CHAPTER IX
Wheelock, Robertson County, founded in 1833 was named for the founder,
Col. E.L.R. Wheelock who came west from his New England home prospecting
in the new territory. This town was one of great prominence and promise
in the early times of the colonies and missed only one vote being made
capitol of the Republic of Texas. In the full flush of expectations the
settlers of Wheelock laid out the town in the grand manner of a newly
merging city. State Street bisected the town being planned for the
capitol and for many great things to come. The community meeting house
was built on a large scale to accommodate everything from community
church meetings and fraternal order conventions to the larger political
gatherings sure to be a part of this coming city. The homes erected are
reminiscent of the homes from which the settlers had come in sections of
already settled and civilized America of the North. Some of the homes
were planned by talented architects moving with the adventurous men of
the times toward the west.
Contrary to some of the popular beliefs that everyone moving to Texas
had put on their homes or huts GTT meaning, "gone to Texas"...saying to
most that there had lived a man escaping justice, running away from
poverty, or just having a roving foot,...much of Robertson Colony were
people of means, of educations with backgrounds of culture who came out
to make a new home in the romantically beautiful Central Texas lands
abounding in game, in water, in new freedoms. There were many people of
Irish descent, doctors, teachers, landowners back in the old states who
looked to becoming cattle ranchers in abundant land of Texas and
Coahuila.
Ann Cavett Cavitt contracted with a New England architect for a three
story home to be built on the newly laid out State Street. True to his
backgrounds the architect gave the one some of the feeling of his
section of the country, taking into consideration the climate of the new
country and making an imposing home and stage step for the canny Ann to
assure herself and children a steady income no matter the fortunes of
crops or cattle.
Across the street the pink brick Georgian home of the Camerons added
dignity and beauty to the growing community. The Loves also built on
State Street a large, imposing frame home.
Between recorded fact and word of mouth recounting of the building of
the Cavitt home of Wheelock, Robertson County, Republic of Texas, there
are some discrepancies. Mrs. Robert Armstrong (Aunt Cora Cavitt) wrote
on the back of one of the best pictures of the old home place at the
time her elder son (who appears in the picture, taking his ease in
hammock) was about ten years of age, "This house built by Ann Cavitt was
started about 1838 and completed some ten years later." The exact date
is immaterial. The fine old place stands as a monument to the foresight
and planning of a sturdy young widow with seven sons whom she proposed
to see reared in the manner she and her late husband had planned they be
reared. The setting was in keeping with their former home in Tennessee.
The expectations of the community builders gave Ann the assurance of
schools, church, community cultural growth and ecconomic security which
she and Andrew had determined to establish as a family. Here she
intended her sons learn the disciplines, the patterns of work, the
functions of leadership and citizenship worthy of their place in the
scheme of things. Sometimes a hard taskmaster, Ann was respected and
loved by her sons who strove to live up to the teachings which she not
only spoke with them about but proved the soundness of by example in her
daily routine of work and self discipline. She was mindful that seven
young buys looked to her for the guidance and direction their late
father would have helped in giving to them. She determined that they be
worthy of that father and of the two grandfathers who bore identical
names, except for the last vowel....Richard Cavett, her own father, and
Richard Cavitt, Andrew's father.
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The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched.
It must be felt with the heart. Helen Keller
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Last Blue Promise...Poetry and Links to All my Web Sites
http://www.fortunecity.com/bally/meath/45/index.html
OR
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Bistro/6720/index.html
...It is in silence where music lies...
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Listowner CARRINGTON and CAVITT surnames
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