Death Comes to 100-Years-Old William Persky, Oldest Citizen of Milam County and Last of the County's Confederate Veterans; Funeral Sunday
William Persky, 100, oldest citizen of Milam county and the last Confederate veteran of the county, died at the home of his daughter, Mrs. E.J. Rinn, at Sharp on Friday night. . . .
Mr. Persky celebrated his 100th anniversary last November 21st. He was born in Germany in 1844 but at the age of six came with his family to America. They settled in Austin county, where he grew to manhood and followed the farming industry. His wife, who was Miss Theresa Rundge, also of Austin county, died fifty years ago.
Mr. Persky moved to Bell county in 1901 and remained there until nineteen years ago when he came to Sharp to make his home with his daughter. For the past few years Mr. Persky had been a semi-invalid due to his age and bad eyesight. . . . The Rockdale Reporter and Messenger (Rockdale, Tex.), Vol. 73, No. 3, Ed. 1 Thursday, February 15, 1945 Page: 1 of 8
According to Matchless Milam: History of Milam County Texas -- A Texas Sesquicentennial Edition -- compiled and edited by Milam County Heritage Preservation Society in 1984 - Milam County (Tex.) . . . On June 12, 1982, a Texas Historical Marker honoring William Carl Persky was unveiled at his gravesite in the Sharp Cemetery in Milam County. . . . the text on the marker reads as follows . . .
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| Texas Historical Marker |
A native of Germany, William Persky migrated to the United States with his family at the age of eight. He enlisted in the confederate army during the civil war and served time as a prisoner of war. A farmer, Persky lived in Austin and Bell counties before moving to this area in 1925. He lived to be 100, and at the time of his death in 1945 was the oldest resident and the last confederate veteran of Milam County. [see Historical Markers of Milam County, Texas]
. . . The new line has only been finished to Rockdale since the second day of February, and the company has not had time to complete the extensive stock yards which it is erecting; yet application has already been made by owners for the transportation of over 50,000 head of cattle. The yards, I understand, will be finished within the next week, when Rockdale must necessarily become a busy place and a great cattle centre. In fact, I see nothing to prevent its becoming one of the most important cities in the State.
It has already, in its short two weeks' existence, become a lumber market for a region of 100 miles around. The International Road runs, through the heart of the great pineries of Eastern Texas and brings to this place about twenty car-loads of lumber a day. There are already three lumber yards here doing a thriving business.
The people in this section have had heretofore nothing but oak lumber, which has cost them from $35 to $40 a thousand. Now, since the completion of the railway, they can get the best pine for $25. The result is that the planters are putting up elegant residences and abandoning the old log cabin of two rooms and a passage way between, in which they have spent their lives.
The professional wagoners, who haul the cotton from the plantations, sometimes fifty miles, instead of returning empty handed, buy a load of lumber and sell it on the way back, thus doubling their income of the ante-railway time. This place must become a considerable lumber market, as well as a centre of supplies for the rich counties that lie northwest of here, there being no other railway point within their reach.
Rockdale is situated in Milam county, thirty-five miles west of the Brazos, and in the heart of the cotton region, known as the Brazos uplands, which average a bale to a bale and a half to the acre. It is in the most thickly settled portion of Central Texas, the famous lands and wealthy population of Bell county lying on the north, and whose market and outlet Rockdale must be.
From 9 o'clock until noon to-day I counted 160 odd bales of cotton brought by wagons into the town and sold for shipment over the International and Great Northern to Galveston. And the town not two weeks old!
The cotton planting interest of the region, which must make this a shipping point, will alone be sufficient to maintain a considerable city, leaving out the cattle and lumber handling, which must be its main business.
I am not writing up a mushroom town. I am telling what I see as I go along; and I think I see another Denison, though I don't own any corner lots. When Texas becomes a great and populous State, as she must within the next few years, I am satisfied that Rockdale will be one of the big lettered names on her map. Enoch. Austin Weekly Statesman, March 19, 1874
Hence, it is with pleasure I hail the birth of Rockdale, the future distributing point for Milam, Bell, Williamson and Burleson counties ... by the completion of the Brazos bridge is connected with the outside world ... it is in the heart of one of the best agricultural districts in Texas. The town already contains from twenty to thirty houses, and is rapidly growing. Being the present terminus of this immense (rail)road, situated in a most healthy and convenient locality ... what is to prevent Rockdale from becoming one of the most important points in the interior? ... Rockdale is destined to become the great shipping point for Texas stock. Galveston Weekly News, February 9, 1874
The Galveston Daily News
Wednesday, January 11, 1893
Cut His Throat on a Train.
A Witness in the Sheriff Olive Assassination Case Commits Suicide.
Taylor, Tex., Jan. 10. -- A man named Young, between 40 and 50 years of age, and a witness for the state in the Armstrong and Olive murder trial at Georgetown, suicided on the northbound International and Great Northern at 11 o'clock this morning as the train was pulling into the Taylor yards by cutting his throat with a pocket knife. He had been to Georgetown yesterday as an attached witness in the case, and was at Echo in Bell county on the night J.T. Olive was assassinated. Soon after the train left Hutto, eight miles south of Taylor, deceased was sitting on a seat in the smoking car with Sheriff Brookshire of this county, and telling him what he knew about the case. Just before the train reached Taylor, Young left his seat, going into the closet, where the deed was committed. Young's family lives five miles north of Cameron, in Milam county. He had three or four sharp pocketknives and some silver change in his pocket when discovered.
The Rockdale Reporter. June 6, 1974. The Day the James Boys Rode into Rockdale. It was back in the year 1880 that Frank and Jesse James and three members of their gang paid a visit to Rockdale . . . . but very few people knew about their visit or who they were. The following letter from Ruth (Williams) Wildman (1905-1993), a former Rockdalian now [1974] living at 5133 Lindsay in Houston, tells an interesting story about the visit of the James gang.
My father, Edward Williams, came to Rockdale as a very young boy. Having been born in Yazoo City, Mississippi, he crossed the Mississippi River on a ferry with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Shark Williams. The family settled on a farm near Schulenberg, but later looked for greener pastures. They bought a farm near Rockdale, and there my father grew up and lived his entire life, except for one brief business adventure. Yes, a business adventure. He came into town when he was 21 years old, the year was 1880. He opened a wagon yard, and the story he told was:
On a cold winter's evening, five men rode into his wagon yard and asked what he would charge to feed and keep their horses. He gave them his price, and they replied, "Sell us a barrel of corn, and we will feed our own horses." This he did, but he locked their saddles and bridles up for the night. Each saddle had a Winchester buckled to it.
The men told my father they were going to the telegraph office to send a wire. They left and did not return until late the next afternoon. They paid my father, but asked him if he would go buy them a loaf of bread. When he returned with the bread, they were saddled and ready to ride.
One of the horses began to act-up, and one man said, "Here, trade horses with me," so they traded. As they rode out of the gate, my father remarked to the one who was on the pitching horse, "I'd sure like to own that horse." The man replied, "Yes, and a lot of others." Then the man pulled his coat back and showed my father a big side gun, and said, "They don't allow this in this town, but I'd like to see them help it." Then they rode away unnoticed, as they had ridden in.
In the meantime, there was another businessman there, under the name of Bell. He ran a livery stable. About six months to a year later, Mr. Bell decided to leave town, but before he left he said the five men who rode in that day were Frank and Jesse James, and three of their gang. They had spent the night and the following day with him. He said they spent the night talking of old times, and they rested all day. They were his friends. He was a former member of the gang, and his name was not Bell.
My father said later, "I always knew they were the James Boys." He said, "It was Frank who traded horses with Jesse, and it was Frank who showed me the side gun."
One more thing, the wagon yard was located where Phillips and Luckey Funeral Home is now [1974].
Note from the Keeper of this blog . . . back in 1974, Rockdale was celebrating its 100th birthday . . . and this was one of the local history articles that ran in the Rockdale Reporter . . . which is now celebrating the 100th anniversary of being owned and operated by the Cooke family of Rockdale . . . there seem to be quite a few stories about the James Gang among the families of the Rockdale area . . . our Henry line came to Texas from Kentucky . . . a story that has been passed down in our family says that members of the James Gang stopped for a visit at the Henry homestead in Milam County . . .
Dallas Morning News. February 4, 1944. Mrs. Sitman, 88, Dies at Her Home. Mrs. Elizabeth H. Sitman, 88, a resident of Dallas for thirty years, died at her residence, 612 Sunset, Thursday following a brief illness. A native of Louisiana, she attended school there and lived at Rockdale, Milam County, and Austin before moving to Dallas. She was the wife of the late Joseph Sitman, cotton buyer. Christian Science services will be read Saturday at 10:30 a.m. at the Guardian Funeral Chapel. Burial will be at Hillcrest Memorial Park. Surviving are two daughters, Mrs. S. G. Bell and Mrs. Minnis M. Lasater, both of Dallas; five grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. findagrave
Galveston News. Rockdale, Jan. 16, 1877.
There have been 10,100 bales of cotton shipped from Rockdale from Sept. 1st up to date. This does not include the Bell county cotton, which, before the extension of the railroad, was shipped from this point; it now goes to Taylor. Rockdale this season has done a larger business than ever before, and her merchants are all in good spirits and satisfied with the situation.
Wm. Plasters, who killed a man in the upper portion of this county last spring, the particulars of which were published in the News, has been tried and found guilty of murder in the second degree, and sent to the penitentiary for five years. He is a very wealthy cattle man, and lives in Bell county.
A heavy sleet set in about daylight this morning; at noon it was two inches thick on the ground. Heads up has been the order of the day, and a few hurriedly constructed sleighs have been out.
