December 25, 2003

As I was digging through some of my old junk, I ran across a photo of the east side of Main Street as it appeared in the late 1890's and into the early 1900's. The photographer was standing in the middle of Main Street and facing the southeast where he photographed the front of the old wooden boxed construction building that was used as a meat processing business. The business was operated by Wesley (Peg Leg) Housden.

The building had a large cooler that stored the meat and also held ice in storage for local deliveries by horse and wagon. Inside the building, there was the yeast aroma of freshly baked bread, which was sold daily with the meat and ice.

The original photo shows the nothing more than dirt road base which was flat and level and did not have any drainage as we know it to have in this day.

The wooden building was located where the fenced lot that is currently a playground for the day care center that has been in operation several years now.

The men in the photo are Pete Tobin and John Mountain. I think these two men were friends of Tom West.

He was the photographer and photo developer during that period. Tom West was fairly well educated (by home education, I think). He was a self-educated chemist and found that photography was a favor to many of his friends.

I am truly grateful to Tom for his ability to process high quality photography. Throughout his early manhood, he operated a dark room and processing laboratory in Granny Harmon’s attic. His laboratory was top technology and high quality during this time. Most of the photos that I have were processed by Tom in his early life.

His friendship to my family (my grandmother and grandfather - Laura and Wood) allowed him to be on hand at the right time to photograph events. My grandmother was the family historian and record keeping was her hobby for this tribe of the local Cherokee Indians. She never threw anything away, which includes many of the photos that I have today.

Tom was a close friend of the Slayton family, and many of this family’s photos have been passed down to me from my Dad. Many of Tom’s photos went to my Aunt Sis (Lillian Goin), who was also a good pack rat, and kept her collection intact throughout the years.

I have Granny Harmon to thank many times over and over just for allowing Tom West to use her attic as a darkroom.

Tom in the later part of his life was married to Bertie Lantrip, who was a sister to Clyde, Walt and Hertie Lantrip.

Many of the old photos are being scanned and preserved by the UNT Librarians. I work one and a half hours a week with the University Librarians as they are scanning a lot of my documents to publish on a web site for historical photos of the Onega and Aubrey area in addition to all of the towns of Texas – history from many of the small settlements will be available. This is a very commendable effort for the University of North Texas, as they are making these old photographs available as public record for more people to have instant access with their computers.

I am hoping that I can continue to cooperate with UNT and share with them as my time is more limited now than it has ever been in my lifetime. Since I have suffered the loss of my kidneys and am on home dialysis, which is keeping me going until I am able to receive a transplant that is scheduled to be after February of next year.

Another document I came across was an original handwritten deed that was recorded in the old court house before it burned to the ground. The deed was for land purchased in 1890 by Sanford Slayton. Sanford was a very handsome and intelligent man. However, Sanford Slayton could not write his name, and his education consisted of what he learned without pencil and paper. These Cherokee people had a son named William James Slayton who was elected to serve as the Denton County Treasurer during the late 1800's, when the limestone courthouse was built.

So much can be said and written about this family. Sanford dictated letters that described how they fought and killed the brothers to the north during the day and when night came around, they would slip around and go back and forth between the combat zone and search out friends that they could play dominoes with all night, then when they departed after the domino games, they would tell the enemy that they would see them on the battle front the next day.

Today, we call this treason, but to these boys, it is a fact that they loved the enemy as they loved themselves. They were a group of young men that were most obviously close. This family lived on what is now Black Jack road, just to the north of the Onega settlement.

During the Civil War, the old Black Jack road was not as occupied as it is today, however, there were several families in that neighborhood, which included the Cagles, Wilson, Slaytons, and Williams.

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