Sartain Homestead

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to do it justice. John Grayson Sartain came to this corner of Smith County back in 1868, him and his wife Eliza Elvira, born a Gaut before she took the Sartain name. John born in 1834, Eliza in 1837, and together they bought the land and got to work.

They raised a frame home right here, cut the timber from their own property to do it. That's a particular kind of satisfaction, building your walls from your own trees. But here's where the story takes a turn that you just don't hear every day.

At some point the family decided the house needed to be somewhere else. Not torn down, not rebuilt. Moved.

The whole thing. Neighbors came together, and they set that frame house on a sled, hitched up their oxen and their mules, and dragged it a quarter mile to the spot where it stands today. A house.

On a sled. Being hauled by livestock across East Texas. If that doesn't make you appreciate your neighbors, I don't know what will.

Now, John Grayson Sartain passed in 1905, and Eliza Elvira carried on until 1918. In 1913, their son Lee and his wife Cora, born a Wilson, bought the farm and took up the cause. And this is the part I love.

They moved onto the property while a second story was being added to that very house, and where did they live in the meantime? A tent. In the front yard.

Lee Sartain, who served as a banker over in Arp, went right on raising cotton and peaches on this farm while the construction carried on above his family's heads. The Sartains built something here that outlasted the building itself, the house, the farm, the name on the land, over a century in one family's keeping.

What the marker says

John Grayson Sartain (1834-1905) and his wife Eliza Elvira (Gaut) (1837-1918) bought land here in 1868 and began construction of this frame home using timber from their property. Later, neighbors helped place the house on a sled and used oxen and mules to drag it 1/4 mile to this location. In 1913 Sartain's son Lee and his wife Cora (Wilson) bought the farm and the family moved into a tent in the front yard while a second story was being constructed. Lee Sartain served as an Arp banker and continued to raise cotton and peaches on this farm, owned by the family for over a century.