JOHN JOSEPH APPLEWHITE  "Uncle Apple"

For more than thirty years John Joseph Applewhite owned and operated what was known as the 

"Frieghters". Powerful horses and big dray wagons. He was a frieghter of the old days who, 

before the advent of the railroads hauled through the scorching suns of summer or the bitter 

winds of winter on roads heavy in hot sands or rutted deep with mud in the winter, with a 

four-mule team. He hauled lumber that new homes might grow, that land might be filled and 

cotton marketed.

It was a hard life, but life in the open always compensated "Uncle Apple" as he was 

affectionately called. "We've plenty of live on the rest of our lives,' he would say: "But I 

work hard and have always worked hard, for that is the only way to accomplish anything."

After the building of the railroad in 1908 Mr. Applewhite sold his "frieghters" and went into 

the dairy business. Previous to that time he frieghted from Hico, Clifton, and Dublin to

Hamilton.

There was a frieght line of four wagons of four mules each, and sometimes the roads were so 

bad that it too from 3 to 5 days to make the trip of 22 miles to Hico.

The heavy loaded wagons would stick in the mud and often it took eight horses to pull them out.

During the first seven years of this time Mr. Applewhite frieghted for John S. Spurlin, C. E. 

Horton was "straw boss". He later went into the frieghting business for himself. 

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