In 1867 Stewards Mill Sold Collars, Quinine, Whiskey, Now It’s Changed

Printed In “The Teague Chronicle”, March 25, 1965

(no author listed)

For almost 100 years, the Stewards Mill store has been operated by descendants of its founder serving this small Central Texas Community. The store of yesterday sold horse collars, quinine and whiskey, while the store of today sells gasoline, aspirin and “Cokes”.

…No known records are available for the brick kilns, but the store chimney is built of some of the locally made hand made brick.

…Electricity and butane have changed the store somewhat, yet the present store still uses the original counters, bins and cabinets as of yore. One of the old millstones serves as a doorstep into the store. Merchandise still hangs from the ceiling, and much of the old time atmosphere of the old country store is still maintained by the present owners, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Bragg.

…Most of the old ledgers have been preserved. “Samplings of some early day charges to customers are:

1 pr shoes for wife, $1.75

1 pr. Boots, $2.50

42 ½ yrds. bleached domestic, $6.75

6 lbs. Coffee, $2.00

1 bx collars, $.25c

3 yds buckskins, $3.00

1 pr blankets, $3.00

shot caps & powder, $1.15

3 violin strings, $40c

1 corset, $1.00

1 set buggy springs, $9.50

1 bottle quinine, $3.00

1 quart whiskey, $1.00

1 lb tobacco, $1.00

1 bottle morphine, 5c

1 saddle, $16.00

26 gals syrup, $10.00

73 lbs. Bacon, $9.19

1 bbl. Flour, $6.00

30 lbs salt, $1.20

17 lbs.nails, $1.70

OFF THE BEATEN TRAIL By ED SYERS

Printed in “The Teague Chronicle”, Freestone County, Texas, Thursday, Jul 15, 1965

The farmer bought some flour and tobacco and his towhead’s red soda pop and somebody dominoed on the vine-shaded porch outside, and I contemplated the fine, solid point of view from an old-fashioned nail keg in a county general store.

Particularly this one, by the high-backed rockers just inside the shaded door of Stewards Mill Store. It’s tucked where the south breeze stirs the big oaks, back from the Corsicana road, out of Fairfield. And that chunky keg! It takes a kind of fitting grip on you, to sit fore-square in a friendly argument, or tilt easy—visiting, as they have nearly a century here.

I swiveled for a look around – in to the cool dimness, past the old spool case, the sausage-stuffer across, down the hand-milled counters with bins behind and the nowadays stock up the high shelves, past the old signs and calendars about…back where the horsecollars and hames, hang like they always did.

Outside, it’s a barn pitched roof, weathered, heavy siding round to hand-made brick chimney, with porch rockers and a bench noted by long ago whittlers, and the big grove—from the little white church across to where the old mill stood on Springsbranch.

…Stewards Mill---now just the store and church and rolling stock farms about—came a decade after San Jacinto, when Dorothy Bragg’s great grand-daddy, George Washington Steward, came over from Mississippi. Up went the best grist mill between today’s Houston and Dallas, and presently, church, cotton gin, saw mill, brick kiln and a store where you traded, shook hands on a deal and swapped news.

Civil War’s backlash burned it, even the cornfields, well after the formal shooting was over. From the pit of Reconstruction, this building rose and added—even down to the County’s first telephone exchange; that wall-box yonder. It never stopped being where the neighbors gathered.

…The store grew, too. An extraordinary inventory shows in 12 thick ledgers, scrupulous in detail and a Spencerian hand to match an engraver’s. Day-to-day, perhaps a quarter-million entries.

…Because the Frank Braggs are as proud of Stewards Mill Store’s service records as its Confederate founder’s…..they keep a virtual museum of fragments from those early days. Brown’s Mule plug-cutter….a sadle and mould for lead shot, apothecary bottles still full…brass-toed “Starter” boots, a mustache cup, Peabody’s Coffee Tin.

“I couldn’t begin to show it all.” Mrs. Bragg pointed to a brown snuff jar. “Was it black gum brush they used?” she tried to remember.

“Elm’s better,” came from the domino game on the porch. By the door, I asked about whittling these days. They don’t ship in good pine boxes anymore. Nor can you pitch silver dollars out front; and horseshoes aren’t as handy. But the easy visiting and tempo—a tranquil, friendly one – stays the same.

Perhaps the most remarkable in all about Stewards Mill Store’s inventory is that of its struggle to survive—as always in farmland, against the elements. Down the board front under the shed porch roof is penciled, year-by-year, an almanac of that struggle.

“Grandfather began it,” said Mrs. Bragg. “Droughts…floods…cold.” Scores of laconic entries, fading now. Of course, she knows them by memory from when they stood fresher against the pine planks.

“July 31, 1893,” I read, “hit 109.”. Below, several topping 110. “Frost—a.m.—Nov 2, 1897”. A later ice on an October 9. That ’89 cold took 500 steers to 100 by Spring. One faded year read: “12 hours rain, Sept. 13, First since June 2”.

“You’ve got to preserve these records.” I scanned over five feet of plank-by-plank, head- to-belt-height penciling, “Where’s one of the roughest times of all?”

One of the domino players cashed a double-five for 20 and read, without looking: “September 3: Creeks all dry. Fenced to mouth of Caney for cattle to water,”. He looked up, pointing and read the next entry slowly: “September 4: All damn cows drowned. Water over top of fence. 20 inch rain.” “All of them?” “Aw, he saved a few”. He pushed his hat forward and dominoed. “He was mad…stretched it a little.”

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