“My father had the urge for the frontier West, and, after two years in Mississippi, made the long journey by wagon to what is now Brown County, Texas, locating about three miles south of the present city of Brownwood. This was in 1855 before there was the town of Brownwood and before Brown County was organized,” wrote Marshall Newton in his autobiography, Prophet of the Pedernales. The book, published in 1900, details some of Marshall’s early childhood spent on the Coggin Ranch.
Newton was a Baptist preacher who travelled all over the western frontier of Texas, preaching the Word while dodging bullets, arrows and violent storms. He had some tales to tell! “My father joined the Coggin brothers, who were among the first, if not the first ranchmen in that section of the state.These men and my father remained staunch friends throughout my father’s life, and I often heard my mother speak of them in the most commendable terms,” Newton recounted.
“I was born January 3, 1864, the fourth son of the family, in a little log house some half mile from the Coggin ranch house. Some years after I began preaching, I was invited to preach for the First Baptist Church of Brownwood ; and while there I was taken by a friend to visit Sam Coggin, the only one living of the two noble brothers, and he showed me the little house where I was born.”
An interesting note on the description here about the location of the Coggin home, being ½ a mile from Newton’s birthplace, 3 miles south of Brownwood. Last week, local history expert Frank Griffin told me a little on this topic. Frank said, “I may not have all of this information correct, but the Coggin ranch house is on the end of Coggin Avenue. We looked at it many years ago, and it had what we were told was the first swimming pool in town. When it was built it was on the edge of town. A couple of blocks away on Vine is a very unusual house on the east side. White rock, with rock corrals in front. Very old. I was told by an old timer that this was the bunkhouse. I can’t verify that, but the building appears to be a bunkhouse by design.”
I had imagined the Coggin ranch house to be out near Brookesmith, but now learn it was virtually inside Brownwood. The Coggin brothers were more than just financial benefactors of Brownwood, donating land and money both to city projects and to what is now Howard Payne University–it seems at least location wise, they must have virtually founded the town.
Pastor Newton’s book contains this passage that recalls some of the difficulties faced by the pioneer family in the very early days of Brown County: “From what my mother has told me, my father dying when I was only six years old, those were conditions that tried men’s hearts—hard on men and harder on women. I have often wondered how my mother lived through those frontier experiences—neighbors at great distances, no church services, no schools, and Indians constantly invading the communities, stealing, killing, capturing and carrying away women and children.”
“One of the first things I can remember was the capture of two children, a little boy and a little girl, by the name of Ledbetter, right in our neighborhood. If they were ever recovered I do not know it. Following that tragic occurrence, Mother warned us children to stay close to the house. One day my younger brother and I, playing, ventured a little farther than usual from the house when our oldest brother slipped up behind some bushes and yelled like a Comanche Indian and almost scared the wits out of us. We heeled it to the house, and stayed closer in for a long time.”
“During and following the war there was organized what was known as the “Frontier Scouts.” The Indians came in periodically, usually during the light of the moon. One morning while Father was out with the Scouts, Mother woke us children—four little boys— and told us that the Indians were coming down the road. She put down the windows and fastened the doors. We peeped out between the logs of the house and watched them coming, one right behind the other, twenty or thirty of them, but the scouts were close behind them, and they did not have time to stop. I was certainly glad when they got by. My father came home with an arrow which had been shot into his belt, which he left hanging there so that we children might see it.”
There is more in Newton’s book that chronicles life in the early days out here, but I think I’d better not run on too much longer in one space. His writing is descriptive and well crafted, adding some vivid images for you about what life was like on the famous and sprawling Coggin Ranch in its formative stages.As it turns out, Coggin Avenue is not just a street named for the Coggin brothers, but was the actual road to the ranch house itself. My husband and I drove around a bit at the end of the street, which stops at the railroad tracks. There are some very old houses right there, some with trees that look like they were surely there when Newton was a child, watching a line of Comanches ride by from inside a log cabin. What a thing to imagine!
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Diane Adams is a local journalist whose columns appear Thursdays on BrownwoodNews.com. Comments regarding her columns can be emailed to [email protected].
