from July 1924 Frontier Times Magazine A Brown County Pioneer Mrs. John Nathan Coffey, one of the earliest settlers of Zephyr, Brown County, who lives in a new home recently built for her, adjoining the old homestead in which her son. Brooks, lives, was the center of attraction for the friends and neighbors who assembled at the Coffey home recently for an all day beef canning bee. Mrs. Coffey tells many interesting stories of early days in Brown County when everybodys cattle ranged the face of the earth and her husband bought a small place of 100 acres merely for th e water rights . Two little log cabins on the acreage were among the first house s in the vicinity of what afterward became the town of Zephyr. Mr. and Mrs . Coffey came to Brown County from LaVacca County, where Mrs. Coffeys girlhood days had been spent under the name of Miss Emma McCown. They lived in one of the log house for a number of years, then when the railroad came to Zephyr (which at that time consisted of a schoolhouse ) they purchased several additional hundred acres of laud and built a home near the school. Twenty-one years ago Mr . Coffey opened a general merchandise more in Zephyr and operated it until his death five years ago. His son-in-law , I. L. McCown, is still conducting the business in the same rock building in which Mr. Coffey started it. Mrs. Coffey is fortunate in having her family live near her. With the exception of one daughter, Mrs. Good Graves, who lives in Desdemona, all of her six children , thirty-six grandchildren and ten great grandchildren live within a few miles radius of the old home . In addition to Mrs. Graves and her son, Brooks, Mrs. Coffeys children are Mesdames W. B. Nesmith, A.F. Shelton, Mattie McCutcheon and I. L. McCown.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 02:06:08 +0000