The early settlers of Shady Grove were of a high moral class of people.
It seems that the rough, lawless characters that we hear so much about
back in the early days, were absent in the Shady Grove settlement. Texas
was, at this time, a country with its boundless resources undeveloped.
She was offering unusual inducements to settlers, and all roads leading
to Texas were crowded with emigrants to the Lone Star State.
It is not known at this time just who made the first settlement in the
present Shady Grove area. We know that the community was well
established before the war between the United States and Mexico in 1846.
When Texas joined the United States in 1846, Mexico declared war on the
United States. Tom Ellison, then a young man, came on horseback from
Tennessee to join the forces against Mexico. He came through Shady Grove
and stopped a while with some of the citizens. After the war was over,
he came back and homesteaded a tract of land on Big Sandy creek, and
built the log house in which his son, Jim Ellison, now lives.
The Snows came to Texas in 1849. Sam Snow built a little house and
cleared a plot of ground. The first year he made one bale of cotton. He
carried that cotton to Shreveport to market. He sold it for a little
over a hundred dollars, and was paid the hundred dollars in gold. He
still had that hundred dollars in gold, with other accumulated gold
money, when he died in 1903.
The Mayfields, McWhorters, Calhouns, and Wilsons all came together in
wagons from South Carolina in 1848. Charlie Calhoun had come to Texas
sometime before and was living near Fort Worth. Fort Worth was at time
only a pioneer Indian fort, with a few settlements nearby. These new
comers went to Fort Worth in search of Charlie. Failing to locate him,
and being in danger of hostile Indians, they returned to East Texas and
settled near Shady Grove. The black lands were not very attractive to
settlers at that time. Water was scarce, and there was no timber for
fencing. Barbed wire had not come into use at that time, so the black
lands seemed worthless to these South Carolinians.
The Mayfields settled north of Shady Grove, at what is now known as the
Jot Walker place. Billie Calhoun settled up near old Calloway. Dave
McWhorter settled on Blue Branch, but later moved to Shady Grove. The
Whites came to Texas before the Civil War and settled at old Chilton,
near where Big Sandy now stands. They later moved to Shady Grove. John
Wilson settled near Sam Snow. He was a blacksmith and gunsmith by trade.
He made guns for the Confederate soldiers during the war. Capt. Lucy
Iris Wilson, an Army nurse of national fame, is a great granddaughter of
John Wilson.
The Crows, Stephensons and Prices all came together from Tennessee in
1851. A Mr. Mann settled where Hubert Snow now lives, back in the
beginning. He sold out to Mr. Humphreys, who in turn sold the place to
Green Weldon, just after the close of the Civil War. The Coxes and Orrs
settled where old Paint Rock stood. They sold out to Jeff Stringer, a
Primitive Baptist preacher. William Baird also settled near old Paint
Rock, and ran a large water mill down on Big Sandy creek. Owen Davis
settled where John Mooney now lives in 1845. James Blackstone came in
here in the early days. Elias Hail, an ex-Texas Ranger, settled north of
Shady Grove. Ed Elder came from Comanche County in 1883, and exchanged
his place there for the place where Guy Weldon now lives. Wiley P. Hays
came, when a young man, from Tennessee and joined his fortunes with the
people of Shady Grove. Amos Willingham settled where A. T. Hill now
lives. F. M. Satterwhite, a Primitive Baptist preacher, settled at the
Lowe place. These family names, together with many others, are woven
inseparably into the history of Shady Grove.