NUGENT-HART HOUSE TO BE NEXT ORNAMENT—PHOTOS NEEDED

Officers

President

Vicki Collins

Vice President

Marty Thomas

Secretary

Doris Maxwell

Treasurer

Marilyn Gerloff

Directors

Brenda Sells

Edna Phillips

Faye Rydell

Advisory Directors

Dee Davey

Darryl Haynes

Mike Leyman

Raymond Meeks, Atty

Museum Manager

Vern Raven

Editors

Marilyn Gerloff

Vern Raven

Inside this issue: Nugent-Hart House 1

Nugent House , cont’d 2

King Cotton, con’t’d 3

New Board Members 3

King cotton 4

Calendar & New Members & Leaves

5

Friends of the Museum 6

T h i s p r o j e c t w a s m a d e , i n p a r t , b y a g r a n t f r o m t h e C i t y o f M a n s f i e l d

May 2016

NEWSLETTER

Mansfield Historical Society

The Mansfield Histori-

cal Society Board will

add a 2016 Christmas

ornament to its com-

memorative ornament

collection of buildings,

businesses, and houses.

These are sold for $15

each in our museum

store. Our last orna-

ment was introduced in 2010 of the Vernon Newsom Stadium. The ornaments

are made by Audrey Schmitz, a professor at NW Oklahoma State University.

From our photo, she sketches and engraves fine details in porcelain clay. Each

piece is fired twice and an iron oxide wash is applied to create an antique look.

However, it seems that the museum has only a few old photos of the house, and

none that captured the windmill. If you have a photo of this Texas Historical

Marker, please contact Vern Raven at 817-473-4250 or bring your photo,

that shows the windmill, to be scanned.

According to Beth Harrison Canright, who did an in-depth history of this

property in the 1980s, the land on which the house was built was a portion of

an original Texas land grant of 640 acres issued to an early surveyor, Wm. C.

Price in 1841. Mr. Price sold the section to Charles Turner for $640 in 1853.

Mr. Turner was the first owner of the gristmill. Mr. Turner sold the land to Jul-

ian Feild in 1856, for $6,000. In 1873 the land was auctioned and went through

several owners. In 1890 the Joseph Nugent house was designated as the SE

corner of the city limits when boundaries were determined when the City in-

corporated.

Cont’d page 2

Nugent-Hart House—continued

Page 2

NEWSLETTER

Joseph Nugent was born in Canada and came to Texas with his brother, John, who was an ordained

minister in the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. After Joseph arrived in Ellis County, he taught

school in Dallas County for a few years. In 1853, he came to Tarrant County to teach for 12 years,

the last two years at Mansfield Male and Female College. He sold his horse to buy a 50 acre portion

of land. When the Civil War began, he returned to Canada for many years acquiring wealth. In Janu-

ary 1878, Joseph Nugent returned and married Christina. By 1889 and he was a leader in the com-

munity. He was a Royal Arch Mason and a member of the Christian Church. In 1891, he was elected

the first mayor of Mansfield following the incorporation in 1890. No records of the City were main-

tained until 1904. There is no absolute proof that he was the “first Mayor” as another has also

claimed that honor. Joseph Nugent died in 1903.

In 1907, his widow, Christina Nugent, remarried and moved away, selling the house to Dora Burns

Galloway from Tennessee. Dora bought the house so that she and her twelve (12) children could

live there during school while her husband stayed on their farm.

Johnathan Harvey Hart was born in Tennessee in 1855. He and Nancy Ball Hart had six (6) children.

He owned several farms. Johnathan died in 1927 and Nancy died in 1944. Son, J.N. Hart became a

livestock broker and a dairyman. Clyde N. Hart was the son of J.N. and Etta Mae Nelson Hart. He

was also a dairyman and farmer. Clyde served on the City Council from 1938 to 1944. He died in

1963. In the 1980’s, Mrs. Myrtle Smith Hart, widow of Clyde, was still living in this house when she

passed and her sons inherited it. Mrs. Myrtle Hart was a member of the Mansfield Historical Society

and she provided a great deal of information for the application for historical marker sponsored by

the Mansfield Historical Society. Interviews with Beth Harrison Canright with Myrtle Hart and arti-

cles from the Mansfield News Mirror were also used to collect data for the application.

Arthur W. Weinman, A.I.A. prepared the description of the house to be used with the application

submitted to obtain a Texas Historical Building marker. The house was built in early rural, frame,

Victorian style typical to North Texas. It was a one story, light wood frame structure with wood

clapboard exterior siding and cedar wood shingle roof. The “H” plan had four porches facing each

direction. “The house was built with minimal crawl space, the porch is close to grade.” Ceilings and

walls were canvas covered with a finished wallpaper glued to the canvas. One fireplace was located

in the parlor. “Original outbuildings included both a bath-house and a windmill over the old well.”

The garage was added after WWII.

The Hart family donated the house to Jude’s Catholic Church. After extensive remodeling in 2007

by the parish, the house became the private residence of Father George Foley.

NEW BOARD 2015-16. Standing left to

right: Brenda Sells, Director, Doris

Maxwell, Secretary, Faye Rydell, Director.

Seated left to right: Edna Phillips, Director

Vicki Collins, President, and Marilyn

Gerloff, Treasurer. Not pictured is Marty

Thomas, Vice-President.

Vicki Collins has recently retired from the

City of Mansfield where she worked in

various positions, and serving as the City

Secretary the last years. We are very

fortunate that she agreed to serve as our

President this year.

Page 3

COTTON DAYS OF MANSFIELD By Bill Beard (cont’d from page 4)

When the owners’ of the land and their “share-cropping” farmers learned that “The Fort Worth-

New Orleans Railroad” (FW & NO) was building a railroad to connect with the gulf coast, Mr.

John Howard Wright, Andrew Jackson Dukes and several other owners of large land holdings

raised $5,000 to induce the railroad to put a depot and stop in Mansfield. In 1886, the railroad

passed through Mansfield and did establish a stop with a depot. By 1894, the Mansfield Depot

recorded 7,300 bales of cotton had been shipped.

Mansfield had two cotton gins, (Guy M Stewart being one) Bisbee had one, Britton had two, Lilli-

an had one (still standing but inoperable) and Webb had two gins. These gins baled cotton

throughout the cotton season (generally Aug-Jan). The bales were then transported and stored

on a vacant lot on the East side of Smith Street. This is the area where the Telephone Exchange

building, the old Fire Station, and the church buildings were/are located. After the final bale of

cotton for the season was finished the railroad was notified and a single train of “flat-cars” was

dispatched upon which all of the bales of cotton were loaded. The bales were then transported

to the Gulf Coast to be loaded on ships bound for the east coast or Europe to fabric factories.

This was a happy time for the youth of Mansfield because a portable tent “skating rink” would

move on to the vacated area and set up operations for six weeks. O.L. (Blue) Farmer, a Little

Person, was a very smooth accomplished skater who would entertain the “preteen” young ladies

by skating with them.

Note: The Webb Cotton gin, originally built about 1880, burned three times, and was rebuilt

each time. One of the last owners was Southland Cotton Seed Oil.

Page 4

WHEN COTTON WAS KING by Marilyn Gerloff

While working on our 125 Years of History in Mansfield Coloring Book, I came across a lot of information about cotton farming in the Mansfield area. The Stewart Gin was featured in the color book, because Edna Phillips’s father was working at this gin when she was born. But oth-er members told me cotton stories too. When you mention cotton to the older Mansfield resi-dents, a smile comes to their face as they recall those times. Bill Beard said when he was a young boy, hundreds and hundreds of bales of cotton were stored on the grounds around the depot. He anticipated the time when the bales were all shipped out to the middlemen and he could ride his bike all over the empty lot. My dad grew cotton in west Texas, and I remember jumping on the cotton after it was picked and dumped into the trailers. That was “pre-trampoline” days. Daddy got on to me every time, but next day I was climbing back in the trailer to jump in the cotton again. At my great grand-mother’s, the children had burlap sacks (potato sacks or feed sacks) with a cotton handle sewn across the opening for a strap. Even the kids would be encouraged to pick. Before machines, it took everyone in town to pick the cotton because after the top of the plant was picked the bot-tom bolls opened. Talk about back breaking work! The heat in August through October was brutal, the dried up boll became a bur and stuck your fingers and made them turn black, some-time even bleed. But, when the farmer got paid through the gin, that year’s crop either made a nice Christmas for the family or it did not. Do you remember when someone asked you how you are doing? Your dad and granddad might have said, “fair to midlin”. Middling is the average grade or middle standard for grading cotton fiber. The cleaner or whiter the cotton, the higher the grade. If your Mom bought a Pima shirt, a short, Egyptian cotton of the highest quality, she would pay more for it. Texas was the number one state for cotton production. “King Cotton” brought in 340,000 jobs and over $600 billion in business in the United States. It was grown from California to South Carolina, and every state in the southern United States. The Spaniards brought cotton seed to Florida where it was first cultivated in the soon-to-be United States. But the oldest cotton fabric ever discovered came from Mexico. It is assumed that cotton was originally grown wild. One bale of cotton weighs 500 pounds. It is 5 feet 5 inches tall, 28 inches wide. It will produce this many of one particular item: 3,000 diapers, or 325 blue jeans, or 1,230 bath towels, or 540 men’s shirts. So many products come from cotton, seed, and the hulls, but two products of par-ticular interest is $$ (currency) and makeup (lipstick). We had a good laugh on our trips to Austin in the fall when we saw the “tourist” and the “old-timers” on the side of the road. They had pulled over to look at miles and miles of open cotton along Interstate 35 around Hillsboro. Maybe they trying to figure out what it was or they were recalling their own cotton picking days. Many would walk out in it and break off an open boll for a souvenir. My great grandmother really would laugh if she knew cotton stalks with open bolls are now sold in the flower sections of stores. My daughter took one to work and a crowd gathered around to look at. She worked in downtown Dallas at the time.

COTTON DAYS OF MANSFIELD by Bill Beard

In the early days of farming around Mansfield when cotton was “KING”, it was difficult to get the cotton bales transported to the nearest town that had a railhead. In this instance that point was Waxahachie, TX. The mode of transportation was by ox cart. The round-trip took three to four days. Cont’d page 3

Calendar

MAY: 2nd PO.KE.NO Club 2nd HMBA Meeting 3rd Bridge Club 3rd DAR organizing Mansfield/Kennedale chapter 6th Board & Member Meeting 11:00 AM 12th Friends of Museum Meeting 17th Bridge Club 19th Downtown Assn of Merchants sponsor 3rd Thursday nite 21st Bordeaux on the Block 4-7PM, tickets Sold at museum 21st Farmers Market opens every Saturday 31st Museum is closed

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ JUNE: 1st Board & Member Meeting 11:00 AM 6th PO.KE.NO Club 14th FLAG DAY Bridge Club 16th Downtown Assn of Merchants sponsor 3rd Thursday nite 25th Juneteenth Celebration at McClendon Park

Page 5

NEWSLETTER

Calendar

July: 5th Museum is closed 6th Board & Member Meeting 11:00 AM 21st Downtown Assn of Merchants sponsor 3rd Thursday nite

~~~~~~~~~~~ OCT: 1st YARD SALE 15th Annual Member Luncheon at MISD Great Room 11 AM

TREE OF LIFE

$125 Leaf

In Memory of

Glenda Vincent Franks

By Edna Phillips

$500 Leaf

Ira Franklin Holland Family

By

Moretta Holland Weatherford

New Members

WELCOME!

LaDelle Collins

Chris Ohan

David Overbey

Ken Parks Family

Larry & Betty Crisafulli Family

Al & Pat Harris Family

Sara Drehobl

GIFT SHOP

Book, History of Mansfield $74.69

Book, Historic Resource $10.83

Caps/Visors $10.83

Color Book, History of $3.00

Cookbook, Mansfield $21.65

DVD various histories $10.83

Note Cards $5.41

Ornaments $16.24

Plates, commemorative $19.49

Prints $10.83

T-shirts, 125 Years $ 2.50

Throw/afghan, colors $ 59.54

Walking Tour brochures (4) $.25

Open Tues—Sat 9:00—5:00

Phone: 817-473-4250

Facebook:

MansfieldHistoricalMuseum

E-mail:

m a n s f i e l d m u s e u m@ s b c g l o b a l .

M a n s f i e l d H i s t o r i c a l S o c i e t y 1 0 2 N . M a i n S t r e e t

M a n s f i e l d , T X

Friends of the Museum By Julie Crisafulli

The Mansfield Historical Society has a great new way to get involved, the Friends

of the Museum! The purpose of the Friends of the Museum is to actively support the museum

and its mission through fundraising, promotion, and perpetuating the Mansfield Historical Society

membership. The Friends will participate in events and fundraisers such as Historic Downtown

Mansfield’s Third Thursdays, Halloween Ghost Tours, the Historical Society Yard Sale, and

hopefully the Historical Society Christmas Gala. Friends of the museum meetings fall on the last

Thursday of the month at 6:00pm. The next meeting is on Thursday June 30th at 6:00pm

(location to be announced). Like us on Facebook at Mansfield Friends at the Museum for up-

dates! Contact Julie Crisafulli at mansfieldmuseum@sbcglobal.net or by phone at 817-473-4250

for more information or to join!

MARK YOUR CALENDAR: MHS Yard Sale October 1st & Annual Meeting & Luncheon October 15th & Haunt the Block October 28th

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