The burning of the Office of the Treasurer of the Republic of Texas, in September, 1845, is narrated in a discussion between the Texas National Register, of Washington, and The Morning Star, of Houston. The matter is closed with an official statement from the secretary of the treasury. In reading these accounts it should be borne in mind that the secretary of the treasury and the treasurer are not identical; the former was head of the treasury department, the latter was in charge of a bureau in that department.
When President Houston ordered the various executive departments from Austin to Houston, in March, 1842, the archives of all the departments were detained at Austin. With the exception of the general land office, the departments resumed their duties at Houston; as the land office was unable to transact business without its archives, it remained in Austin. After the attempt to remove the archives by force, they were placed in the custody of a committee of citizens to await a settlement of the seat of government question. The constitutional convention decreed that Austin should be the seat of government until 1850. Thereupon the committee surrendered the archives to the proper officials. The burning of the Treasurer's Office occurred after the committee had surrendered the archives to the treasurer, but before he had removed to Austin the archives pertaining to his bureau at Washington.
As will be seen from the statement of the secretary of the treasury, the archives of the department—even that portion at Austin—were not among those destroyed. The loss occasioned by this fire both to the government and to the historian, therefore, appears to have been unimportant. The account below shows the character and extent of the loss sustained.
We regret to learn that about two o'clock on the morning of the 9th inst. the office of the Treasurer of the Republic, at the City of Austin, including the records and papers appertaining thereto, up to the commencement of the last administration, was entirely consumed by fire. It was doubtless the work of an incendiary, who may have hoped in this way to destroy existing evidence of defalcation or indebtedness to the Government. And this supposition is the more probable from the fact that the Secretary of the Treasury had announced his intention of placing the books and papers of his department in a condition to exhibit fully the accounts of debtors and defaulters, previous to the change of government 204 [which would follow annexation].
A variety of contradictory reports have been in circulation recently relative to the Treasury Office that was burnt at Austin a few weeks since. We have hitherto deemed them unworthy of notice, for we had supposed that very few valuable papers were destroyed. It will be recollected, however, that immediately after the news of the burning of the Office reached Washington, the editor of the Washington Register published a statement to the effect that the vouchers of the Office included those which showed the amount of indebtedness of the government defaulters, were destroyed. We thought that the article contained an intimation that the Office might have been burnt by one of the defaulters. How any defaulter could ascertain that the evidences of his iniquity were locked up in this Office is to us inexplicable, for we have ever supposed that it was the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury, and of the Auditor and Comptroller to keep these evidences in their offices. The Treasurer, we supposed, merely kept the vouchers shewing the amount of money received and disbursed by him. Unless, therefore, he had in his office a part of the papers and documents belonging to other offices, the amount of injury sustained by the government cannot be very great. It is important that the amount of injury that the government has sustained should be made known, and we sincerely hope that the Treasurer will publish a statement of the papers and documents that were consumed. By neglecting this he has already subjected himself to charges of a very discreditable character, as will be seen by the following extract from a letter published in the Montgomery Patriot of Oct. 25th. This letter, says the Patriot, was written by a person who was at Austin when the conflagration took place:
“It is known that the archives remained at Austin, under the superintendence of a committee, in the center of the town, until the latter part of August last, at which time President Jones and his cabinet arrived at Austin, and took possession of them. The Treasury Department was immediately moved some two or three hundred yards to a point near the river, to the Treasurer's house, and there left without any person to care of them.
“Immediately after the President and his Secretary and Treasurer left for Washington, and I think on the 11th of September about 2 o'clock in the morning, the house was discovered on fire and the flames issuing through the windows from the inside, yet no one lived in the house nor near it.
“In the morning after the burning, the person having the key to the house reported that there was nothing of value in the house, yet the Treasurer had stated to Dr. Haney that the whole Treasury Department is burnt, together with a cart load of red backs.” 205
No satisfactory discovery has yet been made of the perpetrator of this base transaction [the burning of the Treasurer's Office], or of his motives. The archives destroyed were those of the Treasurer's Office, from the commencement of the Government to the first of January, 1840, all of which had been reported to other offices, and the evidences there are yet to be found. None of the papers, vouchers, or records of recent date were in that building, and whatever may have been the object of the villain who committed the crime the Government will probably suffer no pecuniary loss. The principal sufferer is Dr. [Moses] Johnson, the present Treasurer, who was the owner of the building. 206
We have learned with pleasure that the Treasurer intends to publish a statement of the vouchers and public documents destroyed in the Treasury Office that was burned at Austin a few weeks since. It appears that a large package of Promissory Notes that had been redeemed was in the Office at the time it was burned. These notes belonged to the Office of the Secretary of the Treasury, but had been removed to the Treasurer's Office by the request of the Secretary. We understand that these notes had been marked across the face with a pen and had been clipped in one or two places with scissors to denote that they had been cancelled. They were not deposited in an iron safe, but in a wooden box. 207 . . .
In the annual report for the year ending October 31, 1845, Secretary of the Treasury, J. A. Greer, says:
In the short time during which the archives formerly left in this city have been again in the possession of this Department, its officers have been too much occupied with its closing business to ascertain with certainty the amount of the national debt. . . .
The burning of the Treasurer's Office in this city, and the ex-aggerated reports of the quantity and importance of the papers lost on that occasion, have caused apprehensions in other quarters that the Government would suffer serious loss by the accident. For the satisfaction of the public, I will here mention that such is not the case. A large amount of promissory notes and audited drafts were there consumed, but they had all been previously cancelled, they are, moreover, on register in other offices, among the other liabilities of that class issued—though in the sum registered, it would be difficult to identify the separate bills of the amount destroyed, since the detailed register of their cancelment was burnt with them. The other papers consumed, all of which belonged exclusively to the Treasury Bureau, have in other offices either duplicates or a detailed registry which will answer the same purpose. 208
Through a misprint, a footnote on page 327 of The Quarterly for April, 1911, gives the date of the burning of the Adjutant General's Office incorrectly as October 10, 1853. The office burned in 1855. The writer has made an effort to collect all information obtainable in regard to this disaster. One of the principal documents has thus far eluded him in his search, but it is hoped that by submitting this fragmentary account attention will be drawn to this missing paper and its discovery assured.
1. Condition of the Archives of the Adjutant General's Office in 1852.—A special committee from the house of representatives, appointed to examine and report on the condition of the Adjutant General's Office, made a report on January 16, 1852, from which the following extract is made: 209
The committee are compelled to notice the want of sufficient means or conveniences to protect and preserve the papers and books in that office, and in view of the great importance to the country that the archives of this office should be effectually preserved, we recommend such an appropriation for this purpose as may be deemed necessary by the legislature. And they would further represent that the books containing the muster rolls, are in a torn and dilapidated condition, and are likely, unless soon transcribed, to be entirely defaced and destroyed. We deem it almost unnecessary to remind this honorable body of the absolute necessity and importance of preserving the muster rolls, not only on account of the pecuniary interest involved, but also as a proud memorial of the patriotism and self-sacrificing spirit of those who were ever ready to rally around the Lone Star, and to yield, if necessary, their lives in defence of Texian independence, and Texian soil. The muster rolls of those who fell at the Alamo, are almost entirely destroyed; and shall we, governed by a selfish spirit of economy, permit the only record of that “Spartan Band” to be lost, who offered their lives as a sacrifice upon the Altar of our Liberties, and who, in stemming the tide of Mexican oppression, left as a rich inheritance to Texas, their memory, and the record of their heroic achievements? We feel that there can be but one response from every Texian heart. It will be necessary to record some of the other rolls which have never as yet been copied into any book.
It was suggested to the committee in the early part of the session, the propriety of enquiring as to the policy of either abolishing the Adjutant General's Office, or of merging it into that of the Land Office. In accordance with these intimations, we have given the subject our mature consideration, and we are induced to believe that it would be both impolitic and inexpedient at present to abolish this office. But they believe that by the next session of the legislature, there will be but little necessity to continue it, and then it can, without detriment, be transferred, and made a part of the General Land Office. . . .
.H. B. Andrews, Chairman. .R. H. Taylor, .E. H. Tarrant, .H. M. Lawson.2. The Burning of the Adjutant General's Office in 1855.—Two weekly newspapers were published in Austin at the time when the Adjutant General's Office was burned. Their day of publication was the same, Saturday. The first account of the fire, which follows, is from the Texas State Times of October 13, 1855; the second is from the State Gazette of the same date.
[O]n 210 Wednesday morning between 3 and [4 o']clock Major Gillet was aroused by [the] noise of fire close to him. He rushed [from] his room and discovered the adjoining [room] containing the archives of the Adju[tant] General's Department in flames. The win[dow] shutter was open and had been, no doubt, [force]d. At this point it is supposed the in[cendiar]y entered and fired the papers in the [said] office. All the army rolls, in fact every [impo]rtant paper in relation to the military [affai]rs of Texas, were consumed. There is [no m]eans to procure duplicates. The burn[ing] of no other archives could have been a [grea]ter loss to Texas. It will open the door [to th]e defrauding of many persons of their [just] rights. Maj. Gillet made a rather nar[row] escape himself—a few more minutes [woul]d have sufficed to envelope his sleeping [apar]tment in flames. He lost all his house[hold] and kitchen furniture—barely escaping [with] the clothes by his bedside.
[Pr]ovidentially there was little breeze else [the] fire would have spread.
[T]he incendiary who committed this attro[cious] deed, was, it is supposed, implicated in [the] forging transactions brought to light a [few] months since.
[T]wo years ago Maj. Gillet called the at[tenti]on of the legislature to the propriety of [placi]ng these important papers in a fire proof [build]ing. Just then they were seized with [a ke]en fit of economy and refused. They [can] now see the result of their unwise parsi[moni]ousness—`Pennywise—pound-foolish.'
Early on Thursday morning last, the office of the adjutant general was discovered to be on fire, and in a short time the whole building was enveloped in flames. Gen. Gillett was barely able to save a few clothes. All the records of the office, and a large number of important papers filed in the cases of applicants for relief are destroyed. It will be necessary for the legislature to make some provision for the identification of the claims proved by the records in this office. There is no doubt that the fire was the work of an incendiary. Gen. Gillett had carefully avoided having any fire kept in his room for some time past. The window of the office was found open, and the fire appeared to have been built on the floor. It is very likely that it was the work of some parties implicated in the charge of forgery, in whose cases the evidence of guilt was to be found in the Adjutant's office. We hope some clue may yet be found for the discovery of the offenders. The Gazette office was immediately opposite the building destroyed, and had a North wind been blowing, we should have been burnt out, and also the block in which are situated the Hall House and Metropolitan.
3. Some Results of the Fire.—Governor Pease in his message to the sixth legislature, November 5, 1855, called attention to this fire and made the recommendations below: 211
I submit herewith a communication from the Adjutant General, 212 in relation to the burning of his office, which contains all the information that has been obtained in regard to this truly lamentable occurrence, by which all the original archives of the War and Navy Departments of the late Republic of Texas, have been destroyed.
This great loss should impress upon us the necessity of providing suitable fire proof buildings, for the security of the remaining archives of our government.
The records and papers of the State Department are now kept in an insecure wooden building, equally as liable to be fired either by accident or an incendiary, as was that of the Adjutant General's office.
The building now occupied by the General Land Office, although sufficient for the period of its erection, is now entirely inadequate for the increased business of that office, a larger and more commodious building would facilitate the despatch of its business, and the present Land Office would furnish ample rooms for those of our public offices that are not now supplied with fire proof buildings.
This matter is commended to your consideration with a confidence that you will adopt all reasonable means to insure the safety of our public records.
I also think it would be a measure of prudence, to have a person employed to guard our public buildings at night, this precaution might prevent them from being broken open, and their contents destroyed or taken away, and would render them more secure from fire.
The recommendations of the governor were observed by the legislature. The sum of $40,000 was appropriated for the erection of a new fire proof building for the use of the General Land Office 213—the building still in use at present. It was further provided that on completion of the new building, the one vacated by the General Land Office should be occupied by the Secretary of State, the Governor, and the Attorney General. 214
The regular session of the sixth legislature adjourned on February 4, 1856. On the same day Governor Pease sent the following letter to the Adjutant General, Major James S. Gillett: 215
Sir:
The Legislature has adjourned without the passage of any law, prescribing the mode in which the duties in your office shall be performed, since the destruction of its records by fire, there is therefore no longer any occasion for the services of an Adjutant General.
They also failed to make any appropriation for the salary.
You will therefore consider your office vacated from and after the receipt of this letter.
All documents and papers belonging to your office, you will please deposit in the office of the Secretary of State, taking his receipt therefor.
The governor's action in thus summarily suspending one of the State offices appears to have received the approval of the legislature, for at its adjourned session in the following summer provision was made for Major Gillett's salary up to February 4th, but no longer. The office was formally abolished and its duties transferred to the commissioner of claims by an act approved August 1, 1856. 216 The office of adjutant general was revived by an act approved February 14, 1860. 217
205. The Morning Star, November 8, 1845.
206. Texas National Register, November 15, 1845.
207. The Morning Star, December 2, 1845.
208. Appendix to the Journal of the Senate of the first Legislature of the State of Texas, p. 16.
209. House Journal, 4th Legislature, pp. 566, 567.
210. When the binder trimmed this volume of the Texas State Times he cut off a strip of the text one-fourth of an inch in width. An attempt has been made to supply the words or letters cut off; the words or letters supplied are in brackets.
211. Senate Journal, 6th Legislature, pp. 42, 43.
212. This communication from the Adjutant General has not been found.
213. Gammel, Laws of Texas, IV, 231.
214. Ibid., IV, 236.
215. Executive Record, Vol. 276, p. 444, (MS.), in Department of State.
216. Gammel, Laws of Texas, IV, 435, 442.
217. Ibid., IV, 1409.
How to cite:
Winkler, E. W., "DESTRUCTION OF HISTORICAL ARCHIVES OF TEXAS ", Volume 015, Number 2, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, Page 148 - 155. http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v015/n2/article_2.html
[Accessed Sun Nov 23 12:35:19 CST 2008]
