died in Fannin County, Texas.
Absalom Hicks fought against the Creek Indians in the War of 1812. For his
military service he received 80 acres of bounty land. On May 7, 1826, he married
Christina Matheny, the daughter of Elijah and Mary Davis Matheny. They had eight
children, five sons and three daughters. Like many Southern yeoman farm families
of their time, they migrated west, farming for a while in Tennessee and
Arkansas, before taking up land in Fannin County soon after Texas was admitted
to the Union in 1845. From 1850 until Absalom Hicks’ death in May 1877, they
farmed land near the English Fort at Bonham, Texas. Following his death, Absalom
Hicks’ widow, Christina, received a widow’s pension for his service in the War
of 1812. She lived to be 91, spending her last years in the home of her eldest
daughter, Anna Melissa in Farmersville. She died on April 5, 1897. Both Absalom
and Christina Hicks are buried in the IOOF Cemetery there.
On January 19, 1853 Anna Melissa Hicks married John Alexander Bain in Fannin
county, Texas, where his parents lived near Honey Grove. John Bain was born on
March 15, 1823 in Robeson County, North Carolina, the second son of William C.
and Catherine McKennon Bain. In 1846 the recently widowed Catherine Bain, her
four sons, two daughters and 22 slaves moved to Texas. There they settled on
land she had purchased on the North Fork of the Sulphur River at Honey Grove,
Fannin County. Two years later Catherine Bain deeded this land to her sons Hugh,
John and Kenneth. After John married Anna Melissa Hicks they settled on newly
opened farm land near Indian Creek, in eastern Collin County. The tax records of
the period list him as a cattleman. They remained there until Bain’s death in
November 1862. His widow and five daughters continued to live on the farm until
the end of the Civil War, when the moved Farmersville. Although she moved her
family to town, Mrs. Bain retained the farm and 212 acres in Fannin County as
sources of income until her death in 1906. [...]
In 1906 when Anna Bain died she left her home to her twin daughters Cassie and
Christina, with the understanding that Cassie would look after her invalid
sister, an epileptic, for the remainder of her life. By the time of her mother’s
death, Cassie had been widowed and married a second time. In 1889 she first
married Andrew Jackson Honaker (1858-1892), the younger brother of her sister
Molly’s husband, Henry. Soon after his marriage in 1889 and the birth of his son
the following year, he entered the University of Kentucky’s School of Medicine
to study dentistry, but contracted meningitis and died. He was 33 years old.
During his time at medical school in Kentucky, Cassie and their son, Bain, live
with her mother. They remained there after his death. Cassie eventually married
James E. Jones.
Surname Index
Recommended Citation:
"Bain-Honaker House,
EARLY SETTLERS OF COLLIN COUNTY." Collin County, Texas History
and Genealogy Webpage by Genealogy Friends of Plano Libraries, Inc., <http://www.geocities/genfriendsghl>
[Accessed Fri February 13, 2004 ].
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