'Whiskey for Votes Helped Fuel Original Cameron-Rockdale feud' by Jeanne Williams.Temple Daily Telegram:

Whiskey for Votes Helped Fuel Original Cameron-Rockdale feud

Jeanne Williams - Temple Daily Telegram

January 3, 2011

CAMERON — Had Nashville-on-the-Brazos continued its reign as the Milam County seat,

there might not be a Battle of the Bell football rivalry now between Cameron and

Rockdale.

Nashville, considered by the Texas Legislature as a possible capitol of the Republic of

Texas, was designated the seat of Milam County government from 1837 to 1846. Afterward

lawmakers, for unclear reasons, crowned Cameron as the centerpiece of justice.

The city continued in this undisputed role until the courthouse - the second of its

kind to serve the county — burned April 9, 1874. The Phillips Hotel was rented by the

county to serve as a temporary courthouse until a new one could be built.

Meanwhile, a controversy emerged over whether the county seat should be in Cameron or

across the county in the new town of Rockdale.

Named for a giant-sized stone that once loomed in the area, Rockdale emerged in

February 1874 as a boom town established by the International and Great Northern

Railroad on a 400-acre tract 13 miles south of Cameron.

According to one account in 1874, as plans were being made for a courthouse, the people

of Cameron and Rockdale were feuding about the best location for the county seat. The

commissioners court called an election for Nov. 3, 1874, to settle the question.

The county seat quarrel resulted in a grand scheme in Rockdale to charter a train to

ferry I&GN Railroad laborers and employees to Cameron to have them vote for Rockdale.

Cameron residents, learning of the plot, dispatched a team to capture the train at

Milano.

There, they cajoled the “warm hearted Irishmen” into voting for Cameron, arguing “what

a great injustice” they were doing to support Rockdale. The Irishmen became so ashamed

that they rode the train to Cameron and voted for Cameron. The county seat remained in

Cameron.

Six years later, the issue surfaced again and another election was called for on March

16, 1880.

The Rockdale Messenger newspaper reported “we shall be able to announce in our next

issue the fund for building a courthouse and jail in Rockdale, in case the county seat

is removed, is fixed in such a shape that will be no question of its forthcoming.”

Cameron proponents accused the Rockdale side of delivering the Rockdale Messenger too

late to keep Cameron residents from responding to “the huge collection of falsehoods”

before the election.

Then, there was the question of voter bribery.

“Don’t drink that Whiskey,” a Cameron newspaper article warned. “Rockdale strikers

have sent four barrels of Rockdale whiskey into the country to be given away on

Election Day to voters in consideration of their votes for Rockdale.

“We warn all who intend voting for Cameron on that day, and who are in the habit of

taking ‘something’ for the ‘stomach sake,’ to be sure and vote before you drink that

whiskey, for dead men don’t count worth a cent in this election. I tell you that

whiskey will kill and if by accident you should survive one dram of it, you would ever

afterwards feel like stealing something from a sheep to a court house.”

Apparently, free spirits didn’t win the Rockdale side enough votes because the measure

failed, 1,861 votes for Cameron compared to 1,618 votes for Rockdale.

Cameron remained the Milam County seat, and the two towns now battle it out on the

football field rather than at the ballot box. The prize is no a courthouse, but an

antique railroad bell.

jwilliams@tdtnews.com

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Temple Daily Telegram.
All credit for this article goes to
Jeanne Williams and the Temple Daily Telegram