Folkstuff - Life sketch - Relics of Pioneer days, FOLKWAYS, William V. [Irvin, P.W.?], Glen Rose, Somorvell County, District # 8 reported, No. of words [?], File [?], Page 1, Reference, Consultant - Hogan Reeves, Glen Rose, Texas Dr. J.H. Reeves.

In 1869 Dr. J.H. Reeves, grandfather of Hogan Reeves, came to what is now Somervell County from Fannin County, Texas; where he had originally come from Tennessee. He settled near the Brazos River a few miles from Barnard's Mill, which is now the town of Glen Rose, county seat of Somervell County. The first public road leading from Glen Rose to [Clabourne?] on the east passed just in front of the home Dr. Reeves built and crossed the river nearby. For a number of years Wm. Reeves, a brother of Dr. Reeves, operated a ferry at the crossing.

Dr. Reeves enjoyed a considerable medical practice for so sparsely settled a section, and had patients in Claburne. He also farmed on his place near the Brazos.

The doctor and his wife came to this section of the country in a [one-seated?], two-wheeled, one-horse cart which the doctor himself made. The wheels and axle of the cart are still at his home place, now owned by his grandsons. The workmanship and materials of the wheels and axle are excellent, and they have the appearance almost of having been made by a professional vehicle manufacturer. These remaining parts of the old cart are now nearing the century mark in age.

The old house built by Dr. Reeves still stands and is where his grandsons now live. It is reached by a winding road through the rocky hills and dense cedar brakes which after penetrating a thicket of oak trees comes into an open lonely, hidden spot where the old house stands with the dark woods along the banks of the turbid and treacherous river looming not far off, the locality seeming a fit hideout for desperadoes rather than the home of law-abiding, hospitable citizens such as the Reeves brothers.

There are still about the place a number of articles the doctor made and used including an armchair of skillful design and workmanship. It has an arm broadened at the outer end for writing, a small brass lamp fitted to a wooden holder which in turn is fitted to a slot in the chair arm which made the chair a convenient writing place at night. There was also another trim, well-made chair which the doctor had constructed.

[A tow-sack?] of large, delicious pecans was brought out by one of the brothers for the visitors' refreshment. Then presently another such sack with a similar subdued [clatter?] and rattle to that of the pecans was placed nearby. The visitors, having even bigger pecans in mind, investigated. Not pecans, bones, human bones! A skeleton had been unearthed on the farm and no one seemed to know whose it had been. Of course some ill-disposed person might say it was one of the good doctor's mistakes he had buried.

The object that would perhaps stimulate the observer's imagination the most violently was the old-fashioned toothpuller intended to be operated by home talent. It looked like a [persuader?] right out of a medieval torture chamber. A hook, claw-like and curved in the shape of the letter C, is attached hinge-fashion to a small, round rod five or six inches long with a bulge where the hook is. A handle placed crosswise on the end of the rod opposite the end, where the hook is fastened, enabled the operator after the hook was caught on the tooth, to turn the rod until -- but it is hardly necessary to go into the horrific details. This vicious-looking instrument when in use must have caused some grand home-talent yelling.