Site of Bullard Community

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm passing it along to you straight. Now, three miles east of where you're rolling, there's a piece of ground that carries a family name, and that name didn't just land there by accident. It was planted, deliberate, by a man who came a long way to put down roots.

Calvin Cullee Bullard, born in Alabama in 1824, had already made one move across Texas, out of Hunt County, before he pointed his family toward this stretch of Madison County in 1867. He picked a hundred and sixty acres sitting right between Bedias Creek and Caney Creek, and that was going to be home. Calvin had been married before, and he brought three children from that first marriage into the new life he was building.

He and his second wife, Zillah, who came from the Woodbury family, went on to raise six children of their own. Nine children in a house between two creeks. That is not a quiet life.

That is a life with a great deal going on. Calvin set up a blacksmith shop in the community, and here is the part that tells you something about the Bullard character: several of his descendants followed in his footsteps and took up the craft as well. They were farmers too, like the other families settling in around them, and cotton was the crop that put money in the pocket.

The Bullards weren't content to stay inside their own fence line, either. Calvin E. Bullard served a term as county tax assessor-collector, which is the kind of civic work that doesn't get you famous but keeps a county running.

Rube Bullard went further still, serving as a justice of the peace and then winning the Madison County commissioner's seat five times over. Five terms. That is a community that kept saying yes to the same man.

They built a one-room schoolhouse in the Bullard community, and it opened its doors in 1890 and kept them open until 1923. When Sunday came around, that same little schoolhouse doubled as a place of worship, and when the weather turned agreeable, services moved outside to an outdoor brush arbor under the open Texas sky. Calvin Bullard died in 1882, and Zillah and many of their descendants who followed them in this life are buried together in the Bethel Cemetery over in nearby Grimes County.

The marker calls them early settlers and the founders of a community, and it says their contributions reflect the settlement patterns of this part of Texas. What that means, put plainly, is that a man from Alabama crossed half the state, found a piece of land between two creeks, and the place still carries his name. That's a long way to travel, and it stuck.

What the marker says

(3 miles east) Alabama native Calvin Cullee Bullard (1824-1882) brought his family to this area from Hunt County, Texas, in 1867 and settled on 160 acres of land between Bedias Creek and Caney Creek. In their new home, he and his second wife, Zillah (Woodbury), reared three of Bullard's children from his first marriage and six of their own. Calvin Bullard had a blacksmith shop in the community that bears his name, and several of his descendants followed in his footsteps. The Bullards were also farmers, as were other families in the area, raising cotton as their primary cash crop. Active beyond their community, Calvin E. Bullard served a term as county tax assessor-collector and Rube Bullard was a justice of the peace and five-term Madison County commissioner. A one-room schoolhouse was built in the Bullard community to address the educational needs of the neighboring children. It operated from 1890 until 1923. Worship services were held in the schoolhouse, as well as in an outdoor brush arbor when the weather permitted. Calvin and Zillah Bullard and many of their descendants are buried in the bethel cemetery in nearby Grimes County. Their contributions to Madison County history as early settlers and the founders of a community reflect the settlement patterns in this part of Texas and remain an important part of the area's history. (2001)