Coho and Nancy Jane Smith Farmstead Site

Duane's take

The way the official marker tells it, here's the story of the Coho and Nancy Jane Smith Farmstead Site, out in Parker County. Now, every place has a beginning, and this one starts the way so many Texas stories do: with people arriving and deciding, right here, this is where we stay. Early settlers began arriving in this area about 1849.

Among them were James and Sarah Hoggard, who planted roots and raised a family on this stretch of Texas ground. Their daughter was Nancy Jane. And Nancy Jane, as fate would have it, married a man named John J.

Smith; though nobody seemed to call him John J. for long. He went by Coho. Coho Smith was a cabinet maker and a teacher, which is a particular combination of skills when you think about it.

A man who could shape raw wood into something useful, and shape young minds in much the same way. Soon after their marriage in 1861, Coho and Nancy Jane bought property at this very site. They started with one room.

Just one. A cabin built to hold a life just getting started. But families have a way of growing, and so the cabin grew with them; room added to room, wall following wall.

And according to local history, that expanding structure also served as a school. A home and a schoolhouse, both, right here on this land. But here's what's underneath all of that (literally).

Archeological investigations at the site have pulled back the layers of time and revealed the bones of a 19th-century farmstead. A hand-dug well. A root cellar.

A spring house. And rock walls; rock walls which may have been part of a fortified structure. That last detail has a way of stopping you cold.

May have been fortified. The marker doesn't say more than that, and maybe it doesn't need to. Those rock walls say enough.

Coho and Nancy Jane Smith built something here. A cabinet maker, a teacher, a one-room cabin that refused to stay small. And underneath the quiet of this Parker County land, the evidence of all of it is still there, waiting to be found.

What the marker says

Early settlers to this area, who began arriving about 1849, included James and Sarah Hoggard. Their daughter, Nancy Jane, married John J. "Coho" Smith, a cabinet maker and teacher. The Smiths bought property at this site soon after their marriage in 1861. Their original one-room cabin was enlarged as the family grew, and according to local history it also served as a school. Archeological investigations at the site have revealed many aspects of a 19th-century farmstead, including a hand-dug well, root cellar, spring house, and rock walls which may have been part of a fortified structure. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995.