BUCKNER
US380, McKinney
by Bill Haynes
On December 29,1845, the Republic of Texas ceased to exist and
Texas became a state in the United States of America. The first legislature of
the new state created Collin County out of part of Fannin County on 3 April,
1846, and provided that commissioners were to find the center of the county,
select two places within three miles of the center for a townsite, and hold an
election to establish which of the two sites was to become the county seat.
Two settlements that had been made in the area that was to be
Collin County before 1846 were Throckmorton, founded by Dr. William Throckmorton
in January of 1842 southwest of present-day Anna and Buckner, founded by John
McGarrah in November of 1842.
There was an Indian raid at Buckner in February of 1843. A Dr.
Calder from Cedar Springs (Dallas) stopped by Buckner on his way to Fort Inglish
(Bonham). He asked the men if they had seen any Indians around. When the men
told him "no," he hurried on his way. A few minutes later he was running back
toward the cabins at Buckner, chased by two Indians. Before the men from Buckner
could rescue him, the Indians scalped and killed him.
About fifty Comanches rose up out of tall grass and surrounded
the McGarrah cabin at Buckner, while the men inside hastened to load their guns.
The Comanches tried to rush in and "finish their bloody work" but held off for
fear of the settlers' guns.
At sunset, the Indians left the cabins and hid in the trees
along Honey Creek and East Fork, about where Highway 75 now crosses the creeks
north of McKinney. The men from Buckner slipped out under cover of darkness and
made their way around the Indians to the Throckmorton stockade, while the
prairie above the valley was burning with fires set by the Indians.
In the summer of 1843, Tarlton Cunius started a blacksmith
shop at Buckner under a shed made of tree limbs and John McGarrah opened his
store. For almost five years, Buckner was the only place within forty miles
where any kind of merchandise could be bought.
When the Texas Legislature called for the establishment of a
county seat for Collin County, the county residents who could get to Buckner met
there on July 4, 1846 to discuss the location of the new county seat.
In an article in The Democrat on Nov. 2, 1905, J. R Wilmeth
described Buckner in 1846 as "A wide place in the road." It had its importance
as a public gathering place with a store where some goods were for sale and
where the settlers could get news from the other settlements. "Their gardens,
sweet potato patches, fresh sodded pumpkin fields3 and green corn waving above
the fences gave the country a hopeful aspect."
The settlers who met at Buckner on July 4, 1846, decided that
Buckner should be the county seat. Then they celebrated the first Texan Fourth
of July with a flag raising ceremony, patriotic speeches, a barbecue, and
dancing which lasted well into the night.
The men of the county met at Buckner for the first election in
Collin County on July 13, 1846. They began making plans to make Buckner a
permanent townsite. On August 1, John McGarrah donated fifty acres for the town
of Buckner, and town lots were laid off around a public square as a site for a
court house. The original plat drawn by H. O. Hedgcoxe is now in the Central
Museum of Collin County in the Old Post Office. The map shows the public square
and streets with names such as Houston, Polk, Kentucky, Missouri, Illinois,
Tennessee, and Arkansas.
By the close of 1846, Buckner had a general store, a
blacksmith shop, a post office, and John L. Lovejoy's dry goods store - the
first frame building in Collin County. He had built the 12' X 12' structure with
lumber hauled down from the steamboat landing on Red River.
Everyone seemed satisfied that such a large and growing town
was the county seat. But the Chief Justice of the County felt that he could not
ignore the provisions for selecting a county seat set up by the state
legislature. In January of 1847, he appointed George White as surveyor to find
the center of the county. In June, Mr. White reported that the center of the
county was seven miles southeast of Buckner on the banks of East Fork Creek - on
overflow land that was not fit for the location of a town. Still the
instructions from the legislature were clear: the county seat was to be located
within three miles of the center of the county.
To meet the requirements of the law, Chief Justice Roberts
appointed commissioners to select the two sites called for and to set the date
for the selection of the site on November 1, 1847.
J. B. Wilmeth selected the site that is now McKinney and John
Crutchfie1d selected a site on Sloan's Creek three miles south of present day
McKinney, known as Sloanville. Today the Sloanville site would be near the
underpass on Highway Five, just south of McKinney.
Only eleven votes were cast on November the first. The
settlers south of Wilson Creek could not reach Buckner to vote because the
creeks were overflowing. Voters in the western and northern parts of the country
were not very interested in the election. They thought it only common sense that
Buckner should be the county seat regardless of the outcome of the election.
The final vote was ten votes for the Wilmeth site and one for
Sloanville. The story is told that Ben Baccus came in just before the polls
closed and when he was told that Wilmeth's site had all ten votes cast he voted
for the Sloanville site "just for devilment!"
For several months after the election it seemed that the
unconcerned settlers had been right. The Post Office remained at Buckner. The
commercial center of the county - two stores and a blacksmith shop - remained at
Buckner. And all of the county officials continued to carry on business at
Buckner.
In May of 1848, John L. Lovejoy hired two men - Jim Reed and
Manse Wilmeth - and twelve yoke of oxen to drag his frame building on skids
across the prairie to the site selected for the new county seat. At that time
the location that was to become downtown McKinney was a dense thicket of trees,
shrubs, thorns, and vines. The oxen pulled the little building as far into the
thicket as they could take it, and it was set up - facing south - on the site
that was to become the northwest corner of the square on May 3, 1848. He opened
his General store on May the sixth.
James H. Lovejoy was sixteen when his father moved the Lovejoy
store to McKinney. In an interview that he gave to The Weekly Democrat Gazette
on February 6, 1908, he said that when he first beheld the spot known as
McKinney it was a wild prairie, unfenced, untilled, and unoccupied except for
wild animals. His family set up housekeeping in the rear of their store and thus
became the first citizens of McKinney. He built the first fire in McKinney for
his family.
Soon after the Lovejoy Dry Goods Store was set up, the "Our
House" Saloon was built across the dirt street. Just south of that, Dr.
Worthington built a little wooden building as an office.
Finally, on Nov. 10, 1848, the Post Office moved from Buckner
to Lovejoy's Dry Goods Store in McKinney, with Mr. Lovejoy as postmaster.
Soon the county offices were moved to a little log court house
on the southwest corner of McKinney's public square. Buckner was passing into
history. The people of McKinney were ready to face the future.
BUCKNER HISTORICAL VIGNETTES
November 4, 1976
by Helen Hall
The election we have just gone through was of wide interest,
but no more so than the very first election held in Collin County on July 4,
1846.
Three months before, the Texas Legislature had created Collin
County, and new officials had to be chosen from among the settlers.
Mansel Wilmeth had spent four days riding to all the
settlements to notify each family of the election to be held on July 4. This in
itself was a monumental task, for the settlers were scattered in the
woods to the northwest and south of Buckner.
There were, of course, no roads or bridges. Everyone was
invited to bring dinner to McGarrah's little store at Buckner and spent the day.
The polls opened at 8 o'clock in the store and remained open
until 10 that night. Women could not vote, neither could the slaves who came,
and after much discussion it was decided that the old Indian chief, Spotted
Tail, who had more or less saved the settlement from marauding Indians, could
not vote, either.
Another question that arose immediately was now to vote. Some
insisted it should be by a show of hands or by voice, but they were over-ruled
when they learned that the votes had to be written and sent to Austin.
Looking about the store, McGarrah came up with a small pencil,
but there was no paper, something very few pioneers brought with them. Finally,
J. B. Wilmeth remembered he had a copy of "Paradise Lost" in the saddlebags and
brought it in.
Carefully they tore all the fly leaves with no printing and
any half pages that were blank. These were cut into strips and this is how the
votes were recorded.
There is no record on how many voted, but since there were
over 90 people at the gathering, perhaps a third of them were male voters. Old
records show that many of the early settlers could neither read nor write. In
this case, he would have someone write the name he was voting for and then make
a crossmark himself, with some adding about the X, his mark.
There was no list of office seekers and many of the settlers
received a few votes.
At the end of the voting, it was determined that Zachery
Roberts had been elected Chief Justice (County Judge), Tola (called Tollie) Dunn
was the new County Clerk, Moses Wilson the District Clerk, King Custer, a
son-in-law of Rattan, Sheriff. The county commissioners were John Fitzgerald
(Fitzhugh), Peter Lucas, Godfrey Baccus, and John Wilson
A short ceremony was held at noon and a flag was raised. At
dusk, a sack of wheat bran that had been freighted in by John Lovejoy was spread
on the hard packed earth in front of the store and everyone stayed on until
late.
The first election, of course, was the one held June 6 of that
year to decide the exact location of the new County Seat, but this was the first
time officials were elected.
Historical marker.
Site of
Buckner
JOHN
(JACK) AND POLLY McGARRAH AND FAMILY CAME TO
THIS SITE FROM
TENNESSEE IN 1842. THE THIRD SETTLER
IN PRESENT
COLLIN COUNTY, McGARRAH OPENED A TRADING
POST TO BARTER
FOR HIDES AND FURS. WHILE IN THE ACT
OF BUILDING A
FAMILY FORT, HE AND HIS MEN HAD TO
DEFEND
THEMSELVES FROM ROAMING HOSTILE INDIANS.
THE TEXAS
LEGISLATURE CREATED COLLIN COUNTY ON
APRIL 3, 1846,
DIRECTING THAT ITS COUNTY SEAT, TO BE
NAMED
"BUCKNER", WOULD BE NO MORE THAN THREE MILES
FROM THE
GEOGRAPHIC CENTER. BUCKNER TOWNSITE WAS
SOON LAID OFF
HERE IN McGARRAH'S SETTLEMENT. ON THE
FOURTH OF
JULY, CITIZENS MET HERE AND ELECTED THEIR
FIRST COUNTY
OFFICIALS. THEY ALSO RAISED A MILITARY
COMPANY FOR
THE MEXICAN WAR. ON SEPT. 21, THERE WAS
AN AUCTION OF
BUCKNER TOWN LOTS; ON NOV. 25, 1846, THE
POST OFFICE
OPENED, WITH McGARRAH AS POSTMATER.
BY 1848 IT WAS
NOTICED THAT BUCKNER TOWNSITE WAS
OUTSIDE THE
LEGAL LIMITS FOR THE COUNTY SEAT. THE
LEGISLATURE
ORDERED ANOTHER ELECTION AND NAMED THE
NEW COUNTY
SEAT "McKINNEY," HONORING EARLY SETTLER
COLLIN
McKINNEY, A SIGNER OF THE TEXAS DECLARATION
OF
INDEPENDENCE. RESIDENTS MOVED THEIR HOMES AND
OTHER
BUILDINGS TO McKINNEY (3 MI. E), AND BUCKNER
TOWNSITE
REVERTED TO AGRICULTURAL LAND USES.
Historical marker application, 1978.
A SHORT
HISTORY OF BUCKNER
THE FIRST COUNTY SEAT OF COLLIN COUNTY
The actual
beginning of Buckner goes back to April 3, 1846, when the legislature created
Collin County out of the land that was a part of Fannin County. In this act, it
said;
�Be it further enacted That John McGara (sic), J. C. M. Hodge, Thomas Rattan,
Ashley McKinney and Pleasant Wilson, be, and they are hereby appointed
commissioners, whose duty it shall be to find the centre of said county, and
select two places within three miles of said centre (having due regard to
donations that may be offered by individuals) for a townsite for the use of the
county; the commissioners shall then proceed to hold an election, and the place
receiving the greatest number of votes shall be the county seat, and the place
so selected shall be known and called by the name of Buckner; and the
commissioners shall proceed to lay off said town and sell the lots therein, at
public auction on a credit of twelve months.�
� Be it further enacted, That the proceeds arising from the sale of lots in said
town, or other donations, shall be applied by the commissioners herein created,
to the erection of public bui1dings for the use of said county.�
It is impossible to separate the history of Buckner and of John (Jack) McGarrah,
its founder. He brought his family from Caney Fork, Tennessee, in 1843, stopping
for awhile at the Throckmorton settlement which was the first settlement in the
county, begun in 1842. It was the custom for wagon trains or any settlers to
stop here and leave their families at the Throckmorton stockade while the men
scouted the wild virgin land for a headright they wished to settle on.
McGarrah settled on land three miles west of present McKinney and in that same
year began a trading post, primarily to gather hides and furs from the friendly
Indians who inhabited the county. Soon a small fort was erected at the site, to
serve as a shelter should Indians attack the settlement. Sure enough, there was
an attack while the men were working on the fort. A band of about 150 Indians
suddenly appeared. The seven men working stuck their rifles through the cracks
between the logs, but did not fire a shot. The Indians kept retreating and
coming back until dark. Indians never fight it night, so when dark came, they
left and the men slipped away down to Throckmorton Settlement. This was only a
few days before a Dr. Calder from Dallas stopped to talk with the men at
Buckner, then had only ridden a mile or so when he was attacked by a band of
Indians and killed.
On July 14., 1846, a band of settlers met at Ft. Buckner for a celebration. The
first flag in the county was raised, and the first soldiers, Stapp�s Company,
was organized to go to the Mexican War.
On September 21, 1846, the newly appointed commissioners held an auction of
lots, the first lot going to Henry O. Hedgecoxe, for $22.50 in cash. Hedgecoxe
was the agent for the Peter�s Colony of this area, through which much of the
land was settled. The second lot went to Tola Dunn for $26.00. Dunn went two
years later to the California goldrush and died en route home. Others buying
lots were James Herndon, H. G. Hendricks, Jonathan Allen and R. H. Barksdale.
Each lot was 4,800 Square feet and the lots were laid out around a public
square.
A postoffice was established at Buckner on November 25, 1846, with John McGarrah
the Postmaster, appointed by President Polk.
John L. Lovejoy opened a General Store in Buckner in 1846. McGarrah ran a store
and there was seen a blacksmith shop and Buckner was on its way. Peter�s Colony
brought in settlers, promising each a log cabin, musket and ball, and each
married man could settle 640 acres. Peters� contract ran out in 1848, but they
had added greatly to the settling of Collin County
The first election in the new county seat of Buckner was held on July 4, 1846,
with the election held in McGarrah�s Trading Post. No one was quite sure about
how to hold an election, but after a lot of discussion, it was decided that
slaves could not vote, neither could women. Some felt that the old Indian,
Spotted Tail, who had befriended the settlement by keeping away many of the
Indians from the west, ought to be allowed to vote, but they were overruled. The
question arose as how to vote and it was decided that since the ballots would
have to be sent to Austin, they needed paper and pencil. No paper was at hand,
but J. B. Wilmeth went to his saddle-bags and brought in his copy of Paradise
Lost and carefully tore the white pages from the front and back into small
strips. Ninety one people voted that day; many signing their name with an �X�.
There were no candidates; each person voting for whomever they wished.
Zachary Roberts was elected Chief Justice, Tola Dunn was named County Clerk,
Moses Wilson was District Clerk and King Custer, a son-in-law of Rattan,was
elected Sheriff. John Fitzhugh, Peter Lucas, Godfrey Baccus and John Wilson were
elected County Commissioners.
Jake Baccus was named Justice of the Peace. No record is found stating the
salary these first officials received, except there is a note stating King
Custer received $100.00 for a year.
Buckner grew and prospered as much as a pioneer settlement could until it was
discovered that it was not the center of the county at all and the Legislature
demanded an election with two possible places to vote upon. The Legislature
named four Commissioners to select the sites to be voted upon; J. B. Wilmeth,
Denton Darby, John Fitzhugh and William McKinney. Darby could not serve, so J.
N. McReynolds took his place. The two places chosen were Sloan�s Grove and the
present site of McKinney.
On election day, all the creeks separating the settlements were so swollen by
heavy rain that had spread all over the low lands, that it was impossible for
most people to get to Buckner. At the end of the day, the vote stood 11 to one
for the present site of McKinney. The Legislature named the new county seat
McKinney, to honor Collin McKinney, one of the signers of the Declaration of
Independence when Texas was trying to free herself from Mexico. He was also a
moving force in settling the county.
John L. Lovejoy, owner of the General Store, hired Mansel Wilmoth and James L.
Reed to drag his store from Buckner using 16 oxen. The feat was done on May 3 ,
1848, and Buckner passed into obscurity.
Buckner Cemetery
Communities Index
- Recommended citation:
"Buckner
- Collin County Communities," Collin
County, Texas History and Genealogy Webpage by Genealogy Friends of Plano
Libraries, Inc., <http://www.geocities/genfriendsghl>
[Accessed Fri February 13 13:37:28 US/Central 2004 ].
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