More about Gunsight and area settlers

My apologies, I got out of order on my columns. This is “More about Gunsight” that should have followed the Gunsight column of July 15.

As stated previously, the historic wagon road, where Gunsight was located, was an early Butterfield Stagecoach stop on the historic wagon road on the California Trail between Ft. Griffin and Stephenville.

Initially, Charlie and Mary Jane (Andrews) McIntire brought their three sons, Walter Andrew, Lonnie and William to Somerville County, near Glen Rose, about 1880. Walter A. McIntire was a small boy when his two older brothers were struck by lightning and killed. By the time he was 12, he struck out on his own and initially went to the Oklahoma Territory and worked on a sawmill. Subsequently, the Oil Boom hit this area and he came to Ranger and worked as a pumper. By this time, he was married and had three children. Unfortunately, his wife died and he was left with the three children to raise. Eventually, he ended up at Gunsight running a pump station, where he met and married another widow, who also was left with children to raise on her own, in 1922. This young widow had been the wife of Rufus Broyles. As a result, W.A. McIntire became part of the historic Gunsight families of Booher and Broyles. Their son, W.A. McIntire, married Lenora Grace Lewis, in 1946. They had four children, Ronnie, Myra, Fayla and Monte McIntire. Lenora is the one who researched and wrote the information for the historic marker at the Gunsight Cemetery. Her daughter, Myra (McIntire) Hall, compiled the book about Gunsight; “Gunsight, Texas: The Legacy Lives On.” Many of the McIntire descendants continue to live and ranch in Stephens County on the land originally owned by the Booher, Broyles and McIntire families.

The family of John Wesley McWilliams came to Texas in 1872 and subsequently made their way to the Gunsight area by 1876. He married Susan Ann Walker and they had five children. Rosa Lee McWilliams married Charlie Baggett, her sister, Sallie, married Hol Baggett and brother Bill married Emma Josephine Shepard. Their sister Pearl married John Andrew Taylor and their youngest sister, Mollie, had married John Dye. John and Pearl Taylor had four children before they met an untimely death. Subsequently, Pearl’s family took in the children. Rosa and Charlie Baggett took Edith to raise, along with their own flock of seven children. Sallie and Hol Baggett took Alvis to raise. Bill’s widow, Emma, now married to Charlie Richardson, took in LeRoy and sister Mollie and husband, John Dye, took George.

Emma and Charlie Richardson were farmers and had a tank for all the kids to swim. She was known for her cooking and cold drinks. They had four children of their own before taking in LeRoy. Sallie and Hol Baggett also farmed, but later moved to Cisco. They had seven children of their own before adding Alvis McWilliams to the brood.

Great-grandad McWilliams lived close to all the girls and their families and he would walk around to check on each one of them during the week. Charlie Baggett was well-known as a carpenter and had built their home close to the hill, with a dugout into the hill, which was connected to the house.

Mollie became part of the historic Dye family when she married John Dye. His father, James Dye, came to the Gunsight area in 1880 when he purchased 150 acres for $27. In 1885, he sold the land to Mr. Ward for $500. Then, 10 years later, his son, John Dye, bought that same tract of land for $1,000. John Dye’s parents both died within a month of each other and he was left, at age 17, to raise his five younger siblings, with the help of his grandmother.

John made sorghum syrup and Gunn Loudder trucked it everywhere to sell. Dye was known to be very innovative when he built a 30-acre lake to irrigate his crops and his orchard of 1,000 fruit trees. He also grew his own sugar cane and built a syrup mill to process the sugar cane crop into sorghum syrup to be sold. Dye’s other innovations included a motorized ice cream freezer and an electric generator. Dye also invented a power lawnmower long before those came out commercially. Dye also built a much-needed store at Gunsight, where area residents could purchase needed items along with peaches from his fruit trees. Their eldest son, R.E. ‘Eddie’ Dye must have inherited that same innovative mind. He was in business for himself before he was 20 years of age, with his welding torch and his own imagination that helped establish R.E. Dye Manufacturing Corporation that recently celebrated their 100th anniversary of being in business in Stephens County.

At one time, there was a Dye School at Dyeville, where many of the Dye children attended school. Descendants of the Dye family still live on the land originally settled by James Dye, another pioneer family, and descendants con-tinue to operate Dye Manufacturing Corp.

Other settlers in the Gunsight area were W.T. Johnston in 1878 and the family of Nimrod Beverley Tolle and Sara Elizabeth (Petty) Tolle. They settled on a railroad land grant adjacent to Duck Creek (later re-named Gunsolus Creek). The couple had left Missouri in 1876 and were headed to California to look for gold. Weary traveling, they stopped at Gunsight and subsequently settled there instead. The couple raised three children in a one-room log cabin. The children were Nathaniel Washington Tolle, Albert and Georgia Tolle. Descendant, Hubert Dwain Tolle, was born in Stephens County and later became the City Manager for Breckenridge. His wife, Carolyn (Tate)Tolle of Abilene, was a coach and teacher at Breckenridge Junior High for more than 30 years.

N.W. (Nat) Tolle married the daughter of James Benson and Sarah (Nixon) McCleskey, whose young son was the first person buried in the Gunsight Cemetery, in 1877. The original McCleskey couple had helped establish Gunsight by donating land for a school, church and the cemetery.

Also arriving in Gunsight in 1877 were three brothers: W.B., John and Gordon Tomlinson, along with J.N. Lamb and another pair of brothers, W. H. and J.T. Watson.

Troy Maxwell and Opal Faye Hinson are both buried in the Gunsight Cemetery. Historic records indicate that Wesley and May Hinson donated some land to expand the Gunsight Cemetery, in 1968. Later, in 1992, their children donated another 50 feet for the cemetery. At one time, there was a Hinson and Son Grocery Store and Gas Station at Gunsight, located two miles north of Gunsight on Highway 183 south. It was located there from 1940 to about 1947.

If you have additional information on early ancestors, contact Jean Hayworth at office@breckenridgeamerican.com.