Butler, Texas?

Subject: Butler, Texas? Mon 12 Nov 2007, 11:52 pm

A nice way to encounter history is by method of serendipity or, 'catch it as it comes to you.' Let history itself point you in the right direction. While we tend toward ordering the past choronologically, the mind does not object to holding what enters it at random, to be placed sequentially at a later date (no pun intended).

So, here comes Butler, Texas, and her former folk. There is a little town of Butler just west of the Trinity River in Freestone County, and an even tinier version down in Bastrop. We (a fellow learner and I) think it is a Butler we are looking for, as this writer seems to have produced a scripted 'e' which was a dead ringer for an 'r.'

http://i22.servimg.com/u/f22/11/26/71/51/note_110.jpg

http://i22.servimg.com/u/f22/11/26/71/51/note_210.jpg

Butler the Larger is Freestone is said by some to have a population of about 46. The Handbook of Texas online is a little more generous (depending on one's perspective):

http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/BB/hnbaf.html

Up the the north a way, above the country seat of Fairfield, lies Steward's Mill. A lovely old church-house is still standing there:

http://www.tx-wooddell.net/structures/stewardsmill.jpg

But what of the Bragg general store, built in 1867? In his 1988-edition of 'Eyes of Texas Travel Guide: Dallas/ East Texas,' Ray Miller provided a photo of the once-busy mercantile closed and covered with vines; not a very promising view Crying or Very sad

And the Moody-Bradley House (1860) in Fairifeld itself: has anyone ever visited it .... perhaps during the Trinity Star Pilgrimage, held in May (Madelyn?)?

http://paintandgutters.com/page4.html

This beautiful old place is quite typical of antebellum plantations, and other early, 'up-scale' homes in East Texas, I believe.
_________________
The woman of the frontier made the best of her situation, for she had developed a respect for the land that gave her freedom as well as the courage to live in it.
~~~ from the perspective of Anne Seagraves