Once upon a time, there was a very young community here in De-Witt County that was so small in population that it couldn’t be called a town and was instead known as a settlement. This settlement had a few dozen farm and ranch homes or log cabins spread about, and at its center were some five or so buildings of simple construction and mostly for business. These buildings included a blacksmith shop, a grocer, a dry goods mercantile, a stagecoach stop and inn, a tannery (where animal hides and pelts were being prepared and traded) and after the people pooled their money, a schoolhouse. There could also have been a doctor’s office combined with a drug store and after enough money was raised, a church.
It was the late 1840s in DeWitt County, when currency wasn’t available and as the citizens worked the land, the results such as crops and meats from animals, were what they lived on. These were also a means for them to barter and trade for different foods, household items, livestock, seed, and other needs and an occasional want. The most common form of currency, or money, in De-Witt County at this time was animal hides and pelts that people had hunted, raised, or trapped and then skinned for tanning. Hides and pelts were used as a form of money because of their usefulness and value across the country in making clothing and household items.
Now, the schoolhouse was a new, sin-gle-room structure in about the year 1848. Inside this schoolhouse began the endearing story of Dish-Rag, a nickname given by the DeWitt County schoolchildren in the 1850s. It’s been about 171 years since this story came about, and the schoolhouse and settlement to which it belonged are gone. All of the schoolchildren, who once passed through its doors upon hearing the teacher ringing the school bell are also gone. Yet, there is one vague and slowly blurring story from this DeWitt County schoolhouse which lingers today. This story will forever belong to those precious schoolchildren, their one room schoolhouse, and to all of us who call DeWitt County home.
