DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says, right there in Fannin County. Now, you want a story about roots — about what gets planted in a piece of ground and what keeps growin' long after the planter is gone — well, pull up close to this one. Thomas Hart Benton Hockaday came into this world in Virginia in 1835, and by the time he turned his eyes toward Fannin County, he already had a career behind him worth talkin' about.
He'd been an educator. He'd founded Giles Academy, sitting about four miles east of where you're standing right now. The man had already built something before he bought so much as a fence post out here.
But in 1870, Hockaday bought more than two hundred and eighty acres in this area. He farmed the land. He built a cotton gin and ran it.
Now that's not a small undertaking — that's a man decidin' that one chapter wasn't enough. He later sold much of the property, but he held onto an eighty-acre homestead right here on this site for his wife Maria and their seven children. Then 1881 came, and Maria died.
A hard year on a quiet piece of ground. Hockaday kept going. In 1892, he married Misouri Bird, and life on the homestead continued on.
By 1916 — Hockaday was eighty-one years old by the numbers, but let's let that stand without commentary — he sold his property to a man named Laurence Pickard and moved west about four and a half miles to Ladonia, where he spent the remaining two years of his life. Thomas Hart Benton Hockaday died in 1918. Pickard, now holding the land, moved the Hockaday house in 1921 and divided it up into rent houses for the farm's employees.
The house itself is gone. But here's the thing — that barn you might be lookin' at right now? That was constructed from Hockaday's cotton gin.
The old gin didn't disappear. It just became something else. That's a kind of stubbornness wood has when it's been put to honest use.
Now. The youngest child. Ela Hockaday was born in 1875, and she was the last of those seven children.
She watched her father build schools and run a gin and farm eighty acres, and somewhere in all of that watching, she made a decision. She followed him into education. Started teaching at age eighteen.
Kept at it, kept at it — and then in 1913, at what the marker calls the peak of her teaching career, she established the Hockaday School in Dallas. In the thirty-three years she was with that institution, the Hockaday School earned national recognition as an excellent college preparatory school for girls. Ela Hockaday was also instrumental in founding the Hockaday Alumnae Association, which continues to carry on the Hockaday tradition to this day.
She lived until 1956. So here's what this patch of Fannin County is really holding onto: a Virginia-born educator bought the land, worked it, ginned cotton on it, raised seven children on it — and the last of those children went to Dallas and built something that outlasted the house, outlasted the gin, outlasted the farm itself. The barn's still here.
The school's still there. And the name Hockaday is still doing exactly what Thomas Hart Benton Hockaday apparently couldn't stop himself from doing — educating people.
What the marker says
After a noted career as an educator and founder of Giles Academy (4 mi. east), Virginia-born Thomas Hart Benton Hockaday (1835-1918) bought more than 280 acres in this area in 1870. He farmed the land and built and operated a cotton gin. He later sold much of the property but maintained an eighty-acre homestead on this site for his wife Maria and their seven children. Following Maria's death in 1881, he married Misouri Bird in 1892. Hockaday sold his property to Laurence Pickard in 1916 and moved to Ladonia (4.5 mi. west) where he spent the remaining two years of his life. Pickard moved the Hockaday house in 1921 and divided it into rent houses for the farm's employees. Although the house itself is gone, the existing barn was constructed from Hockaday's cotton gin. T. H. B. Hockaday's youngest child, Ela (1875-1956), followed her father's footsteps into education. In 1913, at the peak of a teaching career that began at age eighteen, she established the Hockaday School in Dallas. In the thirty-three years she was with the institution, the Hockaday School earned national recognition as an excellent college preparatory school for girls. Ela Hockaday was instrumental in the founding of the Hockaday Alumnae Association which continues to carry on the Hockaday tradition. (1981, 1998)