A little piece of Edom history on display at museum

Wanda Nichols Photo FOUND HISTORY -- Kenneth L. Kidd, of Ben Wheeler, stands next to the grist mill stone he and his brother Raymond, and cousin Newman Herrington recovered from the bottom of the Kickapoo Creek. The stone is on display in front of the Edom Museum located in downtown Edom on FM 279.

Kenneth L. Kidd was just a young fella when he got his first taste of recovering historical artifacts.

“It was back in 1961,” he said.

Kenneth said a friend Pee Wee Ackerson, who lived in Brownsboro, had found half a grist stone in the late 50s and was using it as a peer to hold up his house.

“He said he had gotten the stone out of the creek at Green Mill Crossing,” Kenneth said. “He told me the other stone was there in the creek buried up under the mud. He was a small man and couldn’t get it out. I was a little bitty boy, myself, when I found the rock.”

In 1962, the creek had dried up until the water was only about a foot deep.

“My brother, cousin and I...I was 15 and they was 12...anyway we found the stone under about a foot of mud in the water,” Kenneth said. “I was determined to find it. And anybody who knows me knows how determined I am once I set my mind to it, and I ain’t changed yet.”

Courtesy Photo THE KIDD FAMILY -- This photo was taken of Kenneth L. Kidd, 15, (back center) and his family the summer of 1961, when he, his brother Raymond, 13, (front center) found and dug up a Coltharp Green Grist Mill stone from the bottom of Kickapoo Creek. Also pictured are: (back) Kenneth’s parents Van and Jack Kidd, and (front) Kenneth’s sisters Delaine, 2, and Judith 6.

It was summertime, and it took nearly all day for Kenneth, his brother Raymond, and cousin Newman Herrington to find the stone. Returning the next day with a pry pole, the three youngsters pried the huge, heavy, round stone out of the ground and rolled it up an embankment and our of the creek.

“Now I had no driver’s license, ” he said. “We went back to the house and got the car without our parents knowing and drove back to the creek. My brother and cousin couldn’t pick it up. I picked it up myself and I only weighed 115 pounds.”

The threesome then got in the car and drove back home.

“It took me, my daddy, and my cousin’s dad to get it out of the car,” he said. “It probably weighed 400 to 500 pounds.”

A cactus was placed in the center of the stone wheel and placed in his mother’s yard. When Kenneth married in 1968, he moved it to his yard east of Edom where it stayed until he had it mounted with the help of James Golden and placed in front of the Edom historical museum in downtown Edom, in May 2006.

But what was so special about this heavy, round stone?

According to the inscription on the stone...

In 1860 James Coltharp established a mill place on the upper reaches of Tonkawa Creek, also known as Candy Branch, on the edge of Henderson County. It was about halfway between Edom and what was to become Chandler. Coltharp operated

a sawmill, a carding machine and a grist mill which soon became known as “one of the finest mills in the state.” He named this place Tyron Mills, but it was often called Coltharp’s Mills during the Civil War.

The mill operated 24 hours a day, seven days a week, in order to keep up with demand. Coltharp shipped flour and cornmeal as far east as Shreveport and as far west as Fort Worth.

When Coltharp died in 1872, his son Bruce inherited the sawmill and son-in-law, William Green received the grist mill which he moved to Kickapoo Creek near the mouth of Tonkawa Creek. That place became known as Green Mill Crossing. It was on the road from Edom through Chandler to Larissa in Northwest Cherokee County. Just when the mill ceased operations is unknown.

This stone is one of the stones used on that grist mill. It was recovered from the bottom of Kickapoo Creek by Kenneth L. Kidd with the help of Raymond Kidd and Newman Herrington.

Kenneth’s interest in history grew and in 1995 he, Neil Hayes, John Bryant Beall, Mary Scott, Wanda Morris, and Polly Martin started the Edom Historical Society. The group grew to 25 members who all immersed themselves in the rich history of Edom.

According to Beall, and available records, the town of Edom has occupied three different locations and is the third oldest town in Van Zandt County. James Coltharp and A.C. Beall settled six miles east of the town’s present location in 1849, built a sawmill, and named the town Hamburg. A stagecoach station and post office were established.

The town shifted six miles west to a crossroads and was called Newburg. In the 1850s the town moved to its present location and became Edom. A church was organized in 1857, and a new post office opened in 1858. Edom was incorporated in 1966.