Gose Trees

Duane's take

The official marker's got the story, and here's how I tell it. Out here in Wise County, there's something waiting for you that most folks drive right past: a remnant of a bois d'arc hedge. Now, bois d'arc is tough, thorny, stubborn wood, and this particular hedge has been standing its ground since 1861.

That is not a typo. Eighteen sixty-one. Those trees were planted to encircle the log cabin of one Stephen M.

Gose, a man who came all the way from Missouri to Texas in 1859 and, by the look of things, intended to stay. Gose was a justice of the peace, a blacksmith, and a leader of the Methodist church; a man who, it seems, kept order in the courtroom, kept iron hot in the forge, and kept the congregation pointed in the right direction, all at once. Born in 1824, he'd live until 1877, and in that time he put down roots in Wise County about as deep as those spiny trees he planted.

And why'd he plant them? The marker tells it plain: the hedge served as a barrier against prowling Indians. A living wall of thorns circling a log cabin on the Texas frontier; no gaps, no give, just row after row of bois d'arc doing what fences of wood and stone sometimes couldn't.

The cabin is long gone. Stephen M. Gose is long gone.

But those trees are still here, still spiny, still standing in a rough circle like they haven't gotten the news that the thing they were guarding has passed into history. Some remnants just refuse to quit.

What the marker says

Remnant of bois d'arc hedge which encircled the log cabin of Stephen M. Gose (1824-77), early justice of the peace, blacksmith, and leader of Methodist church, who came to Texas from Missouri in 1859. The spiny trees, planted 1861, served as a barrier against prowling Indians.