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induced some of the Negroes here to burn the gins. In March, 1862, I awoke one night to find everything light. It was our gin burning. Hallsell had been awakened by the light on his window. He called Pa, who grabbed his gun and ran at once to the gin. Fifty bushels of cotton; fifty-five hundred bushels of wheat; two thousand bushels of corn were burned. Fire had been set to the granary to burn the Negro cabins, and to the gin to burn the residence, there being only a garden between. The wheat was binned in the gin house. The positions of the several buildings were about thus:


          Residence            Negro cabins
            [ ]               [ ][ ][ ][ ][ ]
     Gin           Corn crib
     [ ]             [ ]

Ours was the fifth gin burned in that region.

After Pa moved to Texas, he purchased a young Negro named Henry. He married Pattie, but was so mean to her that she would not live with him. He stirred up so much trouble among the Negroes that Pa sold him to Mr. Lawson. He was mad at Pa and at all of the Negroes on the place, and had stated before the Negroes on the place that he would burn the whole place, both the white folks and the Negroes. Our Negroes, with the exception of Henry, were all peaceable, and no one else ever held any grudge against our family. Henry was hanged for this burning, and there were no more gins burned in Red River County that I can remember hearing of.
 


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The History of Clarksville and Old Red River County
Pat B. Clark   1937