It is hardly necessary to mention the fact that sixty-five years ago, we
had none of the modern conveniences, such as electricity, gas, city
water, pavements, railroad, and so on. Nor did we have any daily
newspaper in Gilmer.
At that time the printing office was a rickety affair, propped up by
three large pine logs. “Old” Judge Lyons, once county judge, was editor,
and the office stood about where the postoffice now stands. His death
was a tragic one, and here are the details as I remember them: His
partner was a man named Arthur Ashley, who resented Lyon’s use of
profanity, especially toward him. Ashley’s wife was boarding with my
parents, Mr. and Mrs. B. F. Culpepper, nine miles east of Gilmer, and
was teaching at Emory school house, about three miles away. One
afternoon, soon after she and the children had returned from school, all
tired out from her day’s work and the walk home, her husband walked in
and she went to the door to greet him with a kiss. At once he began
telling her, “Judge Lyons called me a —— after I had warned him not to
curse me. I picked up a side stick and killed him! Then I locked the
door and walked out.” Mrs. Ashley fell back across mother’s bed in a
dead faint. They worked with her till they revived her, and my parents
prevailed on Ashley not to leave at once, as he meant to do, but to
remain overnight with his family. This he did, but in the morning he
sought safety in flight. It was two or three days before Judge Lyons was
missed, and officers broke down the door of the printing office and
found him dead. Ashley had got away by this time. Later he was captured
in Alabama and brought back here for trial, but he broke jail again and
was never heard of any more. (Note). If you will go to the city cemetery
you will find the grave of Judge Lyons surrounded by an iron fence, and
lying in the shade of a big magnolia tree, just about thirty steps from
the Coffeeville road. At the head of the grave is a weather-beaten,
lichen-covered graying marble stone which reads: “My husband, J. J.
Lyons, died April 5, 1882. The strife is over, the loved of years hath
left me with the gathering fears to struggle darkly, and lone....” Mrs.
Lyons struggled 17 years before she was laid beside the judge, and the
grave stone reads: “Sarah S. Lyons, wife of Judge J. J. Lyons, died
January 20, 1899.” None of the stones give the date of birth or age.
In these days the courthouse was a wooden structure, and when I was
about ten years old, my parents allowed me to spend the weekend with my
teacher, Mr. Joe Martin, in his father’s home about a mile north of
town. There, with the Martin family, I saw the courthouse burn to the
ground. Later a brick one was built, and this one was re-modeled and
covered with concrete stucco, to be replaced a few years ago by our
present handsome and modern building.
What few stores Gilmer had then were built of plank with board walks in
front. The late Judge Sid Moughon had a water well and a large water
trough in front of his store for the watering of the farmers’ teams, as
also did Roberts and Oliver. A big bell was used to sound fire alarms
and closing time for the stores was six o’clock in the evening.
It was a little over sixty years ago that the Cotton Belt Railroad was
built through Gilmer. And early in this century, another railroad was
built from Winnsboro to Elysian Fields and came through Gilmer. It was
called the Marshall and East Texas Railroad, or the M. & E. T., and the
service was so poor it was dubbed, from its initials, “Misery and
Eternal Torment.” I have made trips on the M. & E. T. when the
passengers had to go to the woods and help bring up pine knots to fire
up so we could continue our journey. Or, if someone had a nice orchard,
we would stop and gather peaches, and in the fall, the train would stop
so that those aboard could get ribbon cane to chew.