Bob Bowman , of Lufkin, simply calls himself a collector. He collects forgotten towns, historic murders, East Texas trivia, good ol' boy expressions, and the "bests" of East Texas history. Texas Monthly, in fact, calls him the best collector of Texas bests. He and his wife Doris have written more than 40 books about East Texas history and folklore and are working on four more. Bob also writes a history column for about 80 East Texas newspapers and is the great-great-great grandson of an Alamo defender, Jesse B. Bowman. He is also a past president of the East Texas Historical Association, and a former member of the Texas Historical Commission, the Texas Sesquicentennial Commission and the Texas Capitol Centennial Commission. Both Bob and Doris have also served as chairs of the Texas Council for the Humanities.He can be reached at www.bob-bowman.com .

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Unique Town Names

Abraham P. Lufkin, a prominent farmer of North Yarmouth, holding the office of Town Treasurer, was born upon the farm he now owns and occupies, March 28, 1834, son of William and Sarah (Batchelder) Lufkin.

Mr. Lufkin's father was a native and lifelong resident of North Yarmouth, where he was engaged in agricultural pursuits. Energetic and. persevering, he never lost an opportunity for advancement; and his prosperity was the result of his untiring efforts. In politics he was originally a Whig. Later he supported the principles of the Republican Party, and he possessed an intelligent understanding of important political questions of his day. He was highly esteemed as a worthy and useful citizen, who took a deep interest in the general welfare of the community and was always active in forwarding measures conducive to the public welfare: William Lufkin died at the age of eighty-two years. He was a Congregationalist in his religious views and a member and a liberal supporter of that church in North Yarmouth. His wife, whose maiden name was Sarah Batchelder, was a native of North Yarmouth. They reared two children, namely: Abraham P., the subject of this sketch; and Sarah E., who is a resident of North Yarmouth. Mrs. Sarah B. Lufkin, like her husband, lived to reach the age of eighty-two.

Abraham P. Lufkin received his education in the district schools of his native town, and at an early age he began to assist in carrying on the farm. He became proficient in the improved methods of agricultural development, and since succeeding to the ownership of the home farm has conducted it with ability and success. His property, which is desirably located, consists of sixty acres of fertile land; and he devotes his time and attention to general farming, his crops being among the best in his locality. He has long occupied a position of prominence in local public affairs, possessing qualifications which make him especially eligible to responsible offices of trust; and he not only served as a member of the Board of Selectmen for seven years, but has officiated as Town Treasurer with ability and faithfulness for a number of terms. He is a Republican in politics.

On October 19, 1858, Mr. Lufkin was united in marriage with Lucy C. Hayes, who was born in North Yarmouth, February, 23, 1835. She is a daughter of the late David and Lydia Hayes. Mr. and Mrs. Lufkin have two children, as follows: Margaret A., an adopted daughter, who is now the wife of Sidney A. Rich, and resides in Lynn, Mass., and Grace N., who married Edwin M. McIntyre, and is living in North Yarmouth.

Mr. Lufkin is pleasantly situated at his comfortable home, and enjoys a well-

merited prosperity as the result of his labors. He is a general social favorite, being connected with the Knights of Pythias of Yarmouth; and he and his wife are members of the Congregational church. Biography

By: Bob Bowman
Beneath the pulpit of an East Texas country church, far from the saddle-sloped mountains of his beloved Kentucky, Littleton Fowler lies at rest.

He has been dead since 1846, the martyr of an exacting era, but his spirit and works still course through the bloodstream of Texas Methodism.

Fowler was a circuit rider, missionary, marksman, chaplain of the Texas Senate and a brilliant pulpiteer who rode and walked thousands of miles between the Sabine River and San Antonio to found many of Texas’ Methodist churches.

Licensed to preach in 1826, he volunteered for service in the Republic of Texas in 1836, but illness delayed his departure.

He arrived in time to help build the first church building at McMahan’s Chapel near San Augustine. Founded in 1833, and acknowledged as the birthplace of Texas Methodism, the church became Fowler’s headquarters as he carried the faith throughout Texas, including what he called “pagan Houston.”

In 1833 at San Augustine, he stood with a Republic military hero, Thomas J. Rusk, to dedicate the town’s First Methodist Church. He wrote in his diary that the church was the first Protestant church ever laid west of the Sabine, where Texans were lately under a government of religious and civil depotism.”

He said since the birth of time, no cornerstone of a Protestant church had been laid between this and the Isthmus of Panama, the Pacific Ocean, and the southern extremities of South America.

Fowler enthusiastically labeled the event as “the beginning of Protestantism west of the Sabine...and she will march on westward with blessings for our race.”

The same year, however, Fowler’s evangelistic zeal dimmed when, as the chaplain for the Texas Senate, he accompanied a band of politicians on a steamboat trip from Houston to Galveston.

In his journal, he described the trip:

“I saw men in high life...if what I saw and heard were a fair representation, my God, keep me from such scenes in the future....”

On the ship’s return on Sunday afternoon, he said “about half of the men on board got wildly drunk and stripped themselves to their linen and pantaloons...their bacchanalian revels and bloodcurdling profanity made the pleasure boat a living hell. I was relapsed from the trip and brought nearly to the valley of death.”

In 1846, Fowler became seriously ill while preaching at Douglas in Nacogdoches County. He was carried to his home at McMahan’s Chapel and on January 29, he died from an acute infection.

But he retained his fervency to the very end.

As his wife leaned over to his deathbed, he asked, “Who’s there?”

“Your unhappy wife,” she said.

“Ah,” he sighed just before he died, “I thought it was an angel.”

By: Bob Bowman
When historians in Southeast Texas unveiled a Texas State Historical Marker for Ivory Joe Hunter at a cemetery near Kirbyville, they stirred memories of one of America’s greatest musicians.

Born in Kirbyville in 1915, Hunter developed an early interest in music from his father, Dave Hunter, who played guitar, and his gospel-singing mother. When he was 13, Hunter’s parents died and the already accomplished pianist went to live with relatives at Port Arthur.

In the early 1940s, Hunter had his own radio show on Beaumont’s KFDM, where he eventually became program manager. In 1942, he moved to Los Angeles and joined Johnny Moore’s group, The Three Blazers.

While with the Blazers, Hunter wrote and recorded his first song, “Blues at Sunset” for his own label, Ivory Records. The song soon became a regional hit.

Hunter later founded Pacific Records, but it failed and he went on to record for Four Star Records and King Records. Hunter had his first rhythm and blues hits with Duke Ellington’s band.

He later signed with MGM Records and wrote the hit, “Since I Met You Baby,” which was recorded by Pat Boone. By 1954 he had recorded more than 100 songs, including “Since I Lost You Baby,” his first crossover from the R&B charts to the pop charts, where the song reached number 13.

When Hunter’s popularity began to decline, he made a comeback as a country music artist in the 1960s and made regular appearances on the Grand Ole Opry.

Elvis Presley put two of Hunter’s songs in the top 20, “My Wish Came True” and “Ain’t That Loving You, Baby.” Presley later recorded three other Hunter compositions.

But Hunter will remain best known for “I Almost Lost My Mind,” which has been recorded by nearly 50 musicians, including Pat Boone, Nat King Cole, Fats Domino, Connie Francis, Bill Haley, Lionel Hampton, Woody Herman, Barbara Mandrell, Willie Nelson, Louis Prima, Charlie Rich and Conway Twitty.

Hunter died from lung cancer in 1974 at Memphis and was buried in Magnolia Springs Cemetery near Kirbyville.

By: Bob Bowman
A friend sent our family a couple of Moon Pies a few days ago. Our first reaction was: "Are Moon Pies still being made today?"

If you’re older than sixty, you may remember the delicious taste of a Moon Pie that you experienced as a youngster.

A Moon Pie is a pastry consisting of two round graham cracker cookies, with marshmallow filling in the center, dipped in vanilla or other flavors. The traditional pie is about the diameter of a hockey puck. A smaller version (mini Moon Pies) is about half the size.

The four main flavors are chocolate, vanilla, grape, and blueberry. Three newer flavors, lemon, orange, and peanut butter are also available.

The moon pie was invented around 1917 by a bakery in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but the product's origin is undocumented.

Earl Mitchell, Sr. was identified as the possible creator by his son. Mr. Mitchell reportedly conceived the moon pie as a snack for coal miners in Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia.

In the South, a common phrase is: "Give me an RC Cola and a Moon Pie," but it is uncertain where the tradition of eating moon pies with RC Cola originated

On New Year's eve 2008, the city of Mobile, Alabama raised a 12-foot tall lighted mechanical moon pie to celebrate the coming of the new year. The giant banana-colored Moon Pie was raised by a crane to a height of 200 feet as the clock struck midnight.

The city also had for its New Year's celebration the world's largest moon pie weighing 55 pounds.

ABC-TV's Good Morning America featured "The Moon Pie Song" by Charles Ghigna (Father Goose) during its tour of the Chattanooga Bakery Company in 1991.

Finally, the two Moon Pies sent to our household were as good as any of those gobbled up as kids. But we don’t recommend them for dieters.

By: Bob Bowman
Texas’ first likely millionaire wasn’t from Dallas or Houston. He came from East Texas--and he didn’t make his money from oil.

Frost Thorn, an early storekeeper from Nacogdoches, had a worth of more than a million dollars after Texas won its independence from Mexico in 1836.

While the records of Thorn’s birthplace are sketchy, he lived most of his life in Nacogdoches and died there in 1851. Nacogdoches was only a frontier outpost and Thorn operated a general store in the downtown area, but his fortune was composed largely of real estate spread over Texas from the Sabine River to the Rio Grande.

A biographer wrote in 1934, "Thorn had property in every present-day Texas county and his property was not in small pieces...anything less than a league in those days was almost too small to speak of."

Today, Thorn might have been called a land shark, but looking back at his career, he was a remarkable visionary who knew that Texas would someday be peopled by men and women with a passion for owning land.

Because Nacogdoches was on the El Camino Real--the major travel artery between Texas and the U.S.--Thorn’s store became a place where he traded for horses, whiskey, saddles, guns and anything else needed by the restless adventurers. Realizing the opportunities, Thorn helped them fill out the necessary papers allowing him to trade for their land.

His old store ledger, which recorded most of his transactions during the early l830s, indicated he had customers in a radius of probably 100 miles around Nacogdoches.

Since Nacogdoches was on the frontier, it’s easy to understand why Thorn’s biggest selling items were whiskey, gunpowder and lead--with whiskey the most demanded commodity. It sold by the bit--12.5 cents a drink or two bits (25 cents) for a pint. Customers who bought a pint were required to make a 25-cent deposit until the bottle was refunded.

Thorn also did a good business with local Indians. He bought deer skins for 16 cents a pound and beef hides for a dime a pound. He then turned the hides over to his tannery to produce leather goods, paying his tannery workers $4.50 a week.

Thorn was not only Texas’ first likely millionaire, but was probably the state’s first banker, too. He advanced money to his customers and charged them interest. And it wasn’t uncommon for some customers to issue a written order to an Indian or laborer, who would get their money from Thorn.

The date that Sam Houston arrived in Texas is also recorded in Thorn’s ledger. The first thing Sam bought was a drink of whiskey at Thorn’s store.

Thorn and his wife had two children, a daughter Mary and a son, Thorn, Jr. Mary married New York financier W.T. Garner.

Both children of Texas’ first millionaire died tragically. The two families--Mr. and Mrs. Garner and Mr. and Mrs. Frost, Jr.--were lost when their yacht was shipwrecked in an Atlantic Ocean storm.

By: Bob Bowman
When Lee Harvey Oswald assassinated President John F. Kennedy in 1963, an East Texas lawyer soon found himself thrust into history.

Joe Tonahill of Jasper, who by then was already a noted attorney, became the lawyer for Jack Ruby, who shot Oswald as he was being transferred while in police custody.

National news photographers caught Oswald’s shooting at the instant it happened.

Today, Tonahill’s life and his law practice has been preserved with a display of his old office at the Jasper County Museum in Jasper.

Museum Director Nina Smith had placed with care Tonahill’s eyeglasses, his papers, a magnifying glass, and other everyday objects Tonahill used when he was alive.

But Tonahill’s daughters Anne Tonahill Smith and Susie Tonahill Hile, piled the papers and scattered other objects. "Too neat,"; they said, making the office look more like the one they remembered as children.

Tonahill’s old office had a photo mural of Jack Ruby’s slaying of Oswald, but the mural had to be put on the wrong wall in the museum replica because it was too large for the replica wall.

Framed sketches from the Ruby trial are originals from the legal proceedings in Dallas. And elsewhere are dozens of other sketches by courtroom artists since photographers were not permitted in the courtroom.

Some of the original sketches, however, were destroyed when the CBS offices in New York became debris as the twin towers went down on 9/11/2001.

Ruby’s trial made Tonahill famous, but he was already respected throughout Texas legal circles.

The Jasper County Museum is open on Fridays and Saturdays, but will soon expand to include Wednesday through Saturday.