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The oldest inhabited city is Damascus, Syria.
And Now You Do
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30:32, If thou hast done foolishly in lifting up thyself, or if thou hast thought evil, lay thine hand upon thy mouth.
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Just about anyone living around Kerens has heard of Daniel Lake, but a few basic facts are worth stating. As to location, the lake is on the Navarro County side of the Trinity River right across the river from the old TP & L plant in Trinidad. Coming from Kerens and heading east across the Trinity River bridge, you can sometimes spot the lake, maybe three-quarters a mile south, if you look sharply to your right. I don’t necessarily recommend doing this if you are the one driving the car!
Daniel Lake can actually be thought of as two interconnected lakes. The larger body of water, the one that lies farthest west, is the part that most visitors are familiar with. The clubhouse, at least the only one I have knowledge of, was built on the south side of this larger lake. The smaller body of water, sometimes called Little Daniel Lake, lies farther east, nearer to the Trinity River, and is connected to the larger western body by a winding neck of water that permits water flow and boat travel between the two. I do not know exactly how deep these lakes are, but I know there are places as deep as twenty feet, and I would not be surprised to learn of much greater depths. During flood phases of the Trinity River, the normal surface of Daniel Lake is completely submerged, and the clubhouse was built on stilts in order to survive the flooding.
Daniel Lake has been the property of the Daniel family of Kerens for well over one hundred years, ever since the Daniels arrived as one of the earliest settler families in this part of Texas. They have generously shared the lake and its environs with friends, family, and the general public for well over a century, and there have been at least two different clubhouses, and I know that the more recent one was built on the more accessible south side of the lake. (The older clubhouse, torn down in 1908, may have been built elsewhere on the lake.) During the period of the 1950s, the custodian of the keys to the lake property was Mr. Jere Daniel, who lived in Kerens. His house was the last house on the right side of Highway 31 as you headed east out of town. In case you needed him and he was not at home, you could check up at Scott’s Café in downtown or out at the Highway Café on Highway 31 on the west end of Kerens, or in either of the two domino halls back of Newsome’s Grocery or back of the movie theater near where the old Kerens Hotel used to stand. To recognize Jere Daniel, you could look for a man with a strawberry nose and a significant belly.
Lots of people took trips out to Daniel Lake, trips both licit and illicit. I have taken both kinds of trips, and used to trespass the place on occasion with high school buddies, including one memorable trip out there with my classmate Eugene Conger in his old U.S. Army surplus jeep. The most blatant trespasser was a local character who was notorious around town for both his liquor bootlegging and game poaching. The Daniel family, I understand, fought an ongoing battle to keep this poacher’s nets out of the lake, but he must have pulled thousands of pounds of fish out of there.
My most memorable trip to Daniel Lake was an overnight outing with my family. This was a sanctioned trip, and Dad had properly sought out Jere Daniel, received permission to camp out overnight, and was even given the keys to the clubhouse.
What a wonderful camping trip! We set up our headquarters in the clubhouse. There was no furniture, but we made quilt pallets on the floor. The club house was a little shabby and worn on the inside, and even though the clubhouse stood on stilts or piers at least six feet off the ground, there were marks on the inside of the clubhouse showing the high water mark of past Trinity River flooding. This meant that the river bottom flooding at that point had to at least 10-15 feet above ground at the shore line of the lake!
During the afternoon, we went fishing for a while. The bait was earthworms, and I remember catching the biggest white perch I had ever seen – what excitement! The fishing was a little slow, so we put on our bathing suits and took a dip. Dad was quite athletic and a good swimmer. He swam out toward the middle of the lake, then turned on his back and floated back to the shore where the rest of us stayed for the entire time. We walked down the south side of the lake in the direction of the Trinity River, and I saw the remains of two huge spoonbill catfish that someone had caught and left up on the shore.
Afterwards, as evening came on, we gathered wood and made a campfire down by the shore of the lake. We roasted wieners for hotdogs, and afterward we roasted marsh mellows for desert. We brought our bedrolls down by the fire, and Dad told stories about growing up in Kerens, and how he and his friends used to come out to the lake. He told us about the wild man who used to live out at the lake, and how the wild man would shoot up in the air at uninvited trespassers at the lake. He told us that it was not really a wild man but just one of the young Daniel boys who wanted to live out at the lake and wanted to be left alone.
We were a farm family with daily chores to do, so it was always difficult to get away from home for very long. We had little money to spend, and never owned a car that was very dependable for long trips. For these reasons, our family never had the chance to take a vacation together except for the occasional weekend trip to see relatives in Fort Worth or out west in Lampassas. For those reasons, this family outing to Daniel Lake was a wonderful treat, an occasion that has remained etched sharply in mind for almost sixty years.
Dr. Ivan R. Vernon
ivernon-ohio@att.net
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