March 4, 2010 - Accounts of the early days of Texas often include a mention of the name Holland Coffee. Coffee, along with his wife Sophia, owned and operated the Glen Eden Plantation in Grayson County, from the late 1830s, to the last years of the 19th Century.
Glen Eden boasted at one time the largest log structure in the state, a two-story dogtrot house that was most likely built by Mormon leader Lyman Wight's congregation when they wintered in Grayson County before moving south. When people began calling it Glen Eden is unclear, but it became the major social and business center of the area. The town of Preston was established there and the countryside was dotted with fields of cotton, corn and orchards.
Coffee had considerable experience with the frontier before he arrived in Texas. He operated a trading post in Fort Smith, Ark. and met Sam Houston when the future President of the Republic of Texas was living with a band of dispossessed Cherokees. He learned the languages and customs of the various tribes, which served him well on the frontier, but he was later accused of trading guns and whiskey to the Indians in exchange for stolen cattle and horses. A visit with his old friend Sam Houston seemed to clear the matter up, and Houston appointed him as an Indian agent.
Coffee was elected to the Texas House of Representatives representing Fannin County in 1838, and became one of four men to marry Sophia Satterfield Aughinbaugh. In his classic work "Indian Depredations in Texas," J.W. Wilbarger gets the spelling of Coffee's name wrong but notes that "Colonel Hollin Coffey" was "a very popular man and well-liked by everyone" and that be brought with him "a beautiful young wife."
Wilbarger notes that Coffee promised the settlers in his district that he would make peace with marauding tribes. More impressive than that is the fact that he actually did so, and without bloodshed. "This treaty lasted only a few months, but it gave the settlers a little rest and allowed them to return to their homes and neglected farms for a little while," Wilbarger wrote.
Stories about his wife continued to circulate for many years with many of those stories focusing on rumors that she had worked as a prostitute before marrying her first husband, Jesse Augustine Aughinbaugh. Supposedly, she had nursed Sam Houston after the Battle of San Jacinto. She claimed that Aughinbaugh deserted her in Nacogdoches, and he might have because he was never heard from again.
As a legislator, Coffee lobbied the Texas Congress to pass bill that granted Sophia a divorce from Aughinbaugh. The divorce was granted and the couple settled in at Glen Eden where they lived together until Coffee ran afoul of trader Charles Ashton Galloway, who was already on Coffee's bad side after he married Coffee's 14-year old niece.
Galloway further enflamed the situation by making disparaging remarks about Sophia. The remarks have been reported at various times to include accusations that Sophia was Sam Houston's mistress, that she "entertained" young soldiers at Glen Eden's boarding house when Coffee was away on business and other nasty aspersions. A duel to settle the matter ended with Galloway stabbing Coffee to death. He was buried at Glen Eden and his above-ground crypt was a notable landmark until it was dismantled and moved to make way for Lake Texoma.
A year later Sophia married George N. Butt, who was killed in 1863, reportedly by one of Confederate raider William C. Quantrill's gang, Fletch Taylor. Sophia became known as the "Confederate Paul Revere" for riding across the Red River to warn Confederate forces that Union troops were at her plantation -- drunk, but present. The story goes that she invited the Union officers inside the mansion to sample wines from Glen Eden's cellar then locked them in that same cellar while she rode to warn the Confederates that the enemy was lurking nearby.
Sophia married Judge James Porter in 1865. The couple lived at Glen Eden until his death in 1886, and she continued to live there until her own death in 1897. Newspapers of the day eulogized her as "an aged saint," an ornament to society" and even "a magnificent example of the Spartan mothers of the Old South."
The mansion at Glen Eden was last owned by Judge Randolph Bryant, who opened it as a historical attraction in 1936, during the Texas Centennial Celebration. Plans to dismantle the mansion and rebuild it on the shoreline of the future Lake Texoma did not materialize because wood from the mansion was either burned or damaged.
Some artifacts from Glen Eden have been saved and can be seen at the Frontier Village of Grayson County and the Red River Historical Museum in Sherman.
