| THE SKULL CREEK |
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| It has been said that this creek was named
by early settlers as the creek where
a human skull was found, and thus they named the Skull Creek. This little stream has flowed for many, many years and it’s waters have found their way to the sea. The two forks of the creek flowed from springs. The Western Fork flowed from springs in the Eckhoff and Hentzschel farms and the Northerly Fork flowed from springs in the Witte place near Shelby. The fork flowing from the Shelby Community had two landmarks. One was “The Waterfall,” a place where boys gathered on Sunday afternoon for a swim, and daring ones would jump off the overhanging rocks into the clear pool below. I remember catching my first fresh water trout in the old waterfall. What surprise and pleasure when the trout came darting out from under the limestone banks and took my grasshopper bait. The waterfall was a teenage boy’s delight and interesting sight for visitors. I also remember when my parents took our relatives from the big city of Dallas to see the waterfall, and we ate water- melon on the huge rocks there. A pretty sight to see the water fall into the clear pool below with fern filled banks. In today’s mercenary world, these spots would have been made into a tourist attraction. In our day, the admittance on horse back was opening and closing two gaps in the Dieterich’s pasture and asking Adolph to join in the swim. Of course we always had our natural swim suits with us. |
| A little further downstream was the old “Roeder’s Mill” millpond, a historic landmark. A part of the earthen embankment is gone because when the Skull Creek flooded, the flood waters would wash away some of the embankment of the old mill-dam. The main millpond was about 2 to 3 feet deep. The remnants of the millpond now stand as a silent reminder of the once busy place where grain was ground to meal and flour. It served a very basic and important need for the early settlers in communities all around. Some settlers came as far as Cat Spring and from Warrenton to have their grain ground at “Roeder’s Mill,” and the Skull Creek furnishedthe water to turn the mill. |
| The fork of the creek flowing from the
Eckhoff and Hentzschel farm springs crossed our
farm and joined the Shelby Fork just where our family farm ended, and the
two became one stream that flowed on a little further on, the stream flowed
under the Skull Creek Bridge
which was at the foot of the hill where
the school house stood. The waters flowed on and soon joined the Western Fork of the Mill Creek and from there flowed on to join the Eastern Fork of the Mill Creek below Bellville and thence flowed on into the Brazos River and finally into the sea at Freeport, Texas never to return to the land of it’s beginning. As the water flowed gently down the creek, dropped into the water- fall and briefly visited the old millpond and passed each shady fern filled glen, it must have lingered on in the peace and quiet of that community before it entered the large river and finally the roaring sea. It lingered to hear the laughter of children at play and birds sing their everlasting songs, and flowers bloomed and faded and seasons passed and all was well with God in control. So our lives too began on the banks of that old creek and lingered awhile in the serenity of that community. Then we too moved on and left our Footprints on the Hill in the sands of time where once the old Skull Creek school stood. |
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