Mary Irvine

Good day y’all!

I was just picking some of the last summer wildflowers to place on my husband's grave before the coming fall. 

Speaking of husbands…

Do you know what it was like to be married to one of the most notorious bachelors in Kaufman county. So, notorious he and a friend of his had a creek named after them?

Well I could tell you, because I was the fourth wife of Judge WD Irvine, who had the Creek running by his first homestead out here named after his bachelorhood. But that didn’t last long.

His first wife was Ms. Emily Terrell’s Sister, Mrs. Caroline Love. They married in 1840. She unfortunately died giving birth to their first child. That's how things go sometimes in the west.

But anyhow, let me tell you a little bit about myself. My name is Mary Adeline Henry Irvine and I was the fourth wife of Judge WD Irvine.

I was born in the state of Georgia on August 28, 1906. Mary Henry was my name at birth, although most people called me Adeline. 

My first husband was Mr. Barr. But life in the West is rough, and he unfortunately passed just like my Dear WD’s first wife.. Together we had one daughter before he was called home by the good lord. 

It was after his passing that I met my second husband. Who by that time had a creek named after him, Bachelors creek, and seven children from three other marriages. 

The West is no place you want to be alone. Especially raising a half dozen children.

Which is how I met and came to marry second husband, Juge WD Irvine. He was a second cousin of Captain. Terrell, and the brother in love of Ms. Emily Terrell. 

Now history remembers a lot more about my second husband than myself, but that's because he did some pretty remarkable things in his life.

He was born in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee, in 1821. He came to Texas in 1830 and settled at San Augustine where he took up the life of a Texas farmer. It was here that he met and married his first wife. After her passing he decided he needed a change and headed further into TExas in 1846.

Now it's disputed, but my husband would have told you he was the first settler in Terrell. When he got here there was nothing for miles and miles around! His nearest neighbor was over in college mound.

He decided to lay his claim and it was here that he and a good friend of his, Joe, lived in a cabin and made a crop together in 1848. Their cabin was located on the east side of a creek west of Terrell and when you have two bachelors and an unnamed creek, you get a creek named Bachelors creek.

Robert and Emily would join him in the area later that year.

My husband married his second wife, Miss Matilda Hearst and together they had 8 children. Can you imagine! 

After her passing in 1865 he decided he didn't want to live life alone and needed help raising all those children. So he married Joe’s widow in 1866. 

After her passing in 1870, he married me in 1872, Together we had one beautiful daughter, my Gertrude. 

During all this, he volunteered in the military on two occasions.  And was a Second Lieutenant for a time. 

In 1862 he became the first county judge of Kaufman county. He served two consecutive terms. And from that point on was known as Judge or Judge Irvine.

In 1873 some of the landowners were led by his second cousin Robert A. Terrell, donated 100 acres to the railroad company in exchange for a depot on the rail line. The town of Terrell was organized around this original town site and another 100 acres to the north owned by Terrell and his partners.

Portions of land were given to the Texas & Pacific by the Terrell Family, my husband Judge W.D. Irvine, C.C. Nash, and John G. Moore, with the condition that a permanent depot be established within the donated land here.

He and I lived many wonderful years together until he died 

I would be called home to the Lord five years later and am buried here at the Oakland Memorial Cemetery.