| Historicial Development: | Ms. Kathryn Johnson Hunter, Ms. Hazel Brown Kesinger, and Ms. Inez Brown Boatman lived their early lives at Prince's Mill. Rudolph Prince operated sawmills at four different sites in Nacogdoches County during the 1920s. In 1922 Rudolph Prince moved his sawmill from the area near Eden Cemetery and the old Chronister Lumber Company tram road to the creek on the highway, just west of Douglas. The small mill milled and planed lumber. Loyd Johnson used his pickup and trailer to carry the product to Rube Sessions' sawmill at Wells, Cherokee County, about ten miles distant.
Besides Loyd Johnson other workers included John Brown, Eldridge Brown, Jay Boatman, Charley Grimes, and John Grimes. Several families of Afro-American workers, who did the harder work of mule driving, logging, and slab bucking, lived just beyond the mule corrals. Whites worked on the saw, the carriages, and with the edger and trimmer. Tenant houses, the commissary, and other mill sheds and buildings were made from pine timber. Most of the houses were constructed in the shot-gun mode, but several families, including that of Loyd Johnson, were box houses with three or four rooms.
The Brown and Boatman families followed when Prince moved his sawmill equipment in 1928 to Palestine, Anderson County. |