Athens woman takes trip down memory lane

By Cheril Vernon Special to the Review

An Athens woman was treated to a trip down memory lane in Palestine recently for her 89th birthday.

On Nov. 6, Maxine Watts Rhodes took a motorcycle trip from Athens to Palestine with her son Ronnie Rhodes of Taylor to see the Hudson Log House on display in the old gymnasium at the Museum for East Texas Culture.

Rhodes played in the log cabin as a child when it was located at its original site in the (Ioni Creek) Denson Springs community.

“At the time, the log cabin was owned by O.B. Lively and we lived near them,” Rhodes said during a phone interview. “Us kids used to play in the old cabin.”

The Hudson Log House was built for Ingram and Elizabeth Hudson in 1857. In 1986, it was dismantled and moved to the Museum for East Texas Culture. The log house was donated to the museum by W.W. Perry of Granbury and Lorena Shoultz of Grapeland. Shoultz was the great-granddaughter of the original owners.

Rhodes had asked her son to take her to Palestine for her birthday to see the log cabin for the first time since childhood, while also visiting two of her cousins Woodrow Watts and Jack Watts at Dogwood Trails Assisted Living facility.

“My cousins had seen the cabin and they thought I would be interested in seeing it too,” Rhodes said.

Rhodes can recall several memories about the log house which featured a dog trot in the center. She remembers that at one time the cabin had a fireplace in one of the rooms. Near the mantle was a hole cut out for a tin can “phone.” At the time she played in the cabin, it was empty.

Why a tin can “phone”? Rhodes said just as Boy Scouts learn today, the tin can with a string led to another tin can at the next house when the flu was prevalent. If a person at one of the homes had the flu or other sickness, they would use the tin can “phone” to communicate so they didn’t spread the sickness. If their neighbors needed something, they would communicate with their neighbor, and they would place the items halfway between the two homes for retrieval.

At one point around 1917, Rhodes’ father owned part of the cabin. He sold his part to Wiley Watts in 1918, Rhodes said.

On her visit to the museum to see the log house, Rhodes said she was taken back in time as the memories of her childhood flooded over her.

“It was so lovely seeing the log cabin again and look inside it,” Rhodes said. “The people at the museum were so helpful.”

The museum staff was even more surprised that Rhodes took the trip on her son’s motorcycle.

“It was a large motorcycle with wide wheels, so it made the trip real comfortable,” Rhodes said. “My son checked the miles when we got back and roundtrip it was 89 miles — on my 89th birthday.”

According to history from historian Carl Avera, on May 9, 1986, Shoultz purchased the log house for $500 from Mrs. Ben Webb, who then owned the house. Shoultz then donated it to the museum. The house was disassembled and later rebuilt in the old gym. Presently, the house is furnished to appear lived in by a family. It is one of the more popular museum exhibits and the setting for several weddings.

Other families who lived in the Hudson Log House included: Claude Sadler, Claude Cliburn and Ham West. Diamond Capps also lived there. Ben Webb, who later purchased the farm, was a direct descendant of Capps. The Wests were the parents of Mrs. Webb. Mr. and Mrs. Webb lived in the house for six years. Before the Wests purchased the property, it was owned by Lively.

A historian from Strecker Museum in Waco told Avera that the Hudson Log House was “one of the finest hand-hewn log cabins ever seen.” The logs are one foot wide and hand hewn. Before it was disassembled and moved to the museum, the house had been moved back on the Webb farm and used for storage. Webb was one of the last cane syrup makers in Anderson County, according to Avera.

When the house was brought to the museum, the director at the time, the late Drew Davis, envisioned the house furnished as a home.

“The Hudson Log House honors the courageous pioneer spirit of Ingram and Elizabeth Hudson and all the brave pioneers who came to build their homes, establish towns, and who set the framework to make Anderson County what it is today,” Avera wrote in the historical piece about the Hudson Log House.

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