Chasing Our Tales - Trickham, Texas, Ghost Town

Trick ‘em, the oldest community in Coleman County, was built on Mukewater Creek by John Chisum. Presently it is 12 miles southeast of Santa Anna on Ranch Road 1176. It was on a route between Ft. Mason and Ft. Belknap. This was the place where Chisum gathered his herds of cattle, and it was the last town on the western edge before Kansas.

Chisum build a store on the Mukewater in the late eighteen fifties, about the time Camp Colorado was established. He built it there so that his drovers could purchase needed supplies.

The store was run by Chisum’s brother in law, Emory Peters, who was crippled. Peters had an assistant by the name of Bill Franks.

There are a couple of stories about how Trickham got its name. An apocryphal story relates that Bill Franks, who operated a store in the area, petitioned for a post office at the store under the name of "Trick'em" because of his habit of selling creek water instead of whiskey to cowboys who stopped by. Another story tells of Franks getting the cowboys drunk and tricking ‘em out of their money.

When the town needed a post office in 1879, the government refused to allow the name Trick ‘em to be registered and offered the more polite English Trickham as a substitute. Of course, in Central Texas they sound the same. The post office was active until 1958.

The first and oldest rural schoolhouse in Coleman County still stands in Trickham and is now a rural senior citizens center.

The town in known for its barbershop quartets and had one of the first electric co-ops in the state.

The history of the earliest development of Trickham is told by Dick Fiveash. “I was born in Erath County in 1862 and moved with my parents to Coleman County in 1864. We settled on Mukewater about a mile south of where Trickham is now. My father built a log cabin to live in. There were very few people in the county at that time and my uncle, Bill Williams, and his family, who came with us, were our only neighbors. My Uncle Bill, who was a real pioneer, became known all over the county as “Mukewater Bill.” He had lots of fights with the Indians and owned a bridle which was made out of the hide of an Indian he had killed. “There was lots of wild game in the county when we first came, and a long while after. I’ve seen the valleys of the creek black with buffalo plenty of times, and we could always find deer and turkeys. We had to go to Austin after our flour and it cost $20.00 a barrel. It generally took us two weeks to make the trip. My cousin, Lot Ellington, had come to live with us and help with the cattle. We also had a man named Tom Moss. My father sent Lot Ellington to Ft. Worth after supplies and somewhere he was exposed to smallpox. Soon after he got back he took it and died. Then all the family took it from him. My father and mother both died and so did Tom Moss. Everyone was afraid to come near enough to do anything for us, since in those days, in 1876, doctors didn’t know much about treating smallpox or vaccinating against it. Dr. Edwards at Brownwood was the only doctor we knew. He came and looked in at the door and when he saw how terribly bad it was, he turned and went back home without doing anything at all for us.

“There was a young Dr. Page at Brownwood then who had been there only a short while, a friend of the Grady and Cheatham families, who had all come from Kentucky. When Dr. Page heard about what Dr. Edwards had done he got on his horse and came out to see about us, and stayed with us ‘til the disease had run its course. Dr. Page had been vaccinated and he had a light case of varioloid, but soon got over it. When my father and mother died, no one could be found to help the doctor prepare them for burial. They were wrapped in blankets and buried at night. The people did dig the graves, but they didn’t help fill them up. Charlie Shield, brother of Lee Shield, helped dig the graves and kept them from digging one for me, as I was not expected to live.

“I saw why the three men were killed by Indians at Trickham, Dave Upton, Jake Dofflemeier, and Charlie McCain. They were all scalped and a green mesquite stick had been punched through their noses. The first one was Charlie McCain, about sixteen years old. He was out with his father, Brunson McCain, after a load of wood when a bunch of eight or ten Indians ran onto them. Mr. McCain cut the horses loose from the wagon and put Charlie on one of them, telling him to run. The Indians followed, killed the boy, and took the horses. Then they went on and didn’t bother anybody else. Dave Upton lived up on Camp Creek (a small tributary of Hay Creek) near where the Rendleman place is now. One day he was out in the woods and discovered a small band of Indians. He didn’t think they saw him, so he started on a run to Trickham to warn the people to put up their horses. The Indians started after him, as they had probably seen him first, soon overtook, killed, and scalped him, and threw his body in the brush. They stripped him also and carried off his clothes. Jake Dofflemeier also lived up the creek from Trickham. He had a fine horse of racing stock of which he was very proud. Everybody around knew the horse. The morning he was out looking for his horse he ran onto a small band of Indians out after horses, too. They killed and scalped Mr. Dofflemeier and rode on through Trickham, where the horse was recognized.”

At the time of it’s growth, Trickham had a population of 75, several stores, a hotel, two cotton gins, Baptist, Methodist, and Cumberland Presybterian churches, a blacsmith shop, stam mills, and a school. The population reached 150 in 1892 and by 1914 had a doctor, a druggist, and a telephone company.

There are two cemeteries in Trickham, one where the early gaves of men killed by Indians are buried, about 17. Then they began burying the dead uphill, farther away from town. There is no explaination for this, other than perhaps it was due to some sort of disease sweeping the countryside.

I have not been to Trickham, but it certainly has a colorful history. And even today the cemetery association keeps the cemeteries clean and trim in memory of their ancestors...those east Texas pioneers.