Vol. V. OCTOBER, 1901. No. 2.
The publication committee and the editor disclaim responsibility for views expressed by contributors to the Quarterly.
State of Texas, County of San Saba.
Know all men by these presents: That I, Sion Record Bostick, a resident citizen of the county and State aforesaid, being over eighty years old and feeling the infirmities naturally incident to old age, and being desirous of perpetuating testimony that may be of interest to future historians of Texas, do make the following statement:
I came to Texas in 1828 while a mere boy, scarcely ten years of age. My father belonged to Austin's colony and settled first in the red lands of Eastern Texas, in what is now known as Shelby county. I very well remember that the country was covered with grass as high as the sides of a horse. The woods were full of deer, panthers, leopard cats, wolves, bear, and turkeys. The Indians then in that part of the country were friendly.
The next year, 1829, we removed to old San Felipe on the Brazos river, where the land office was located. All the land grants and donations were signed up at Monclova. 2
In 1831 and 1832, the colonists had trouble with the coast Indians. They were large Indians, very warlike, and fierce fighters; but there were few of them, and they were soon annihilated. 3 About the close of the Carankawa Indian troubles, the Comanche Indians became hostile. They were quite numerous, and on most of their raids they were on horseback. Being excellent riders they found it easy to mount themselves, as the country was full of wild horses. The settlers had excellent horses brought from the old States, and these Indians dearly loved, on moonshiny nights, to steal these gentle horses. Several times they set my folks afoot by stealing all the horses we had. In such cases the settlers were compelled to buy horses from the Mexican traders. Their horses were small, but hardy, and could live entirely on grass. Most farmers used oxen in breaking land and cultivating their farms.
In 1832 my father moved from San Felipe to the Colorado river where Columbus is now situated, and it was at this place that we suffered most from Indian raids.
My father died in 1833.
There were then no schools, and there was but little preaching. In 1834 my mother employed an Irishman by the name of Lovelady to teach school at her house. The children of neighbors attended. This was my first school experience, and I must say that the Irish school teacher believed in that good old Bible doctrine, “Spare the rod, and spoil the child.” As he did not want to spoil the wild frontier boys, he never spared the rod; but he made us toe a mark, behave ourselves, and learn our lessons.
My school days soon ended. In 1835 the colonists began to be alarmed at the violations of their rights as colonists. As regards the causes, I was too young to understand them. The Mexicans came down to Gonzales about two hundred 4 strong to take a small cannon that had been left there. There were about one hundred 5 Texans there, and we resisted. After a volley or two, in which a few were wounded, but none killed, 6 the Mexicans went back to San Antonio, and they did not preserve good order in that retreat.
The rumors of war swept over the country, and the volunteers came in until several hundred had got together. I became a soldier, and joined Captain Splann's company. Stephen F. Austin was in command 7 of the troops that had gathered there, and Colonel Travis was with them.
The forces were divided. 8 The advance guard, or first detachment, had been attacked 9 by soldiers from the Alamo at Concepcion, and the Mexicans had been defeated when the force to which I belonged joined the first detachment.
We had but one little old cannon, the one we had at Gonzales, which was about a four-pounder. 10 General Austin told us that we might shoot at the Alamo if we wanted to. I belonged to the crowd that managed the gun. We were delighted with the privilege of shooting at the Mexicans, and we pulled the gun to within four or five hundred yards of the Alamo fort. Captain Poe was in command of the artillery. We loaded the little gun and fired, and we hit the fort and knocked down some of it. We could hear the Mexican sentinels calling to one another, “Centinela alerta!” They did not return the fire that night. The next day we moved up to an old mill just below what is now San Pedro springs. 11
Two weeks afterwards Stephen F. Austin became ill, resigned, and went back to San Felipe where he lived. We were told that he had to go to Washington, D. C. 12 Ed. Burleson took command.
While in camp at that old mill, we moved our cannon down and put it in an irrigating ditch. The Mexicans fired at us for several days. Their cannon were small, being four and six pounders. We returned the fire. I watched their balls hit, and when they got still I picked them up, and we fired them back at them. They never hurt any of us, and I do not know whether we hurt any of them or not. 13
In about a week 14 Ben Milam called for volunteers to go into San Antonio and take it. There were about two thousand 15 men in the city. General Cos had command and Ugartechea was a brigadier, I believe, under him. Some two hundred 16 men volunteered, but before the affair ended about all our force were taking a hand. At first it was necessary for some to stay and guard the baggage.
It was some time in November or early in December, if I remember right, 17 when we started in to take the place. The nights were dark. We did not go by the open roads or streets, but we went through the old adobe and picket houses of the Mexicans, using battering-rams made out of logs ten or twelve feet long. The stout men would take hold of the logs and swing them a while and then let drive endwise, punching holes in the walls through which we passed. How the women and children would yell when we knocked the holes in the walls and went in. It was dark; and by daylight all of the men were sheltered in these houses. We had dug our way through the houses until we were opposite the portholes in the barricades on the streets. We had holes punched in the walls so that we could see how to shoot. The guns in these barricades were pointed down the street, and we were on each side in the houses. They could not turn the guns around so as to shoot at us, but we could shoot at them over the walls of the barricades, and when one of them crossed in front of a porthole we shot at him. We moved our cannon into a street so as to knock down some of the barricades, and the fire of the Mexican cannon dismounted it.
We were about a week 18 fighting in those houses. On the third day of the battle our cannon was lying dismounted in the street, and General Milam wanted to get it out of the street so as to mount it again and use it. He went out in the street to show those who were trying to move the cannon how to work, when a canister shot hit him in the head and killed him. 19 Johnson and somebody else 20 took command after Milam fell. We dragged Milam in out of the street and put him in one of the houses. That same house is standing in San Antonio now.
After several more days fighting we captured the barricades, and the soldiers who had been behind them retreated into the Alamo. They soon put up a flag and called for a cessation of hostilities until a consultation could be held. After parleying they agreed to give up the fort with all its cannon if we would allow them their side arms. They agreed to leave Texas. We consented to this, they left, and we all dispersed to our homes. 21
About February, 1836, they came back with a large force and attacked San Antonio, where Colonel Travis and Bowie and Crockett were in charge of the old Alamo fort. I was at home at Columbus, but on the 21st day of March, after the Alamo had fallen and Fannin and his men had been massacred, 22 I re-enlisted at Columbus under Capt. Moseley Baker, who had a company in Colonel Ed. Burleson's regiment of Houston's army, then retreating before the victorious Mexicans.
Baker's company was sent 23 to San Felipe to guard it, and Houston's army crossed 24 the Brazos above San Felipe at Groce's Retreat. 25 My company crossed the Brazos at San Felipe and threw up some little fortifications. After the Mexicans crossed the Colorado river, General Houston ordered us to cross over the river and burn 26 San Felipe. The people had already abandoned the place, leaving everything they had in the houses and stores. We obeyed our orders, but remained in camp on the east side of the Brazos opposite San Felipe, and placed a picket guard on the west side to give notice of the approach of the Mexicans.
In a few days, 27 the Mexicans came up. One morning about sunrise they captured Simpson, one of our pickets. The other three pickets, Jack Bell, I. L. Hill, and Pettus got away and crossed the river in a dugout. We had some skirmish firing across the river at them. We would not let them cross, and they went down the Brazos and crossed at Richmond. 28 We were ordered to join Houston at Donoho's below Groce's Retreat, outside of the Brazos bottom in the edge of the prairie.
The scouts reported that Santa Anna had gone down to Harrisburg on Buffalo bayou, where he never halted, but, after burning the place, moved on down the bayou to a point opposite the mouth of the San Jacinto river, or rather below there. Houston's army followed, found Harrisburg burned up, moved on down the bayou, and went into camp just above the mouth of the San Jacinto river. The Mexicans came back up the river and some skirmishing took place on the 20th. They camped that night not far from Houston's army.
The next day in the evening, Houston ordered us to attack the Mexicans. Sherman on the left commenced the fight. We were all on foot except a small cavalry force under Lamar. We moved down a slope slowly, but when we started up a long sloping ridge (the Mexican breastworks were on the top of it), we all went in doublequick. Every one of us was yelling: “Remember the Alamo! Remember Fannin!” In a little while the Mexicans broke and ran. Just back of their camp was low marshy land and a kind of lake. Many of them tried to cross, but they bogged down, and we shot them. A few got through, and we captured them next day.
Capt. Moseley Baker told me on the morning of the 22nd to scout around on the prairie and see if I could find any escaping Mexicans. I went and fell in with two other scouts, one of whom was named Joel Robinson, and the other Henry 29 Sylvester. We had horses that we had captured from the Mexicans. When we were about eight miles from the battle field, about one o'clock, we saw the head and shoulders of a man above the tall sedge grass, walking through the prairie. 30 As soon as we saw him we started towards him in a gallop. When he discovered us, he squatted in the grass; but we soon came to the place. 31 As we rode up we aimed our guns at him and told him to surrender. He held up his hands, 32 and spoke in Spanish, but I could not understand him. 33 He was dressed like a common soldier with dingy looking white uniform. Under the uniform he had on a fine shirt. 34 As we went back to camp the prisoner rode behind Robinson a while and then rode behind Sylvester. 35 I was the youngest and smallest of the party, and I would not agree to let him ride behind me. I wanted to shoot him. We did not know who he was. He was tolerably dark skinned, weighed about one hundred and forty-five pounds, and wore side whiskers. When we got to camp, the Mexican soldiers, then prisoners, saluted him and said, “el presidente.” 36 We knew then that we had made a big haul. All three of us who had captured him were angry at ourselves for not killing him out on the prairie, to be consumed by the wolves and buzzards. We took him to General Houston, who was wounded and lying under a big oak tree.
The remainder of the story of the battle others have told. It is history. I have told what I saw as a young private; I was not seventeen years old. The causes of the discontent and the troubles with Mexico I did not then know. History tells all that. As a boy all I knew was that we had a row on our hands, and they wanted men to fight. I thought I could kill Mexicans as easily as I could deer and turkeys.
In 1842 I helped General Burleson whip the Comanches at the Plum Creek fight, and in 1848, during the Mexican war, I went out again under Claiborne Herbert. Still later, in 1861, I went again, this time to Virginia, and served in Hood's brigade in the Fifth Texas. During the war with Spain I was very much troubled because I was too old to go.
In testimony of which I hereunto sign my name this 31st day of May, 1900.
[Signed] S. R. Bostick.
State of Texas, County of San Saba.
Before me the undersigned, a notary public in and for the county and State aforesaid, this day personally came Sion Record Bostick, to me well known to be the person whose name is subscribed to the above and foregoing statement and after being sworn as to the truth of the statements therein made, declared the same to be true according to the best of his recollection and acknowleged to have signed the same and declared that he had done so for the purposes and considerations therein stated and set forth.
[SEAL.]
Witness my hand and the impress of my notarial seal at my office in San Saba county, this 31st day of May, 1900.
Joe F. Brown, Notary Public, San Saba county, Texas.
In the discovery and exploration of North America the sterile, frigid Northeast fell to the lot of France. Verrazano and hardy fishermen dared early the northern seas, but authentic title was won for France by Jacques Cartier, who, in 1534-35, breasted the currents of the St. Lawrence as far as Mont Royale (Montreal) where his progress to China was checked by the Lachine rapids. Nothing successful in the way of exploration and colonization of the country was achieved, however, until the time of Henry IV, when throughout his reign, and next during that of Louis XIV, trader, soldier, and priest carried French influence slowly southward and westward along the Great Lakes, adding the vast possession of Louisiana and, finally, planting a colony upon the coast of Texas.
The connecting link between Canada and the establishment in Texas was the Mississippi river. The rumors of this great river that had been borne to the French by the Indians had worked greatly upon their imagination and multiplied speculation. There were conjectures that it might empty into the Vermilion sea, or that it might flow east and find its outlet in Virginia; 37 but such were set at rest when Joliet and Marquette, in 1673, reached the river and voyaged down it as far as the Arkansas. For fear of capture by the Spaniards these two explorers did not go farther down the river, but they reasonably conjectured that it emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. Their work was crowned by La Salle, who, in 1682, reached the mouth and proclaimed the lands drained by the great river and its tributaries to be Louisiana and the possession of the King of France.
As it had been, previous to his determination of the course and outlet, so afterward more than ever was the Mississippi the chief subject of La Salle's speculations and the inspiration of his movements. His activities in the western part of New France, the consummation of which had been the descent of the Mississippi, had been pursuant to letters patent granted him by the king, May 12, 1678. 38 The discoveries made under this grant were reported by La Salle in a memoir presented shortly after his arrival in France, December 23, 1683. 39
In this memoir there is to be found much in explanation of his return and also the key to his next enterprise. He announced in the beginning of it the happy fulfillment of the wish expressed by Colbert of discovering a port for the king's vessels in the Gulf of Mexico; and for rendering this service he asked to be continued in the title and government of Fort St. Louis—an apparently simple request. This fort was the sole representative of all his efforts and expenditures of the preceding five years. It had been established in this wise. Fort Frontenac on the northern shore of Lake Ontario had begun to prove a disadvantageous situation for the fur trade, since the French traders there could no longer compete for the Iroquois service with the English at Albany; a vast individual trade carried on by the Frenchmen had also disorganized the trade of the company, and both these causes, with the promise of an undeveloped interior, had been instrumental in turning La Salle westward. As a part of this movement he had established, in 1682, Fort St. Louis on the Illinois, and had gathered around it the Illinois and other Indian tribes that sought protection against the hostile Iroquois. These allied savages, more than eighteen thousand in number, formed, he conceived, the beginning of a colony in which they were to be the factors in a great and lucrative trade.
Before leaving this last time for France, however, La Salle had experienced much misfortune in his efforts and faced the prospect of failure in his plans. He had seen his friend Frontenac replaced as governor; the Iriquois threatening an outbreak, thus imperiling trade; his emenies active; his creditors pressing; and to crown all his ill-luck the new governor take possession of both Fort Frontenac and Fort St. Louis, upon the ground that his trading privilege had expired. There was thus a deep significance in the simply stated request for the restitution of his fort.
La Salle proposed in this first memoir to return to the country of his discovery by way of the Gulf of Mexico, to ascend the Mississippi, and to establish a fort on it lower down than Fort St. Louis. He urged this establishment on the grounds, first, that it would be a means to extend to the heathen the services of God; second, that it would serve as a base for the subsequent conquest of New Biscay; third, that it would prove a port for the king's vessels, as well as a key to a vast region highly favored in climate, soil, and every kind of natural wealth. For the execution of this enterprise he asked for one vessel, arms and munitions, and the transport, maintenance, and pay of two hundred men during one year.
La Salle saw in this new country the possibilities for a New France far greater and richer than that of the north. His appreciation of its commercial importance was shown in the detailed account he gave of its products and latent wealth. Everything that had enriched New England and Virginia, such as hemp, salted meat, tallow, corn, cotton, sugar, tobacco, honey, wax, resin, and other gums could be obtained, he said. Cattle could be raised in large numbers. Buffaloes, bear, otters, stags, hinds, roes, lynxes abounded, and the hides and furs of these animals were easily and cheaply procurable from the Indians, who did not know their true value. Forests of mulberry trees foretold the silk industry, and from the cochineal, nuts, vines, and apples there could be made dye, oil, wine, and cider. Horses, oxen, swine, and fowls were to be found in different parts of the country, and their great number would obviate the necessity for any importation. Settlers would be induced to come into this country, he said, because of the ease with which they would be able to maintain themselves by the cultivation of the soil and by the production of articles of commerce. He contrasted, too, the ease of gaining a livelihood in this land of navigable streams with the fatiguing journeys over vagrant courses which the inhabitants of New France were compelled to make in hunting peltries.
These were the considerations uppermost in La Salle's mind on his return. He had left France and had gone to the New World to seek his fortune, and now, after disappointments and difficulties that would have dismayed a less dauntless man, the land of promise lay spread before him.
The exploration of this new and inviting field was a scheme too vast for individual initiative, and to La Salle, whose financial condition was hopeless through his losses, it was particularly impossible. He saw that he must depend upon royal assistance, which it would require very strong inducements to enlist under any circumstances, and especially at this time, as war with Spain was threatened. It is, therefore, probable that La Salle took advantage of the strained relations, and incorporated the designs against New Biscay with its rich silver mines as a politic appeal to the cupidity of Louis XIV, to whom, trusting as he did the fortune of war to the last louis d'or, the prospect of wealth would offer no slight inducement.
La Salle made the feature of the design against New Biscay the subject of a separate memoir. 40 Herein he proposed to fortify a point sixty leagues above the mouth of the river Colbert (Mississippi). In the event war should be declared with Spain he agreed to proceed from this base with two hundred and fifty Frenchmen, fifty buccaneers, and four thousand savages from Fort St. Louis; to attack the province of New Biscay with three different divisions of his army; and, seconded by the subject classes which groaned under the slavery of the Spaniards, to win from the enervated soldiery an easy victory. But should the peace of Europe postpone the execution of this design, still, he maintained, the establishment would be an advantageous commercial post and necessary to prevent anticipation in the new country by other nations.
At about the same time that La Salle presented these memoirs, proposals of a similar nature were made to the court by the Count of Peñalosa, a Spanish renegade in Paris. 41
His first memoir, 42 dated January 18, 1862, proposed the establishment of a colony at the mouth of the Rio Bravo. Besides the advantages such a colony would possess in establishing trade with the neighboring tribes, in raising cattle and producing goods for shipment to France, and in exploiting the mineral wealth the country contained, Peñalosa represented that it would serve as a base for an expedition for the conquest of New Biscay, whenever the king should desire it. The mines of this province, because of the weakness of the armed forces and of the distance from the City of Mexico whence help would be available, could be easily captured, he said, by the filibusters composing his army, assisted by the Indians, mestizoes, mulattoes, and creoles, who were all bitterly opposed to the yoke of Spain.
In January, 1684, shortly after La Salle's arrival in France, Peñalosa submitted another memoir, which contained some modification and amplification of his previous one. Instead of settling at the mouth of Rio Bravo he offered to go straight to Pánuco, and with one thousand or twelve hundred filibusters from San Domingo to seize the Spanish settlement there, and to proceed thence to the capture of the entire province. The facility of the conquest and the ease of maintaining it were plausibly set forth in much the same terms as those in his first memoir. For the success of this enterprise he asked for two vessels, one of thirty-six, the other of thirty, guns, equipped with everything necessary for maintenance and security. He further asked for two commissions, one for himself as governor of all the land he should conquer, the other for the chief of the filibusters as king's lieutenant.
The correspondence in the two plans of La Salle and Peñalosa, the adaptability with which they would lend themselves to co-operation, and stray references forcedly misinterpreted or unduly magnified in importance, have furnished foundation for the theory that the two proposals were combined by the government, that La Salle was dispatched first to execute his part of the scheme, and that the failure of Peñalosa to co-operate was due to the peace of Ratisbon concluded between France and Spain, August 15, 1685. 43 Shea in behalf of this theory goes so far as to contend that La Salle went designedly past the mouth of the Mississippi and landed in the region now known as Texas in order to establish there a base of operations. 44 Such a theory explains away some of the difficulties connected with the subject of the expedition, and apparently its advantage in this respect alone has commended it to some historians; 45 but more difficulties are raised by such a theory than are settled by it, the mass of evidence undoubtedly being against it.
Without here going into the question of the relation that may have existed between La Salle and Peñalosa, it is plain that their proposals so far indicated were separately and individually submitted to the king for the accomplishment of a like design. They seemed each to be bidding in separate and complete propositions for the work of pillaging New Biscay. But in the two memoirs presented later there is an expressed recognition by each of the other's proposal. La Salle in his first memoir had disparaged the plan of attacking Pánuco, 46 thus directly antagonizing Peñalosa, but in what is known as the second proposition there is an incorporation of this part of Peñalosa's plan. “These two different ways of conquering New Biscay,” 47 he says, “could be put into effect without much expense. One of the vessels could be chosen or both together in order to attack the Spaniards of this same province by two different routes. In this case the two vessels demanded for the first proposition 48 would suffice for both, because going across the Gulf together the one would go to Pánuco and the other to the mouth of this new river which is only sixty leagues from it.” 49
This second proposition is concerned almost exclusively with the design against New Biscay. At about the same time—in February, 1684—Peñalosa presented a third memoir 50 in which he devoted himself entirely to the designs against the province, amplifying the details of his plan as before submitted and investing all with an alluring plausibility. He proposed to capture Pánuco, march to the capital city, Durango, then proceed to the seizure of Culiacan on the Pacific. When the mines had been captured and the country fortified he planned that he would apply himself at Culiacan to building ships with which to wage war on the Spaniards. All this, however, was but one of his designs. The other, which was the chief one and which, he said, he had guarded carefully as a secret up to this time, was to get control of the entire country of New Biscay without the firing of a single shot, but by means of letters to the creoles and to his relatives and friends. As indispensable to the success of his plan, he asked to be allowed to start at once for San Domingo that he might arrive there before September. At this time the freebooters would be returning from their voyages, and he could employ the winter in selecting from among them the force which should constitute his army. The two vessels he had asked for meanwhile could winter safely, he said, at Petit Goave, and in April the expedition would be ready to start.
As evidence of Peñalosa knowledge of La Salle's proposal there is contained in this third memoir the following in advocacy of co-operation: “It is very much to be wished that it will please his majesty to send promptly the Sieur de la Salle with the necessary aid, in order that he may go by the way of the Gulf of Mexico to ascend his river and assemble the savages in an army corps with which, from the month of September next, he intends to enter New Biscay. *** The enterprise of the Count of Peñalosa and that of La Salle will serve to support each other. The latter will begin from the approaching winter to spread terror in that part of New Biscay which is along the river he has discovered; and the Count of Peñalosa coming afterward to Pánuco with the little army of filibusters will find it more easy, following his plan, to penetrate to the South Sea; and these two chiefs can accordingly give each other aid to assure their mutual safety, and following the orders of his majesty divide their conquests into two beautiful rich governments, which will bring each year into France considerable riches, and to his majesty a new glory in having extended his victories and conquests into the new world.” 51
A comparison of the preceding memoirs, three from each petitioner if the one of La Salle reporting his discoveries be included, reveals the development of the plan of the enterprise. The first memoir of each, although accentuating the design against the mines of New Biscay, is careful to balance it with the advantages that would arise from a commercial colony. In the second set this latter phase is minimized. Of the two last, Peñalosa's deals exclusively with the plan of conquest and with the wealth to be seized, while La Salle's presents the other feature as well. This divergent way of estimating the value of the expedition can well be ascribed to the difference in nationality and past activity of the two proposers.
The memoirs show in many respects very noticeable agreements. These have reference mainly to the location of New Biscay, to the climate, to the fertility of the soil and the products of the country bordering on it, to the advantages of the conquest, to the ease with which it could be effected, to the number of soldiers in the province and their enervated condition, to the maintenance of the conquest, to the unavailableness of succor from Mexico, and to the revolt of the subject classes. Similarities in respect to these details are taken as internal evidence that there were personal relations between La Salle and Peñalosa. Their presence together at a dining, 52 the recognition of each other's plans as expressed in their last memoirs, and the perfectly natural belief that circumstances would throw two such men together, leave little ground to doubt that there was consultation as to the projects they had in hand. Peñalosa's residence in New Mexico had furnished him above most others with a knowledge of the country such as was indeed pertinent at this time, and unless it is accepted that he is the source of La Salle's information it is difficult to explain the striking correspondence between the memoirs of the two.
In definite support of the theory that coöperation in the plans existed, the last memoir of Peñalosa, in which it was stated that they would support one another, has been advanced. The bold suggestion herein is undeniable, but it is ipso facto a suggestion only. Besides there being no official documentary evidence that it was accepted by the government, there is no corresponding specification of such a thing in any of La Salle's memoirs to afford foundation for the claim. The suggestion is purely from one side and is made with an eagerness suspicious of desperation. Peñalosa probably saw the meagre chance of recognition that such an adventurer as he had against La Salle, and as a last hope resorted to the proposal of linking the plans of the two. La Salle, however, included the plan of attacking Pánuco, and thus striking at the Spaniards by two different routes, as a part of his own single enterprise; and it was offered only as a secondary scheme to his other propositions. He conceived its execution without reference to any coöperative expedition, 53 and failed utterly to accord his fellow petitioner the charity of a recommendation, which oversight was in strong contrast to what was done unto him.
By the assimilation of Peñalosa's plan La Salle disposed of competition, and he must have believed too that his proposition thus complete in itself would appeal by reason of its simpler and more economical way of accomplishment more strongly to the king than would a double and vastly more expensive expedition. The result of the proposal justifies this theory. La Salle was granted a commission by which he was authorized to found colonies in and to govern the vast territory he had explored, from Fort St. Louis on the Illinois river to New Biscay on the south. The number of vessels granted to him was greater than he had asked for to execute the design. Instead of one vessel of war and a bark to be used as a transport, there were appointed two vessels of war, one carrying thirty-six, the other six, guns, a flyboat and a small ketch. This liberal grant on the part of the government, unsought so far as is known, was unusual, and it would have been still more unusual if another expedition was to have followed, requiring likewise a large expenditure.
The correspondence of Beaujeu has been adduced in support of the theory of coöperation. 54 In a letter to Cabaret de Villermont, Beaujeu, referring to La Salle, says: “He told me that we were only the forerunners of the man whom we went to see the morning that we dined at M. Morel's, and that he would surely follow us next year with considerable forces; that the Marquis de Seignelay wished it to be this year, and this had been intended, but that it had been deferred till next year on his asking the rest of this and an experienced man to reconnoiter the parts well.” 55 Those who believe in the theory of coöperation point exultingly to this extract as irrefragable proof of their contention. Accepted just as found, it is as damaging as if it were manufactured for the purpose; but there are considerations which when taken into account give a different aspect to its unqualified reception. So important a declaration as is here found would naturally warrant the inference that Beaujeu was well acquainted with the plan of the expedition and that its purpose had been confided to him, but difficulty in ascribing any such knowledge is found in the very letter from which the above extract is taken. It appears that even so late as that time, June 5, 1684, Beaujeu had no definite idea of what was to be done, but was under the impression that the expedition was to go first to Canada and thence to the Gulf of Mexico.
His wife was a Jesuit and for this reason La Salle distrusted him, fearing that this order should become acquainted with the purpose of the enterprise. Beaujeu in a previous letter to Villermont had remarked upon the suspicion with which La Salle regarded him and the uncertainty in which he was kept as to the object of the expedition. This is voiced more than once in the correspondence, 56 and there can be hardly any other conclusion from it than that La Salle did not tell him the secret of the expedition until the success of the enterprise demanded it. It is thus difficult to reconcile this extract and its implications with La Salle's confessed attitude.
The correspondence between Beaujeu and Villermont was itself a source of suspicion and irritation to La Salle. 57 It was after he had been reproached by La Salle on account of it that Beaujeu confessed in a letter to Villermont that La Salle had not told him the secret of the expedition, and that all he knew about it he had learned from the Holland Gazette. 58 In this confession there is to be had the explanation of much of the matter that Beaujeu palmed off as authoritative disclosures of La Salle, and it is indicative of the conjectural value which may be placed upon that part cited in support of the claim of coöperation.
The essential part of the plan of coöperation as reported by Peñalosa was that he should proceed at once to San Domingo to collect the army of filibusters necessary to the execution of his part of the plan and to put himself in readiness to descend on Pánuco in April 59 of the following year. But the absence of any evidence that he went on any such mission is as noteworthy as the absence of any other evidence to indicate that his proposal received official recognition. 60
The explanation of the failure of coöperation as due to the conclusion of the peace of Ratisbon 61 supposes a delay in the part Peñalosa was to perform that does not at all accord with the urgency he suggested, and which could not well have been disregarded by the government had coöperation been planned. Nor can the stoppage of La Salle at the island of Petit Goave and the report that he transacted “affairs of the utmost consequence” with M. de Cussy 62 be construed to concern the work Peñalosa proposed to accomplish, for it was a part of La Salle's plan to engage filibusters here, and the engagement of these and the affairs generally of the expedition might very well have occasioned this stoppage and the consultation with the governor. 63
There does not occur in any of the journals of the expedition any thought of the Southwest, whence help would naturally be expected from Peñalosa; but, on the other hand, La Salle's efforts were ceaselessly turned in just the opposite direction. Even as late as the beginning of the year 1687, he, consistently with his former movements, turned for aid to far distant Canada, though by this time, surely, if coöperation had been planned and he had had any confidence in his own and Peñalosa's estimation of the weakness of New Biscay—which each had proposed to conquer alone—he might in reliance on Peñalosa's formidable army have sought assistance in that region which according to his confused geographical ideas was very near. 64 It is, indeed, quite impossible to reconcile his movements in Texas with the plan of coöperation; for, even if it were admitted that he had left France in the belief that Peñalosa would follow, there could have been no way by which he had been later apprised of any revocation made by the government in consequence of the peace that had been concluded with Spain.
The extract from the journal of Abbe Cavelier which runs: “We turned all our hopes to the succor that the king might be able to send us from France, and we awaited it in patience till the end of the year 1686,” is cited also in support of the theory that there was to have been coöperation. 65 But it requires a forced interpretation to do this, since the succor might more plausibly refer to that which could well be expected to follow upon Beaujeu's return to France and his report of the misfortunes attending the landing of the expedition on the coast of Texas.
Shea believes that as a part of the plan of coöperation La Salle went designedly past the mouth of the Mississippi to Texas in order “to pave the way for Peñalosa.” 66 The basis for this belief he finds in the journal of d'Esmanville, wherein the latter asserts that in response to the request he made of La Salle for his last resolution, La Salle told him that he was resolved to take some soldiers against the Spaniards in New Biscay, since he was in the country where the king had sent him, but that this should be kept a secret except from the Abbe Cavelier. 67
D'Esmanville was a Sulpitian priest whose timorousness caused him to return to France with Beaujeu, not quite two months after the landing in Texas. It is rather strange that one of his stripe should have been the man of all those composing the expedition to whom La Salle confided his secret, especially when there were others much closer to himself. Then, too, the suggestion that La Salle would under such circumstances embark a handful of soldiers to operate against New Biscay is preposterous. There can be but little doubt that d'Esmanville was seeking to magnify unduly his relation with La Salle, or that he was offering an explanation for his forsaking the expedition.
From Joutel, the reliable historian of the expedition, it is learned that the proposed landing which occasioned the supposed divulgence of confidence on the part of La Salle was due to the need of fresh water and to La Salle's desire to learn something of the country. 68 And not only does Joutel show that La Salle was engaged in seeking the outlet of the Mississippi in the Gulf, 69 but that after entering St. Louis bay (Matagorda) he believed he had reached one of the mouths of the river. 70 La Salle's letters to Beaujeu were dated “a l'embouchere du fleuve Colbert” 71 and only a few days before Beaujeu's departure he wrote to Seignelay that he had reached the western mouth and would soon begin the ascent. 72 Both he and Beaujeu believed that the main mouth of the river was farther east, at the place where they had observed the shoals on January 6th, 73 and where La Salle was prevented from going ashore by the pilots. 74
Minet, the engineer of the expedition, who returned to France with Beaujeu, in a map of 1685, conforms the course and outlet of the river Colbert (Mississippi) to Matagorda bay, 75 thereby indicating that he believed La Salle had reached the river. his doubts about its being an arm of the Mississippi. 76 This expedition to explore the river on which he was situated in order to clear his doubts about its being an arm of the Mississippi.¹ This expedition resulted in the finding of a more desirable location for a settlement, and Fort St. Louis was later established there. 77 From this fort two expeditions were undertaken, one in October, 1685, 78 the other of April 1686, 79 with no other purpose in view but to find the “fatal river”; and it was failure in both of these and need of succor on the part of the colony that led to the third expedition, in January, 1687, which set out for France by way of Canada, 80 and in the early part of which La Salle met his death.
Further proof that the Mississippi was the object of La Salle's efforts is found in the memoir of Sieur de Tonty, commander at Fort St. Louis on the Illinois. Herein he tells that de Denonville, Governor of Canada, had informed him by letter, during the autumn of 1685, that La Salle was engaged in seeking the mouth of the Mississippi, and that this information led to his journey down the river and search up and down the coast for the expedition. 81
The planning in plain and unmistakable terms to go to the Mississippi and the desperate efforts made to reach it not only refute the charge that the landing in Texas was intentional, but connect us with the real purpose of the expedition. The absence of any movements towards New Biscay, which, if coöperation had been planned, could have been as easily made from Fort St. Louis with the assistance of the Cenis savages as from a fort on the Mississippi, is evidence that the design against this province was not as seriouly entertained by La Salle as the memoirs he addressed to the king apparently indicate. Parkman believes that the design was the lure with which he invited the assistance of the king in reaching the Mississippi and establishing there a commercial colony which would command the rich and extensive countries bordering on that river, and that he trusted to the conclusion of peace to prevent its execution. 82 And this conclusion as to the purpose of the expedition seems the most satisfactory one. For the success of this purpose no coöperation was needed, and the claims that such existed are besides, I believe, unsupported by the evidence.
The work referred to above as Shea's Peñalosa's Quivira Expedition appeared in 1882. The full title is The Expedition of Don Diego Dionisio de Peñalosa, Governor of New Mexico from Santa Fe to the River Mischipi and Quivira in 1662, as described by Father Nicholas de Freytas, O. S. F. With an account of Peñalosa's projects to aid the French to conquer the Mining Country in Northern Mexico; and his connection with Cavelier de La Salle. Mr. Shea's introduction to this relation remains the most radical formulation of the theory that La Salle was to have been seconded by the Count of Peñalosa in the proposed conquest of New Biscay. The reputation which Mr. Shea had as a scholar insured its serious reception as a contribution to historical criticism, and the judgment he expressed in it has had more or less acceptance as final among historians. This acceptance is difficult to understand, except on the ground that they, out of confidence in the author, have admitted his theory without investigation; for, the most that has been said in opposition to it has been the mere expression of doubt as to its correctness. There has been no systematic attempt at refutation. Mr. Shea has clearly used this work as a means of making a very sharp attack upon La Salle. Some of his accusations are so slightly founded and so dogmatically presented, that it would seem he had lost his judicial balance and was actuated by a somewhat questionable zeal. The Freytas Relation of the discovery of the country and city of Quivira and other matters relative to Quivira takes up the larger portion of the work. It is this that affords Mr. Shea occasion for the promulgation of his theory. In the Relation, he claimed, was to be found “the real secret of La Salle's last expedition,” but just where and how, he fails to show. It is true he endeavors to identify this Relation with one that La Salle had extracted from the library of M. de Seignelay, which gave a description of the Mississippi river and its mouth, but there is error in susch an identification, as the Freytas Relation contains no descripton of the mouth of the Mississippi. Mr. Shea seems likewise to have gone astray in crediting Peñalosa with having really made the expedition which is described by Freytas. Bancroft has shown well-nigh conclusively that it was an invention which was based on the account of the previous Oñate expedition, supplemented by Indian tales and an active imagination.
The Margry Collection, the title of which is Découvertes et établissements des Français dans l'ouest et dans le sud d'Amérique septentrionale consists of six volumes, the first three of which relate to La Salle. The edition I have used is dated 1879-88. Volumes II and III bear directly upon the Gulf expedition and furnish the most valuable and generally accessible sources that we have relative to the explorer and his enterprise.
In Part I (1846) of French's Historical Collections of Louisiana are to be found the memoir of La Salle (1678) relative to the necessity of fitting out an expedition to take possession of Louisiana, that (1682) reporting the discoveries that were made under the letters patent of 1678, the memoir of Tonty, and Joutel's Historical Journal. In Part IV are Le Clercq's Account of La Salle's attempt to reach the Mississippi by sea, and Douay's Narrative of La Salle's attempt to ascend the Mississippi in 1687.
Joutel's Journal is by far the most reliable and otherwise valuable account of the Gulf expedition, and the different versions of it make a few words of explanation necessary. Joutel, who was the historian of the expedition, and one of the few surviviors, carried this Journal with him on his return to France October 9, 1688. There was no early publication of it, but in 1713 there appeared in Paris a work entitled A Journal of the Last Voyage Performed by Monsr. de la Sale to the Gulph of Mexico, etc., and in etc., and in the following year, 1714, an English translation of the same in Paris and London. This work was in fact nothing but an edited account of what Joutel had written, as it is stated in the preface that his manuscript had been submitted to M. de Michel, who “was a proper Person to judge of it and put it into a Dress fit to appear in publick.” The Journal in its completeness was published for the first time in 1879 in the Margry collection, and when compared with it the previous version is found to be greatly abridged, differently arranged in part, and to contain some additions. The abridgement and difference in arrangement are easily explainable, but there is difficulty in accounting for Michel's source of information for the additions that were made. Mr. French, in his Collections, follows the abridged English edition of 1714, which is, it is unnecessary to say, inadequate to a full and satisfactory knowledge of the expedition so far as it is to be gained from Joutel.
When we look backwards into the long ago, and conjure from the recesses of memory the scenes and incidents of fifty years past, time plays at witchery, making real the shades and shadows that flit across our recollection, in the midst of which we seem again to live and move and have our being. The old soldier loves to tell of the incidents of his soldier life, and in the telling fights his battles over again. The old man is garrulous, and he delights to recall the men and the occurrences of his earlier days and set them moving, in his mind's eye, upon the stage of action, as if they were a part of the actual living present. As an old man, I propose to make a note of some of the things I saw and heard, and of some of the men I knew in Texas fifty years ago.
By no means do I intend to write my own biography. Suffice it to say, by way of introduction, that I am a native of North Carolina, reared mainly in the State of Indiana. This latter State I left when twenty-two years of age for Texas by way of Alabama, with no other fortune than a license to practice law issued by the supreme court of Indiana and the hope that animated thousands of others who came to Texas of bettering my condition in that then new State. Arriving in Alabama I found my means exhausted; so perforce I halted in that State and taught an old field school, in order to obtain means to complete my journey. From Alabama I walked to Texas, and arrived at Centerville, Leon county, on the 14th day of November, 1851. My brother, who was a printer, accompanied me. As we had no means, and meat and bread, clothes and shelter, were practical pressing necessities that could not be well ignored or put off, we concluded to start a newspaper at Centreville, if we could raise the money to buy the plant. We thought that the novelty of the thing, in what was then almost a wilderness, would attract attention and patronage and thus give us an occupation that would enable us to earn our daily bread. We found a friend who thought he could take the chances, and he loaned us the money, and we ordered a Washington hand press and the necessary type for a small newspaper from New York. After many delays and mishaps, the plant was finally landed at Cairo on the bank of the Trinity river by the old steamboat, Jack Hays. In the spring of 1852 we got out the first issue of the paper. It was called the “Leon Pioneer.” It was, indeed, a pioneer, for it was located in a section of the country that had never before been invaded by a newspaper. It was a great novelty and attracted attention and patronage. The people came from far and near to see it, and considering the paucity of population it was liberally patronized. We ran the paper for three and a half years, making out of it a support, and in addition money enough to pay off what we had borrowed. We sold the press and type to John Gregg and Morris Reagan (the latter a brother of Judge John H. Reagan) who moved them to Fairfield, Freestone county.
In 1851, there were but few newspapers in Texas. The writer remembers the News and the Civilian at Galveston, the Advocate at Palestine, the Item at Huntsville, the Ranger at Old Washington, papers whose names I have forgotten at Austin, LaGrange, and Nacogdoches, 83 and some two or three in the Red river section of the State. The Pioneer had the legal advertising of the counties of Houston, Leon, Madison, Brazos, Falls, Hill, Navarro, Robertson, and Freestone. The publication of the paper was surrounded with difficulties. Communication with the outside world came principally through the town of Huntsville, which at that time was considered the Athens of Texas. There was a weekly mail from Centreville to Huntsville—that is, the mail came over the line, on the back of a mule, once a week in dry weather. When the floods came and Bidias creeks became raging torrents, we were often from two to four weeks without a mail. In the language of old Tom Thurman, the mail carrier, all that was necessary to render the Bidias impassable was one or two lonesome thunders on the head of these creeks. In the interval between mails, the editor of the Pioneer had to manufacture news out of his inner consciousness as best he could. Frequently paper had to be transported from Huntsville on horseback. Sometimes it could not be obtained at all, and to save legal advertisements the weekly issue was got out on common wrapping paper. These were some of the difficulties that attended the publication of a newspaper in Texas in the early fifties.
At this writing there are five newspapers in Leon county, and the iron horse goes scurrying through the county four or five times daily, harnessed to the United States mail car, distributing the news from every part of the world. The contrast between the present progressive Texas and that of fifty years ago is indeed wonderful. The same blue sky, the same serene moon and stars that shone fifty years ago are still above us, but all else, how changed! We seem now to breathe another atmosphere, to inhabit another world. Then was the time of laying the foundation on which the greatness of Texas was to be builded; now we witness the grand results of fifty years of progress and development.
In the early fifties, the principal staples in trade were land and land certificates. Surveying and the location of certificates was an important business; but land and land certificates were cheap and could at that time be had for what would now be considered a song. It was the impression at that early day that only the timbered portion of Texas was adapted to agriculture. The vast prairies of the State were considered valueless, except for grazing and raising of stock. Under this belief, east Texas, the timbered portion of the State, had been nearly all covered with certificates, and the prairie portion was of necessity the scene of operations of the land locator and the surveyor. The section of the State of which the city of Dallas may be considered the center, and which is now prized as the farmers' paradise, was believed to be worthless for farming. It is a fact that the settlers in that section, in the early fifties, came down to Freestone, Leon, and other timbered counties east of the Trinity for their supplies of corn, believing that they could not successfully raise it in the prairies. It was in that day laid down as a certainty that farming could not succeed west of the Brazos.
At the time of the revolution in 1836, the American population of Texas was very limited. Those entitled to headrights and bounty and donation certificates for military service under the laws were too few for the vast number of certificates that were issued. To sift the genuine from the fraudulent, the government was compelled to establish what was known as the Traveling Board of Land Commissioners, to which board all land certificates had to be submitted for approval or rejection. This board rejected hundreds of certificates as fraudulent. That all of the fraudulent certificates were rejected by it is not probable. Doubtless many of these certificates were obtained by men who were not citizens of Texas at the time of the revolution, and who took no part in the struggle for independence, but who came to Texas after it was over in order to take advantage of the liberality the government of the Republic manifested towards her citizens and defenders in that crisis. Some of the fraudulent certificates perhaps may be attributed to the sentiment that prevailed among a few of the old settlers of Texas, who staked their lives and fortunes against the Mexicans and Indians, and who by perseverance and indomitable courage had finally won —that is to say, they felt that the land was theirs by the right of conquest, and that they were justified in taking it in preference to the men who came later and had borne no part in the war. An illustration of this feeling may be found in a conversation the writer had with an old Texan, who expressed himself on the subject as follows: “We old Texans fought for and won the country, the land by right is ours, and in taking it we but take what belongs to us.” These men were poor in this world's goods; they had been harried by the Mexicans and Indians, had suffered all of the hardships and discomforts of the wilderness, and it is not strange that they should feel in the hour of triumph that all they had won should be theirs.
The same old Texan stated to the writer how in a certain eastern county, at an early day, land certificates were issued. The law required that the person in whose name the certificate was applied for should, if living, appear before the board of land commissioners in person and swear to the facts that would entitle him to a certificate; and also produce two witnesses before the board, who could on oath corroborate the deposition of the applicant. When the board was in the humor to make some certificates for its members or their friends they made three mud men, one of which was named for the applicant, the other two for his witnesses. To these dummies the oath required by the law was administered, and the certificate would be issued. The same man told the writer that this board, by way of variety, issued a certificate for a third of a league of land to a celebrated stallion of the neighborhood that went by the name of Bordy Jolly. In this case the board had a live applicant, but as to whom the stallion produced as witnesses the informant did not state.
In 1864 a certain land man came from east of the Trinity to Centreville, for what purpose the writer does not know. He put up at the hotel, was taken sick, and died there. The landlord after his death looked into his saddle bags, and found a large bundle of land certificates, and brought them to the writer for examination. There were at least forty or fifty of them, on variously colored paper, purporting to grant leagues and thirds of leagues of land, signed by the boards of land commissioners of various counties, with signatures of the clerks and bearing the county seals. Of course these certificates were all fraudulent, and the incident is mentioned only to illustrate those rude and early times, and the loose methods that then prevailed.
The early settlers of Texas were generous and hospitable. They would share the last crust of bread or bushel of corn with a friend, neighbor, or stranger. They kept open house, and the latch string always hung on the outside of the door. They never turned away from the shelter of their roof or camp the stranger or the wayfaring man. They paid their debts, observed their contracts, and illustrated the highest integrity. Perhaps some of them entertained loose ideas in relation to the acquisition of land; but this, as a already stated, grew out of the feeling that they had fought for and won it, and that they committed no wrong in taking their own.
The writer's first retainer in a land suit, after his arrival in Texas, grew out of the generosity and hospitality of an old Texan towards a new comer and stranger. A man came from Tennessee with a wife and several small children and in the early spring stopped in the range of the old Texan's cattle. As soon as the latter heard of the arrival of the stranger, he hastened to see him, and informed him that he was welcome to gather as many of his cows with young calves as he might need to furnish his family with milk and butter; and that all he would charge him was to divide the milk of each cow with its calf, to which the new comer thankfully agreed. In the fall, when the old Texan went to see about his cows, he found that more than half the calves had died, and that those still living were at the point of starvation. He felt outraged that his hospitality had been so abused, and demanded pay for the calves that had died. On the refusal of the newcomer to pay for them he instituted suit before a justice of the peace for damages, and employed the writer to prosecute it, which he did, obtaining judgment; at the cost, however, to himself of incurring the ill-will of the defendant, which it took years to remove.
The social and friendly feeling that existed among the early settlers of Texas was strong and peculiar. It was the natural product and outgrowth of hardships and dangers which these pioneers mutually shared that joined old Texans one to another with hooks of steel. This statement may be illustrated by the following story:
The burning of the Adjutant General's office, at Austin in 1855, with the military records of the Republic and State, created a great sensation. It soon became rumored that two citizens of a certain county, old Texans, were the guilty parties, and they were indicted by the grand jury of Travis county. The writer was informed that in due course capiases for the arrest of these parties were forwarded to the sheriff of the proper county, who was also an old Texan and friend of the accused. The sheriff after receiving the process summoned a posse, with directions to meet him at a certain place, on a certain night to aid him in the arrest of one of the parties. The sheriff and his posse made the descent on the home of the accused at the appointed time and searched his house, but found no one except his wife and children. It was told the writer long afterwards, by one who professed to know, that the sheriff in advance had sent notice of his intended visit to the man concerned and had suggested that he need not be at home unless he wished. The sheriff was a good man, and the writer doubts the truth of what his informant told him; but if it was true it simply illustrates the strong and peculiar ties of friendship that existed among old Texans, founded on common dangers and common hardships. Nothing came of the prosecution of these citizens. No one was punished for the destruction of the Adjutant General's office. In fact, it was never ascertained whether the destruction of the office was intentional or accidental.
In the early days of the Republic and State of Texas, Houston, Rusk, Lamar, Hemphill, Wheeler, Lipscomb, Ochiltree, Henderson, Williamson, Roberts, Jones, Rivers, Gray, Reagan, Willie, Baylor, Jack, and a host of others were members of the bar, and actively pursued the profession of the law. These men became the leaders of the people of Texas. They illustrated in their lives and conduct the spirit and teachings of the law, and gave to the Republic and State a constitution and body of statutes unsurpassed by any on the American continent.
In the early days of the Republic and State, the judges and members of the bar had access to but few books. They had but few precedents, and but little regard for what they did have. They took the facts and tested them by the principles of equity, and in this way arrived at their conclusions. The decisions of the Texas courts of those early days stand out in bold relief among the great mass of decided cases for their simplicity, directness, and happy application of the elementary principles of right to the facts of the case. The decisions of Hemphill, Lipscomb, and Wheeler stand like monuments, illustrating that “the law is the perfection of right reason,” when guided by the fundamental principles of justice. When shall we see their like again?
In the early fifties, the members of the bar followed the judge on his circuit from county to county. They traveled on horseback. Each had his saddle-bags (in which was stored his linen and generally a lunch), his blanket, lariat, tin cup, water gourd, and coffeepot. All of these accoutrements were necessary. The country was thinly populated, and often in passing from one county seat to another no place of entertainment would be found, and camping out then became a necessity. When this happened, a spot affording water and grass was, if possible, selected for camp. Having chosen the place the travelers dismounted, unsaddled and staked their horses, kindled a fire, made and drank coffee, and ate their lunch. After eating and drinking, they sat around the camp fire, joked, told anecdotes, discussed the topics of the day, sang a song or two, and thus pleasantly whiled away the time till they grew sleepy, when they rolled themselves in their blankets, with saddle and saddle-bags for pillow, and with easy conscience passed into the land of dreams. These were the golden day of enjoyment and good fellowship. With every honest lawyer it was hail fellow well met. No envy or jealousy, no underbidding nor struggle for fees. Every member of the profession knew personally, and was known personally by, nearly every man in his circuit of practice. There was no great crowd of lawyers, in those early days, and with the settling of land titles and other matters there was plenty for all to do.
In 1846 the first Legislature after annexation divided the State into eight judicial districts. The counties of Milam, Burleson, Washington, Brazos, Robertson, Limestone, Navarro, Freestone, and Leon constituted the Eighth District, of which R. E. B. Baylor was judge. In 1852 or 1853 the Legislature made a new district called the Thirteenth, including all of the counties of the old Eighth District north and east of the Brazos river, as well as the new counties of Falls and Hill. Later another county, Madison, was formed out of the territory of Leon, Walker, and Grimes and added to the Thirteenth District. Henry J. Jewett was the first judge of this district. The writer having arrived in Leon county in 1851, had an opportunity of becoming acquainted with the judges of these two districts, and many of the members of the bar who resided in them, or being non-residents practiced there. Of the resident lawyers of the Eighth and Thirteenth Districts he remembers the following, who were in practice in the early fifties: Asa M. Willie, of Washington county; H. J. Jewett, R. S. Gould, John W. Durant, T. W. Blake, Thos. V. Mortimer, James Gregg, A. H. Weir, William Holman, and Aaron Kitchel, of Leon county; F. L. Barziza, of Robertson county; Charley Stewart, Thomàs Harrison, and T. P. Aycock, of Falls county; D. M. Prendergast and Joseph Lynn, of Limestone county; R. Q. Mills, C. M. Winkler, William Craft, and A. Beaton, of Navarro county; John Gregg, W. L. Moody, James Walker, and John Whitt, of Freestone county. Of non-resident and visiting lawyers he remembers the following: Henderson Yoakum, W. A. Leigh, A. M. Branch, and A. P. Wiley, of Walker county; John H. Reagan, Reuben Reeves, and A. T. Rainey, of Anderson county; W. B. Ochiltree, of Nacogdoches county; and Richard Coke, of McLennan county.
Guy M. Bryan was born January 12, 1821, at Herculaneum, Jefferson county, Missouri, on the banks of the Missouri river below St. Louis. He spent the greater part of the first ten years of his life at Potosi, Washington county, Missouri, his mother's home, where he acquired the rudiments of an education. While he was yet a small boy his father died, and his mother afterwards married Mr. James F. Perry.
In the spring of 1831 Mr. Perry emigrated to Texas. The family and negroes traveled by land, using two-horse wagons and a carriage, and young Guy rode a mule the whole distance. They reached San Felipe, Texas, August 15th, and there Mrs. Perry and her children remained until the spring of 1832. Then they moved to their homestead on “Pleasant Bayou,” a branch of Chocolate Bayou now in Brazoria county, where Mr. Perry established a ranch. In December, 1832, he moved to Peach Point, ten miles below Brazoria, west of the Brazos, which became his permanent home.
In the winter of 1835-6 Guy Bryan and his half brother Stephen and half-sister Eliza Perry attended the school of Mr. Pilgrim, who was teaching in the neighborhood, at Coumbia. Guy's boarding-place was the home of Mr. Josiah H. Bell, who lived about a mile from the schoolhouse, in what is now West Columbia; and in his daily walks to and from school he was accompanied by Thaddeus and James H., the sons, and Lucinda, the daughter, of Mr. Bell.
Early in March, 1836, Mr. Bell came to his youthful boarder and told him that a courier from San Felipe had arrived bearing a letter from Travis in the Alamo, which told of his being besieged by the Mexicans and called on the government and the people for immediate aid. Mr. Bell said that the courier and his horse were broken down, and asked if the young man, who had a horse of his own, would not take the letter to Brazoria and thence to Velasco at the mouth of the Brazos. At Velasco was a detachment of infantry commanded by Captain Poe. That place was the chief port of entry for Texas and had most frequent communication with New Orleans by vessel. Mr. Bell's question was answered in the affirmative, and the letter went on to Brazoria at once. The bearer reached there in the afternoon, and the news he brought produced a great sensation. After a copy of the letter had been taken, he went on by Peach Point, where he got a fresh horse, to Velasco, arriving at the latter place in the night. He crossed the river at once and carried Travis's letter to Captain Poe. All the troops and people of the town were assembled at Poe's headquarters to hear the news, which caused there, just as it had at Brazoria, great excitement. In detailing his recollections of the affair in after years, Colonel Bryan said that his reception at Brazoria and Velasco made him feel like a hero, and that the impression had remained with him all his life.
The following month, in consequence of the retreat of Houston from the Colorado, all the inhabitants of Texas west of the Trinity abandoned their homes and property, taking with them their negroes and such supplies as they could carry, and fled towards the United States frontier. Joel and Austin Bryan, the two older brothers of Guy, were in the army with Houston. Mr. Perry remained with his family until they reached the east bank of the San Jacinto, when he, with the rest of the able-bodied men and trusted negroes, joined a detachment of the army under Colonel Morgan, who was fortifying Galveston. The family was encamped at Captain Scott's, about six miles below Lynch's Ferry, when the news came that the advance guard of the Mexicans was on the opposite bank of the San Jacinto at the crossing, and that all boats had been brought to the east side and scuttled to delay them. The refugees were advised to push on. Several days previous to this, Joel Bryan had arrived from the army very sick with pneumonia. Guy, then a boy of fifteen, had his horse and all necessary arms and accoutrements ready to join Houston, but the appearance of the Mexicans and the consequent hasty departure of the family prevented the accomplishment of his purpose.
Mrs. Perry and her children joined the throng of fleeing people, which extended backward and forward as far as the eye could see in an indiscriminate mass of human beings, walking and riding on horseback and in every imaginable kind of vehicle. To make things worse, the prairies were covered with water, and the roads were exceedingly muddy. While the fugitives were crossing the wide prairie between the Trinity and the Nueces they were overtaken by a messenger bringing the news of the victory at San Jacinto, 85 and as he shouted the welcome announcement in passing, exultant cheers rose round him. They had expected to hear of a battle, for they had been within the sound of the guns, and they were naturally overjoyed to learn the issue. They immediately began to retrace their steps. At San Jacinto Mr. Perry joined his family again, and they all returned home, except Austin and Guy, who remained with the army, the latter as orderly of Lieutenant-Colonel Somervell.
After the armistice entered into by Generals Houston and Santa Anna the day following the battle of San Jacinto, General Burleson was sent forward with a detachment of troops to watch the movements of Filisola and see whether he complied with the terms agreed upon. Austin Bryan went with General Burleson, and Guy stayed with the main body of Texans which was encamped at San Jacinto, and which, after considerable delay, also followed the retreating Mexicans. In the course of a week or ten days Austin returned, and the two brothers were together until Guy had measles, which left him in such bad health that he was forced to go home. Immediately afterwards he had an attack of pneumonia, from which he came near dying. When he recovered, there being no prospect of active hostilities, he was regularly discharged from service.
That fall and part of the next spring Guy and his half-brother, Stephen Perry, attended the school of a Mr. Copeland on Chocolate Bayou at the place now known as Liverpool. In the fall of 1837 Guy entered Kenyon College, Ohio, where he remained five years, graduating and returning home in 1842. One of his fellow-students at Kenyon was Rutherford B. Hayes, afterwards President, who was his class-mate and intimate friend.
When Mr. Bryan returned home, the Texan troops intending to invade Mexico under General Somervell had assembled at San Antonio, and he was anxious to join them; but Mr. and Mrs. Perry, who opposed his going, threw so many obstacles in the way that the army had marched before he was ready to leave, at which he was greatly disappointed.
Before leaving college Mr. Bryan had had trouble with his eyes, which proved so persistent as to interfere with his purpose of studying law. After a time, however, they began to improve, and he undertook to read for the profession in the office of William H. Jack; but he was induced by Mr. Jack to give up the plan in order to avoid a recurrence of the trouble. Then he took up a life of active outdoor exercise, sometimes helping Mr. Perry in the management of Mrs. Perry's business affairs. In the spring of 1844 he visited Little Rock to look after some business connected with his father's estate, and went thence to Wytheville, Virginia, to look after a land claim that his mother had inherited from her father, Moses Austin. His route was by steamboat to Guyandotte on the Ohio river, thence on horseback up the valley of the Kanawha and over the mountains to White Sulphur Springs, and thence by stage to his destination. Having finished his business at Wytheville, he went on to Richmond, Washington, Philadelphia, and New York, and back through Ohio and by New Orleans to Texas. After his return he continued his attention to his mother's estate.
Meanwhile annexation became the all-absorbing topic. England and France were particularly anxious to prevent it, and through their efforts Mexico was induced to offer to recognize the independence of Texas if the latter would refuse to join the American Union. There was great fear among the people of Texas, especially in Brazoria and Colorado counties, that President Jones would favor the rejection of the terms offered by the United States and acceptance of the overtures of Mexico, and a convention of influential citizens was held at Brazoria to give public expression to their views. Mr. Bryan was appointed by this meeting to go to Galveston and do what he could to secure from the prominent men of that city their endorsement of what had been done at Brazoria, and their influence in bringing about like meetings throughout the Republic. Whether the President required any such stimulation or not, he followed the wishes of the annexationists and called a State convention and an extra session of the Texas Congress to pass on the offer of the United States. This offer was accepted, and on February 19, 1846, he formally surrendered the executive office to the first governor of the State, J. Pinckney Henderson. 86
After the outbreak of active hostilities in the Mexican War, General Taylor made a requisition on the governor of Texas for re-enforcements, and Mr. Bryan volunteered in response to the call. He went out as a private in a company from Brazoria, and was for some time in camp with Taylor's army near Point Isabella. There his half-brother, Stephen Perry, who had accompanied him, became desperately ill, and Mr. Bryan had to carry him home, thus missing his share in the battle of Monterey.
In the summer of 1847 Mr. Bryan was elected Representative from Brazoria county, with E. M. Pease as his colleague. He served six years in the lower house and was then elected Senator from the district composed of Brazoria, Matagorda, Wharton, and Fort Bend counties, for a term of four years ending in 1856. Meanwhile, in 1852, he had served as elector at large on the democratic presidential ticket and had canvassed the Western Congressional District of Texas in behalf of Pierce and King. The State then had only two congressional districts, one east and one west of the Trinity river. He was a delegate to the National Democratic Convention of 1856, and in 1857 was nominated for Congress by the first regular Democratic State Convention held in Texas, which met at Waco; and that fall he was elected, his colleague representing the Eastern District being John H. Reagan.
October 20, 1858, Mr. Bryan was married to Miss Laura H. Jack, the daughter of Col. William H. Jack, his old law preceptor. Feeling that the demands of Washington social life, which she enjoyed greatly, were strongly in conflict with what she regarded her duty as wife and mother, she besought him not to be a candidate for Congress again, and he acceded to her wishes.
In the winter of 1860 Mr. Bryan moved to Galveston. In that year he was one of the delegates to the national Democratic convention, and was elected chairman of the delegation, the other members being Governor Runnels, F. S. Stockdale, F. R. Lubbock, Judge Crosby, and General Greer. Immediately after the withdrawal of the delegates of the Gulf States from the Charleston convention, he was sent by the Texas delegation back to the State in order to explain its action to the people. He did this by means of an address published in the papers of the State, and then hastened back to join the other delegates and participate in the convention of the nine States that had been appointed to meet at Richmond. The subsequent conventions, the various nominations made by them, and the attitude of the Texas delegation relative thereto are too familiar to need mention here.
After Mr. Bryan's return home he devoted himself to his private business. He and his brother Austin were joint owners of several thousand head of stock, and this property required his attention. At the same time, however, he took an active interest in the pressing public questions of the day. As secretary of the committee of safety for Galveston, he coöperated with the Texas secessionists, and this committee did much towards shaping their policy in the State.
When secession had become an accomplished fact, Mr. Bryan joined himself as private to one of the companies raised for the service of the State in Galveston. General Hebert, commander of the Texas department, appointed him volunteer aid-de-camp, to assist in the work of military organization, and sent him to Richmond to obtain orders from President Davis, from whom he brought a letter instructing General Hebert to coöperate with General Hindman in Arkansas as soon as a sufficient force had been organized in Texas to justify an aggressive movement.
Mr. Bryan was also instructed by President Davis to bring about a conference of the governors of Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Missouri relative to the affairs of the Trans-Mississippi department. To this end he communicated personally with Governors Lubbock of Texas, Moore of Louisiana, and Rector of Arkansas, at the capitals of their respective States, and by letter with Governor Jackson of Missouri, who had been driven from his own State and was then in Northern Texas. They all met at Marshall, Texas, except Governor Rector who was represented by proxy. Mr. Bryan was present and explained the objects of President Davis in calling the conference.
Afterwards Mr. Bryan received from Richmond a commission as assistant adjutant general with the rank of major, with orders to report to the commander of the Trans-Mississippi department. General Holmes had recently been appointed to this office, and his headquarters were at Little Rock. Major Bryan reported for duty and was sent to Marshall, Texas, to recruit the regiments of the Sibley brigade and send it to Richmond. He went to the headquarters of General Sibley, at Marshall, and showed his orders. The general treated him courteously, but declined to give him any information about the regiments; so he decided to go on and seek it at Galveston, the headquarters of General Hebert.
He started on his trip with General Granbury on the top of a stage, the interior being full, in a very cold norther. On his return from Richmond the previous August, he had found the whole Mississippi bottom under water and had been forced to cover the ninety miles from Vicksburg to Monroe in a skiff, rowing when the water was deep enough, and wading and pushing the boat when it was not. This exposure doubtless had a serious effect on his constitution. When he reached Huntsville on the night of October 28, 1862, he was sick with pneumonia and was suffering so that he could go no further. He stopped at Wilson's hotel, where he received unremitting attention from friends. By the tenth day his life was despaired of, and an express rider was sent to Waco for his wife. She came as quickly as possible, having to travel by stage from Waco to Millican and from Navasota to Huntsville. Only for the few miles of the journey between Millican and Navasota, was a railroad available. About the same time arrived Austin Bryan, who came from Brazoria county. He and Mrs. Bryan brought with them each a body servant of the patient. Major Bryan's illness proved typhoid pneumonia, and for weeks he lingered in a most critical condition; but by the careful and tireless nursing of his wife and the two servants his life was finally saved. During his convalescence, however, he was stricken with rheumatism from the knees down, to which he remained subject at intervals throughout his subsequent life. 87
At the outset of his illness, when Major Bryan found that it would likely prove serious, he communicated with his senior adjutant general at Little Rock, who sent back a courier with despatches to him. He requested his friend Judge Campbell to act as amanuensis while he dictated replies. Judge Campbell at first refused, asserting that the excitement that would be produced by the effort to discharge such important business would endanger the sick man's life. Major Bryan replied that to neglect the replies would annoy him and endanger it more; and the courier did not return without them.
In the latter part of January, 1863, Major Bryan was well enough to be moved to more comfortable quarters at the residence of Judge Campbell. Two or three weeks later he was able to go in an ambulance, attended by his wife and servants, to Waco, where Mrs. Bryan and her son were living with their aunt, Mrs. Earl. There he stayed until the last of May, when he returned to the army, reporting at Shreveport to General Kirby Smith, then commander of the Trans-Mississippi department.
When Major Bryan presented himself to General Smith, he asked for assignment to duty in the field; but the general replied that he knew of the esteem in which Major Bryan was held by President Davis and understood how useful he would be in dealing with Texas, in which State lay the resources of the department, and that he would need him as confidential adjutant general. So he established still closer relations with Major Bryan by taking him into his house and treating him as one of the family.
The possession of the Mississippi by the Northern troops cut off supplies that might have been obtained by General Smith by way of that river, and what he had from foreign sources was chiefly in exchange for cotton carried in wagons across the Rio Grande and shipped from Mexican ports. In order to facilitate this traffic General Smith desired the establishment of a “cotton bureau” in Texas, and he directed Major Bryan to effect this by whatever means his own discretion might approve. So the Major went to Houston and with the help of W. P. Ballinger got J. W. Hutchins, George Ball, and James Sorley to consent to organize such a bureau as its chief officials, under such regulations as they and he might adopt subject to the approval of General Smith. When he reported, General Smith commended his work, and said that he intended to establish a like bureau for the whole department and wished him to take charge of it. Major Bryan replied that he had obeyed every order thus far willingly, but that he felt compelled to excuse himself in this instance if possible. On being asked for his reason, he said that he had spent his life in trying to win an irreproachable reputation and hoped that he had succeeded; but that he could not hope to retain it in such a position, and that another could be found whose habits and training had fitted him for such a place far better. He was excused and remained at General Smith's headquarters, serving as the medium of communication with the Texas authorities. One duty that fell to him was to relieve some complications that had arisen between the Confederate cotton bureau at Houston and another that had been established by the State. This he accomplished by securing first an agreement by the officials of the two bureaus and then the approval of it by Governor Murrah. He then started back to headquarters accompanied by Judge T. J. Devine, who went as the agent of Governor Murrah to secure certain concession desired from General Smith.
On arriving at Shreveport Major Bryan and Judge Devine heard that Smith had defeated Banks, 88 who was advancing against that place, that Banks had retreated down Red river and his coadjutor Steele towards Little Rock, and that Taylor was following Banks and Smith was in pursuit of Steele. They pushed on and overtook Smith at Camden on the Washita. When Major Bryan reported General Smith told him that he was just in time to witness the capture of Steele, who was shut up in Camden by his force with three thousand Confederate cavalry under Fagan and a smaller number under Marmaduke on the other side of the river to cut off the retreat of the Federal troops. The next morning, however, it was learned that Steele had crossed the river quietly during the night on pontoons, most of which he destroyed after getting over, and had continued his retreat. Smith constructed a temporary bridge, crossed the river, and hurried on in pursuit. He overtook Steele in the act of crossing the Saline and attacked him at once; but the obstinate resistance of the Federals, together with a rapid rise of the river, enabled the retreating force to get safely away. 89 In the course of the battle Major Bryan was called upon to follow General Smith to the field and assist in rallying Waul's brigade, which was soon accomplished. Among the incidents which served to impress the day's work on Major Bryan's memory was the wounding of General Waul just as they separated after a brief conference.
The next day when General Smith and his staff were returning to Shreveport, he had a private interview with Major Bryan, indicating a desire that he should undertake a confidential mission to President Davis. Major Bryan tried to excuse himself, but the general insisted. In the midst of their discussion Dr. D. W. Yandell, who was then a surgeon on Smith's staff, rode up and, observing the reluctance of Major Bryan, offered to go himself; but General Smith held firmly to his first choice. That night the two had a long talk over the matter in General Smith's tent, and before it ended Major Bryan had consented to go. He was directed to ask, in view of the fact that Federal control of the Mississippi had so completely cut off the Trans-Mississippi department from the rest of the Confederacy, for more independent authority for its head. He was also to give a report of the campaign, and full information relative to the status of affairs in that department. He was told that a faithful scout who knew the country well would guide him across the Mississippi, await his return, and accompany him back.
Preparations for the trip began at once. The guide, whose name was Pinson, was sent for, and Major Bryan was furnished with his despatches. He was to be accompanied by another officer, named Hopkins, and he allowed two Texans also, who wished to rejoin their commands on the east side of the river, to go along with them.
The party made its way on horseback to St. Joseph on the Mississippi. Just before they reached the river, Pinson went forward to reconnoiter and make arrangements to cross. Early that night he returned and reported that he had secured a skiff with two men to pull it, and that he thought they could get over safely. The river was patrolled by gunboats; and, watching their opportunity, they began crossing immediately after one had passed. Pinson first took Major Bryan over, swimming his horse beside the skiff. The river was about a mile wide at the point where they had undertaken to cross, and when they were about two-thirds of the way over they saw the fires of an approaching gunboat. The night, however, was very dark; and by keeping quiet and rowing cautiously they escaped discovery. Pinson then went back for Hopkins; but just as they pulled away from the bank another gunboat appeared, and they had to put back to the west side till it passed. The next trial carried them over safely, and in a short time the whole party had crossed.
Soon after sunrise they reached the hills and stopped at the house of a planter, by whom they were very hospitably entertained. Leaving Pinson there, the others went on to Brandon, where Major Bryan and Hopkins took the train for Richmond.
Having reached his destination Major Bryan called at once upon President Davis and made his report. When he had done this, Mr. Davis offered him a position on his staff as aid, with the rank of colonel, saying that he desired the services of some one who was well acquainted with the affairs of the Trans-Mississippi department, and in whom he had thorough confidence. Major Bryan asked until the next day to think it over. Meanwhile he was urged by Mr. Oldham of Texas, a member of the Confederate Senate who knew of the offer, to accept it; but he replied that he thought he could serve Texas better in his position on the staff of General Smith, and that he had already decided to decline and to recommend instead Governor Lubbock, who had just completed his term, and who had precisely the knowledge that Mr. Davis desired.
Major Bryan and Mr. Hopkins then started back to Texas. They were accompanied by Captain Burke, a Texan scout belonging to Lee's army. One morning as they were proceeding along the Rodney road some distance beyond Port Gibson, Mississippi, they saw a man approaching with his horse in a run and covered with sweat. He proved to be a scout, who brought news that a large body of Federal troops was coming along the road ahead of them. Major Bryan instructed Captain Burke to learn what he could of the approaching force and report to him at the house of a Mrs. Valentine, at which they had spent the night, and which they had just left. Mrs. Valentine, however, begged them earnestly not to remain in her house, for she was sure that if they were found there the Northern troops would burn the house. She told them of a dense cane brake near by, where they could hide themselves and their horses; and there they waited, suffering greatly from the intense heat, until Captain Burke returned. He said that he had seen the rear of the reported force, and that it had taken another road. Then in order to avoid scouting parties, they went to a house some distance from the road and belonging to a Mrs. Young, to which Mrs. Valentine directed them. On the way they heard heavy firing of artillery and small arms near at hand. Mrs. Young for additional security sent them on to the house of a relative of hers still further from the ordinary thoroughfares. There they were kindly received, and there they remained till the afternoon of the next day. Then they learned that the force they had come so near encountering was Ellis's brigade, a body of Northern troops who were quartered on a gunboat that went up and down the Mississippi, and who made raids from time to time on both sides. When they first heard of the proximity of the brigade, it was on its way to seize a lot of cotton which its commander had heard was in the neighborhood. But a regiment from a Confederate conscript camp near by marched to intercept the expedition and made such a furious attack on Ellis's men that they retreated forthwith to their boat, leaving the cotton unmolested and the roads open. When the travelers knew this they pushed forward in the afternoon, and late that night they were joined by Pinson, who had been watching for them. He conducted them safely across the river to a plantation known as the Montgomery place, 90 where they spent one day. Then they went on to Shreveport.
General Smith was greatly pleased to see Major Bryan again and gave him a place on a military court at headquarters with the rank of colonel. The success of the mission was soon proved by an order from the Confederate Secretary of War conferring the amplest powers on the commander of the Trans-Mississippi department.
Shortly afterwards Colonel Bryan was appointed by Governor Murrah representative of Texas at the headquarters of the Trans-Mississippi department, an office which had just been created by the Legislature of the State. By agreement between Governor Murrah and General Smith, he at first retained his commission in the Confederate service, acting at the same time as representative of Texas; but after Lee's surrender he resigned his commission as Confederate officer and qualified in the other capacity. He was ordered to report to Governor Murrah at Houston and was there when General Smith surrendered.
The war being over, Colonel Bryan took his family back to his home in Galveston and lived there till the spring of 1867, when he moved to his ranch opposite the city on the mainland. The year 1871 he spent mainly in health-seeking and visiting relatives and friends. He made a short visit to his old friend and classmate, R. B. Hayes, who was then governor of Ohio, and another to Mr. Burchard, the uncle of Governor Hayes, who lived at Fremont, Ohio, and who was also one of his old friends. At New York he was for three weeks under the treatment of Dr. W. A. Hammond, and at Waukesha he renewed his acquaintance with Chief Justice Chase, with whom he had very pleasant social relations. There he met also Horace Greeley, who had recently returned from a visit to Texas. In November, 1871, he returned to Galveston and engaged board for his family at his own residence, which was then rented. Here, on December 16th, Mrs. Bryan gave birth to her youngest son, and on January 1, 1872, when it seemed that she had recovered, she died from some disorder of the heart. The stricken husband and his children then found a home in the house of his brother-in-law, Judge Ballinger.
The loss of his wife fell heavily upon Colonel Bryan. Heart-broken and failing in health he went to Sour Lake and spent a month in seeking to regain his strength. Instead of this, he become worse, almost unto death; but one of the faithful old servants that had been with him when he was so ill at Huntsville came to him and nursed him back to health.
In November, 1873, Judge Cleveland, chairman of the Galveston Democratic committee, sent for Colonel Bryan and told him that the Democrats had decided to make an effort to recover the State from the misrule which had been inherited from reconstruction, and that he must help the ticket by becoming a candidate for the legislature. After taking the matter for one day under consideration, he consented. He canvassed the counties of Brazoria, Matagorda, and Galveston, and was elected with John A. Harris and W. L. Moody as his colleagues in the House, and Judge Ben Franklin as Senator. 91
The legislature met on January 18, 1874, and Colonel Bryan was elected Speaker with but one dissenting Democratic vote; but, though the new government was backed by a majority of over fifty thousand in the State, the Republican governor, E. J. Davis, refused to recognize it. He fortified himself with armed force under his adjutant general in the basement of the capitol, and called upon President Grant to protect him in his office with Federal soldiers. He also refused to give up the election returns for the State offices; but the chairman of the House election committee succeeded, after a week's time, in getting the returns for governor and lieutenant-governor. Immediately the vote was counted in joint session of the two houses; and, as the result, it was announced that Richard Coke and R. B. Hubbard had been elected respectively governor and lieutenant-governor for the ensuing two years. These gentlemen were forthwith inaugurated in the presence of an immense concourse of the citizens of Texas.
The morning after the inauguration Governor Coke sent for Colonel Bryan and informed him that the capitol and its grounds were committed to the President of the Senate and the Speaker of the House. Colonel Bryan then returned to the House and swore in Gen. W. P. Hardeman, Col. John S. Ford, and Capt. William Hardeman as assistant sergeants-at-arms. He gave them instructions and placed them in command of the capitol and grounds, and for more than a week they faithfully discharged their duties amid the most exciting scenes. Finally Governor Davis, having ascertained that President Grant would not support him, abandoned the executive office to Governor Coke.
At the next election, Colonel Bryan refused to become a candidate.
Soon after the inauguration of President Hayes, he wrote to Colonel Bryan that he desired help from him and wished him to come to Washington. Such an invitation was not to be declined; and its recipient spent three weeks at the While House while the difficulties relative to the Louisiana and South Carolina legislatures were in process of settlement. When he left, he was assured that he had been of great service and that much of the president's kindly feeling towards the South was due to him. Twice again during the same administration he spent several days in the White House by invitation of the president, but these were only friendly visits, and without political significance.
In 1878, while Colonel Bryan was spending the summer and fall with his two daughters, who were at school in Virginia, he was nominated and elected representative to the 16th Legislature from Galveston. He was a member also of the 20th and 21st.
It has already been stated that after the death of his wife he and his children went to live with Judge Ballinger. In 1880, however, when his oldest daughter had finished her course at school, he made his home once more at his place near Galveston. In 1890 he moved to Quintana, where his oldest son was living. In 1898 he changed his residence finally to Austin, where he wished to spend his remaining days, and where he died, after a brief illness, June 3d, 1901.
Colonel Bryan was a member of the Texas Veterans' Association from the time it was organized in May, 1873. It was he, in fact, who delivered the oration at that time. In 1892 he became president of the association, and he continued in that office till his death. He was also one of the vice-presidents of the Texas State Historical Association from its organization.
The children of Colonel Bryan are four in number: two sons, Willie Jack, and Guy Morrison, living respectively in Houston and Galveston; and two daughters, Laura, who in 1891 married Mr. E. W. Parker, and has been for some years a resident of Washington, and Hally Ballinger, whose home since her father's death is with her sister.
Such are the uncolored annals of a life at once modest and unobtrusive, but strenuous in all good works. It is not considered unfit to close the sketch with the following characterization from a memoir accompanying resolutions adopted by the Faculty of the University of Texas relative to Colonel Bryan's death:
“The State pride of Colonel Bryan was intense, and his devotion to the interests of Texas unbounded. At the time of his death he was president of the Texas Veterans' Association and first vicepresident of the Texas State Historical Association. He left nothing undone that lay in his power to promote love of the traditions and study of the history of the Republic and the State, of which he had a peculiarly extensive and accurate knowledge; but no man was more zealous for the exact truth, or more earnest in the correction of historical errors. Not the least of his invaluable services to Texas has been his jéalously careful preservation of the Austin Papers, which are the sources of the history of the beginnings of its Anglo-American colonization, and which are, beyond question, the most valuable single collection in the Southwest.
“Colonel Bryan was a man of singularly pure and refined character. One could not know him without being impressed by his sincerity and manly courage, and yet withal by his broadly liberal toleration of other convictions than his own. His political and social leadership was of the kind that makes legalized injustice and corruption in high places impossible, and contact with him was full of inspiration for young and old to nobler and better living.”
Historian Daughters of the Republic.
The identification of old landmarks, and their preservation, are objects worthy of engaging the interest of all Texans. Exact records of their location, their dimensions, and their surroundings as written down by actual observers are invaluable to the student of our early history, and in offering the following account of the old fort on the San Saba river, I hope to elicit further information on this interesting subject.
The year 1845 witnessed a large emigration from Germany to Texas, and with a view to gaining an accurate scientific knowledge of the country, its geological formation so far as possible, and its agricultural capabilities, an extensive journey of exploration was undertaken by Dr. Ferdinand Roemer, an eminent German scholar, which began November, 1845, and ended April, 1847. The results of this journey were published in August, 1849, at Bonn, Germany. The book called Texas comprises 464 pages, of which 362 are narrative, the remainder consisting of notes on the geognostic conditions, and on the flora and fauna observed by the author. There is besides a large map of the country as then known.
Starting out from New Orleans on board the steamship Galveston on November 20, 1845, Dr. Roemer had already passed one year and nearly three months in the then unexplored wilds of Texas, and had reached the neighborhood of the favorite hunting grounds of the Comanche Indians, when his attention was arrested by a remarkable feature in the landscape; and, true to the instincts of the scientist, he made a minute record of what he saw, giving probably the earliest accurate account of the dimensions of the old fort on the San Saba river. This account, which is to be found in the book referred to, beginning on page 308, is translated as follows:
“February 18 [1847]. Our way led us today over many pretty little prairies, when, after having traveled nearly six English miles; and not surmising that we were so near our goal, we beheld, through the mesquite trees in the distance, an object resembling old masonry. We came nearer and found ourselves before the ruins of quite an extensive building; we had reached the old Spanish fort or mission on the San Saba river. Our first impression was that of amazement at finding in the midst of this wilderness in which we had traveled about so long, and in which we knew ourselves to be many days journey from the abode of civilized men, this incontrovertible evidence of the former permanent abode of white people. Through an aperture in the masonry we entered an inner courtyard and found there a suitable place for our tents. The fort lies close to the river on the left or north bank, which is here about twenty feet high. The ruins consist of remnants of masonry work five to six feet high (in some places from fifteen to twenty feet), and plainly show the design of the whole structure. The outer walls of masonry are an almost square rectangle whose shorter wall, lying near the river, measures 300 feet, while the longer wall measures 360. On to the inner side of this outer wall are built several casemates, or rooms, each eighteen feet deep and opening into the courtyard. The whole number of these surrounding the court is about fifty. In the northwest corner of the plot of ground is a main building with a courtyard and seven rooms, the walls of which are still partially preserved as high as the upper crossbeams. The main entrance to the fort lay on the west side, and besides this there was a little opening towards the water. On three corners of the fort there were projecting towers for defense and on the northwest corner a larger and round tower. The quarry stones of which the walls were constructed were held together with earth only, but in the wall of the main building we observed traces of mortar.
“The plan of the whole structure is, in its main features, the same as that of the Spanish missions near San Antonio; but the church, which, in harmony with its religious purpose, the conversion of the Indians, is the largest and most notable building in the larger California missions, as well as in those of San Antonio, was here either entirely wanting, or was only very small and insignificant. Neither is there any indication that the land around the fort was ever cultivated, nor is there any trace of an aqueduct for the irrigation of the land, which is never missing in the other missions. Both circumstances arouse many doubts as to whether this was really a mission. It was perhaps nothing more than a strong point for guarding the San Saba valley. Of the ultimate fate of this fort little more than tradition is known in Texas. It is said to have been besieged by Comanches in the last quarter of the last century, the Spanish garrison, starved into submission, was massacred, and the building destroyed. Undoubtedly documents from which a conclusion as to the facts may be drawn are to be found in Mexico. 92
“The large mesquite trees and the cacti of the Opuntia species of a man's height with cylindrical limbs, which are growing in the inner courtyard and the casemates, strongly indicate that for many generations past no human being has inhabited the place. On the walls of the main entrance the names of the few who have visited it during this century are engraved. These names are as follows: Padilla, 1810; Cos, 1829; Bowie (con sua [sic] tropa), 1829; Moore, 1840; the first two Mexicans, and the two latter Texan leaders who in their military expeditions against the Comanches had reached this part of the country.
“On the following day, February 19th, 93 we inspected the surrounding country, and its charm seems to justify the selection of this point for the location of the fort. A perfectly smooth level plain of very productive soil covered with a tender grass extends on both sides of the river. The width of the flat bottom of this valley measures more than an English mile, while it extends for five or six English miles along the river and constitutes the largest area of arable fertile land we have seen on the whole upper course of the San Saba river. All along the river there is a line of timber which could furnish wood sufficient for the needs of a small settlement. But except this growth of the bottom there is no timber to be found and notably are the postoaks missing here, which we saw had formed an extensive forest further down, and which always furnish the best wood for fences. The river in the vicinity of the fort is deep (though easily passable by several fords), as clear as crystal, and swift in its course. On both sides it receives confluents.
“On the other side of the river we ascended a steep bluff, about 150 feet high. Having reached the top, we could see for many miles around; we were on the summit of the plateau. Nowhere could mountain chains or even separate peaks be seen rise; the San Saba mountains, as they are laid down on most maps, in reality do not exist.
“According to a supposition widespread in Texas rich silver mines were formerly worked by the Spaniards near the San Saba river, indeed, even the old fort is said to have been erected solely for the purpose of affording protection to a mine situated in the vicinity. Besides the investigation of the fitness of the soil for cultivation, one of the main purposes of our expeditions was to determine the grounds for these suppositions. We searched, therefore, in the immediate vicinity of the fort for the ruins of a smelter, or for slag piles, and when this search proved fruitless, we tried to ascertain whether the geological conditions of the surrounding country were such as to render the existence here of ore or metal probable or even possible.
“The above mentioned precipitous bluff presented a good profile of exposed rock strata. These consist of alternating layers of a rather hard yellowish gray limestone with a rough earthy fracture, and loose calcareous marl of the same color. All these layers are perfectly horizontal; so that it would have been possible without any difficulty, as may still readily be seen, to find a solid bank formed by the upper portion of the profile for the building of the fort on the flat surface of the plateau. The strata contain a number of organic remains. The species are the same that occur in the calcareous marls at Fredericksburg. They are undoubtedly forms peculiar to the chalk formation and leave no doubt as to the age of the strata in which they occur. The same rock is the main constituent of the soil for miles around the fort in all the other directions, although in most places not visible on the surface. Under such conditions in the geognostic deposits, we can unhesitatingly assert that, at least in the neighborhood of the fort, no deposit of precious metal is to be found; the existence of silver ore in uniformly horizontal strata of limestone and marl of the chalk formation would according to our experience hitherto be without a parallel. It is by no means our intention, however, with this assertion to deny absolutely the existence of silver ore on the San Saba river; on the contrary, it were not improbable that the metamorphic transitional rocks, rich in quartz, which occur farther down on the San Saba (about forty English miles from its mouth), as well as the granite rocks which occur especially between the San Saba and the Llano, may contain ore, although the observations made on our journey do not furnish a direct proof even of this.”
In connection with the probability of silver mines having existed in the neighborhood of the old fort or mission, von Roemer refers in a note to the story current among the early settlers of Texas to the effect that the Comanche Indians were accustomed to use silver bullets in their guns.
Our geological survey has long ere this settled the question as to the existence of silver ore in this vicinity, and it is hoped that the recent acquisitions of valuable historical records from Mexico may afford our future historians accurate data as to the rise and fall of this old fort or mission, but it would be interesting at least to know the present condition of these historic ruins.
[The greater part of the documents used in the preparation of this article are to be found in the collection, now in possession of the State University, known as the “Bexar Archives.” As these documents are still unclassified, it will be impossible to give exact references for the various points mentioned, but so far as possible, the title and date of each document cited and the name of some individual connected with it will be given. In addition to the Bexar Archives the writer has consulted the standard authorities, the Bexar county land records, and documents in the Archivo General in the City of Mexico. The documents in the Bexar Archives for the years 1730-'50, inclusive, consist, for the most part, of three kinds: (1) petitions from residents of the villa, presidio, or missions to the head authorities in Mexico, the viceroy and the bishop of Guadalajara, to the governor, and to the captain of the presidio, who acted as justicia mayor (general, or chief justice) for the province, and received petitions in the absence of the governor; (2) proclamations of the authorities to whom these petitions were addressed, together with those of the local alcaldes of San Fernando; (3) records of judicial processes, both civil and criminal; (4) land records and other transfers. In addition, reference is made to Testimonio de un Paracer as given in the appendix of Yoakum, Vol. I.
Citations are made also of the following documents in the History Section of the Archivo General, in the City of Mexico: Vol. 84, Colonos para Texas; Vol. 43, Historia del Descubrimiento y Poblacion de la Provincia de Texas hasta el año de 1730. Escrita por el Pe. J. Melchor y Talamantes; Vol. 28, Representacion de la Villa de Sn. Fernando al Sr. Gobernador de Texas, Varon de Ripperdá; Vol. 43, the report of Caballero de Croix, to the Viceroy Galvez in Expediente sobre Comercio reciprico entre las Provincias de la Luisiana y Texas.]
In every community there exists a tendency to bestow a certain amount of honor and dignity upon those families who claim the proud title of “first settlers.” In a general way San Antonio offers no exception to this tendency, but in the matter of exact knowledge concerning those settlers, their names, their number, their character, where they came from, when they arrived here, and other kindred points, there exists a most profound ignorance. In our city the term “descendants of the first settlers” is loosely applied to almost every family of Mexican name, so that, on a small scale, these descendants remind one of those of the “first families of Virginia.” The time even of the founding of the city is so uncertain that there is a difference of about forty years between the first and last dates given. The composite character of the early foundation of the city—military, political, and ecclesiastical as it was—is but imperfectly understood by those to whom it should be wholly familiar. One possible explanation for this condition of affairs lies in the fact that another stock than that of the founders now controls the affairs of this section, and, consequently, much that is really interesting and important in their early history is lost in the general feeling of indifference, if not of contempt, displayed by the dominant race toward its weaker predecessors. But even a Spanish-Mexican past may contain some lessons for an Anglo-American present and future, and an occasional jotting from the brief and relatively unimportant annals of another age may prove of interest and profit to the people of the imperial State of today.
In the year 1718 the presidio of San Antonio de Béjar was established on the San Antonio river. During that same year, the mission of San Antonio de Valero was moved from the Rio Grande to the vicinity of the presidio. During the next decade, by the founding of San José and the removal of three missions from Eastern Texas, the number of religious establishments on the San Antonio was increased to five. The lack of success in peopling the province by means of the missions and presidios, led the Spanish government to take other measures, and, in 1730 and 1731, we have the momentous (for Texas) journey of the Canary Island emigrants 94 to people the villa of San Fernando, near the presidio of San Antonio de Béjar.
The story of their journey may be briefly told. After two preliminary decrees, one in 1722 and the other in 1729, a company of some fifty odd emigrants for Texas was gathered at the port of Santa Cruz, Teneriffe. In that port, on March 27, 1730, there was promulgated another royal decree, expressing the wish of the king that the viceroy of New Spain and all other officials who had to do with the new colonists should show them the kindest treatment possible. 95 This decree was probably published just before the sailing of the company. We next hear of them in Vera Cruz, where they arrived in the early part of June. Here Juan Cabrera, one of the party, died, leaving a widow, Maria Rodriguez, and three children. On September 9th they were at Guantitlan, a little village near Mexico, where a notary public made out a list of the families with a personal description of each member. On the fifteenth of November they left Guantitlan for their difficult overland journey to the San Antonio river. Their route, as mapped out for them, led them through San Luis Potosí and Saltillo. 96 In the latter villa, on the 29th day of January, 1731, the head men of the families appeared before a notary public, in order to attest the correctness of the lists of supplies furnished by Colonel Aguirre, the governor of Coahuila, or Nueva Viscaya, as it was then called. 97 Thence they continued their march, and, with a short stop at the presidio of San Juan Bautista on the Rio Grande, where they left their worn-out horses, they reached San Antonio de Béjar, March 9, 1731, 98 having consumed the best part of a year in their arduous journey, and having cost the royal treasury so great a sum, that the authorities were unwilling again to undertake such a costly experiment. Thus, of the four hundred Canary Island families that had been mentioned as necessary for the “conservation” of the province, only sixteen, with an aggregate of fifty-six persons, had the opportunity to undertake this important task.
The mention of the number of families brings up one of the minor problems connected with the early settlement of San Fernando. It is almost impossible to harmonize the discrepancies in the various accounts, but it may be helpful to compare three lists of the heads of the families made in three successive years. The first was made in Guantitlan, September 9, 1730; the second, in Saltillo, January 29, 1731; and the third, in the presidio of San Antonio, February 22, 1732. They are as follows:
The early proclamations of Viceroy Casa Fuerte mention only ten families, and this is the number of families appearing on the Guantitlan list, although five single men are mentioned. The company at Guantitlan numbered fifty-two persons. In his later proclamations the viceroy makes mention of the number of families as fifteen, with fifty-six persons. The list as taken at Saltillo mentions the number of families as sixteen, but the total number is still fifty-six. The names of Antonio Rodriguez and Joseph Padron are missing, and the four companions of the former still appear as “single men forming one family.” Thus the increase in the number of the company cannot be accounted for by the marriage of four of the single men. A simple explanation would seem to be that, after the list was taken at Guantitlan, Francisco Arocha and Vizente Albares Travieso, with their wives, joined the company. These men acted as important officials for more than forty years, so it is natural to suppose that they were young men at this time. Perhaps the viceroy added them to the original company because of the lack, among its members, of suitable official material. At least the records do not show that Arocha was a native of the Canaries, and, although a later decree seems to hint that Albares Travieso was, it throws no light on the absence of his name from the Guantitlan list.
Of the other new names on the Saltillo list we may account for Joseph Cabrera as the son of Maria Rodriguez, widow of Juan Cabrera. Juan Delgado is probably the son of Maria Meleano, widow of Lucas Delgado. The names of Maria Melian in the first list and Marino Melano in the second are so similar as to give rise to the supposition that there may have been a mistake on the part of one or both notaries. At any rate the name of Marino Melano does not appear in succeeding records.
On the list taken in the presidio of San Antonio the name of Antonio Rodriguez again appears as one of the “heads of families.” Perhaps he may have become such, in the meantime, or may represent himself and his companions, still regarded as “constituting one family.” His absence at Saltillo, as well as that of Joseph Padron, may possibly be accounted for by their lagging behind the rest of the company or by carelessness on the part of the notary. Joseph Leal, the only new person named, is another son of Juan Leal Goraz. The names of the widows do not appear, doubtless because they were sufficiently represented by their sons. The number of families, as given on this list, is thirteen. As stated above, the number was variously reported as ten, fifteen, and sixteen, while still another document later gives the number as fourteen. The list was taken at San Antonio when the seventy-one horses that had been left at the presidio of the Rio Grande were to be distributed to the settlers. 99 It would seem that on such an occasion, if ever, all of the families ought to be represented. In view of such documentary evidence as we now have at hand, further speculation concerning names and the number of families seems useless.
So much for the Canary Island immigrants. But they were by no means the only bona fide settlers of the vicinity. Indeed, in a petition of 1745, Pedro de Ocon y Trillo claims that they have no right to the title of “first settlers”; that there were already a number of settlers gathered about the presidio and in their name he claims that they are “the true and most ancient inhabitants and conquerors of that territory,” and that, too, at no expense to the royal treasury. The documents of the period often refer to residents (vecinos) of the presidio, as well as to soldiers, and it is only reasonable to suppose that many of the soldiers, on completing their term of service, would take up land as actual settlers. 100 Ocon y Trillo himself is spoken of in one document as a former resident of Saltillo, and was doubtless attracted to the vicinity by the fact that the captain of the presidio, Thoribio de Urrutia, was his brother-in-law. Very likely family connections with those in the presidio brought other settlers from various parts of Mexico. In later years, when earlier jealousies had been forgotten, presidial settlers were merged with the Canary Islanders, and new and old were styled alike “citizens of San Fernando.” Among the new family names that appear in the villa records during the first two decades of its establishment, may be mentioned those of Hernandez, Valdez, Peña, del Valle, Flores, López, Castro, Nuñez, Treviño, Ximenez, Cavo, Menchaca, Urrutia, Gonzales, de los Santos Coy, Martinez, Guerrero (or Guerro), Montes de Oca, Sanchez, Monte Mayor, de la Serda, etc., etc., and this list is by no means exhaustive.
At the same time, in the presidial records, are to be found among the names of soldiers and vecinos agregados, those of Carabajal, Bueno de Roxas, Estrada, Bacilio del Toro, Galvan, de los Rios, Calvillo, Ruiz, Ocon y Trillo, Saucedo, Garza, etc., etc. With greater research these lists might be more fully extended, but from manuscripts so far consulted, it would be impossible to make out an absolutely complete record. It would be equally impossible, at present, to give the exact date when each new family first appeared in the community. We can only note, as they appear on the records, the names of well-known families, and the accompanying dates, at best, would be only approximate.
Among other sources from which the new villa drew its population may be mentioned the Tlascalan Indians, 101 and the various Indian tribes of northern Mexico. The latter were first brought to the missions, owing to the lack of suitable native Texas material for these agencies of civilization, and afterwards gradually worked their way through these establishments into the villa. This process, although it consumed a long time, was encouraged by the original settlers, who were anxious to secure the neophytes as servants and laborers.
From the various sources mentioned, it will readily be seen that by no means all of the principal Mexican families of the present city are of Canary Island descent. But, from whatever source they came, the early settlers of the villa soon took on the same character—a character that will be briefly described in the following pages.
Before the arrival of the new colonists, the governor of the province was to have provided plans for laying out the new villa, setting specific portions for building lots, pastures, and labores, and to assign to each family a lot for residence and a labor for cultivation. Each family was to enjoy the use of the common pasture lands and of water for irrigation from the San Antonio or the San Pedro. The decree of the viceroy enjoining these preparations was to remain in the “strong box” of the cabildo for future reference. 102 In the early part of 1732, about the time government aid to the colonists was withdrawn, the distribution of lots and labors was made, each head of a family receiving his title in the name of His Majesty. This record of individual assignments, known as the “Cartilla de Particion”, together with the above decree of the viceroy, form the basis for the land titles of this section. Mention is made of both of these documents in 1762, at the time of the residencia of Governor Navarete, but they have long since disappeared. Some attempts have been made to get the originals from Spain, where it is supposed that they are deposited, but so far in vain. In many of the early transfers of which there is record, mention is frequently made of “the share and right of the original founders, as given by His Majesty.” 103 Doubtless, by an exhaustive study of such real estate transfers of this early period as we have recorded, and by a careful comparison with later deeds and present maps, it would be possible to reconstruct, almost entirely, the original plan of the villa. This, however, would be a task of more than ordinary difficulty.
The land records seem to show that many changes had to be made in the viceroy's plans for laying out the city, he merely following the general regulations of the Laws of the Indies upon this point. General regulations had to yield to physical conditions imposed by the position of rivers, the slope of the land, etc., and by the still more urgent necessity for an easily defensible position. Mention is made of a common pasture land, both north and south of the villa, instead of on all sides, and lying between the San Antonio and San Pedro. Very likely this division was adopted for the sake of greater compactness and ease of defense. In some cases the building lots are less than the 240 feet square provided by the viceroy. The many turns of the river also interfered with the regularity of the lots. 104 These and many other causes combine to render this task of the restoration of the plan of early San Antonio a truly arduous one.
The conditions that confronted the new colonists were not such as to promise great prosperity for the colony. Shortly before their arrival the presidial garrisons had been greatly reduced. As a natural result, the hostile Indians had been emboldened to break out into actual warfare, in 1730, just previous to their coming. With these hostile Indians the few soldiers of the weakened garrisons were utterly unable to cope. The very soldiers themselves were, in many ways, to prove a hindrance to the development of the villa, as they had been all along to the growth of the missions. The missions also were sufficiently near the new settlement to allow the mixing of herds and other pretexts for quarrels, of which all parties were only too ready to take advantage. Thus, instead of two warring factions, the authorities had now to deal with three, and the task, as time went on, by no means promised to lighten.
In addition to these discouraging surroundings, the means of simple existence were not wholly certain. A large portion of the finished materials for their houses, and of living necessities (for the time at least) had to be transported on pack animals from the interior of Mexico. 105 This was the case with supplies for the presidial garrison, and must necessarily continue for some time for the new colonists. The new settlers were supposed, ultimately, not merely to support themselves, but in addition, to produce enough of the ordinary crops to supply the various garrisons; yet their scanty crops of the first few years imperfectly fulfilled these expectations. Under such conditions we should hardly expect the most energetic of people, transported from an island home to the wildest of inland wildernesses, immediately to adapt themselves to their surroundings, and those from the Canaries showed little disposition to do so, either at first or shortly thereafter.
Perhaps it was because the authorities in Mexico realized these facts and felt a little uncertain of their colonists, that they early took precautions to lose none of the number by desertion. Late in 1731, Juan Leal Goraz appeared in the City of Mexico with a petition from his fellow-colonists for those horses that had been left at the presidio of San Juan Bautista. He succeeded in his object, but the viceroy took advantage of the occasion to rebuke the governor for allowing Goraz to leave the province, and forthwith issued an order that, thereafter, under no pretext, were the Canary Island settlers to be permitted to leave the province. 106
Naturally the order caused some hard feeling on the part of the settlers and soon a specific case was brought before the authorities. Vicente Albares Travieso, the alguacil mayor, asked for permission to go to Mexico, or, at least, to Saltillo, to be cured of a severe illness from which he was suffering. He did not mention the disease, but, from his subsequent importunity, it must have been dangerous. There appeared to be no one in the province who could cure him. Although he claimed that the decree of the viceroy applied only to matters of business and offered to bring witnesses to certify to the truth of his statement, his petition was in vain. 107 The next year, the other members of the cabildo came to his assistance and in a series of petitions asked the governor for the specific decrees by which he refused their associate's request. They spoke of the great injustice done them, in being the only settlers refused free departure from the province, and mentioned the obligation of the government to fulfill the promises by which they were induced to make their voluntary journey from their distant island home. Surely, they said, the authorities would not refuse the first settlers of the place license to leave the province, upon such a serious matter as seeking the necessary cure for diseases. With reference to the prohibition against leaving the province for commercial purposes they complained of the difficulty of maintaining themselves by means of their scanty products, with no opportunity to seek other markets.
What seemed to make this prohibition especially galling was the fact that the new settlers who had joined them, and all others of the vicinity, had the privilege of going freely, back and forth, for the purpose of trading, while the Islanders, the “voluntary first settlers,” were restrained. They bitterly contrasted this with the fair promises made them before their departure and the considerate treatment they had received everywhere along the route of their journey. Here, in their chosen abiding place, they lived in a state of captivity, virtually worse than that of the galleys. Thus complaining, they sent their petition to Governor Sandoval, asking for copies of the orders concerning their detention, and desiring the governor to forward their petition and complaint to the viceroy, at his own expense. 108
Although the good governor thought they had little cause for complaint, in view of all that had been done for them and in consideration of his uniformly just treatment of them, yet, at their request, he forwarded their petitions. By the next year the new viceroy, Bizarron, got around to consider matters relating to the far off province of “Texas, or New Philippines.” He tried to improve the condition of the villa by ordering the captains of the various presidios to give preference to its settlers, when buying provisions, and to pay for the latter at the current market prices. Thus the infant city was early to begin its policy of depending largely for its maintenance on a military post. With reference to the petition of Vizente Albares Travieso, backed up by the representations of the cabildo, the governor advised that he be allowed to go to Saltillo for medical treatment, but that a special watch be kept at Vera Cruz, and that, if he attempted to leave the country, he be arrested as a deserter. 109 From this decree we should infer that Travieso was one of the Canary Island immigrants. Although there is no further reference to the fact, we may infer, from succeeding practices, that the severity of this restriction upon the movements of the “Islanders” was subsequently much relaxed. 110
With the colonists safely settled on the San Antonio river, and with all necessary precautions taken to keep them there, attention may be given next to a consideration of their character. Upon this point there is a wide variety of testimony so conflicting in its nature that it is almost impossible to form a just estimate. In their own petitions and other papers, they show such an exaggerated idea of their own importance, and are so anxious to impress upon governor, or viceroy, or presidial captain the great favor they rendered His Majesty in coming to this remote frontier settlement, that we can place little reliance upon what they say. We must likewise make allowance for the interested statements of their enemies. Most of the earlier testimony is of one kind or the other. Fortunately, we have some later testimony of a more disinterested kind, to which we may add many unconscious touches from the earlier records.
One of their early enemies, Pedro de Ocon y Trillo, makes the statement that the immigrants were not of the best quality of the people of the Canaries, so it may be interesting to determine their position in the social system of New Spain. One of their leading members, Juan Leal Goraz, describes his occupation by no higher title than that of small farmer (labrador). Francisco de Arocha, the notary (escrivano público y de cabildo), and the person of greatest education in the company, acted as cashier (cajero) of the goods and rations served to the soldiers of the garrison. Many of the other settlers use the name labrador to describe their occupation. Evidently they were all of the lower laboring or farming class of their native islands, and we should naturally expect such to be chosen to people the Texas wilderness. Arocha, who seems to be an exception, did not appear among the other settlers at Guantitlan. 111
In contrast with a somewhat sparing use of the names denoting their occupation, is their use of their newly acquired titles. These may, indeed, fit like new garments and lack the cleaving qualities that come with long use, but they are very much in evidence upon every possible occasion. As a sample we may take this: “Juan Leal Goraz, Spaniard and settler [poblador] by order of His Majesty (whom may God guard) in this Royal Presidio of San Antonio de Vejar and Villa of San Fernando, Province of Texas, or New Philippines, and present senior Regidor of the said Villa, and farmer [labrador].” 112 Perhaps the final word detracts somewhat from the previous title, but it will be noticed that it is inserted where it will do the least harm to its dignity. As if this were not enough, Goraz later adds: “I am one of the principal settlers, by order of His Majesty,” etc. 113 Two years later his title has undergone further change and he then appears as “Perpetual regidor of the first vote of the villa of San Fernando and ordinary alcalde of said villa, by His Majesty,” etc. 114 In that same year he gives a short review of his career and shows that a colonial judge of the Canaries selected him as head of the families bound for New Spain, that the viceroy had reappointed him to that position, and that the cabildo had also favored him by choosing him as alcalde. 115 He seems fond of the expression “principal settler,” which often appears in his petitions, proclamations, etc. In another place he styles himself, “Spaniard, settler, and farmer, senior regidor for His Majesty, etc., and alcalde of the first vote.” On the whole he appeared to have an abundance of titles for a petty justice in a frontier hamlet. Consequently it is not at all strange that his proud spirit should resent the term “Morisco,” as applied to a man of his “grey hairs” and dignity by a disrespectful and quarrelsome young fellow-settler. 116
The worthy Goraz, however, has his imitators. Antonio de los Santos speaks of himself as “a man well-born, and of the qualities and customs of good Christianity.” Juan Leal Albares, son of Goraz, follows well in his father's footsteps by styling himself “regidor and settler.” Antonio Rodriguez is content with simply linking the titles, “citizen and procurador.” These few examples will serve to show the tendency of the colonists to make the most of their new titles.
A childish pride in long or high-sounding titles is not their only fault. Very early in the history of the villa, the viceroy pronounced them impertinent in their demands. This was on the occasion when Goraz came to the City of Mexico to ask for the travel-worn horses left at the presidio of San Juan Bautista. These horses belonged to the government and had merely been used for the transportation of the immigrants. According to the decree of the viceroy, November 28, 1730, the colonists were to be provided with other domestic animals, but no mention is made of horses. Very likely the good viceroy thought that enough had already been done for these people. He granted their request, however, and this was doubtless the important thing for them. At the same time he took occasion to forbid their leaving the province, under any pretext, and also made mention of the daily assistance the colonists were to receive for a year after their arrival. This aid from the general government was to cease March 9, 1732, so the date of their arrival may be regarded as fixed, at just a year previous to the above date. 117
Their petitions, or rather demands, for a parish church exhibit much of the quality of impertinence as well as helplessness in doing anything for themselves. There were two mission churches fairly near them and it seems that they could have arranged for services in one of these. But they could not be satisfied, save with an edifice of their own, and they thought that a contribution of $24,000 from the royal treasury should be made for this purpose. 118 It will be observed that the date of this representation is about seventeen years after their arrival and ten after the probable laying of the corner-stone of the edifice. Evidently they had done very little to help themselves, in the interim, so the authorities donated only one-half of the sum asked for, but stated explicitly that no more need be expected. The government had set a bad precedent in paying all of the early expenses in settling the municipality.
As a partial excuse for the childishness and injustice of these settlers' demands we may mention their ignorance. In the earliest documents containing their signatures we find many who did not know how to write, for whom others must sign “by request.” Thus Arocha, the notary, signs one document for Martin Lorenzo, the second alcalde, and Juan Curbelo, a regidor. In the same document Goraz asserts that he could find no person in the place, who was able to write enough to witness his papers; and he himself was so troubled with short-sightedness that he could not write a countercharge which he had to make against the three above mentioned. His signature, as well as that of the others who claimed to be able to write, shows a lack somewhere. Joseph Padron and Manual de Niz, both of whom later acted as alcaldes, must have some one sign for them. Francisco Delgado, Patricio Rodriguez, and Joseph Leal, all members of the cabildo, were under the same necessity. Juana de Urrutia and Plova de los Santos Coy request others to sign deeds for them. If this was the condition in the earlier days, educational matters must have been much worse in the next generation, with the still fewer advantages of a frontier hamlet. So we need not be surprised in the following years to find such a report as this: “The officers of San Fernando form a most ridiculous cabildo, because of the ignorance of all, and do many absurd and shameful things, because of the difficulty of appeal to distant superiors.” 119 There appears to have been no attempt at public education, with the possible exception of efforts on the part of the village curate to instruct in a few simple religious truths. Aside from the curate there appears to have been, in the early days, no representative of the learned professions, not even a physician. 120
In the course of his report the Chevalier De Croix says: “All of the inhabitants [of San Fernando] live miserably because of their laziness, captiousness, and lack of means of subsistence, which defects show themselves at first sight, so that little time is necessary in order to know them.” Their lack of the means of subsistence may readily be explained by their laziness, and, indeed, this characteristic makes itself apparent throughout the whole course of their history. But one can find much excuse for these characteristics of the colonists in the paternalistic policy of the government and its unwise fostering of their pride by specious promises and empty honors. In addition, the hard conditions of life that surrounded them would have discouraged any but the most resolute spirits, and no one pretends to say that these Canary Islanders ever exhibited any great craving for a strenuous life.
Again, in his report De Croix says “It is not difficult for them [the members of the cabildo] to confuse everything and to reduce to disputes and litigious discussion whatever is pleasing to them, and never to clear matters up.” If the second generation of the villa settlers were plagued by litigation and private quarrels, it was because such methods had been so well taught them by the first. Scarcely had the new settlers received possession of their lands, before a quarrel broke out between Goraz and Padron about the exact limits of their respective allotments. The value of the land involved was infinitesimal, but it thoroughly stirred up the little villa during the year 1733, involving the greater part of the municipal officers, as well as the governor, and resulted in about six months' imprisonment for Goraz. At least, so he charges; but the imprisonment does not seem to have been more confining than to his own dwelling. The villa did not then have its own lock-up; but made use of the prisoner's house, in case of minor offenses, or of a private house and keeper, or the guardhouse of the presidio, in those of a more serious nature.
Two years later, Juan Leal Goraz is himself in power, as first alcalde; and in his attempts to reform certain public abuses, he encounters factitious opposition among his fellow-officers. Thinking that proper respect has not been shown him, in his official capacity, he orders the arrest of Martin Lorenzo, his associate alcalde; Juan Curbelo, regidor; and Francisco de Arocha, the notary. Then the governor is indeed overwhelmed with petition and counter-petition. There are complaints of undue severity, of imprisonment, and of insult to official position. There is the assertion of present official power and statement of the value of past services. There are quotations from the Laws of the Indies, reviews of past customs of the village, hints of malicious underhand dealings on the part of high officials, and threats of appeal to the viceroy. All of this consumes time, so there is a long imprisonment for the three offenders before the viceroy can order their release.
Goraz also has previously had some trouble with Patricio Rodriguez about some money Rodriguez's father owed him. Rodriguez not only injures his honor by calling him a “Morisco,” but threatens more lasting damage with a gun. This leads to several months' imprisonment of rodriguez, with petitions from his mother and full statement of charges by Goraz. Finally the village curate has to bring into requisition his good offices, and he secures the release of the erring young man. Juan Leal Alvares wishes to recover a mule from Joseph Padron and invokes the aid of the law. There are a number of suits brought against various residents by merchants of Saltillo and elsewhere, to collect notes and bills of credit. With such a beginning the tendency to engage in law suits easily becomes a fixed habit in the municipality. This tendency betrays a quarrelsome disposition on the part of the residents. In the various cases mentioned above there are references to previous troubles and charges, even while upon their journey from the Canaries. It is charged that funds have been misappropriated, or that some one has uttered treasonable expressions against the king. The most serious charge of this sort is that of Goraz against Curbelo, who is accused in 1734 of making the statement that he would not obey the royal commands, and, as a consequence, suffers a short imprisonment in the presidial guardhouse. There seems to have been very little tendency on the part of these litigants to take the law into their own hands. Serious crimes, too, are very rare for a frontier village garrisoned by rather unruly and vicious soldiers.
More serious than their internal quarrels, however, was the tendency of the Island settlers to embroil themselves with the neighboring soldiers, settlers, and missionaries. The question of the pasturage of the presidial cattle and horses and of the preservation of the crops of the settlers offered a perennial source of dispute. The settlers claimed that the cattle from the presidio and from the missions frequently ruined their crops. In return the others claimed that the crops should be fenced, and that the settlers killed or lamed their animals. In 1737 matters came to a crisis and the acting governor, Captain Thoribio Urrutia, who also acted as principal justice for the province, issued a proclamation against all illegal practices of this sort. The people of the villa responded through their cabildo, representing that they were too poor to build the necessary fences, and asking that no horses or cattle be pastured without a keeper. They also demanded payment for 400 fanegas 121 of corn, which they claimed the animals had destroyed. In his reply Captain Urrutia complained bitterly of the fact, that, when he had issued a proclamation that was just to all, the cabildo should answer in such a discordant manner, especially when it was necessary for all to live in peace and harmony in order to present a bold front to the enemy that surrounded them. Later he attended a meeting of the cabildo and read a statement that four presidial cattle had been killed during the year, and that the cattle had been five times in the settlers' corn, with a total damage of not more than fifteen or twenty fanegas, and for this he was willing to pay. He gave command to the soldiers not to injure the horses or crops of the “Islanders,” and to the latter he represented the little cause they had for complaint. So for the future they promised to act with more discretion and justice. 122
A few years after the members of the cabildo had some difficulty with Captain Urrutia, and even went so far as to send complaints of him to the viceroy. When the latter's reply was received, they patched up some sort of agreement with Urrutia, which they mutually pledged themselves, under penalty, to keep. As a sort of safeguard the alcaldes were given concurrent jurisdiction with the justicia mayor. 123
Not content with merely raising disturbances about matters in which they had some direct concern, the members of the cabildo even went out of the way to seek trouble with their neighbors. They made out a lengthy complaint about the missions and the missionaries in charge, as if the latter were in some way responsible for the miserable condition of the villa. They reviewed the whole of the missionary movement, dwelt upon the lack of success of the missionaries, and recommended the abandonment of the missions, with the possible view of obtaining an addition to their narrow population. The bishop of Guadalajara had previously written them a note expressing his sorrow at existing relations and promising an investigation, 124 but evidently the bishop's decision was not satisfactory to the settlers, for they wished their later complaint to be forwarded to the viceroy. 125 Those making this representation claimed that they did so because of the many complaints concerning themselves sent to Mexico.
As an example of contemporary opinion of the Island settlers may be taken the petition of Pedro de Ocon y Trillo. He makes his statements in behalf of his brother-in-law, Captain Urrutia, as a representative of the presidial settlers. The “Islanders” had made a lengthy complaint of the captain; and to this Ocon y Trillo replies that it is nothing but a mass of injurious reports, by which they are attempting to harm, not merely the captain, but all conditions of men living in the vicinity, and not even the sanctity of the mission fathers is safe from their venomous attacks. All this tissue of false reports lacks both substance and proof and only serves to make known the disdainful, caviling, and perverse qualities of said “Islanders.” Elated with the title of “pobladores,” they wish to be the only settlers of this land and look with depreciation upon those who were already gathered there. These latter, without any cost to His Majesty, were, and are, the true and most ancient settlers and conquerors of the land. There are five classes of people in the vicinity, the “Islanders,” the collected (agregados) settlers, soldiers, Indians, and churchmen, to which enumeration may be added the captain of the presidio and the governor of the province as head of all. It is a notorious fact that the “Islanders” complain bitterly of all the other classes, including the captain, whom all others praise. The captain had served under three governors, noted for their strictness, and they had nothing but commendation for him. Only these few upstart families bring their malicious charges against him. The paper ends abruptly at this point, but from a date quoted, we can easily imagine that the agreement mentioned above, between the cabildo and Captain Urrutia, was the outcome of this vigorous representation.
I may possibly have pursued this subject to an unprofitable length. The life of the early settlers of San Fernando was simple, crude, and unattractive in many features, but as an element in the early development of our State and its chief city, it may possess some phases of permanent interest. Oddly enough there is taking place in our country, today, a movement similar to the journey of the Canary Island immigrants. Porto Rico is sending her surplus laboring population to the Hawaiian Islands, just as the Canaries, nearly two centuries ago, sent a few families of this class to the wilds of Texas. It has seemed the tendency of Spain to fill up her island empire, in order to supply workers to the needy portions of the world, when the demand should come; and this process is going on when her islands have slipped from her grasp. Perhaps, in this insignificant earlier movement, there may be some lessons to be learned, some mistakes to be avoided, some suggestions to be followed, that will help to make the latter movement still more successful. As the Spaniard, by a century of struggle, helped in a measure to make Texas ready for the great Republic that was to absorb it, so may our new citizens, because of the previous example of a small company of their fellow countrymen, bear an important part in the expansion of the American people to the westward.
BOOK REVIEWS AND NOTICES.
The Land of Sunshine continues its good work in publishing important documents selected from the sources of Southwestern history. The June and July numbers (Vol. XIV, No. 6, and Vol. XV, No. 1) contain a translation of the Diario of Alferez Don Miguel Costansó, which is an account of the joint land and sea expedition made to California in 1769 and 1770 under the direction of Señor Don Joseph de Galvez. Costansó was an engineer and was cosmographer for the expedition, and thus writes from the non-ecclesiastical standpoint. On page 478 of the June number is printed a fac-simile of the title page of the Diario.
The leading article in the July Publications of the Southern History Association is a very excellent sketch of President William L. Wilson, who will perhaps be better remembered as Postmaster General under President Cleveland. In its preparation the writer has drawn extensively on President Wilson's private diary, so that the paper partakes largely of the nature of an autobiography. Another article that will interest especially Southern readers is Mrs. M. E. Robertson's account of President Davis's Last Official Meeting, at which were present such of his officers and members of his Cabinet as were with him in Georgia just previous to his capture.
In the September Publications Prof. Ficklen, of Tulane University, has a paper entitled Was Texas Included in the Louisiana Purchase? A more extended review of it will be given in the January Quarterly, when the writer's reasons for maintaining the negative against Prof. Henry Adams will be critically examined.
The only other article in this issue is by Miles White, Jr., on Henry Baker and Some of His Descendants. Baker was one of the ancestors of Johns Hopkins.
The July number of the American Historical Review is an unusually large one, containing 250 pages plus an index to Volume VI, of which this is the last number. Of the leading articles two relate to European history. The Republic of San Marino, by William Miller, is a brief sketch of the history of the only survivor of the mediæval Italian republics. The Risings in the English Monastic Towns in 1327, by Norman M. Trenholme, is a study of the struggles of the mediæval monastic towns to obtain franchises from their lords, the monks. Two leading papers are on American history. H. P. Biggar contributes The French Hakluyt; Marc Lescarbot of Vervins, in which he describes and critically discusses the writings of Lescarbot, whom he calls “the first historian of New France.” The Transition from Dutch to English Rule in New York, by Albert E. McKinley, is a study in institutional history. Three sets of documents are printed, namely: Letters of Dr. Thomas Cooper, 1825-1832; Letters on the Nullification Movement in South Carolina, 1830-1834, I; and A Ministerial Crisis in France, 1876. Professor Albert Bushnell Hart contributes A Trial Bibliography of American Diplomacy, that will no doubt prove very useful to students.
The Proceedings of the Texas Veterans' Association at the Twenty-eighth Annual Reunion, and The Proceedings of the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas have been received. The meetings named were held contemporaneously—which is the custom of the two organizations—in Austin, April 20-22, 1901. The Proceedings of the Veterans contains reports of the addresses of welcome made by Mayor White, President Prather, and Mr. J. W. Dibrell; the response for the Veterans by ex-Governor Lubbock, and that for the Daughters by Mrs. Nellie Steadman Cox; and the memorial sermon by Rev. C. P. Goodson. The total membership of the Association is given at ninety-four, thirty-nine being men, and fifty-five women. The death roll for the year previous amounts to eighteen. The Proceedings of the Daughters contains the response by Mrs. Nellie Steadman Cox already mentioned; the address of Mrs. Urwitz as presiding officer; the reports of the secretary, the assistant secretary, and the treasurer; the minutes of the executive committee; the historian's report; the report of the presentation of a Texas flag to the State University by the Daughters, including, among other things, the address of presentation by Senator J. A. Beall, and that of acceptance by Chairman T. S. Henderson of the Board of Regents; the letter of President Prather offering a prize of one hundred dollars for the best historic song or poem on The Texas Flag; the reports of the various chapters; the address of Mr. Carlos Bee to the Daughters on April 22nd; and an appendix, in which are printed an announcement of the offer of President Prather, the memorial address of Mrs. Cone Johnson delivered for the Daughters, a poem, San Jacinto Day, by Mrs. Mary Saunders, a historical sketch entitled The Last Messenger from the Alamo, and a copy of a letter relative to the son of Travis published in the Houston Post, both by Mrs. Looscan, an account of the presentation of a Texas flag to President McKinley by the Daughters, a “roll of honor,” including the names of those who have taken the gold and silver medals offered by the Daughters, the charter, constitution, and by-laws of the organization, and a list of members.
NOTES AND FRAGMENTS.
Capt. Jesse Burnam's Name.—As intimated in the editorial note on page 12 of the July Quarterly, historians have spelled his name “Burnham”; but he evidently spelled it Burnam; for I have had extensive correspondence with some of his intimate acquaintances, all of whom so spelled it. One of these correspondents was his youngest son, who wrote to me a short time before his own death.
W. P. Zuber.
“The Escape of Rose from the Alamo.”—The editorial footnote (on page 5, Vol. V, No. 1, of the Quarterly) to the article bearing this title is correct, towit: “In the letter carried by Smith [dated March 3d, 1836], Travis says, “Col. J. B. Bonham * * * got in this morning at eleven o'clock.” I remember to have read the letter, as it was printed in hand bill form, not many days after it was written. I should have noted this myself, but happened not to think of it. Yet, considering the circumstances under which Travis wrote, it does not disprove my position that he wrote it after midnight, on the morning of March 3d.
It is very probable that Travis had not slept since Bonham's arrival. Under such circumstances it is not uncommon for persons, conversing or writing, to make such blunders as to say this morning or this evening for yesterday morning, or for last evening or tonight. It is not unreasonable to infer that Travis, being weary, made such a blunder; and, as he was unquestionably pressed for time, failed to discover the blunder, or had not leisure to correct it. The distance which Smith rode after the writing proves this hypothesis to be correct. A ride of one hundred and eighty miles in three days is more than man or horse could perform.
My inference is that Bonham arrived at eleven o'clock on March 2nd;—more probably p. m. than a. m., as he could escape the vigilance of the Mexican guards and scouts more easily in the night than in daylight.
W. P. Zuber.
The Beginnings of Hopkins County.—Late in December, 1842, William Hargrave and his brother, Harvey Hargrave, moved into what is now Hopkins county from Red River county. There were in the two families eighteen persons, five of whom are now living. At that time there was only one other family living in Hopkins county, that of Mr. John Bivin, whose home was four miles east of Sulphur Bluff. The first week in January, 1843, “Uncle Billy” Barker settled south of White Oak, six miles west of Sulphur Springs. In 1843, Capt. E. M. Hopkins moved into the settlement from Red River county, and his widow, “Aunt Rebecca,” still lives in Hopkins county.
The first mill in the county, a grist and saw mill combined, was a water mill built by Robert Hargrave upon the old bluff on South Sulphur in 1844.
The first burial in the county was on the 26th day of August, 1843. The first wedding was on the 16th day of October, 1843. The license was procured at Clarksville, Red River county, fifty miles away, and the minister rode from Clarksville on horseback to perform the ceremony. The first barbecue was on the 4th of July, 1845, near the water mill on South Sulphur. The first election was held on the first Monday in September, 1844, at the same place, it being a part of Lamar county at that time. There is only one man living now who voted at this election. It is “Uncle Perry” Hargrave, and he is eighty years old. His children and grandchildren today are drinking water out of the first cistern that was dug in Hopkins county. This cistern, which dates from 1842, is situated in the northeast portion of Hopkins county, sixteen miles from the county seat, Sulphur Springs.
Mrs. Stella Putman Dinsmore. Sulphur Springs, Texas.
The Number of “Decimated Mier Prisoners.”—Mrs. Adèle B. Looscan, historian of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, is entitled to our gratitude for her note (Quarterly, Vol. V. No. 1) on the “Letter from a Mier Prisoner to His Mother”; but the number of those who were subjected to the “death lottery,” as stated on page 67, is erroneous,—probably a misprint. 126 Their number was not one hundred and seventeen, but one hundred and sixty-five; hence, the number seventeen was as nearly a precise decimation as could be made. I learned this from a letter directed to Hon. Jesse Grimes, but addressed to all citizens of Texas,—especially to those residing in and near Grimes Prairie and Alto Miro, 127 Montgomery county. It was written at Castle Perote, Mexico (I do not remember the date), in the handwriting of Capt. J. G. W. Pearson; and signed by J. G. W. Pearson, Leonidas Saunders, Sidney S. King, — Middleton, —West, and probably others. Pearson was one of the first settlers of Robertson's Colony, but then resided in Grimes Prairie. He was distinguished as having commanded several companies in service against Mexicans and Indians. Saunders was a young lawyer, and had served one term as chief justice of Montgomery county. King resided in what is now Madison county. Middleton and West resided north of the San Antonio road,—I think in the present county of Leon. Saunders died in Castle Perote, of prison fever; and so, I believe, did West. Pearson, King, and Middleton lived to return home. During their imprisonment, King and Middleton were chained together; and became such friends that they determined never to separate. Accordingly, after their return home, they bought adjacent tracts of land, and built their houses near the dividing line, fronting each other, and not many yards apart.
Judge Grimes passed the letter to Mr. Fanthorpe, of Alto Miro, who called a public meeting at that place; and it was publicly read by James W. Barnes. Its signers stated that all the prisoners were in much need of clothing, bedding, and wholesome food; and solicited aid of their countrymen in money, clothing, or blankets. They instructed us to send all supplies to a certain commercial house in New Orleans, which would forward them to a certain American firm in Vera Cruz, to be sent by American and English friends to the prisoners. They said that the two houses mentioned had promised to forward all supplies entrusted to them, free of charge; also that American and English friends would forward their letter to Judge Grimes. I handled that letter, and examined the writing and the signatures; though I did not read it all, but heard Barnes read it.
A committee was elected whose duties were to solicit, receive, and forward supplies, as directed in the letter. A subscription paper was immediately circulated, by which each subscriber promised, on or before a certain day, to pay to said committee a certain sum of money for the relief of our unfortunate countrymen who languished, as prisoners, in Castle Perote in Mexico. The sums thus promised amounted to between fifty and sixty dollars; but in consequence of the difficulty in forwarding,—and, I think, also the inactivity of the committee,—no relief was sent to the prisoners.
The letter gave a condensed but clear account of their capture, their cruel treatment, their march to the hacienda Salado, their escape and retreat, their recapture and return to the hacienda, the lottery of death, the execution of those who drew the black beans, their tedious march to Castle Perote, their imprisonment there, and the inhuman treatment to which they were subjected.
The account of the lottery, as I remember it, was as follows: The Mexicans placed one hundred and sixty-five beans, seventeen of which were black, in a crock. Then the prisoners, blindfolded, were led forward to the vessel, which was set on a block and covered with a handkerchief. Each had to run his hand under the handkerchief and draw out a bean. Then he was led back to his seat and his eyes uncovered. Being chained in pairs, all but one of the prisoners had to approach the vessel twice. When the drawing was completed a priest entered and offered absolution to those who had drawn the black beans and were to be shot. Only four of them accepted his offer. None of these were members of any church. The priest then conducted them into a room where he advised them and prayed for them about half an hour. Then the hands of the seventeen were bound and their chains were taken off. They were carried to the rear of the building and there shot. We could not see them, but we heard the firing and the groans and cries of some of the victims.
I noted that, according to the account contained in this letter, every tenth man was shot. Sixteen was less than the required number, and seventeen was more; and the Mexican commander had the larger number shot.
The letter closed with a request by Mr. West, who was unmarried, concerning his brother's little daughter. He had left a fine mare in charge of his brother; and, seeming to have a foreboding that he would never see home again, he requested that his brother be instructed to sell the mare for his little niece when he should have opportunity, and invest the proceeds in cattle for her benefit.
Robert H. Dunham's letter to his mother reached her before the return of his surviving comrades. Doubtless some of them had opportunity to send it to her. She resided at Groce's Retreat, in the present county of Grimes. She had two sons in service in the Somervell campaign. The eldest, Capt. D. T. Dunham (usually called Tom) commanded a company under General Somervell, but he returned home from the Rio Grande. Her second son, Robert H. Dunham, was brigade major of Somervell's command; but he crossed the Rio Grande with Colonel Fisher, was in the surrender at Mier, and was one of the seventeen who drew black beans, and were shot by order of Santa Anna. He was a pious young man, and led prayer with his doomed comrades who declined the priest's service. The tidings of his violent death sorely grieved his aged mother, and was believed to have hastened her own demise.
W. P. Zuber.
Did Texas Secede?—To what extent Texas, as a political body, was a party to secession will probably never be known. But that a greater part of the population of our State was in favor of the Union, I think is more than probable; and that the vote for secession did not receive the sanction of the people also seems probable. Had the votes of the country people, the farmers who lived away from the influence of political excitement, been fairly counted, it seems to me that the result would have been far different and that Texas would have remained in the Union and would have avoided the horrors of war as General Houston so eloquently besought her to do in his Address to the People of Texas, in which he tried to prevent the State for whose freedom he had shed his blood from rushing into a fate so dire as the one he foresaw would be hers in the war which was sure to follow disunion of the States.
I have often read that address of Gen. Houston's and talked with my mother of the vote which took our county, a part of Texas, out of the Union. I have also wondered if the experience of Chambers county was peculiar or general in the counting of votes, the result of which was to strew the bones of Texans over the fields of Virginia and so many other Southern States where they died gallantly fighting for the “Lost Cause,” a cause, alas, of which in their hearts they had not desired to make an issue.
To illustrate this I will relate an incident which occurred during the voting which was to decide whether Texas should remain in the Union or secede. This incident occurred at Double Bayou, a polling precinct of Chambers county, situated near Anahuac, the birthplace of Texas independence. “Straws show which way the wind blows.” The result of this election, in that small and humble precinct, if it may be called an election, which was to determine whether Texas should secede or remain in the Union, seemed to show that she did not secede.
My mother was then residing at Smith's Point, which was included in Double Bayou polling district, with Wallisville as the county seat of Chambers county, the latter having formerly been a part of Liberty county. She was a friend of General Houston, whom she had loved and honored from her early childhood; and when she read his burning words against secession it seemed to her that they would certainly carry conviction to those who were about to vote on the fate of their country. Consequently, she asked her husband to take the address with him to the polls and read it to the voters. When he returned she asked him if he had read it. He answered that there was no use in reading it, as the voters were almost unanimously against secession. Out of twenty-two votes cast, the total number of votes in the precinct, there was but one for secession, and it was cast by a Frenchman, a gunsmith by trade; yet when the returns were published there were but nineteen Union votes in all of Chambers county, the rest being, of course, for secession. It is quite certain that the sentiment of the rest of the county, as well as that of East Texas, judging from the expressions of individuals in general, was about the same as it was in Double Bayou.
After the war began these same men collected from different parts of the county at Double Bayou, where my step-father drilled them. Some enlisted and some were conscripted, but however gotten, they were formed into companies and marched off to check invasion.
It seems that the question as to whether Texas seceded will always remain unanswered.
Mrs. Agnes Paschal McNeir.
AFFAIRS OF THE ASSOCIATION.
A letter received some time since from one of the members of the Association brings information of the death of Mr. D. M. O'Connor, which had occurred, in fact, several months previous to the publication of the July Quarterly. The editor, however, had not then heard of it; and Mr. O'Connor was named in that number as a life member of the Association. Though he did not participate actively in the work of the organization, he gave it generous support; and in his death it has lost a friend that it could ill afford to spare.
The Association has received from Mr. R. A. Hanrick, of Waco, a leaf from The Texas Sentinel of July 11, 1840, containing a part of No. 4 of a series of letters by D. G. Burnet on the Indians of Texas, a report of part of the speech of Mr. Jack on the bill for the temporary location of the seat of government in the house of representatives, December 3, 1839; a clipping apparently from the same paper and of about the same date, containing two columns of advertisements referring especially to land certificates; and an almost complete copy of the same for July 18, 1840, containing the conclusion of Burnet's letter and Jack's speech. Another gift is a cannon ball found in the Southwest bastion of old Fort San Saba, and presented by the finder, Mr. J. W. Hunter, editor of the Mason Herald.
2. To colonists, introduced by empresarios, titles were issued upon the certificate of the empresario by the commissioner appointed by the State legislature; titles were issued directly to individuals by the government only when these individuals wished to purchase lands lying without empresario grants. See A Comprehensive History of Texas, I 802.
Monclova had been declared the capital of the State as early as September 25, 1828. However, the capital remained at Saltillo until 1833, when Monclova was decreed such a second time. A revolution resulted. Texas recognized the government at Monclova as the legal one. (Laws and Decrees of Coahuila and Texas, 107, 207; Brown, History of Texas, I 260.)
3. This is rather overstating the facts. There was a remnant of them in Texas as late as 1847. See A Comprehensive History of Texas, I 727.—Editor Quarterly.
4. Authorities vary greatly as to the number of the Mexican troops (cavalry). The estimates run from twenty-five by Linn (Reminiscences, 107) to three hundred by “An Old Soldier” (Texas Almanac for 1861, 61). The weight of evidence is to the effect that there were not more than two hundred, and probably much less.
5. Probably a few more.
6. David B. Malcomb says, in a letter written from Gonzales a few days after the battle: “It is believed that one or two Mexicans were wounded or killed by the advance guard at the first onset, and a very considerable number killed and wounded by the discharge of the cannon (Foote's Texas and the Texans, II 101). “An Old Soldier” says the Mexicans took their killed and wounded with them (Texas Almanac for 1861, 62), while Brown (History of Texas, I 350) says they left four dead on the field. The Texans lost not a man.
7. Stephen F. Austin arrived at Gonzales about noon, October 11, and was elected commander-in-chief the same afternoon (Comp. Hist., I 540).
8. October 27.
9. October 28.
10. Brown (I 348) says it was a valuable four-pounder; but Holley's (Texas, 335) and Macomb's (Foote, II 99) statements, that it was a brass six-pounder, have been adopted by Kennedy (II 108), Yoakum (I 363), and Bancroft (II 166). See also Quarterly, II 314. The Texans had at least two cannon at the beginning of the operations about San Antonio: the one referred to above and another brass six-pounder captured at Concepcion (Bowie and Fannin's Report; Austin's Report to General Council; Morphis's History of Texas, 95, 107.) This statement is repeated by Wm. T. Austin (Comp. Hist., I 552). However, Yoakum (II 16), followed by Bancroft (II 177), states, upon what authority is unknown, that at Concepcion “the Texans had but five pieces of small calibre.”
11. The Texans remained encamped at Concepcion from October 28 to November 2. During that time considerable reinforcements from Eastern Texas arrived, and on the morning of November 2, therefore, a council of war was held. It decided that the army should occupy such positions as would enable it to do the greatest injury to the enemy without exposing the Texans (Texas Scrap Book, 68). The army accordingly was separated into two divisions; the first under Bowie and Fannin remained at Concepcion, while the second under Burleson occupied a strong position on the east side of the San Antonio river about a mile above town (Comp. Hist., I 554). That same day a detachment under Colonel Burleson occupied the mill (Texas Scrap Book, 68), which is located on the San Antonio river and not on San Pedro creek (Quarterly, IV 55). The two divisions of the army advanced to the old mill not long after—Yoakum (II 14, 15) says “four or five days.” Filisola (Memorias para la Historia de la Guerra de Tejas, II 186) says the Texans occupied the mill on the 11th, having one cannon.
12. On November 12, the Consultation elected Branch T. Archer, Wm. H. Wharton, and Stephen F. Austin commissioners to the United States (Journal of Consultation, 37). Informed of his election, Austin “ordered a general parade of the army to take place on the 24th instant, on which occasion he delivered an address in which he announced his determination to accept the appointment of commissioner to the United States and withdraw from the army” (Comp. Hist., I 558).
13. The incidents recited in this paragraph appear to have preceded Austin's resignation (Comp. Hist., I 555, 556).
14. On December 4.
15. Burleson, in his report, states that the force of the enemy could not have been “less than thirteen hundred effective men.” For further information concerning the number, see Bancroft, II 187, note.
16. The Texans who attacked the town numbered three hundred, and but seldom more than two hundred and fifty, during the fight of four days and nights. True, General Burleson, with the remainder of the army, maintained his position above the town.”—F. W. Johnson's MS. History of Texas (Comp. Hist., I 198).
17. At daylight on the morning of December 5.
18. From daylight on the morning of the 5th till half-past six o'clock a. m. on the 9th.
19. Others assert that he was killed “in the hour of victory, while reconnoitering with his glass for the final assault” (Thrall's A Pictorial History of Texas, 592), or “while leading a charge” (Texas Scrap Book, 38). In view of the discrepancies of these statements, most readers will perhaps prefer that made by F. W. Johnson, Milam's colleague, in his official report immediately after the battle: “At half-past three o'clock, as our gallant commander, Col. Milam, was passing into the yard of my position [the Veramendi House], he received a rifle shot in the head, which caused his instant death.”
20. Major R. C. Morris.
21. See Burleson's and Johnson's Reports and Articles of Capitulation; Brown, I 417-426; Thrall, 222-229.
22. This should doubtless read “Fannin and his men had surrendered,” for they were not massacred until March 27, but news of their surrender reached Houston on the Colorado. See Quarterly, IV 299, note.
23. Rather Baker and his men refused to follow Houston up the Brazos, and so were left at San Felipe (Quarterly, IV 246, notes 2-4).
24. Houston's army remained in camp on the west side of the Brazos at Groce's Ferry nearly two weeks before crossing (Quarterly, IV 246, 248).
25. Groce's Ferry.
26. Quarterly, IV 247 and note 2.
27. On April 7.
28. Then known as Fort Bend.
29. James A. See note 3 below.—Editor Quarterly.
30. “On the morning of the 22d * * * a party was detailed and sent out under command of Gen. Burleson. This party proceeded in the direction of the bridge on Vince's bayou. * * * When we reached the bayou, we divided into squads of five or six persons. * * * The party I was with consisted of six, * * *. Their names are as follows: Miles, Sylvester, Thompson, Vermilion, another whose name I do not recollect, and myself. From the bridge we started down the bayou. After traveling about two miles, we saw a man standing on the bank of a ravine, some five or six hundred yards from us” (Joel W. Robinson in Texas Almanac for 1859, 166).
Yoakum, who cites as his authority a letter from James A. Sylvester to the Telegraph of August 2, 1836, says: “On the morning of the 22d, detachments were sent out to scour the country toward Harrisburg, * * *. A party of five, having reached Vince's, continued the search down Buffalo bayou. One of them, James A. Sylvester, while in the act of shooting a deer, discovered a Mexican pursuing his course toward the bridge” (Yoakum, II 146).
“Mr. Sylvester related, that he was, with two others, scouting near Vince's bayou, when, turning out of the road, some few deer were seen at a distance. `Boys,' said one, `stop here till I get a shot at those bucks.' Then riding cautiously through the skirt of the timber, at a proper distance from the deer, he dismounts, ties his horse, and, keeping his eyes on the deer, creeps cautiously towards them. All at once, he observes their heads and tails up, * * * and suddenly they leaped off. As their heads were turned from him, he knew something else had caused their alarm. He returns, remounts his horse, and, beckoning to his companions to come up, he tells them that something had frightened off the deer, and he would see what it was; and, starting off, they soon come to the spot, when, after looking about, they finally discovered a man lying in the grass (N. D. Labadie in Texas Almanac for 1859, 59).
“At eleven o'clock a. m., while I was crossing a large plain, my pursuers overtook me again. Such is the history of my capture.”—(Santa Anna's Report. Translation in Quarterly, IV 271).
31. Robinson says: “He no doubt saw us first, for when we started towards him, he sat down on a high place, and waited till we came up”; and Yoakum: “He [Sylvester] called his companions and they rode up to the fugitive, who had fallen down in the grass, and thrown a blanket over his head.” See references in note 3, p. 92, which will serve for all the remaining citations.
32. They called to him to rise, but he only uncovered his face. They repeated the request for him to rise two or three times, when he did so.”— Yoakum.
“* * * Riding up to him, they ordered him to get up. Manifesting fatigue, he appeared unwilling to rise. One of them then said, `Boys, I'll make him move,' leveling his gun at the same time. `Don't shoot, * * *,' said the others; and, getting down from his horse, one of them gave him a kick, saying, `Get up, * * *.' The man then slowly arose.”—Labadie.
33. “I was the only one of the party that spoke the Mexican language. *** I asked if he was an officer. No, he said he belonged to the cavalry.”—Robinson.
“He advanced to Sylvester, and shook hands with him, ***. He [Santa Anna] inquired for General Houston; they said he was in camp. They then ask him who he was. He said he was a private soldier.”—Yoakum.
“As none of them understood Spanish, they could not talk to him. ***.” And on page 57, Labadie says, “Whilst I was *** dressing the wounds of the prisoners ***, Mr. Sylvester *** rode up *** conducting a prisoner. *** He desired me to interpret for his prisoner ***.”—Labadie.
“On account of my change of apparel, they did not recognize me, and inquired whether I had seen Santa Anna.”—Santa Anna.
34. “Seeing the fine studs on the bosom of his shirt, they pointed toward them. He then said he was an aide to Santa Anna ***. He was dressed as a common soldier, and had no arms.”—Yoakum.
“He had on a glazed leather cap, a striped jacket (volunteer roundabout), country made, coarse cotton socks, soldier's coarse white linen pants, ***. His fine linen bosom shirt, and sharp-pointed shoes were all that did not correspond with a common soldier's dress.”—Labadie.
“I found, in a house which had been abandoned, some articles of clothing, which enabled me to change my apparel.”—Santa Anna.
35. Santa Anna “asked me how far it was to camp. I told him eight or nine miles. He said he could not walk so far. The young man then wanted to kill him, ***. He then said he would try and walk *** some two or three miles. Santa Anna then stopped, and appealing to me, said if we wanted to kill him, to do so, but he could not walk any farther. I then took him up behind me, and carried him to camp, some five or six miles further. *** We entered into a general conversation. *** This brought us to camp. ***.”—Robinson.
“As he complained of not being able to walk, he was placed on one of their horses, and conducted to the camp by some of the party, Sylvester going in another direction.”—Yoakum.
“One of them gave him his horse to allow him to rest, while the other two rode by his side, till they got within half a mile of the camp, when he was made to dismount; the one who had walked on foot now resuming his saddle, proceeded alone with the prisoner to the camp, the other two returning to scout through the prairie.”—Labadie. As will be seen by reference to note 1 above, Mr. Labadie says this one was Sylvester.
36. “This brought us to camp, when the Mexicans immediately announced his name. He asked to be taken to Gen. Houston, and was then taken to him.”—Robinson.
“The distinguished prisoner *** was handed over to Colonel Forbes, at the guard lines; and *** desired to be conducted to General Houston. *** On the way, the Mexican prisoners exclaimed, `El presidente!”'—Yoakum.
Labadie says the Mexican lieutenant, whose arm he was dressing when Sylvester turned to go to General Houston with his prisoner, whispered to him, “Est [sic] El Presidente,” and leaves the impression that Sylvester in person conducted Santa Anna to where Houston lay.
37. French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, I 49.
38. French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, I 35.
39. Ibid., I 37.
40. French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, I 25.
41. Peñalosa had been governor and captain-general of New Mexico from 1660 to 1664. He had incurred the hatred of the Inquisition, and had suffered at its hands the loss of his rank and fortune. After futile attempts to reach Spain to demand justice, he put himself under the protection of Louis XIV.
42. Shea, Peñalosa's Quivira Expedition, Introd., p. 12.
43. Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, 309.
44. Shea, Peñalosa's Quivira Expedition, Introd., p. 22.
45. Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, 309.
46. French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, I 29.
47. The first of these two different ways is to go to the Mississippi, and in the event of war with Spain, to attack the province from the fort he would establish on the river. The second is the alternate of this one. It provides that La Salle return by way of the gulf to Fort St. Louis, and there put things in readiness to execute his designs when it should please the king to order him.
48. This cannot be construed to refer to Peñalosa's proposition. La Salle's first proposition (see note above) asked for two vessels for its execution, one a regular war ship, the other a bark to transport the men.
49. Margry, Découvertes et établissements des Français, III 58.
50. Ibid., III 63.
51. Margry, III 69.
52. Margry, II 428.
53. Margry, III 58.
54. Shea, Peñalosa's Quivira Expedition, Introd., p. 22.
55. Margry, II 428.
56. Margry, III 434, 438, 450.
57. Ibid., III 438.
58. Ibid., III 441.
59. This corresponds to the season when La Salle thought he would be ready to complete his conquest.
60. Bancroft, North Mexican States and Texas, I 393.
61. Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, 309.
62. French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, I 89-90.
63. Ibid., IV 189.
64. Ibid., I 28.
65. Shea, Peñalosa's Quivira Expedition, Introd., p. 22; Winsor, Cartier to Frontenac, 313.
66. Shea, Peñalosa's Quivira Expedition, Introd., p. 22.
67. Margry, II 515. This request was made by d'Esmanville in view of the contemplated landing on the Texas coast, January 20, 1685.
68. Margry, III 132.
69. Ibid., II 559; III 123-124, 126, 135, 139, 153.
70. Ibid., III 147; French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, IV 191.
71. Ibid., II 540, 546. See also letter to Seignelay, Ibid., II 559.
72. Ibid., II 559-560.
73. Ibid., III 135.
74. Ibid., III 123.
75. In Winsor's Cartier to Frontenac, 316, this map is shown.
76. Margry, III 164.
77. Ibid., III 163, et seq.
78. Margry, III 189.
79. Ibid., III 122.
80. Ibid., III 260.
81. French, Historical Collections of Louisiana, I 67.
82. Parkman, La Salle, 328.
83. The paper at Austin referred to was probably the State Gazette, though there seems to have been another, the Southwestern American, which was published in the city at that time. The Nacogdoches paper was the Times, and that at LaGrange was the Texas Monument. See Gray's History of the Texas Press in A Comprehensive History of Texas, II 381, 387, 391, 392, and Mrs. Sinks's Editors and Newspapers of Fayette County, Quarterly, I 34-37—Editor Quarterly.
84. This memoir has been compiled mainly from an autobiographical sketch prepared by Colonel Bryan in 1895 for his daughter, Miss Hally Ballinger Bryan.
85. According to Colonel Bryan's recollection, it was William Hardin, of Liberty.
86. An interesting reminiscence of Colonel Bryan's serves to illustrate the conflicting motives of the old Texans at that juncture in the history of their beloved commonwealth. He used to relate that when he saw the Lone Star flag on the capitol descend to be replaced by the stars and stripes he felt the tears running down his face, and on looking round he saw many others exhibiting the same emotion. Overjoyed as they were by the consummation of the policy they had so much desired, they could not give up the republic without heartfelt sorrow.
87. In treating Major Bryan during his illness, it became necessary for him to have brandy administered by teaspoonfuls constantly. This was furnished by Mrs. Bryan's brother-in-law, W. P. Ballinger, of Houston, who sent first several bottles, and later, on two different occasions, a five-gallon demijohn. Meanwhile Major Bryan was informed by his physician. Dr. Rawlins, that Gen. Sam Houston, who was then living in Huntsville, was also seriously ill with pneumonia, and that he needed brandy, but could get none. Thereupon Major Bryan sent him a bottle and received in return the general's most grateful acknowledgments.
88. This engagement was called by the Federal troops the battle of Sabine Cross Roads, but it is generally known in Texas as that of Mansfield.
89. The name given by the Federal troops to this engagement was the battle of the Saline, while the Confederates called it that of Jenkins's Ferry.
90. Not long after Pinson was captured at this same place, with a party which he was conducting, and sent to a northern prison, where he died.
91. Shortly after the election, Judge Franklin died.
92. See Bancroft's North Mexican States and Texas, I 626-629.—Editor Quarterly.
93. The original has “13ten,” but this is obviously a misprint.—Editor Quarterly.
94. See Quarterly for January, 1899, pp. 218, 219.
95. Representation of Cabildo of San Fernando, March 5, 1735.
96. Colonos para Texas.
97. Portillo, Apuntes para la Historia Antigua de Coahuila y Texas, pp. 239 et seq.; William Corner, San Antonio de Bejar, p. 127.
98. Decree of Viceroy Casa Fuerte, December 31, 1731.
99. Captain of Presidio Juan Antonio Perez de Almacen to viceroy, February 22, 1732.
100. Talamantes mentions this in his Historia, par. 21. Several real estate transfers show that it was a customary practice.
101. Yoakum, History of Texas, I 79. The authority in the manuscripts for his statement, however, appears slight. The documents Representacion to Ripperdá (1770) and Testimonio de un Parecer (1744) mention only families in the vicinity as joining the “Islanders” in forming the villa. The report of De Croix (1778) says that thirty families of “creoles or natives of these kingdoms” joined them.
102. Casa Fuerte to Bustillos, November 28, 1730.
103. Urrutia to Rodriguez; Rodriguez to Castro, 1749.
104. Rodriguez to Curbelo, May 22, 1749; Rodriguez to Castro, April 8, 1749.
105. Representation of cabildo to Governor, March 5, 1735.
106. Decree of Casa Fuerte, December 31, 1731.
107. Petition of Travieso.
108. Petitions of cabildo, February 6, and March 5, 1735.
109. Decree of Bizarron, January 24, 1736.
110. Representacion á Ripperdá, July 7, 1770.
111. See lists as given above.
112. Petition of July 7, 1733.
113. Petition of July 21, 1733.
114. Proclamation, April 19, 1735.
115. Response, May 14, 1735.
116. Petition vs. Patricio Rodriguez, August 29, 1734.
117. Proclamation of Casa Fuerte, December 31, 1731.
118. Incomplete document, seal of 1747-'48.
119. Report of De Croix, September 23, 1778; Archivo General, Historia, 43.
120. See petition of Travieso, above.
121. A fanega is equal to about two bushels.
122. Proclamations of September 28, 1737, and following.
123. August 26, 1745.
124. Communication of the bishop of Guadalajara, May 9, 1754.
125. Representation of cabildo, August 25, 1756.
126. It seems to have been such.—Editor Quarterly.
127. Both places in the present county of Grimes, which was then part of Montgomery. Alto Miro was a hamlet, the site of which is now embraced in the town of Anderson.
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"Issue View", Volume 005, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v005/n2/issue.html
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