DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Site of the Wilmeth-McKinney Homestead in Collin County. Now settle in, because this one's got roots that go deep — real deep, all the way back to Tennessee. Joseph Brice Wilmeth — folks knew him as J.B. — was born in 1807.
So was Nancy Ferguson, which feels like the universe was already working something out. They got married in Tennessee in 1826, and for the next two decades, life was building up a head of steam. Then in 1846, J.B. and Nancy loaded up everything they had and set it all down on 320 acres of virgin Texas prairie, right here in what would become Collin County.
Virgin prairie — not a furrow turned, not a fence strung. Just wind and grass and possibility stretching out to the horizon. They went to work.
They farmed the land. And before long, they didn't just build a house — they built a grand two-story family home. Out here on the open prairie, that was a statement.
That was a man saying: we're not passing through. Now J.B. Wilmeth wasn't the kind of man who sat still even after raising a two-story house.
That same year — 1846 — he and a fellow by the name of Collin McKinney, a pioneer settler of some renown in these parts, established Collin County's First Christian Church, over at Liberty. Then in 1848, J.B. organized McKinney's First Christian Church, and when the congregation needed a place to worship, he opened the doors of his own home. Services right there in the parlor, neighbors pulling up chairs where the family took their meals.
And that house kept on giving. Between 1848 and 1887 — nearly forty years — the Wilmeth home served as a free school. J.B. taught there.
His children taught there. Generation teaching generation, right under the same roof. Meanwhile, J.B. was shaping the county itself.
He served on the commission that selected the Collin County seat. He served as district clerk. He served as county judge.
The man's fingerprints are on just about every cornerstone this county was built on. Then in 1850, something happened that wove the Wilmeth name and the McKinney name together even tighter. The Wilmeths' daughter Martha married a man named Daniel L.
McKinney — grandson of that same Collin McKinney who'd helped J.B. found that first church. Two founding families, joined at the table. J.B. and Nancy both passed in 1892.
After that, Martha and Daniel moved into the Wilmeth home — the very house where church had been held, school had been taught, a county had been organized — and they lived there together until Daniel's death in 1906. Then their son John Brice and his wife Annie, née Magers, took up the homestead and carried it forward until their deaths in 1968. More than a century of one connected family, on the same piece of ground.
In 1941, when a new house was built here, they used materials from the original Wilmeth structure to do it. They didn't throw the old place away — they folded it into something new. That's not just construction.
That's how a family thinks about what came before. Three hundred and twenty acres of virgin prairie. One Tennessee couple.
And enough living poured into this ground to last well past anyone who was there to see it begin.
What the marker says
Joseph Brice (J.B.) Wilmeth (b.1807) and Nancy Ferguson (b.1807) were married in Tennessee in 1826. They settled here on 320 acres of virgin prairie in 1846. They began to farm their land and soon built a grand two-story family home at this site. Elder J.B. Wilmeth, along with pioneer settler Collin McKinney, established Collin County's First Christian Church at Liberty in 1846. J.B. organized McKinney's First Christian Church in 1848, and early worship services were held in his home. Between 1848 and 1887 the Wilmeth home also was the site of a free school taught by J.B. and his children. J.B. served on the commission that selected the Collin County seat and later served as district clerk and county judge. In 1850 the Wilmeths' daughter, Martha, married Daniel L. McKinney, grandson of Collin McKinney. Following the deaths of J.B. and Nancy in 1892, Martha and Daniel lived in the Wilmeth home until Daniel's death in 1906. The homestead was next occupied by Martha and Daniel's son, John Brice, and his wife, Annie (Magers), until their deaths in 1968. Materials from the original Wilmeth home were used to build a new house here in 1941. The property continues to be recognized as an important site in early Collin County history. (1994)