Paying History Forward

Google tells me I can’t take credit for coining that phrase. . . there are other hits. . . but I am going to take credit for giving it fresh meaning.

I started talking about Paying History Forward in an article for Texas Heritage magazine, published by the Texas Historical Foundation (click here to read). What I’m hoping to express is this — history is far more than dates, events, and boundaries. It is about more than the heroes of the times, or the famous people about whom we read.

James Hudson, his son, and his grandson all have an interest in protecting their part of Trammel’s Trace.

Paying history forward is what James Hudson is doing. J.N. has family land just north of our family’s farm in Rusk County along the Trammel’s Trace corridor. J.N. has his son, Clay, and his grandson both fully engaged in the history of their place, and the importance of Trammel’s Trace.

Paying history forward is having the Stone Fort Chapter of the DRT erect a marker and monument for Trammel’s Trace in Nacogdoches, there for all time.

Learning the history and passing it on is what it’s all about.