Squeezepenny - east of Melissa
OVER COLLIN CO. ON THE WING
McKinney Daily Courier Gazette, April 25, 1952
by Capt. Roy F. Hall
Nobody knows how Squeezepenny got its name. This writer was told several different source facts for this, but none of them elite enough to bear the scrutiny of an educated public - a sensitive public, that is. Anyway the place got its start in 1855 when William Hampton and family came there from Bonham and established a mill. This mill ground corn and carded wool for yarn. During the Civil War the mill actually made cloth to supply the Confederate forces in the Indian Territory. It became quite famous as the Hampton & Harris mill. Horse powered.
Mr. and Mrs. Hampton had one son and six daughter, of which the late Mrs. Jesse Orenduff was one. He later moved to Weston, and the mill passed into the hands, eventually, of Tom Craft, who had come from Alabama to old Pilot Grove, and then to Squeezepenny. Mr. Craft turned the mill into a grist mill and cotton gin, and it remained as such till about 1900, when it was abandoned, and the machinery sold. Not a vestige of the old mill remains today.
Squeezepenny never had a school, church or other public building, and only one little store, run by Joe Bassham for a few years. The school children have always gone to the Melissa school nearly four miles away. There has never been even a collection of houses there, yet the place is known far and wide. Squeezepenny, sitting under the long hill to the east, is a locality, but a locality with a name. The long hill mentioned had so many settlers right after the Civil War from the North that it took the name of Lincoln Ridge and was known by that name for a half century.
Mr. Craft, who operated the gin and grist mill for years, had eight children, one of whom, Bud, still lives on the old place. Bud, the eldest of the children, married Myrtle Bassham, daughter of Joe Bassham, and they have lived in the same house at Squeezepenny for 55 years. Mr. and Mrs. Craft have seven children, all married and living within driving distance. One of them, Raymond, lives in the old Tom Craft homestead, built ? years ago.
Others living in the vicinity are Jack Holmes and family, Caleb Craft, Burch Stiles, who lives in the old J. D. Neal home; Elmer Wallace, Alonzo Hughes, Joe Clark, on the old Jonah Miller place; and Winifred Moore. Alta Wallace lives in the old Wallace home.
The J. D. Neal place mentioned was built by Mr. Neal in 1908. At that time it contained 177 acres of virgin timber, and some of it the largest in the county. This writer saw oak trees on the place that were at least ten feet in diameter. Steve Latham was the contractor who built the house, and Mr. Neal selected all the lumber, not accepting a piece that had so much as a knot in it. Wills Neal, president of the Collin County National bank is his son.
When Mr. Craft came in possession of the mill he installed steam power, hauling the big boiler out from McKinney by several yoke of oxen. As we know gins now, it was rather elementary, but up-to-date then. The gin floor was high enough off the ground so that the press could be placed under it. The cotton was carried from the wagons by wicker baskets up the steps and dumped in the gin hoppers for ginning. It had three gin stands, and turned out about all the cotton that was brought to it in one day. Saturdays were given over to grinding corn, which was rather slow, the meal running out in a stream the size of a pencil. Those bringing corn to grind did not mind though. It was Saturday and Saturday in the old days was a semI-holiday to the hard working people of Collin County.
The people of that locality have always been hard workers. One time not too long ago, this writer was passing through there and, seeing some of Mr. Bud Craft's children picking cotton, went out in the field to talk to them. One of them, a girl some twelve years old, saw me coming and hastily took off some old ragged knee pads she was wearing and put them out of sight in her cotton sack. As they picked along with me walking with them, the pads worked down to a hold in the sack. I had no idea what they were, and made some anxious inquiries-they looked for all the world like somebody had been stuffed down in the cotton. The little girl was greatly embarrassed when her sister divulged her secret. That little girl, if you wish to know, is now the wife of Shaffer Jones and drives a Cadillac car.
On the old Neal homestead, mentioned, is the site of the only stagecoach robbery, or attack we have record of as occurring in Collin County. This is the supposedly haunted crossing, mentioned in these columns before. Here it was during the Civil War that a traveler and his small son was killed by the patrol from McKinney one moonlight night 90-some-odd years ago. The old road still ran over the rock crossing till Mr. Neal had it moved westward to its present location about 1910.
McKinney Daily Courier Gazette, April 25, 1952
by Capt. Roy F. Hall
Nobody knows how Squeezepenny got its name. This writer was told several different source facts for this, but none of them elite enough to bear the scrutiny of an educated public - a sensitive public, that is. Anyway the place got its start in 1855 when William Hampton and family came there from Bonham and established a mill. This mill ground corn and carded wool for yarn. During the Civil War the mill actually made cloth to supply the Confederate forces in the Indian Territory. It became quite famous as the Hampton & Harris mill. Horse powered.
Mr. and Mrs. Hampton had one son and six daughter, of which the late Mrs. Jesse Orenduff was one. He later moved to Weston, and the mill passed into the hands, eventually, of Tom Craft, who had come from Alabama to old Pilot Grove, and then to Squeezepenny. Mr. Craft turned the mill into a grist mill and cotton gin, and it remained as such till about 1900, when it was abandoned, and the machinery sold. Not a vestige of the old mill remains today.
Squeezepenny never had a school, church or other public building, and only one little store, run by Joe Bassham for a few years. The school children have always gone to the Melissa school nearly four miles away. There has never been even a collection of houses there, yet the place is known far and wide. Squeezepenny, sitting under the long hill to the east, is a locality, but a locality with a name. The long hill mentioned had so many settlers right after the Civil War from the North that it took the name of Lincoln Ridge and was known by that name for a half century.
Mr. Craft, who operated the gin and grist mill for years, had eight children, one of whom, Bud, still lives on the old place. Bud, the eldest of the children, married Myrtle Bassham, daughter of Joe Bassham, and they have lived in the same house at Squeezepenny for 55 years. Mr. and Mrs. Craft have seven children, all married and living within driving distance. One of them, Raymond, lives in the old Tom Craft homestead, built ? years ago.
Others living in the vicinity are Jack Holmes and family, Caleb Craft, Burch Stiles, who lives in the old J. D. Neal home; Elmer Wallace, Alonzo Hughes, Joe Clark, on the old Jonah Miller place; and Winifred Moore. Alta Wallace lives in the old Wallace home.
The J. D. Neal place mentioned was built by Mr. Neal in 1908. At that time it contained 177 acres of virgin timber, and some of it the largest in the county. This writer saw oak trees on the place that were at least ten feet in diameter. Steve Latham was the contractor who built the house, and Mr. Neal selected all the lumber, not accepting a piece that had so much as a knot in it. Wills Neal, president of the Collin County National bank is his son.
When Mr. Craft came in possession of the mill he installed steam power, hauling the big boiler out from McKinney by several yoke of oxen. As we know gins now, it was rather elementary, but up-to-date then. The gin floor was high enough off the ground so that the press could be placed under it. The cotton was carried from the wagons by wicker baskets up the steps and dumped in the gin hoppers for ginning. It had three gin stands, and turned out about all the cotton that was brought to it in one day. Saturdays were given over to grinding corn, which was rather slow, the meal running out in a stream the size of a pencil. Those bringing corn to grind did not mind though. It was Saturday and Saturday in the old days was a semI-holiday to the hard working people of Collin County.
The people of that locality have always been hard workers. One time not too long ago, this writer was passing through there and, seeing some of Mr. Bud Craft's children picking cotton, went out in the field to talk to them. One of them, a girl some twelve years old, saw me coming and hastily took off some old ragged knee pads she was wearing and put them out of sight in her cotton sack. As they picked along with me walking with them, the pads worked down to a hold in the sack. I had no idea what they were, and made some anxious inquiries-they looked for all the world like somebody had been stuffed down in the cotton. The little girl was greatly embarrassed when her sister divulged her secret. That little girl, if you wish to know, is now the wife of Shaffer Jones and drives a Cadillac car.
On the old Neal homestead, mentioned, is the site of the only stagecoach robbery, or attack we have record of as occurring in Collin County. This is the supposedly haunted crossing, mentioned in these columns before. Here it was during the Civil War that a traveler and his small son was killed by the patrol from McKinney one moonlight night 90-some-odd years ago. The old road still ran over the rock crossing till Mr. Neal had it moved westward to its present location about 1910.
