Uncle
Will Beard was born in De Soto Parish,
Louisiana, March 11, 1850. In 1869,
his family moved to Texas, settling
between Lone Oak and Point, now in Rains
County. They moved in ox-drawn
wagons and it took 25 days on the
road. Will Beard married Belle
Vercher in Hunt County, about 1879, and
four children were born to this union:
Leona, Howard, Lillie, and Myrtle.
In 1889, the Will
Beard family and Jeff and Mattie Beaird
Holt moved to Coleman County (see William
C. Holt). They each had a covered
wagon, loaded with their worldly
possessions. The move was made in
the late fall, after crops were gathered
in Rains County, and it rained on them
nearly every day. There were no
graded roads and the roads thru the Black
belt were terrible. Wagons were
stuck everywhere in the deep mud. In
many of the worst bog holes, most of the
drivers doubled their teams to pull out,
but Uncle Will and leff Holt never stuck
or had to double their teams one
time. Jeff Holt had a pair of extra
good mules, which had been trained to pull
a power thresher. He was proud of
that team. The first years in the
west were filled with plenty of
hardships. Uncle Will rented a farm
in the Liberty community and about five
miles from Santa Anna. Part of the
house was made of logs. There were log
houses occupied by families on the Calab
Grady Johnson grass field, on the C. C.
Burk place just south of the railroad and
on the farm soon owned by Jeff and Mattie
Holt. W. C. Holt, who had settled on
Mukewater Creek in 1880, or 1881, had
hauled lumber from Waco with ox teams and
erected a big house on the hill
overlooking the creek. Bob and Ellie
Campbell lived near him.
Uncle Will
recalled that the house on the place they
rented was so bad that Aunt Belle wanted
to go back to Hunt County at once, but he
said no, and they soon came to like the
country. They cleaned up the place
and made it habitable.
In 1890, Uncle
Will bought land in the Brooke Smith
pasture about two miles east of Trickham
and located in Brown County. It was
raw land, and it took much hard work to
improve the farm. The land was
black, and proved to be productive.
In time, the family had a comfortable home
and were considered prosperous and hard
working. The children attended
school at Trickham and the family went to
church there on Sundays.