Road Trip to Dublin...Texas, That Is

Stretch of Stephen land in Dublin, Erath County, Texas.

 

Since Jim and I were married, I've heard talk of his family being the "founders of Stephenville, TX." We took a quick look at Stephenville in 2008, while camping at a nearby state park with the kids. At the time, they were more interested in dinosaur tracks at nearby Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas!  The family history story got put on the back burner for a while.

Fast forward to 2018, and I've learned much, much more about the Stephen family. And indeed, John Miller Stephen donated the land for the county courthouse, building lots and churches, stipulating that the town would be named Stephenville. In January of 1856, the State of Texas agreed, and while creating Erath County, named Stephenville as its county seat. John M. Stephen, along with his brother William Franklin Stephen, would be among those who settled and tamed the land around them.

Jim is the great, great, great grandson of William F. Stephen, who actually settled nearer to Dublin, Texas -- about 15 miles southwest of Stephenville -- where he was a rancher and grew corn and cotton.

In the course of my research, I ran across an newspaper article about the Stephen family farm being granted Century Farm status by the Texas Department of Agriculture's Family Land Heritage Program in 1975, for 100 years of continuous operation and ownership by the same family. The owners were honored with these words on a commemorative certificate:

For a century or more of continuous ownership and operation as a family agricultural enterprise. to the dedication and perseverance of the founders and heirs of these lands, we owe the basic wealth of Texas.

An inquiry to the Erath County Genealogy Society confirmed that about 130 acres are still owned and farmed by a descendant of this same Stephen family to this day - a span now lasting 170 years.

Could we see it?

It was road trip time! 

With the help of a Dublin genealogist Janella Hendon, Jim and I were shown the land where his forefather farmed, and nearby Barbee Cemetery, where many of his ancestors lay. 

Jim and the rock wall constructed on the boundary of the Stephen property in the mid-1800's; built by hand, and still standing the test of Texas time.

 

We were able to touch the rock wall constructed between 1850 and 1860 around the original "1 league and 1 labor" (about 4,600 acres), of land which comprised the Stephen farm at the time. 

We got a sense of the dry, dusty, hot work farming and ranching must have been in the mid-1800s, as we endured near-100 degree heat while walking the cemetery in search of family graves.

 

Graves of Jim's great, great, great grandparents: Mary C. Howard Stephen, and W.F. Stephen, at Barbee Cemetery.

Headstone of Elizabeth Kite Stephen, Jim's 3x great grandmother, and wife of James Howard Stephen, William's son. Also buried here are two of their children, Minnie May Stephen, who died in infancy, and James W. Stephen who died at 17.

Another of Jim's 3x great grandparent's graves: Harriett Kite, Elizabeth Kite Stephen's mother.

It was fascinating glimpse the places Jim's ancestors called home and where they were laid to rest. I must admit to feeling very proud that our children have this place--Dublin, Texas--as part of their heritage.