A letter from 1892

A couple of weeks ago, whilst making my usual rounds at some area antique stores, I came upon a collection of interesting historical oddities. These were a decent-sized stack of old nineteenth-century letters, carefully unfolded and presented with their original envelopes inside sealed plastic Ziplock bags. The correspondence varied, consisting mostly of everyday life updates, but there were also business-related items and even some love letters included in the mix. Most were from senders inside the state of Texas, and a few were even addressed to recipients located right here in Dallas. I thumbed through the stack, looking at each item in turn, and ultimately decided I would buy one with a Wood Street address. Within the correspondence I saw references to what seemed to be the State Fair of Texas, and I was intrigued.

Later, after removing the contents of my purchase from the Ziplock bag and examining them more closely, I realized that I actually had two letters, not one as I had initially assumed. The date written on the longer of the two was October 19, 1892. The date on the other letter was stated as October 24th with no year given, and the postmark on the envelope, sent from Waco, Texas, appeared to read "Oct 25." The letters themselves, I soon came to realize, were much more interesting than I had originally anticipated.

I've transcribed the contents of the correspondence as best I can; bear in mind that the original text is handwritten in cursive using a fountain pen and inkwell, and can occasionally be difficult to decipher. Here is the second, and shorter, of the two:

Waco, Texas,

Monday, Oct. 24th

Dear friend Horton: -

In good faith I wrote you last week that I should attend the Fair and would be there next Friday but a turn in affairs causes me to write you this short note tonight before I retire saying that I cannot come at all as far as I see and know now. Ma had the ill fortune to have $30 stolen from her and it behooves me to temper my pleasure with prudence, and so I give up my trip. I am sorry to disappoint you, my dear friend, but I shall see you Christmas possibly. Don't expect me therefore. I wanted to hear Liberati more than anything else. Write me about it all. I am getting along well. Shall expect to hear from you soon.

Your friend,
H.L. Hargrove

Jones said he saw you while there.

Alongside the previous letter was a much longer piece of correspondence, likewise handwritten but apparently dated five days prior. Based on the fold patterns on the paper, it may not have been posted at the same time as its earlier counterpart, inside the same envelope, although I can't be sure. This one gives additional background on the planned visit and provides a much clearer picture of the individuals involved, their backgrounds, and their relationship to each other:

24 Chalmers Block,

Waco, Texas,

Oct. 19, '92

Dear friend Horton: -

Your kind letter was read with interest Saturday. I am so pressed with work now, getting up songs and exercises for Columbus Day, that I cannot write a good letter, but as I expect to attend the Fair, I shall see you face to face and talk with you and that will be much better. My work is so that I had to arrange to attend the Fair on the 29 instead of the 22, and I have written Leslie and Dock to meet me there then. I suppose I shall see as much as I want to [illegible]. So, nothing preventing, I shall come Friday evening, Oct. 28, starting from here at 3:30 P.M. on the "Katy." I shall gladly accept an invitation to room with you and take meals at your place at the usual rates, and I should like for you to engage same for Leslie and Dock for one day and night. I may write you further if anything new comes up. Give Miss Henderson my love and tell her I hope to see her when I come. My work is very satisfactory now. I am so glad you are pleased. You must be careful when you dine at the McLeod not to drink the water from the finger bowl. Why, man, you are scaling the heights already! Well listen to me! I have found a cousin in the person of Prof. Ferguson, the most popular principal here, and the next most probable Supt [Superintendent], and I sang at the First Christian Church Lay service last night. I ran upon old Wilkerson of '89 there. He is teaching near here. I guess you will take in the Fair of afternoons and nights. Well see and hear all you can and tell me of what I miss. Can I make the trip for five dollars? I want to.

I am reading in Paine's English Literature now. Will start them in Shakespeare soon. Oh! but were you not sorry to hear of Lord Tennyson's death? Who can write an "In Memoriam" for him? Tennyson is a reality to me and he has sweetened my life with his poetry.

I should be glad for you to meet my train if you are not busy. If you do not, I shall come directly to your room and see about board. If I cannot get it there, please have some place in view for me and the boys. I want to make them enjoy it greatly! Little is doing fine study.

I should be glad for you to answer this before I come if you feel like it.

Your true friend
H.L. Hargrove

So just who were these evidently good friends who undertook to correspond with each other in the early 1890s? Based on the content of the letters, historical city directories from both Waco and Dallas, and some additional online digging, it appears that the individuals in question were none other than Henry Lee Hargrove and Millard F. Horton. Horton, the recipient, was a teacher at Dallas's Central High School, the predecessor of the landmark Dallas High School building which sits today on the same site at 2218 Bryan Street (at the time, the address was 264 Bryan St). The current building, designed in a Classical Revival style by the firm of Lang and Witchell, also responsible for many other buildings downtown, operated as a school under various names until 1995, when it was shuttered as Business Management Magnet Center. Today the main building functions as a mixed-use space for office and retail. Horton's address of 311 Wood Street, seen on the front of the envelope, is today taken up by the AT&T building off Field Street between Jackson and Wood, the original apartments having long, long ago been demolished.

And what of the sender, Henry Lee Hargrove? Here is where the story gets more interesting. Hargrove is today remembered as a one-time chairman of the Baylor University English department and as an eventual missionary to China. According to Baylor's website, he studied at Peabody College and taught English at the university beginning in 1893, before taking a break to attend Yale to earn his doctorate. The Waco city directory of 1894 does indeed list Hargrove, Henry L. as "teacher Baylor university, r. 1801 S. 9th cor Wood." But in 1892, Hargrove was at Waco High School, teaching English to students there. This is consistent with the references in his letter to Paine's English literature, Shakespeare, and the then-recently deceased Lord Alfred Tennyson, Poet Laureate.

Based on what I've found online, Hargrove only spent a single year at the high school before making his move into higher education, so the two letters in my possession caught him right at the beginning of his tenure as an educator. Presumably both he and Horton attended school together at some point, based on inferences that can be easily drawn from his written text and the references to various named individuals they both appear to have known. The "Katy" would have referred to the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, which ran between three states with connections in both Waco and Dallas. In fact, the "Katy Building," still standing today in Dallas's West End at 701 Commerce Street, was once the local headquarters for the railroad, and the present-day Katy Trail follows the original alignment of the track through Dallas.

And so in the end, a chance antique store find has shown itself to be quite a fascinating window into state and local history.

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