Records of the services of Anson Jones, Andrew Briscoe, Wm. Houston Jack, Sidney Sherman, Orlando and James Phelps, and John R. Fenn, whose wives and daughters were the first general officers of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. These records are free copies of applications for membership which are filed with the Secretary of the General Society.
Mrs. Mary Smith Jones, President, 1818 Prairie Ave., Houston, Texas, wife of Anson Jones, last President of the Republic of Texas. Descendant, namely, daughter of John McCutchen Smith and Sallie Pevahouse.
Doctor Anson Jones was born in the town of Great Barrington, Massachusetts, on the 20th day of January, 1798. He lived in Brazoria Country, Texas. He commenced his services for Texas by bringing about the first public meeting held to advocate the declaration of Texas independence from Mexico, and presented resolutions calling for a convention which met at Washington on the Brazos soon after. Other such calls had been made in the meantime. This call was to meet in Columbia, and the meeting was held there December 25, 1835. Texas was then in a state of war. Dr. Jones then joined the army, first as a private soldier in Captain Calder's company 2nd Texas regiment, infantry; he was soon after appointed surgeon and served in this capacity at the battle of San Jacinto, April, 21, 1836. In the summer of 1837 he was elected to Congress from Brazoria country; in July, 1838, was appointed minister to the United States; was absent from Texas eleven months, and upon his return June 29, 1839, found that he had been elected senator from Brazoria county for two years to fill out the unexpired term of the Hon. Wm. H. Wharton, just deceased. While senator he was elected acting President of the Senate in the absence of the Vice-President of the Republic. In 1841 he was appointed Secretary of State, during Gen. Sam Houston's second administration, and served thus for three years, when in 1844 he was elected President of the Republic of Texas. His inauguration took place on the 9th of December, 1844, in the town of Washington on the Brazos.
Annexation was a pet scheme of Dr. Jones's long before it became a popular measure of government policy. As Secretary of State he had fostered it, and finally it was under his administration as President of the Republic of Texas that the great measure was consummated and also that our independence from Mexico was acknowledged. Both measures, I claim, were successfully accomplished during his short term as President of the Republic of Texas. Doctor Anson Jones died in Houston, January 9, 1858, and is buried in Glenwood Cemetery, near our son C. Anson Jones.
My parents were married in 1816 in Lawrence county, Arkansas Territory. I was born July 24, 1819, in Arkansas Territory; came to Texas with my parents in the fall of 1833, and have resided here ever since. No one can ever know the vicissitudes I have passed through, but in all the relations of life I have ever tried faithfully and prayerfully to do my whole duty according to the light I have had.
Mrs. Mary J. Briscoe, 1st Vice-President, 620 Crawford St., Houston, Texas, wife of Judge Andrew Briscoe. Descendant, namely, daughter of John R. Harris and Jane Birdsall, his wife. John R. Harris was one of Austin's first 300 settlers, but I claim admission by right of my husband's services, which were as follows:
Andrew Briscoe was born in Adams County, Mississippi, on the 25th day of November, 1810, and came to Texas in the winter of 1832 and 1833. In 1834 he brought a stock of goods to Anahuac on Galveston Bay near the mouth of the Trinity river. There, in June, 1835, in company with my brother, D. W. C. Harris, who came from Harrisburg to purchase goods, he was arrested and put in prison. An acquaintance, Wm. Smith, who came towards them as they were being marched off, was shot down, the ball penetrating his right side. My husband, they said, would be infringing upon the custom house laws if he moved any of his goods from Anahuac. As they could make no charge against my brother, they released him the next day and he returned to Harrisburg and made a report of what had happened, which was sent to the authorities at San Felipe. Wm. B. Travis, who was a warm friend of my husband, lost no time in going to his rescue. The Mexicans had released my husband before Travis and his company arrived, but that did not prevent Travis from disarming Capt. Tenorio and his company and marching them to Harrisburg, where they were kept several days, then sent to San Felipe and thenc to Bexar. This event was speedily followed by an order from the Mexican government to arrest Lorenzo de Zavala, Travis, and others, and to place military garrisons in all towns and disarm all the inhabitants.
Upon this arbitrary measure being made public, my husband immediately began to co-operate with other patriots in arousing the people to a feeling of proper indignation. He wrote and published addresses, issued circulars which he and my brother printed with a pen so they could the more easily be read by all; and when the first troops were raised he, in command of the “Liberty Volunteers,” joined the army which, under Stephen F. Austin, was marching on Bexar. On approaching that place he, in company with Fannin and Bowie, was ordered to select a camping ground for the army, and having proceeded as far as the Mission Concepcion they were there engaged in the battle of that name.
My husband was one of the three hundred volunteers who followed Old Ben Milam to the attack and capture of San Antonio de Bexar in December, 1835. Having been elected by the municipality of Harrisburg a member of the Convention to assemble at Washington March 1, 1836, as soon as he was informed of his election, he left the army on horseback, reaching Washington on the afternoon of March 10th.
He affixed his signature to the Declaration of Independence by that of his colleague, Lorenzo de Zavala. He remained in attendance at the Convention until its dissolution, March 17th, when he received a commission to raise a company of regulars (infantry). While in command of Company A, Millard's Regiment, he took part in the battle of San Jacinto. On the election of General Houston to the presidency, he appointed my husband Chief Justice of Harrisburg County (afterwards Harris). After the expiration of his term of office, in 1840,, my husband retired to private life. He died in New Orleans, October 4, 1849, and is buried in the Briscoe plantation cemetery, Claiborne County, Mississippi.
Harriet Patrick Ballinger, 2nd Vice-President, wife of William Pitt Ballinger, daughter of William Houston Jack and Laura Harrison.
Wm. Houston Jack was born in Wilkes County, Georgia, on the 12th day of April, 1806. He lived in San Felipe and Brazoria County, Texas, and served the cause of Texas independence and the Republic of Texas in the following ways:
He was a private soldier at Velasco, Goliad, San Antonio, and San Jacinto. In the last battle he was in Capt. Wm. H. Patton's company, 2nd Regiment of Texas Volunteers, Colonel Sidney Sherman commanding. He was Secretary of State under David G. Burnet, first President of the Republic of Texas, and several times a representative and senator in the Congress of Texas. He was the author of the Turtle Bayou Resolutions, writing them with a sharpened cane.
Mrs. Matilda Isabel Kendall, 3rd Vice-President, wife of Wm. E. Kendall, daughter of Sidney Sherman and Catharine Isabel Cox.
Sidney Sherman was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts, on the 23rd day of July, 1805. He lived in Harris and Galveston Counties, Texas, and served the cause of Texas independence and the Republic of Texas as follows:
In December, 1835, being then a citizen of Newport, Kentucky, he raised, organized, and equipped a cavalry company of fifty men for service in defense of Texas independence. On the 31st of December, 1835, he embarked with his company on a steamer at Cincinnati for Natchitoches, Louisiana, and from that point marched to Texas and tendered his services to the provisional governor of the Republic. Upon the organization of the army of Texas he was elected colonel of the 2nd Regiment of Texas troops, and served in that capacity throughout the campaign of 1836, which culminated in the battle of San Jacinto, April 21st of that year. He was elected and served as member of the Congress of the Republic of Texas, in 1842. He was elected and also served as Major General of the Republic of Texas in 1844.
Minnie Phelps Vasmer, General Secretary, wife of Judge Ernest H. Vasmer, daughter of Orlando C. Phelps and Mary Dudley Eubank, and granddaughter of Dr. James Æ. Phelps and Rosetta Adeline Yerby.
Orlando C. Phelps was born in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, on the 27th of January, 1822. He lived in Brazoria County, Texas. He was a member of the Mier Expedition and was taken prisoner at the battle of Mier, but liberated by Santa Anna's orders because of the fact that Santa Anna considered himself under obligations to Dr. James Phelps, who was father of O. C. Phelps. He is a member in good standing of the Texas Veteran Association. 182
Dr. James Phelps was a member of Stephen F. Austin's colony of three hundred, having come to Texas in 1824. He was hospital surgeon in the Texan army and participated in the battle of San Jacinto. It was at his house at Orozimbo that Santa Anna was held a prisoner for four months. He died in 1847.
Miss Belle Fenn, Treasurer, 1117 Bell Ave., Houston, Texas, daughter of John R. Fenn and Rebecca M. Williams.
John R. Fenn was born in Lawrence county, Miss., September 11, 1824. He came to Texas with his parents, Eli and Sarah Fenn, in 1833. He was captured and taken to the Mexican General Almonte when a boy not eleven years old. He had been sent out to gather up some horses for his mother and other ladies to make their escape on, as it was rumored that Santa Anna's army was within nine miles of them. He made his escape the next day. He went with volunteers to San Antonio in the spring of 1842, when Vasquez under Mexican authority was placing Mexican officers in the city government. He went again to San Antonio in the autumn of 1842, when the Republic called for volunteers to defend her border and the city of San Antonio was being invaded by Mexicans under General Woll. This time he was in General Somerville's command and a member of Capt. Wm. Ryan's company.
Mrs. Adèle B. Looscan, Historian, D. R. T.
How to cite:
"GENEALOGICAL AND HISTORICAL REGISTER OF THE FIRST GENERAL OFFICERS OF THE DAUGHTERS OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS ELECTED IN 1891 ", Volume 005, Number 4, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 347 - 351. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v005/n4/article_2.html
[Accessed Tue Dec 2 20:33:10 CST 2008]
