HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Vol. XLVII JANUARY, 1944 No. 3
OF THE REPUBLIC OF TEXAS
J. W. WILLIAMS
Texas and the Confederate Army's
Meat Problem Frank E. Vandiver
Esther Amanda Sherrill Cullins .... Olive Todd Walker
The Excellence of the Spanish Horse . . John J. Johnson
General Arthur Goodall Wavell and Wavell's
Colony in Texas--A Note Eugene C. Barker
Life of General Don Manuel de Mier
y Terán (Continued) Ohland Morton
Check List of Texas Imprints, 1851, 1852 Edited by
E. W. Winkler
Texas Collection H. Bailey Carroll
Letters and Documents
Book Reviews
Contributors
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AUSTIN 12, TEXAS
1897-—The Oldest Learned Society in Texas—l897
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E. W. Winkler
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H. Bailey Carroll
Herbert Gambrell
THE SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
EDITORS:
Walter Prescott Webb
H. Bailey Carroll
ASSOCIATE EDITORS:
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Rudolph L. Biesele
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CONTENTS
The National Road of the Republic of Texas - - -
- - - J. W. Williams - - 207
Texas and the Confederate Army's Meat Problem - - -
- - - Frank E. Vandiver - - 225
Esther Amanda Sherrill Cullins - - Olive Todd Walker - - 234
The Excellence of the Spanish Horse - John J. Johnson - - 250
General Arthur Goodall Wavell and Wavell's Colony in
Texas - - - Eugene C. Barker - - 253
Life of General Don Manuel de Mier y Terán Continued
- - - Ohland Morton - - 256
Check List of Texas Imprints, 1846-1876 Continued - - -
- - - Edited by E. W. Winkler - - 268
Texas Collection - - - H. Bailey Carroll - - 294
Letters and Documents: Dr. John Sibley and the Louisiana-
Texas Frontier, 1803-1814 - - - Continued
- - - Julia Kathryn Garrett - - 319
A Letter from Old Goliad - Edited by Marian Yaeger - - 325
A Mexican War Letter - - Edited by Marjorie Clark - - 326
BOOK Reviews: Wallace, Charles DeMorse: Pioneer Editor and
Statesman; Copeland, Kendall of the Picayune; Schreiber,
When the Bishop Blesses; Bettersworth, Confederate Mis-
sissippi. The People and Policies of a Cotton State in War-
time; Shaw, William Preston Johnston: A Transitional Fig-
ure of the Confederacy - - - 328
Contributors - - - 337
THE SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
Vol. XLVII January, 1944 No. 3
THE NATIONAL ROAD OF THE
REPUBLIC OF TEXAS
A long forgotten document, hidden away among the files of
the Land Office for nearly a century, now makes it possible to
bring into sharper focus certain phases of the history of North
Texas. At a time when transportation difficulties were almost
the number-one problem, an important old road was laid out
by direction of the Texas lawmakers. Its functions among the
trails that served pioneer needs, its route, and perhaps even
its purpose have been much misunderstood.
This old document, that promises some new data on a certain
period of the story of Texas, consists of only a dozen pages of
surveyors' notes. It furnishes, nevertheless, a fairly accurate
waybill for the route of the "Central National Road of the
Republic of Texas,"
1 and through its contribution of an accurate
geographical background promotes a better understanding of
certain episodes of the development of North and Central Texas.
So much confusion has prevailed concerning the course of this
road that its route and the way in which it fits into the larger
geography of the Southwest will be first considered.
An act of the Texas Congress, finally approved on February
5, 1844, created a commission of five men empowered to select
a right-of-way for this road, and to have that right-of-way
cleared of obstructing timber, and also to see that the necessary
bridges were erected.
2 The commissioners were directed to
begin the road on the bank of the Trinity River, not more than
fifteen miles below the mouth of the Elm Fork, and to extend it
to the south bank of Red River, opposite the Kiamichi--or, in
our terms, from central Dallas County to a point approximately
one hundred and thirty miles distant in northwest Red River
County. Three of the five commissioners lived less than thirty
miles from the new town of Paris,
3 and Paris was also the post
office of Major George W. Stell, named by the act to survey the
road. The time-worn field notes in the Land Office are in Major
Stell's own hand.
Slightly less than two months after the bill was approved,
the surveying crew, headed by Major Stell, began its work at
a certain cedar tree
4 on the bank of the Trinity River, some-
where in what is now central Dallas County, and thirty days
later the enterprise was concluded in the Red River bottom
in the northwest corner of Red River County.
5
In spite of the excellence of the field notes, difficulties are
found in following their exact path. In the first place, the cedar
tree in Dallas County is gone, and, secondly, there are certain
mathematical considerations that make for slight ambiguities
in applying the notes.
6 Also, Major Stell admitted the possibility
that he had made some minor errors in transcribing his data.
Fortunately, some information within the notes, and some
additional facts that have been discovered, limit the possible
errors to a relatively small range. A county-line survey, made
in 1850, fixes the National Road at a point ten miles and twenty-
four chains (or ten and three-tenths miles) south of the north-
east corner of Dallas County. A similar survey made of the
west Hunt County line in the same year shows that the Na-
tional Road was nine miles and 74.57 chains (or 9.93 miles)
north of the southeast corner of Collin County.
7 Major Stell's
plat shows that this road passed through the town of Paris,
and subsequent information identifies it with Bonham street,
8
the important present-day thoroughfare that passes along the
north side of the square in modern Paris. The old road came
to an end in the northwest part of Red River County, directly
opposite the mouth of the Kiamichi River.
9 Obviously these
four definite points outline the general course of the National
Road; the field notes can be used to fill in details.
A trek across the country, with surveying instruments, in
search of this old road might prove to be a first-ranking ad-
venture. The fragments of antique bridges, some of Major
Stell's old bois d'arc mileposts--and perhaps a pair of chafing
boots, and a little sunburn lotion--might add up to furnish
the thrills and attendant miseries of a single day afield. But
such an adventure must now wait until less strenuous times.
Instead, this study will proceed by thumb-tacking the neces-
sary county maps
10 to a drawing board and surveying each
changing angle of the old road with ruler, protractor, and T-
square. For convenience a start is made at the east line of
Dallas County, a proven point three and three-quarter miles
north of Highway 80. This point on the National Road is
slightly more than seventeen miles from the Trinity River and
is the place at which that old wagon trail entered the area that
is now Rockwall County. At this place the present road runs
on almost the same path as the old. Four-tenths of a mile due
east, the National Road crossed the East Fork of the Trinity
River; the old Mackenzie Ferry
11 was once located there, and
in later years the Barnes Bridge
12 was built a half-mile up the
stream. Not far across the East Fork, Major Stell blazed the
surface of an ash tree
13 and marked it for his eighteenth mile
post. His road next curved southeast, then east, and then
northeast around a high hill, and along the north bank of a
small creek, which the United States Geological Survey topo-
graphical map
14 called Yankee Creek. After a short distance,
the road turned more toward the north and finally due north,
pointing directly at the future county seat town of Rockwall,
and following approximately the route of the present road from
Barnes Bridge to Rockwall for several miles. But short of the
townsite the old road turned thirty degrees east and crossed
the course of a present paved highway about one and one-half
miles east of the site of present Rockwall. A little north of
the present pavement a cedar post was planted in the ground
marking the twenty-seventh mile; the course of the road
changed just three degrees more toward the east, and continued
in a straight line for eleven miles. In this span of distance,
Major Stell passed over the future county line and progressed
some seven and a half miles into modern Collin County; a
mulberry post was set here to mark the thirty-eighth mile.
Cedar posts had marked almost every mile for the past twenty
because the route was following a prairie ridge on which there
were very few trees.
Observing the map of Collin County for a moment, one finds
that this thirty-eighth mile post was about a mile and a half
west of a small village called Josephine. Four miles further
north the old road survey bent eastward and crossed the line
into Hunt County (on land that was part of Fannin County in
1844) at a point two miles south of State Highway 24, between
Greenville and McKinney. A few miles to the northeast, Major
Stell and his men crossed the route of this present-day State
Highway eight and one-half miles west of Greenville, near the
village of Floyd.
The land of this area must have appealed to the surveying
crew as well as to the Commissioners of the National Koad.
Each of these early road makers was to receive pay for his
work in land, and more than a dozen tracts of this Hunt County
real estate were selected by them not far from the village of
Floyd. Possibly because of a conflict with the Mercer Colony,
most of these parcels of land seem to have been abandoned, but
there was at least one exception. John Yeary, one of the com-
missioners, laid claim to six hundred and forty acres some two
or three miles northeast of Floyd.
15 A locust post was set at
Yeary's southeast corner;
16 this same piece of timber was also
marked as the forty-eighth mile post on the National Road. On
current maps of Hunt County there is now a John Yeary survey
some seven miles northwest of Greenville,
17 and the method of
map surveying employed here places the forty-eighth mile post
of the old road near its southeast corner. Apparently this tract
of land is identical with the original John Yeary survey, a fact
which makes it possible to locate another specific point on the
route of the National Road.
Four miles northeast of Yeary's land, the National Road
crossed the principal fork of the Sabine River.
18 The bridge
on Highway 69, six and one-half miles northwest of Greenville,
is almost, if not exactly, identical with the place where the older
road crossed.
19 Nearly two miles northeast of this bridge, Major
Stall's survey turned due north for three miles, thus avoiding
the west part of the dense Black Cat Thicket.
At the fifty-seventh mile post the northeasterly direction was
again resumed, and a little short of the sixty-first marker the
road surveyors crossed South Sulphur near the highway bridge
that is now south of Wolfe City; seven additional miles put the
surveying crew a full mile inside the present limits of Fannin
County. On this span of road they had missed modern Wolfe
City by only a mile, and now they were ready to turn twenty-
five degrees more toward the east and pass through the south
part of the townsite of Ladonia as that town is mapped today.
In 1844, John Loring lived about a mile east of the place that
is now Ladonia.
20 The National Road ran a little north of his
land and continued eastward some three miles further before
making the abrupt turn northward down into the timbered
bottom of the principal branch of Sulphur River. Now a country
road runs north to a bridge on Sulphur that is known as the
"old Lyday Crossing." Isaac Lyday, who moved to the area
in 1838,
21 owned the land just east of the present bridge.
22 He
built a frontier fort
23--perhaps a stockade--that furnished pro-
tection to the first settlers. Map surveying traces the National
Road across Lyday's old survey about a half mile east of the
bridge that now bears his name. There is a creek junction
shown in Major Stell's plat that helps to identify this eastward
point as the original river crossing.
24
After passing Sulphur River almost midway of the seventy-
eighth mile, the old road continued northward, curving more
and more toward the east as it reached higher ground. It may
have followed a still older road that is known to have connected
Fort Lyday with the settlements of Red River County.
25 The
survey of the National "Road crossed the Fannm-Lamar County
line some two miles north of Sulphur River, and passed approxi-
mately through the village of Noble, four miles south of present
Highway 82 in the west part of Lamar County. It passed mid-
way between the places where the towns of Brookston and
Roxton are now located and varied not more than a half-mile
to the south of a straight line from there to the railroad depot
in the west section of Paris.
The street in Paris running east from the depot, along the
north side of the public square and some three or four blocks
to the east of that area, is almost identical with the route of
the National Road.
26 About half a mile west of the square on
that part of the present thoroughfare known as Bonham Street,
Major Stell blazed a red oak tree that marked his one-hundredth
mile.
27
The extension of this same street to the east of the square
is known as Lamar Avenue. It was from a point probably some
three or four blocks down this Lamar Avenue end of the street
that the surveyors of the National Road turned forty degrees
north of east and continued 1086 feet to their one-hundred-and-
first mile post. The angle of direction changed very little during
the next twenty miles; from Lamar Avenue to the Red River
County line the old road was nearly straight, and followed a
general course almost exactly northeast. By several slight
changes, it bent to the right of that course at the middle, some-
what like a bow, and even there it was hardly more than half
a mile off the direct northeast course.
28
The present road that extends northeastward from Paris
compromises a little with property lines, but follows within a
few hundred yards of the old road almost all of the way.
29 At
the village of Faught ten miles from Paris, the road that is
traveled today bends sharply to the right and leaves the course
of the old road by something like a half mile but shortly swings
back across it. The present road is called the Golf Course Road,
but it is also known by its older name, the "Pine Bluff Road."
The near identity of the present beaten track with Major Stell's
survey of 1844 causes one to suspect strongly that both the old
and the new are but variations of a single trail. Probably the
Pine Bluff Road was included as part of the National Road by
the men who laid out the latter thoroughfare.
30
Beyond Lamar County the surveyors extended their route
along Red River for a distance of nine miles. To avoid the bends
of that stream their path curved somewhat, resembling a quar-
ter circle until it came to a sudden stop in northwest Red River
County, opposite the mouth of the Kiamichi River.
31
A present following of country roads down to this point in the
Red River bottom places one at the small village of Kiomatia,
one hundred twenty-nine and one-half miles, by the old road
survey, northeast of central Dallas County. Most of the in-
habitants of the village are the descendants of slaves who chant
weird negro spirituals and perhaps still believe in ghosts. There
are no shipping facilities at hand, either by land or water, to
warrant the construction of a major highway. At first glance
one would be tempted to say that no group other than a whimsi-
cal Congress would expend good money to bring a principal
thoroughfare to a dead-end in such an out-of-the-way spot.
The facts, however, lead to quite a different conclusion. One
hundred years ago steamboats plied the waters of Red River
as far up as Wright's Landing,
32 which was in none other than
the same bend of the river with the present lonely village of
Kiomatia and the place where Major Stell completed his road
survey. Because of the increased difficulties in river travel
above this place, Wright's Landing was generally regarded as
the head of navigation on River River.
33 In addition, one hun-
dred years ago, this same present-day lonely spot in northwest
Red River County was just across the river from the end of a
United States military highway that was already nearly twenty
years old. Fort Towson had been established near the mouth
of the Kiamichi on the north side of Red River in 1824,
34 and
a military highway from there to Fort Smith and Fort Gibson
had become a necessity. Obviously, this out-of-the-way place
at the end of the National Road was once well furnished with
facilities for both land and water transportation.
As another answer to the reason for a road to the place where
now the village of Kiomatia overlooks Red River, a survey of
North Texas population of one hundred years ago is also re-
vealing. Old Jonesboro--perhaps the first purely Anglo-Amer-
ican town on Texas soil--was only six miles down the river;
Clarksville, that had already begun to supersede it, was some
twenty-five miles to the southeast. The country-side was on the
whole well settled, and schools and other requirements of or-
ganized society were beginning to appear. Population thinned
out to an edge a little more than one hundred miles to the west,
but Red River County had become the established center of
North Texas.
35
But full justification for the route of the National Road
can hardly be established until one understands more clearly
the early transportation routes accessible to North Texans,
and the way in which those routes fitted into the geog-
raphy of the Southwest. Besides the military road facili-
ties available to Fort Towson, other roads connected the Clarks-
ville-Jonesboro area with the settlements of Arkansas. One of
these was not very different from the path of the Clarksville-
Texarkana road in use today.
36 But all of these facilities for
travel and transportation ran northward or eastward, making
the citizens of North Texas in reality a part of the economy of
the United States.
To the south, however, in their means of communication and
exchange with their fellow Texans the North Texans were far
less fortunate. The first settlers of Jonesboro had no southward
travel facilities except by a few Indian trails and a dim path
known to them as the Spanish Trace.
37 An old trail from Jones-
boro to Nacogdoches, the origin of which is attributed to a
certain Mr. Trammel, was blazed about 1820.
38 An older road
called Trammel's Trace from Arkansas to Nacogdoches and
this trail from Jonesboro must have been partly identical, for
the Jonesboro trail itself was called Trammel's Trace.
39 At first
this route was only a horse path. As late as 1836 some evidence
indicates the possibility that there were still no wagon roads
connecting North Texas with South Texas.
40 In 1837, Holland
Coffee and his bride left Washington-on-the-Brazos for the
Coffee Trading Post on Red River, north of present-day Denison.
They were forced to make the long, round-about journey east-
ward by road to Nacogdoches, northward probably by Trammel's
Trace to Red River and then westward, perhaps one hundred
miles, by road to their new home.
41 In a few years a mail route
connected the Red River area with San Augustine,
42 but again
the road ran far to the east of a straight line between North
and South Texas. Information on just how early the first actual
wagon traffic began between Jonesboro and Nacogdoches is not
available, but the more direct link that was needed to join the
two parts of Texas came in 1840; in that year Colonel Cooke,
with a detachment of Texas soldiers, opened a road from Austin
to Coffee's Trading Post on Red River.
43 The name of Preston,
from one of Cooke's men, was given to the village that grew up
at Coffee's Trading Post, and Cooke's road has since been known
as the Preston Road. This road passed through the Waco village
on the Brazos and by Cedar Springs in central Dallas County.
Citizens of Jonesboro or Clarksville could now follow one of the
two roads that led westward into present Grayson County until
they reached this road, and could then follow it southward into
Austin, and to other points of South Texas.
But even this road was not the complete answer to the needs
of North Texas. The greater portion of the population, which
was still centered in and near Red River County, must travel
miles out of the way to reach South or Central Texas. Plainly,
the bill that created the National Road corrected this difficulty.
That act of Congress made a new, short-cut route available for
the inhabitants of the Jonesboro-Clarksville country. These
pioneers on far-away Red River could now follow the new road
southwest to the banks of the Trinity, and from there drive
southward down the Preston-Austin Road into the system of
roads and trails then in use in South Texas.
The National Road, instead of beginning at a dead-end on the
Trinity and ending at another dead-end on Red River, connected
the roads of Texas with the military roads from Fort Towson
into the United States. It connected Saint Louis with San
Antonio, and was, in fact, an international highway.
The Texas Congress named this new highway the "Central"
National Road, even though it led directly into the unsettled
frontier. Undoubtedly the Congress was thinking in terms of
future development; the great stream of immigrants that soon
began to flow justified the undertaking.
Nevertheless, the National Road did not play the glorified
role that the Congress may have visualized.
44 The fact that
Greenville shortly became a county seat town changed the course
of much of the traffic in the middle part of the road, and the
swift westward movement of the frontier caused the Preston and
other roads to share heavily in wagon travel that was soon to
double, triple, and quadruple the population of Texas.
geography of central Dallas County is part of that story, and
the route of Major Stell's survey in that area is also an essential
factor.
Two old river crossings on the Trinity were destined to wit-
ness one of the main currents of immigration into Texas and
even to have their moment of opportunity to profit from it.
One of these was John Neely Bryan's crossing-, just below the
site of the Union Station in present Dallas, and the other was
the Cedar Springs crossing,
45 some two or three miles upstream.
Just how early the rivalry between these places began is prob-
ably unknown, but their relations approached the stage of open
warfare by 1848. In that year, a man by the name of Collins
operated a ferry at the Cedar Springs crossing and Bryan like-
wise maintained one at the lower crossing. Bryan proposed to
the Dallas County Commissioners that, should the people of the
county select Dallas as the permanent county seat, he would
reward them with five years' free service of his ferry, but there
was the further provision (either proposed by Bryan or added
by the Commissioners) that Collins' license to operate a ferry
should be revoked.
46
Apparently nothing but intensified rivalry came from Bryan s
proposal, but four years earlier, when Major Stell began his
survey, it is probable that a more decisive factor in the battle
of the river crossings had already begun to operate.
It will be remembered that Stell's survey began on the bank
of the Trinity River at a certain cedar tree that has long since
disappeared. The only method left us now to discover the site
of that old tree is to go northeastward up the path of the early
road until a known point is found, then to survey backward to
the Trinity River. This plan of approach to the problem takes
us back to the east Dallas County line, three and three-quarter
miles north of Highway 80. Following Major Stell's field notes
in reverse does not prove exceedingly difficult except that pos-
sible error increases with the distance from any positively fixed
points on the old survey.
The old road extended almost three miles due west from the
county line, then southwest across Duck Creek, then swung
more toward the west, passing not far to the north of the pres-
ent village of New Hope and a few hundred yards north of
Buckner's Orphans Home, then turned westward to White Rock
Creek between the Texas & Pacific Railway and Highway 80.
Here map measurements lead almost to the present city limits
of Dallas.
The study should next follow the old road from White Rock
Creek directly into the city of Dallas itself. The old field notes
reveal that py the National Road it was three and one-tenth
miles between White Rock and Mill Creek,
47 that the area im-
mediately east of the crossing on Mill Creek was prairie, and
that at the road crossing the latter stream flowed southeast.
Correlating the Peters Colony Map of 1852 with present maps
of Dallas, one discovers that there was a strip of timber east
of Mill Creek in the area south of the Texas & Pacific tracks.
These facts recorded in Stell's field notes and the topography
of Dallas limit the band in which the National Road could have
crossed Dallas to a strip two or three hundred yards wide. The
route of that old trail stayed north of the Texas & Pacific rail-
road all of the way west to the Trinity River. The route was as
much as a half-mile north of the Texas State Fair Grounds, yet
south of the Ursuline Academy; it crossed Mill Creek just below
Exall Park at the place that Mill Creek flows southeast, and it
passed about half a mile north of the main business district of
Dallas.
48 The last span of the old road turned southwest for
about a quarter of a mile, and came to an end, or rather to a
beginning, at the railroad tracks a few hundred feet northwest
of the intersection of present Lamar Street with McKinney
Avenue. Apparently Major Stell's cedar tree at which he began
his survey was almost 2500 feet north of the Dallas County
Courthouse.
49
Seemingly this was a rather odd place for the location of
either end of a national highway, but an examination of the
Peters Colony map of 1852 shows that the Preston Road came
southward through Cedar Springs and approached Dallas
through the area that is now north of the court house. The cedar
tree at the beginning of the National Road was evidently at
the side of the Preston Road. From this junction point, the two
roads must have followed a common roadbed for the half-mile,
or a little more, that led down to the river crossing.
Obviously, then, the Central National Road of the Republic
of Texas connected with John Neely Bryan's crossing on the
Trinity River; equally obviously, the Preston Road from the
north and this new road from the northeast converged on this
point along the Trinity, ready to serve the great throng of
immigrants that was shortly coming, and it is especially im-
portant to note that "a little frontier village called Dallas stood
at the fork of the roads."
FOOTNOTES:
the Texas General Land Office. Hereafter this document is referred to as
Field Notes.
ard (Clarksville, Texas), March 2, 1844.
M. Williams of Lamar County, John Yeary of Fannin County (who lived
four miles south of the site of Honey Grove), Rowland W. Box of Hous-
ton County, and James Bradshaw of Nacogdoches County.
26, 1844, and completed their survey on May 26, 1844.
surveys begun at the same point and following the same field notes would
not likely follow the same exact path for any great distance unless there
were recognizable landmarks--stakes, rocks, witness trees, etc.--against
which to check the course. The fact that surveying is done on the earth,
which is spherical, and platted on maps, which are flat, further compli-
cates one's difficulties in following, on maps, a route surveyed on the earth.
the Texas General Land Office. The point at which the National Road
crossed the east Dallas County line is further confirmed by the field notes
of the near-by Henry D. Banks survey (Dallas County Surveying Records,
Vol. A, 263).
wall, Collin, Hunt, Fannin, Lamar, and Red River Counties (all dated
1936 but some of them partially revised to 1942) were used in this re-
search; maps of the same counties by the Texas General Land Office were
also used. Other maps will be cited specifically at their proper places.
Survey, Oct., 1912.
creating the National Road, was marked on either a tree or a substantial
post. Major Stell's plat and field notes gave the kind of timber or post
used at each mile of the road.
and Red River are cited in Major Stell's field notes by the names by
which they are still called. These are the Bois d'Arc Fork of the Trinity
in Rockwall County (more often called the East Fork), the three Caddo
Forks of the Sabine in Hunt County, the Cowleach Fork of the Sabine in
Hunt County, the South Fork of Sulphur River, also in Hunt County, and
Sulphur River itself in Fannin County. The writer has measured the
route of the National Road across present-day county maps, as previously
mentioned, and in no instance has he found one of the streams out of the
place assigned to it in Major Stell's field notes by more than a small frac-
tion of an inch. Even some of the very small streams that did not bear
names in the field notes may be identified on present maps. This close
correlation between the old field notes and topography is evidence that the
route of the National Road as shown in this paper is not greatly in error.
leach) fork of the Sabine with Hickory Creek. The National Road crossed
above the fork of these two streams (although Hickory Creek was not
called by name in the field notes). The crossing on Hickory Creek was
714 varas exactly northeast of the crossing on the Sabine. Obviously, with
this specific information at hand, neither map measurements nor actual
surveying on the ground can be guilty of more than a very small error
m locating the course followed by the National Road at this point.
Company c. 1875 shows the J. Loring surveys in the extreme southern part
of the county and just east of the site of Ladonia as that town appears
on present-day maps. An advertisement in the Northern Standard of
May 29, 1844, called the attention of prospective bidders to the fact that
the contract for opening the part of the National Road between the Trinity
and Sulphur rivers would be let at John Loring's house on July 1, 1844.
The contract for the remainder of the road was to be opened for bids in
Paris on July 10.
of this map and the present map of the same county by the Texas Highway
Department establishes the relative position of the present bridge and the
Lyday survey.
biography of Andrew Davis," The Southwestern Historical Quarterly,
XLIII, 332, 333. Apparently Fort Lyday was built by the cooperative
effort of the pioneers of the area. The fact that the fort was down Sulphur
River some eight or ten miles from the home of Daniel Davis indicates
that it was on or near Lyday's land, and the further fact that the buffalo
sometimes came down to the fort and mixed with the cattle would cause
one to surmise that it was on the prairie north of the Sulphur River
bottom.
joins Sulphur River on the north side. A short distance below the mouth
of that creek (or one at least similarly located) Major Stell's plat shows
the crossing of the National Road on Sulphur River. Trigonometric cal-
culations from the field notes do not show the distance from this crossing
to the point where the old road crossed Tollett Creek (Early's Creek in
the field notes) so exactly as do the measurements on modern maps, but
the discrepancy is small.
Historical Quarterly, XLIII, 335.
lots on Bonham Street and part of its eastward extension called attention
to the fact that they fronted on the National Road.
County indicate that parts of the present road are identical with the
National Road.
1256, 1257, 1321. Hereafter this testimony will be referred to as Greer
County Record. The testimony of R. H. Burnett and Thomas F. Ragsdale
in the Greer County case indicates that the Chihuahua Traders came from
Fort Towson by the mouth of the Kiamichi River and by Pinhook (which
was just east of the site of Paris). That this party of merchants who
came in 1840 found or opened a road through the points mentioned makes
it certain that Stell's survey in this area was either along or near a
traveled road.
National Road by trigonometric calculations. Beginning at the point just
east of Dallas County where this road crossed the East Fork of the
Trinity River, and progressing northeastwardly, the results of these cal-
culations are as follows: From this beginning place to the crossing on
the west branch of the Caddo Forks of the Sabine is 20.30 miles north
and 13.74 miles east; from this stream to the southeast corner of the John
Yeary survey is 2.66 miles north and 3.56 miles east; from here to the
Cowleach Fork of the Sabine is 3.02 miles north and 2.80 miles east; from
here to the south fork of Sulphur River is 6.85 miles north and 3.72 miles
east; from here to Sulphur River is 9.64 miles north and 12.52 miles east;
from here to the 100th mile post of the road on Bonham street in Paris
is 13.42 miles north, and 17.20 miles east; from here to the 121st mile
post of the road (where it made the first contact with Red River) is
13.96 miles north and 15.21 miles east, and from here to the point on Red
River opposite the mouth of the Kiamichi is 5.89 miles north and 3.56
miles east. These calculations have reduced Major Stell's field notes from
varas to miles (rounded off to the nearest hundredth) and have changed
and combined the distances and angle data from point to point given in
the surveyors' notes into simple statements of the distances north and
east from each point to the next. Thus the writer has been able to check
total distances across the map against the route of the National Road as
he has platted it directly from field notes. No important errors have been
discovered, and the line representing the route of the old road made on
the maps with drawing instruments has been rather closely confirmed.
eral Land Office map of Red River County of 1905). This old survey be-
came the property of Travis Wright in 1839 (acquired from his brother
George) and has remained in his family ever since; George Travis Wright,
a grandson who lives on Bonham Street in Paris, is the present owner.
Wright's Landing was on the Red River front of this tract of land, op-
posite the mouth of the Kiamichi River (A. W. Neville, The History of
Lamar County, 81, 244, 245).
J. Claiborne, agent for the steamboat Texas, denied rumors that this boat
would not carry cargo above Wright's Landing whenever the depth of
the water in Red River made it possible. Great cargoes of cotton and other
commodities were transported on Red River as high as Preston, north
of present-day Denison, but this traffic was only possible when the condi-
tions of the river were favorable. It should be borne in mind that river
travel below Wright's Landing, while less uncertain than travel above that
point, was itself of an intermittent character.
21. This work was compiled by workers of the Writers' Programs of the
Works Projects Administration in the State of Oklahoma.
organized in 1846 (Texas Almanac 1939-40, 400, 404, 416 and 425). There
were no county seat towns in Texas west of the present limits of Fannin
County in 1844. Grayson County had a population of about 500 when or-
ganized in 1846. (Mattie Davis Lucas and Mita Holsapple Hall, A History
of Grayson County, Texas.)
evidently a military trail by which the Spaniards reached Red River, was
within present Red River County, about three or four miles from its west
boundary. Vial, in 1788, found a dim trail that entered the "Nacitoches
Forest." Possibly it was identical with the Spanish Trace (Greer County
Record, 908-13).
Historical Quarterly, XLIII, 323.
In the Land Office of Texas, And Other Official Surveys (London, 1841).
The full route of Trammel's Trace from Jonesboro to Nacogdoches is shown
on this map. Some of the route has been repeated from older records on
the later Texas Land Office maps. It is shown on the maps of Rusk
County of 1895, of Panola County, 1897, of Harrison County, 1920, and
of Marion County, 1920.
Historical Quarterly, XLIII, 327.
Austin, Wm. H. Hunt, Engineer, 1840. Drawn by H. L. Upshur, 1841.
This old map is in the library of the University of Texas.
Waxahachie was made 30 feet wide and declared a first class road. All
other roads in Dallas County were made 20 feet wide and declared to be
second class (Dallas County Commissioners' Court Minutes, A, 106).
Thus it appears that for a few years the National Road (from McKenzie's
Ferry to Dallas) was part of the most important thoroughfare in Dallas
County. In 1852 the Commissioners of Lamar County granted William
Russell and Josiah Ashby a franchise to build causeways closely parallel-
ing the National Road across the three principal creeks between Paris
and Pine Bluff; tolls were charged on these causeways. The entire route
of the National Road across Lamar County was declared a first class
highway (A. W. Neville, The History of Lamar County, 95). However,
despite these evidences of its early importance, the National Road did
not hold the spotlight very long--it does not appear on any of the
numerous old maps of Texas that the writer has examined.
shows these crossings, although it does not name them. This map was
made from surveying notes and should be far more accurate as to detail
than maps not so constructed.
probably prompted to make his proposition because the State Legislature
had just passed a law prescribing the method by which the voters of a
county might select their county seat.
Creek is not. But there is no other stream that can at all qualify.
route of the National Road through Dallas. Exhaustive measurements
on the Texas Highway Department's map of Dallas were made until the
place was found at which Major Stell's field notes almost exactly fitted
the space between White Rock and Mill Creek. The writer then went to
Dallas, followed the course of Mill Creek on foot as far as obstructions
would permit, and had an interview with Henry L. Stokey, who has lived
in the immediate area for the past sixty-three years. Stokey reports that
the prairie came to the banks of Mill Creek on its east side only between
Exall Park and Gastón Avenue and that the present southeasterly course
of the stream between these points follows the original stream bed. It
should be noted that Stokey's information roughly confirms the Peters
Colony map of 1852 as to the distribution of timber and prairie and that
the combined evidence leaves no other place for one to locate the crossing
of the National Road on Mill Creek except between Gastón Avenue and
Exall Park, for Major Stell, according to his notes, entered prairie im-
mediately east of Mill Creek at the place where that stream flowed south-
east. To make doubly sure as to the accuracy of this conclusion, measure-
ments were made on the immense map of Dallas that hangs in the Records
Building at Dallas (property of the Fidelity Union Abstract & Title Co.).
Olen Coats, a draftsman in the Records Building, volunteered to plat the
field notes of the old road (to the correct scale) on tracing paper and to
find the place where the drawing fitted this large map. Coats' drawing,
representing the course of the road from White Rock to Mill Creek, fitted
the map without apparent error in the following course:
Beginning on White Rock Creek about 1250 feet south of U. S. Highway
80 (East Pike), then 8780 feet in a direction 6 degrees north of west to a
point in Ash Lane about 250 feet northeast of Fitzhugh Street, then due
west 5280 feet to a point about 300 feet southwest from the intersection
of Junius and Haskell Avenue and then 2300 feet in a direction 10 de-
grees south of west to Mill Creek at a point about 200 feet north of Swiss
Avenue, which is about midway between Exall Park and Gaston Avenue.
Mr. W. S. Beesley, head of the Map and Plat Book Department in the
Records Building, regards this large map used by Coats as the most ac-
curate map of Dallas to be found, which emphasizes the accuracy of
Coats' drawing.
The route of the National Road as platted by Coats is about a quarter
of a mile north of the path which that road would assume if Major StelPs
field notes were platted without reference to topography. But the old field
notes evidently contain a small error, since the plat and field notes do not
themselves agree on an eight mile course of the road in east Dallas County.
The route as platted by Coats is the only route found by the writer that
satisfies all conditions of topography and direction, and it corresponds
closely with the exhaustive measurements previously made on the Texas
Highway Map of Dallas.
Fidelity Union Map of Dallas) and is in the part of Dallas in which cedar
trees originally were numerous.
In the accompanying map of Dallas the route of the National Road was
drawn according to the Coats plat. The location of old Cedar Springs,
the original townsite of Dallas, and the route of the old Preston Road are
made (roughly calculated to scale) from the Peters Colony map of 1852.
TEXAS AND THE CONFEDERATE ARMY'S
MEAT PROBLEM
The vital issues contingent upon supplying an army with
munitions of war were illustrated in the British Eighth Army's
pursuit of Rommel from El Alamein to Tunis. Food is one of
these munitions of war. To keep the "British Eighth" ad-
vancing, food as well as ammunition and gasoline had to reach
the front. Manifestly the Tunisian campaign was, if not the
greatest, one of the greatest miracles of supply in modern war.
It is not to be forgotten, however, that the armies of the south-
ern Confederacy were confronted with a problem of supply;
theirs was the harder to solve because ways had to be found of
getting food out of the steadily contracting areas of the Con-
federacy, while the African problem was that of transporting
subsistence across a desert. Importation of food being negligi-
ble, the Confederate Government was forced to rely on the out-
put of the southern farmer and cattleman.
To an army whose personnel was from a section of the
country which raised large numbers of hogs and beef, meat was
a vital part of the ration. It is obvious that a study of all the
problems concerning meat which weighed on the South would
require much more than the space available; therefore, the
present inquiry will be confined, for the most part, to beef. It
is further hoped that this article may shed some light on all
the problems facing the Confederate Commissariat after the
loss of the Mississippi.
The Commissary-General, L. B. Northrop, found that his
troubles began in the early part of the war as 500,000 pork
hogs were considered necessary to feed the southern armies for
a year. Northrop did not think that that number could be ob-
tained in the Confederacy.
1 While he had his troubles in pro-
curing meat, the fact remains that the basic ration on which the
southern soldier lived was corn and beef.
2 In the early part of
the war, some, at least, of the Rebel camps fared well in the
matter of meat.
3 With all the meat the soldiers consumed, there
were still 40,000 cattle ready for packing in the Confederacy at
the end of 1861.
4 This indicates that the South started with
something. The real pinch began to be felt in early 1863 when
Lee's chief commissary informed him that he would not be able
to make the supply of beeves last through the month of January.
The condition of the beeves issued to the Army of Northern
Virginia was so bad that Lee recommended they be sent some-
where to fatten in the spring. In lieu of the ration of beef he
hoped his chief commissary had enough salt meat to issue.
5 Two
weeks later his available supply had dwindled to four days'
fresh beef. Following his usual practice, he refused to resort
to impressing any meat which the civilians in the vicinity of
the army might have. He told the Secretary of War that it
would gain the army little and would anger the people,
6 and
even if he had resorted to commandeering, it would have afford-
ed only temporary relief. He could not remedy a condition which
the Government could not, or would not remedy. That condition
was faulty transportation. The transportation system of the
South was the main adverse factor working against the com-
missary and quartermaster officials. The sad, and steadily de-
teriorating, condition of southern rail lines played a major part
in holding back the flow of provisions to Lee's army and to all
other Confederate forces.
7 The Government seemed powerless
to do anything about the railroads and the armies continued to
live on shorter rations. Another adverse factor, during the
latter part of the war, was the Federal blockade, which was
becoming steadily more efficient. Confederate coastwise ship-
ping, which, early in the war, had been transporting sub-
sistence, could no longer do so with any security.
8 The shortage
of wagons also told on any effort to collect supplies situated
around the bivouac of troops. The amount of rations tó be
taken on the march sometimes had to be reduced* because the
capacity of the commissary wagons was not sufficient to carry
the total.
9
All these factors, combined with the breakdown of Confed-
erate finances, continuously weakened the commissary depart-
ment, and Lee became so acutely aware of the pressing need for
food that he wrote Longstreet, in the West: "The great obstacle
everywhere is scarcity of supplies. That is the controlling ele-
ment to which everything has to yield."
10
General Joseph E. Johnston must have found this to be true
when the Secretary of War informed him that he should not
draw supplies from Atlanta or other depots which were con-
sidered general reserves for all the armies.
11 Johnston, it was
hoped, could get sufficient food from the country around his
army. This scheme originated in the mind of the Commissary-
General and seems to have been one of his favorites.
While the Commissary-General was employing all shifts to
husband the shrinking stores of food, his eyes, as well as those
of the Secretary of War, turned to North Carolina. The latter,
J. A. Seddon, felt this state to be the main reliance of the
South for foodstuffs, even though the enemy controlled the
main food producing counties.
12
Then came the fall of Vicksburg, July 4, 1863. The Govern-
ment's worries after that date, if they had been great before,
were crushing. The Confederacy no longer controlled the
Mississippi River, and Arkansas, western Louisiana, Indian
Territory, and Texas no longer were in direct connection with
the eastern Confederacy. The loss of Texas beef at once caused
the number of cattle east of the Mississippi to fall off; Northrop,
as a result of this, had to recommend a reduction of the meat
ration in late July.
13 The Army of Northern Virginia got tem-
porary relief by invading Pennsylvania, but the only significant
acquisition of beef cattle on this campaign was that of General
R. S. Ewell, who on the way to Carlisle captured and sent to
the main column some 3000 head. General John B. Imboden,
on guard detail with Lee's retreating wounded train after
Gettysburg, said that he had "a small lot of fine fat cattle"
which he had taken on the way to that place.
14
Regardless of what little additions there were to the number
of beeves by captures and the like, the amount of meat on the
eastern side of the Mississippi in December was enough for
only twenty-five days. Virginia had nothing, of course, above
the absolute wants of Lee's troops.
15 Even after cutting the
issue of salt meat to a fourth of a pound, Lee had only three
days' supply.
16
By November, the attention of most commissary officers was
directed toward Florida, which was generally recognized, since
the loss of the Texas source, as the last remaining area from
which beef might be drawn, as all other beef-producing areas
east of the Mississippi were in Federal hands or were being
devastated by raiding. Major J. F. Cummings, charged with
supplying Bragg's army, had written to Major P. W. White, the
chief commissary of Florida, on October 5, urging that he
should forward beef, as all other sources were exhausted. Cum-
mings was totally dependent on Florida for Bragg's beef supply.
On the 20th his letter said that the troops under Bragg were
getting half rations of beef and he feared that in a few days
they would be living on bread alone. Georgia was equally de-
pendent on Florida; the chief commissary of that state, Major
J. L. Locke, confessed that his only hope was in Major White.
South Carolina was in the same condition; Major Millen, at
Savannah, felt that the weekly collections by purchasing com-
missaries would have to be relied on. This was doubly so in
his case, as he had killed up all the beef cattle in his area and
was reduced to killing stock herds.
17
This alarming state of affairs seemed to jolt the Commissary-
General out of his lethargy and he made more strenuous efforts
to obtain beef. One of these was to try to swim beeves across
the Mississippi River. The cooperation of General E. Kirby
Smith, commanding the trans-Mississippi Department, was so-
licited in order to establish contact with General J. E. Johnston
and arrange the times and localities for crossing the cattle.
18
While this was going on, Northrop, by intercepting a communi-
cation from two Florida men to the Secretary of War,
19 cost
the Confederate States a million pounds of salt beef. The
Floridians, who owned the only steamboats in their section of
Florida, would have been willing to sell the beef to the Govern-
ment at a reduced price because it was exposed to raiding, and
would have transported it to the main rail line themselves.
Since they did not wish to deal with Northrop, they left Rich-
mond as soon as it came to their ears that he had intercepted
their letter, without the Secretary of War having heard of
their proposal.
20 Thus Northrop defeated himself. It is beyond
the scope of this paper to attempt to give a picture of the Con-
federate Commissary-General, but suffice it to say that he
seemed actually to enjoy the commanders' complaints of food
shortage, for these gave him opportunities to write long missives
stating that he had foreseen that the army would be reduced to
that state, and in one case he absolved himself "from all re-
sponsibility" for a shortage of supplies in Lee's army.
At Christmas time, luckily for them, Longstreet's troops were
encamped near Morristown, Tennessee, and according to Long-
street, himself, the country was heaven so far as food was con-
cerned; all varieties of victuals, long since forgotten to the
Rebels, were to be found in abundance.
21 What a time those ill-
fed veterans of Lee's must have had!
In striking contrast to this was the Department of South
Carolina, Georgia and Florida, commanded by General P. G.
T. Beauregard. On January 12, 1864, Morris Island was re-
ported out of meat for several days, and Northrop was forced
to comment that ante helium South Carolina had been depend-
ent on external sources for food and that under war conditions
it was certainly no different. The troops stationed there had
to be fed on provisions shipped in. The chief commissary of
that state, Major H. C. Guerin, indicated his desperation when
he said: "Purchases and impressments will be attempted. . .
but the main dependence for meat next summer is Florida."
22
It is little wonder that this was the case. By October, 1863,
the number of beef cattle in the eastern Confederacy had fallen
from the 40,000 of 1861 to less than half that number, and
Major P. W. White reported on April 15, 1864, that the supply
of beef in Florida was running low because of lack of rail trans-
portation.
23
The severe privation which seemed to be staring the army
in the face focused the attention, once more, of General Beau-
regard. Help was so urgently needed in the collection of sup-
plies of beef in Florida that Beauregard offered to pardon de-
serters in certain areas of that state if they would report to
commissary officers for duty.
24 This measure was all the more
necessary because the number of beef cattle in the east had
fallen to 5,959 in the spring of 1864,
25 and the main area of
reserve stores had been reduced to Georgia, Virginia and North
Carolina.
26 One of these areas was soon to be the objective of
General Sherman; on September 2, 1864, he entered the main
Confederate supply base of Atlanta. After Hood had started
his disastrous Tennessee campaign, Sherman began his "March
to the Sea," with the purpose of destroying the area from which
Lee's army was drawing so much of its food.
27 This marked
the beginning of the end for the Confederate States. With a
good portion of Georgia devastated by Sherman's "bummers,"
Northrop, contrary to his usual attitude, was optimistic in re-
porting to the Secretary of War, J. C. Breckinridge, February
9,1865, on the condition of the meat supply. He went into some
detail on this subject. Among other things, he said:
Some thousands of beeves have been obtained within the past few months
by swimming the Mississippi, and when the river is again in a suitable
state and the season admits of it, the proceeding should be continued.
In the same report he said that Florida had supplied a good
number of beeves and that he expected to get 20,000 more from
that source.
28
Whether or not Northrop obtained the beeves he seemed con-
fident of getting the records do not show, but one thing is clear:
the history of the Confederate food supply during the last
months of the war is one long string of pleas from commissary
officers for funds or transportation. With these requisites they
were certain they could maintain the armies;
29 without them
they were helpless. Because neither of these requisites could
be supplied, the eastern Confederate armies, especially Lee's,
ended the war practically starved.
The one remaining question is: What help would the trans-
Mississippi Department have been, if the Mississippi had been
a southern river after 1863? The inquiry would be incomplete
if we overlooked this most important of beef-producing areas.
This was certainly the most prolific part of the country for
beef, since Texas comprised most of the department. Northrop,
himself, pointed out that Texas had been one of the main sources
of beef and that he had obtained large numbers of animals
from there.
30
During the period of 1862-3 Northrop tried to bring herds
from Texas and put them on Virginia grasslands, but the lack
of good forage en route caused this attempt to fail. Later at-
tempts proved more successful, as Northrop, in his report to
the Secretary of War mentioned above, said that thousands had
been obtained by swimming them over the Mississippi.
31
The trans-Mississippi Department was not only concerned
with shipping beef to the east, but also with subsisting the
large numbers of troops stationed within its own limits. To
feed these men, cured meat, in all forms, had to be supplied.
Various ways of packing beef were practised, as evidenced by
Northrop's statement that large quantities of pickled beef came
from the west.
32 The great center of Jefferson, Texas, besides
being an important quartermaster depot,
33 was the site of a
number of commissary activities. One of these enterprises was
the meat-packing establishment of J. B. Dunn. In late 1863 this
firm entered into a contract with the Confederate States to
slaughter and pack 150 beef cattle per day. The manner of
packing was specifically stated: "The hind quarter. . . with the
bone extracted to be smoked and dried the balance of the
beef (or Such parts as are usually used in making a prime
article of mess beef) to be pickled in the best manner. . ."
Major W. H. Thomas, chief commissary of the trans-Mississippi
Department, was to furnish 440,000 pounds of New Iberia salt
to Dunn to enable him to cure the beef and to pack it. Major
Thomas was also to furnish Dunn with 4,000 head of beef
cattle before the 10th of January, 1864.
34 This is but one indi-
cation of the importance of the Texas beef supply.
Five days before all the beef should have been delivered,
Kirby Smith directed that a "Board of Survey" should convene
in Major Thomas' office to investigate the quality of beef packed
by Dunn. The board, on the same day, reported the meat to
be in good condition.
35
The soldier, himself, was much more concerned with what
he was issued in the way of meat than with how it was packed
or by whom. And luckily the boy in butternut west of the
Mississippi fared generally very well. He might complain of
the quality of the beef given him, but rarely of the quantity,
for he usually had plenty.
36 As the war dragged on and the
east suffered more and more, the troops in the west continued
in moderate comfort. Texas, as late as January of 1865, had
abundant herds of beef, but the commissary officials found that
they were hampered in getting them because the people refused
to accept the currency which the commissaries were forced
to use.
37
The foregoing evidence clearly shows that the trans-Missis-
sippi Department--of which Texas was the major part--could
have been of immeasurable help to the eastern Confederacy
had the two been in direct communication. It would certainly
be too much to claim that such communication might have
turned the tide in favor of the South, but it is not too much to
say that it would have been of great instrumentality in pro-
longing the conflict.
FOOTNOTES:
MS. letter. This letter, with several others, is in the possession of Mrs.
Sallie Lee Boner of Austin, Texas. This collection, edited by the writer,
will appear in the Louisiana Historical Quarterly.
1880-1901, 130 vols. Cited hereafter as O. R.), Series IV, vol. 2, 192.
meat in the South see Ella Lonn, Salt as a Factor in the Confederacy.
in The American Historical Review, XXII, 810.
April 23,1862. MS. letter in the writer's possession.
lection, Confederate Army Papers, Louisiana State University Archives.
For shortage of wagon transportation see C. W. Ramsdell, "General Robert
E. Lee's Horse Supply, 1862-1865" in The American Historical Review,
XXXV, 758-77.
20, 1863.
Government" in The Mississippi Valley Historical Review, VIII, 247; O. R.,
Ser. I, vol. 51, pt. 2, 738; and Howard Swiggett (ed.), A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary (New York, 1935), I, 385.
War (New York, 1887), III, 426.
be recalled, recommended this ration in July, 1863, see supra.
to kill up stock herds as the Confederate Congress forbade the impress-
ment of these animals. See C. W. Ramsdell (ed.), Laws of the Last Con -
federate Congress (Durham, N. C, 1941), 151.
would seem to indicate that J. A. Seddon is meant; see A Rebel War Clerk's
Diary, II, 109.
Feb. 16, 1864.
4, 1864.
pressing officers, and obviously thinking that the "Act to Regulate Im-
pressments," 3rd. Sess., Ist Cong. (James M. Matthews (ed.)> Statutes at
Large of the Confederate States of America, St. III, Chap. X.) was not
specific enough, passed another act which specifically authorized the im-
pressment of meat for the army ("An Act to authorize the impressment
of meat for the army, under certain circumstances," ibid., St. IV, Chap.
LIL). This could not have been of much help, for it must have followed
the path of all other Confederate impressment acts, and broken down.
See Frank L. Owsley, State Rights in the Confederacy (Chicago Univer-
sity Press, 1925), 4, 242.
J. Moses, 51, 70. Major Moses had been chief commissary of Long-
street's Corps and was later made chief commissary of Georgia. These
Reminiscences are in the possession of Major Moses' granddaughter Mrs
S. Silverman, Austin, Texas. The writer is much indebted to her for
allowing him the use of them.
versity Press, 1943), 134, note 7.
The University of Texas Archives.
erate States, and J. B. Dunn, Sept. 19, 1863, in the Confederate Army
Papers, Department of Archives, Louisiana State University.
5, 1864, and appended report of the Board of Survey. MSS. in the Reid
Collection of the Confederate Army Papers, L. S. U. Archives. There is
some doubt about the date of the board's report, but the date given in
the text is probably correct.
The quality of the packing by Dunn must have fallen off later, as it
caused widespread complaint. MS. Letter, Maj. W. H. Thomas to Maj.
John Reid, Jan. 11, 1865, in Reid Collection, loc. cit.
Sallie Lee Boner's collection, see supra, note 3; also B. I. Wiley, The Life
of Johnny Reb, 95.
Collection, Confederate Army Papers, L. S. U. Archives.
ESTHER AMANDA SHERRILL CULLINS
A PIONEER WOMAN OF THE TEXAS FRONTIER
Esther Amanda Sherrill, born December 21, 1802, at the
plantation home of her parents in Ninety-sixth District, Pendle-
ton County, South Carolina, was the tenth child of Lewis Sher-
rill, Sr., a Revolutionary soldier, and his wife, Mary Mason
Sherrill.
Esther's parents came of pioneering colonial stock. Her fore-
fathers aided in subduing the wilderness, first of Maryland and
then of Virginia. In 1747, lured by rich, cheap lands, the Sher-
rills and the Masons migrated to North Carolina, settling in an
uninhabited forest on the Catawba River. The settlement which
they established is still called Sherrill's Ford.
In 1779, at the age of eighteen, Lewis Sherrill volunteered as
a private in the Burke County Partisan Rangers; he served
throughout the remainder of the Revolution in the North Caro-
lina Militia, chiefly under General Charles McDowell and Colonel
Brevard. Besides numerous skirmishes against the Cherokees,
he participated in the battles of Stono, Ramseur's Mill, King's
Mountain, and the Cowpens. Lewis Sherrill was one of the
mounted infantry, composed of raw, ill-equipped mountaineers,
who were called "the hornets from the Switzerland of Amer-
ica," who, "rode like fox hunters." Surrounding the base of
King's Mountain, they charged up its rocky, wooded slopes to
its smoke-shrouded summit, where they routed from their
vaunted stronghold Major Ferguson's vastly superior force of
well-trained British and Tories--notwithstanding the arrogant
Major's boast that he was king of King's Mountain.
Fighting side by side in this history-making conflict with
Lewis Sherrill were several of his brothers and cousins, under
Colonels McDowell and Sevier; Sevier was the husband of
Lewis' cousin, Catherine Sherrill.
1
During the Revolution, when Esther Sherrill's future mother
was Mary Mason, a girl of sixteen, she and her mother, left
alone but for a few of their negroes, proved themselves espe-
cially cool and courageous in dealing with the Tories, who raided
their premises on different occasions, stealing some of their
slaves.
On January 10,1821, Esther Amanda Sherrill became Esther
Cullins, when she married Daniel Cullins, a South Carolina
planter.
A dozen years or so later, notwithstanding extremely difficult
mail and transportation service, there were being broadcast
throughout the greater part of the United States glowing ac-
counts of the untamed Texas portion of the Mexican State of
Coahuila and Texas. These rumors struck a responsive chord
in the heart of Esther Cullins, in whose veins coursed the blood
of several generations of pioneers. She found herself dreaming
of this faraway El Dorado--a land of better opportunities for
her children than her native state could offer. Daniel, too,
caught the inspiration; he was fascinated by the description
of Texas' fertile soil, the forests of valuable virgin timber, the
numerous waterways, the unexploited mineral resources. He
thrilled to the tales of the abundance of wild turkeys, prairie
chickens, quail, deer, bear, antelope and wild hogs, and of the
immense herds of buffalo, mustang ponies, Black Spanish and
longhorn cattle of the prairies.
Accordingly in 1835 Esther and Daniel Cullins, with their
four small children, Daniel's brother, Aaron Cullins, and their
half dozen negroes, with a few household treasures, embarked
on the tedious and perilous journey to Texas--their "intriguing
Land of Opportunity." From New Orleans they traveled by
steamboat, landing at Washington-on-the-Brazos, whence they
proceeded by wagon, drawn by eight yoke of oxen, to their
destination, Viesca (also called The Falls), at the falls of
the Brazos, on the west side of the river near the present
Marlin. This hamlet, platted the previous year, was the north-
ernmost fort in Texas. Its inhabitants consisted of but six to
eight families, their homes the proverbial log cabin, with the
addition of one or two tents.
On their leisurely trek over the tortuous trail up the Brazos
the Cullins party found entertainment and relaxation in the
natural beauties of the woods and prairies; they admired tine
grey moss-hung live-oaks, the post oaks and mustang grape-
vines
2 festooned from the great tree branches. Esther and the
children gazed, spellbound, at the boundless fields of colorful
wild flowers and the great variety of birds, many of which were
strange to them. The men were deeply interested in the
tall, luxuriant grasses, acre upon acre standing waist-high,
and especially in the wild oats and rye, four feet tall, covering
the alluvial river bottoms, and all were delighted at the sight
of the herds of fat, sleek cattle, deer and buffalo.
Viesca was headquarters for Sterling C. Robertson's colony,
also called the Nashville Company's colony, a vast domain lying
north of the San Antonio road, west of the Brazos and east of
the Colorado, which extended almost to the northern boundary
of Texas. This grant, like its capital, briefly called Viesca, be-
came by an act of the Provisional Government in December,
1835, successively the Milam Land Grant, the Municipality of
Milam, and in 1837 Milam County, one of the twenty-three
original Texas counties. Nashville served for a few years as
the seat of government; but gradually, by 1846, the colony's
40,000 square miles had been carved into thirty-two counties,
including the present Milam County, of which the infant village
of Cameron was voted the county seat.
After a brief stay at Milam
3 the Cullins family removed to
the new capital of Nashville,
4 some thirty-five miles down the
Brazos, located on the west side of the stream adjacent to the
place where the International & Great Northern Railway bridge
and that of U. S. Highway 79 span the river, between the towns
of Gause and Hearne. In addition to the empresario's office,
where all matters pertaining to the colony were transacted, the
hamlet consisted of a blockhouse with portholes and a few log
and frame houses. A group of patriotic women of Nashville,
Tennessee, for which town this vigorous frontier hamlet was
named, donated a cannon for the protection of the settlers, who
gathered in the blockhouse (during the frequent Indian raids.
A supply depot was erected, and the town served as general
headquarters and distributing point for the colonists for miles
around. In 1889, when Congress established a commission to
locate a permanent capital site, Nashville was an aspirant but
lost to Austin in the final decision.
Nashville early showed indications of becoming a place of
historic interest in this frontier country. Among its shifting
population were many outstanding men, some of whom were
to play a noteworthy part in shaping the destiny of the future
commonwealth.. Among these was the empresario of the colony,
Sterling C. Robertson, who had been a major of the Tennessee
troops in the War of 1812, and who organized a militia company
for service in the Texas Revolution; he was a signer of the
Texas Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution of
the Republic, and served as a senator in its First and Second
Congresses. There were also his nephew, George Campbell
Childress, credited with the main authorship of the Declaration
of Independence, and Thomas Jefferson Chambers, a member of
the session of 1834 of the Legislature of Coahuila and Texas,
who in 1835 hypothecated a vast tract of land to raise $10,000
for the equipment of Texas soldiers. Others were George Ber-
nard Erath, captain of a company of Rangers, a member of the
Eighth and Ninth Congresses of the Republic, three times a
Texas Senator, who in 1857 raised and commanded a company
of infantry; Orville T. Tyler, first Chief Justice of Coryell
County and a member of the Legislature; E. S. C. Robertson,
then a youth, a future Confederate general; Benjamin Franklin
Bryant, captain of a company of volunteers which he recruited
in March, 1836, who built the fort of Bryant Station on Little
River, in Milam County, and served as colonel of his own
ranger company in the Indian fight at Milam; Robert M. Cole-
man, captain of the first ranger company in 1835, a signer of the
Texas Declaration of Independence, a member of General Hous-
ton's staff at San Jacinto, and colonel of a ranger company in
1836; Ben McCulloch, commander of a cannon, one of the "Twin
Sisters," at San Jacinto, a member of the Texas Congress of
1839, a legislator, a captain of a company of rangers in the War
with Mexico, and a brigadier general in the Army of the Con-
federacy; and last but not by any means least, the redoubtable
Lawrence Sullivan Ross, "hero of two hundred and thirty bat-
tles, a brigadier-general in the Army of the Confederacy, who
served two terms as governor of Texas. And in addition to
these many other history-makers, too numerous to mention, lived
for a time at Nashville.
For the convenience of the settlers on both sides of the Brazos,
William D. Thomson (son of the Alexander Thomson who set-
tled there in 1831) owned and operated a small ferry-boat He
was Nashville's first postmaster, first hotel keeper and Milam
County's first county clerk.
There were no bridges, and ordinarily streams were crossed
on rafts made of logs held together with rawhide ropes and
grapevines. Traveling was principally on horseback, except
when heavy wagons were used, and even horseback travel was
difficult when the river bottoms were muddy. Roads were no
more than the trails made by cattle, buffalo, or Indians, and
it was several years before family carriages were seen in this
part of the Republic. It is a far cry from the cumbersome
wooden-axle ox-wagon of that period, snailing over trackless
prairies, to the swift streamlined motor vehicle of the present,
skimming along smooth paved highways, to say nothing of our
modern airliners rocketing through the air.
Since there were no screens to retard them—not even glass
windowpanes--swarms of mosquitoes streamed through the
cabins, bringing discomfort and malaria to the settlers, greatly
handicapping their endeavors.
In 1846 Nashville boasted a small, short-term private school,
probably the only school in this entire municipality for several
fears. Throughout the Republic schools were rare, and gen-
erally the only educational qualification required of a teacher
was an acquaintance with the Three R's. It appears that other
affairs occupied the time and interest of the few well-educated
colonists--they were more than busy with the maintenance of
existence, fighting Indians or Mexicans, or otherwise making
history.
Corn and cotton were the prevailing crops, as they still are,
but to these were soon added sugar cane and tobacco. Until
land matters were adjusted and the colonists had settled on
their land allotments, small patches were the rule, ranging from
four to ten, or twenty-five acres at the most. Farming imple-
ments were imported from New Orleans, but there were some
who could barely afford a hoe. These, after burning away
the brush and canebrakes, without the aid of plow, harrow or
cultivator, horses, mules or oxen, planted and cultivated their
crops. According to a diary written at Nashville in 1846, so
rich was the virgin soil that even with such primitive methods
the pioneers often made forty to fifty bushels of corn and five
hundred pounds of clean, marketable cotton to the acre.
The small patches of cotton were as a rule grown by the
women and children, to whom fell the task of handpicking it
from the seed, after which the women carded, spun and wove
it into cloth. They glorified their clothing with dyes from
berries, indigo and other native plants, from the bark of trees,
and from the cochineal.
Fortunately for the Cullins family, their negroes, farm-
trained, faithfully attended to their farming duties, leaving the
family free to pursue more urgent matters.
Some of the early settlers ground corn coarsely on steel hand-
mills ; others, lacking even this device, had to resort to grating
it on a piece of tin in which holes had been pierced or to pound-
ing the grain into meal with a wooden pestle in a mortar made
of a log or stump. Gristmills had not arrived as yet. The usual
minimum selling price of flour was $25 per barrel, but there
are records of its having brought $100 per barrel in this com-
munity! A much-prized household implement was the candle
mold which shaped the beeswax and beef-tallow candles.
Imported clothing was somewhat of a rarity. Throughout
the 1830's many depended largely upon the skins of animals
for their wearing apparel, and the shoes especially were often
crude affairs. Gradually, however, when sufficient cotton was
produced, homespun became the popular dress material for
the entire family, and a little later some of the more enter-
prising colonists raised sheep, thus enabling them to indulge
in the luxury of woolen clothing. A calico dress was reserved
for best wear and cost about the same as does a silk dress now.
For several years New Orleans was the only market; the
Milam settlers, on horseback or in an ox-wagon, would meet
the schooner or steamboat at the nearest Brazos port--usually
Richmond, but under favorable river conditions boats ran
farther up the Brazos. Later supplies were brought on horse-
back from Natchitoches, three hundred miles distant, and be-
ginning early in 1837, from Houston, then a village of perhaps
a hundred log and frame houses and a few tents.
The Cullins family, somewhat disillusioned, now viewed the
other side of the formerly glamorous picture. They now saw
their adopted home as not only a sun-kissed land of romance
and adventure, fanned by gentle southern zephyrs, teeming
with wild game, cattle and horses; they recognized it as a
veritable wilderness, in whose dense thickets and on whose
broad plains lurked danger from Indians and predatory beasts.
Moreover, Texas was chafing under military rule and its esti-
mated thirty thousand colonists were in incipient revolt against
Mexico; the Texas Revolution was beginning. Indians were a
constant source of terror, and it was necessary to be particular-
ly wary on moonlit nights, since the full of the moon was their
favorite time for raiding. It was then that they came to steal
the frontiersmen's stock, burn their homes, perhaps murder or
kidnap their families.
Overcome by the multitude of trials, many gave up the
struggle and returned to their former homes. Undaunted,
Esther Cullins and her family, endowed as they were with
qualities of which true pioneers are made, firmly resolved to
play the dangerous game to the very end.
Daniel Cullins, and his brother, Aaron Cullins, immediately
adopted Texas as their homeland. Both enlisted in Captain
Barron's First Regiment of Texas Rangers, under the command
of Colonel Coleman, and each also served one year as a private
in the militia. Land grants were awarded to both for their
army services, Aaron Cullins' award being made posthumously,
he having been killed on ranger service.
Early in 1836, eager to become permanently settled, the Daniel
Cullins family left their small farm at Nashville to improve
a homesite of larger acreage on their eleven-league grant near
Indian Creek,
5 seven miles northeast of the present Cameron.
Here from cedar logs felled and hewn in the brakes near Nash-
ville they erected fairly comfortable quarters.
In the Cullins neighborhood were three other families: that
of Captain Daniel Monroe, who the following year at the head
of a battalion was stationed at Three Forks (a fort in the pres-
ent Bell County), and later at Milam, subsequently serving as
one of the first commissioners of the present Milam County;
that of William Berry Smith, a famous and fearless Indian
fighter and gunsmith; and that of William Henry Walker, who
later served as County Judge of Milam County. The four fam-
ilies took the wise precaution of building their cabins within
a radius of about one hundred yards as a safeguard against
a possible Indian attack.
In June of 1836 the Cullins family and their neighbors were
rejoicing over the recent hard-won civil and religious liberty
of the independent Lone Star Republic of Texas achieved at
San Jacinto. With renewed hope and a feeling of greater se-
curity, all were happily pursuing the improvement of their
homesteads and the laying-by of their small but vitally im-
portant corn corps.
Their roseate outlook was doomed to be sadly interrupted.
Mounted couriers galloped through the outpost settlements,
including the Cullins community, bringing the news of the
Indian assault of May 19 on Parker's Fort, and at the same
time warning the settlers to gather at Nashville for sanctuary,
since hostile Indians were known to be raiding the country.
It so happened that Daniel and Esther Cullins, with three of
their children, Mary Ann, Clarissa Amanda and Alfred Wash-
ington Cullins, and some of the negroes, had gone to Nashville
for supplies, where Daniel was to attend to some governmental
business as well. The parents had ridden on horseback, while
the children had gone in the wagon in care of their "black
mammy." The Cullins' elder son, John, well past his tenth
birthday, they had left with their special friends, the Walkers.
The Walker's baby daughter, Mary Ann, little John Cullins'
future wife, was then less than two years old.
The three terrified families remaining in the Cullins neigh-
borhood began preparations to go to Nashville. The Monroes
and Smiths went to the Walker cabin, their wagon packed,
ready to join the refugees. From Three Forks came Captain
Gouldsby Childers, a famous Indian fighter, a soldier in the War
of 1812 and in the Black Hawk War of 1832; with him were
his wife and seven children, two of his sons being nineteen and
seventeen years old, respectively. A Mr. Rhoads, old and unable
to fight, and five additional able-bodied colonists, the Reverend
Isaac Crouch, Dr. Robert Davidson, Orville T. Tyler, Ezekiel
Robinson, and a Mr. Shackleford were also of his party. All
had been in the Childers community building cabins, planting
and cultivating crops. The Childers party camped overnight
at a spring in the Walker grounds.
On the following morning, June 4, since no immediate danger
was apprehended, the Walker party declined to join the Childers
party, explaining that they must wait a few hours to brand
some cattle before leaving for the fort.
When the Childers caravan had advanced some two or three
miles and had reached open prairie, hearing in the distance the
thud of hoofbeats, they looked back and they saw what at first
appeared to be a herd of stampeding buffalo; soon, however,
it became apparent that they were being pursued by a band of
about two hundred mounted Comanches, who stooped on their
horses in such a manner as to simulate the hump on the
shoulder of the buffalo.
The alarm was sounded; the men traveling some two hundred
yards in front, and those a hundred or two yards in the rear
scurried to the wagon, and stood behind their horses with guns
drawn, with instructions to reserve their fire until ordered to
shoot. The savages charged to a distance of about a hundred
yards, a deluge of ineffectual shots pouring from their guns.
The whites, having no ammunition to waste, did not fire a
single shot. Isaac Crouch and Dr. Davidson, anxious to reach
their families in Nashville, had ridden some distance ahead.
Hearing the shots, they raced back, hoping to aid their com-
rades. The Comanches, keeping their former distance, divided
into two columns and passing full speed around the wagon,
firing without effect as they ran, succeeded in getting between
the two horsemen and the wagon. When the two attempted
to outrun their assailants, the Comanches, with fleeter horses,
overtook them and murdered both, in full view of their friends.
While the savages stopped to quarrel over the scalps and booty,
the Childers party left the trail and hurried to a nearby clump
of timber. Leaving the wagon and the small herd of cattle, which
they had been driving, to the mercy of the enemy they resumed
their journey--some on horseback, some on foot.
The Comanches had transferred their attention to the Walker
cabin, where the Monroes, Smiths, Walkers and little John
Cullins were barricaded.
6 Their supply of powder and lead had
been left in the wagon; upon the instant Mrs. William Berry
Smith (née Mary Ann Ashmore), at the risk of her life, dashed
out and got the ammunition. The assault lasted several hours.
The colonists, making good use of the portholes, returned the
fire with discretion. Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Smith, assisted by
the older children, took turns in molding- bullets, they and Mrs.
Monroe now and then relieving the men behind the guns. In
the meantime the Indians plundered the wagon, appropriated
the food supplies, ripped open feather beds and strewed the
feathers and a barrel or two of precious flour over the prairie.
About twilight, after butchering some cattle, the Indians re-
tired. None of the whites had been injured but several of the
Comanches had been wounded, and it was said that there was
one good
Indian, the victim of Mrs. Walker's marksmanship.
The Walker party, well mounted, joined that of Childers at
Nashville on the following day.
Because of the Indian invasion and increased Indian hostili-
ties of 1836, all the scattered settlers north of Nashville de-
serted their cabins and took refuge at Nashville and at Tenoch-
titlán, ten miles farther down the river. It appears that the
other forts were now used almost entirely as headquarters for
the Indian fighters. In view of these conditions, coupled with
the fact that the Cullins' men were away from home most of
the time in their capacity of rangers, Esther, the children and
the negroes remained at Nashville for several years before re-
turning to Indian Creek. The men of that neighborhood would
go back in groups to look after their interests, but for a time
it was not considered safe to live so far from the fort. The
Cullins' resumed and continued their farming activities at Nash-
ville through 1846.
A Texan who lived at Nashville at that time, in writing his
reminiscences sixty years later, recalls having been among a
crew of boys "hoeing cotton on the banks of the Brazos for Mr.
Cullins" on the occasion of the arrival of the first steamboat
at Nashville. He is inclined to disgree with a writer who states
that the date was 1846; he thinks it may have been 1849.
7 This
old resident remembers the excitement which prevailed on this
occasion; the settlers came in from ten miles around to see the
sight. After a brief stop, the boat went on to near-by Port Sul-
livan, where it took on cargo and returned down the Brazos.
Exports, such as there were, consisted of corn, cotton, sugar-
cane and hides, but it is doubtful if very much exportation had
been carried on from that immediate vicinity to that date. The
next time for a steamboat to take advantage of high water and
reach a point so far up the Brazos was in 1850, when a boat
entered the mouth of Little River, two miles beyond Nashville,
and went on to Cameron.
The Walker cabin fight was not the last encounter which the
Cullins family were to have with the Indians. While serving as
rangers, both Daniel and Aaron Cullins had several brushes
with them, and Aaron Cullins met his death at their hands.
In May or June, 1837, preparatory to withdrawing his
rangers from Little River Fort, Captain George B. Erath sent
five of his men, consisting of Aaron Cullins, Caleb Neill, David
Farmer, Sterritt Smith and Jesse Bailey» to Nashville for
wagons and teams with which to remove the two or three re-
maining families to Nashville. On their return trip when they
were nearing Postoak Springs,
8 five miles north of the present
Cameron, a gang of Comanches, crashing from a post oak grove,
attacked and murdered the entire group.
The Indians now and then made expeditions to Nashville and
its vicinity. Dr. Z. N. Morrell, that brave pioneer Baptist divine,
in his Flowers
and
Fruits
in
the
Wilderness,
tells of preaching
in that village in February, 1837, in a log cabin with dirt floor.
A light snow had fallen. Just at the close of the service the
savages swooped down upon the congregation, killing two of
the men. Exchanging their Bibles for guns, the men of the con-
gregation, including the preacher, went in hot pursuit, but the
redskins escaped up Little River. The Cullins family were
among the worshippers on this occasion.
In 1840, the Cullins' elder son, John, then a lad of fifteen,
accompanied John McLennan, Sr., on a cattle-hunting trip in
the timber around Sugar Loaf--a small mound which still bears
that name—half a dozen miles from Nashville; they were at-
tacked by Indians, who killed and scalped his companion, while
John Cullins, by the aid of a heavy fog, eluded them and re-
turned to the fort.
In 1846 John Cullins, at the edge of the prairie on his par-
ents' Indian Creek land, was engaged in skinning a young
buffalo, when his horse's uneasy behavior in unmistakable
terms announced the approach of Indians. Hastily cutting off
the quarter which he had finished skinning and throwing it on
his horse, he mounted and raced to the heavily wooded creek
bottoms, where, luckily, the savages again passed him by.
After an absence of ten years, the Indian danger having to
a great extent abated, the Cullins family returned to their
Indian Creek farm. From Nashville they had hauled many
loads of cedar logs, including those used in their Nashville
home, with which to supplement their interrupted improvements
of 1836. Soon they enjoyed a commodious double (i. e., divided
by a hall) "big-house," as the darkies called it, ample cabins
for the latter, spacious barns, and certainly, a smoke house.
There were wide, open fireplaces, one of which was in the
kitchen, where faithful black Harriet capably presided over a
much-prized collection of pots and kettles--South Carolina
treasures--hung, of course, from a crane, to say nothing of
heavy, covered iron skillets for baking. True, her then up-to-
the-minute equipment bore no "certified performance" seal, and
would hardly appeal to the modern cook, but skillful Harriet
possessed just the proper magic to prepare her wood-coals for
the exact temperature desired, and felt no need for such gadgets
as heat control, automatic timers, or any other such undreamed-
of trivialities.
The Cullins' new home, built of hewn cedar logs, was roofed
with hand-riven boards; the floors in the main were of
smooth split logs--"puncheon" floors--except those in the front
rooms, which were the pride of the entire family, being hard-
wood, the flooring brought from a sawmill at Harrisburg.
Though her frontier home could not compare with her home
in the Palmetto State, it was indeed a proud day in Esther
Cullins' life when she stepped across its welcoming threshold—
a home destined to be a haven for many a wayworn traveler,
as well as a happy social center for a wide area.
Amusements consisted, for the men, of fishing, hunting,
shooting matches, bee hunting, horse racing, hunting wild cattle
and breaking wild horses; for the women, entertainment was
less exciting—besides quilting parties, there were "spend-the-
day" parties, in which they engaged in sewing, spinning or
weaving. Barbecues and "candy pullings" were popular diver-
sions, and young belles and their beaux, and some not so young,
rode many miles on horseback to attend weddings and dances
It was the custom to dance until dawn, or even sunrise, the
following morning.
The first church in this county, the Little River Baptist, a
flourishing country church today, was established in 1847. Prior
to that time itinerant preachers often stopped for a visit in the
Cullins home and would hold services there.
Indians continued to make forays at intervals in the Cullins
community, and on three different occasions attempted to burn
the Cullins home. On one such occasion, no water being at hand,
Esther quenched the flames with milk. And at that time she
literally heaped coals of fire on an old chief's head—that is,
she threw a shovelful of embers in his face.
Esther looked well to the ways of her household and ate not
the bread of idleness." Tradition says that each man, woman
and child, white or black, was expected to keep reasonably busy
when there was work to be done. Assisted by the negroes, the
women made good use of the spinning wheel and loom, keeping
the family and the darkies comfortably, if not smartly, clad.
Her year-around garden contributed to their health and well-
being, though the word "vitamin" was not in their vocabulary.
Farming, stock-raising and "freighting" (by wagon, ox- or
mule-drawn) constituted the principal industries over a period
of years. Daniel Cullins and his two sons engaged in all three
enterprises. After they were well established, their activities
included the raising of thoroughbred horses. Their sheep and
long-staple cotton furnished material for their clothing.
What need had they for sugar, when bee-trees were plentiful;
what need for ice, when near their door gurgled a cold spring
in which pails of milk and cream and crocks of golden butter
could be kept sweet and cool? And as to meat, hams of deer and
of the wild hog--until domestic hogs were raised--were cured
and smoked, and steaks of beef, buffalo, and venison were hung
on hide ropes and dried for such times as fresh game might be
lacking. To this extent at least was "dehydration" practiced at
that early day.
Nature, that inimitable landscape architect, had planned and
arranged Esther Cullins' grounds. In the spring and early
summer her door-yard and the hills and meadows roundabout
presented a panorama in breath-taking colors. Against an emerald
background blossomed acres of sparkling, fragrant flowers,
ranging from pink to carmine, gold to orange, lilac to intense
purple, the heaven-blue of the lupine predominating:—"made of
strips of Texas skies at their brightest, tipped with white cloud-
mist," a beloved Texas poet has declared; the fairies, we are
told, patterned them after the headgear of our Texas pioneer
women and proudly called them bluebonnets!
Near this home a serpentine spring creek laughed and glis-
tened, and the birds sang in the thickets, its banks adorned with
a variety of trees, shrubs and vines, many of them flower- or
fruit-bearing. In summer, beneath an azure sky and against a
foil of green, appeared first the orchid rose of the redbud, then
the snowy dogwood, hawthorn and plum, followed by the
trumpet flower's bell of scarlet, brushed with sunset glow. In
the autumn the yaupon's radiant ruby berries, the sumac's
flaming fruit and foliage, intermixed with nature's shades of
rose, russet, copper, magenta, and the green of cedars trans-
formed the Cullins' woodlands into a terrestrial paradise.
Native here were lush dewberries, blackberries, blue-black
haws, ruddy apple haws, purple grapes, frosty plums, and rosy
persimmons, besides pecans, hickory nuts and walnuts.
Add to all this a sandy-beached wading pool and deeper blue
holes in which to fish or swim--is it surprising that the Cullins
farm was the favorite rendezvous of the children, and especially
the older boys, of the entire neighborhood!
Esther and Daniel Cullins' two daughters and two sons, all
born in South Carolina, grew up in Texas, where they married
and reared their families. They and the succeeding generation
inter-married with the following Texas families, some of whose
names are well known: Beal, Walker, Hubby, Kennedy, Dob-
bins, Sneed, Logan, Tyson, Batte, and Oxsheer.
The year 1861 dawned with overcast skies. Texas, in line
with the other Southern States, resentful that her rights were
being trampled upon, sought to remedy her condition by with-
drawal from the Union. On March 2, she celebrated the birth-
day of her own independence by joining the Southern Confed-
eracy. Texans responded promptly and enthusiastically to Pres-
ident Davis' call for volunteers.
Daniel Cullins and his two sons, John and Alfred, volunteered
and joined the Army of the Confederacy. Each enrolled in
Captain Ben McCulloch's Company for Milam County, 27th
Brigade, Texas Militia, General E. S. C. Robertson command-
ing, in which John was a corporal. In 1863 each of them re-
enlisted in Company G, 33rd Regiment, Texas Cavalry (Buff's
Partisan Rangers, 14th Battalion), in which Alfred was a
sergeant.
Daniel Cullins, no longer young, was appointed a cattle buyer.
His sons served on the border patrol, but during the time of
the cotton movement they freighted cotton to the Rio Grande.
The most difficult part of the long, laborious cotton trek lay
between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande, over a vast deep
sand embayment. From Rancho Las Animas, just below old
San Patricio, several roads diverged to the Rio Grande. While
the greater portion of the cotton went direct from Las Animas
almost on a straight line to Brownsville, a certain amount of
the traffic swung westward and reached the Rio Grande at Rio
Grande City (which the old ranchero Mexicans continue to call
"Rancho Davis"), thence down the river by the old road which
parallels the river bank. After the capture of Brownsville by
the Federals, and until it was retaken by the Confederates, the
bulk of the cotton went, necessarily, by the old Presidio road
from San Antonio to the vicinity of Eagle Pass, subsequently
resuming the Rio Grande City route.
As though these difficulties were not enough, there were fre-
quent Indian assaults upon the wagon trains in the lower coun-
try, mule teams being especially appealing to them.
Throughout the four long cruel years of the War, the singing
of the spindle and the humming of the shuttle constituted the
chief music in Esther Cullins' home, as the busy women made
clothing and blankets for the tattered Confederate soldiers.
The sagacious Esther did not, however, believe in "all work
and no play." She sensed the need for keeping up morale, and
though seldom were any of the mature men of the neighborhood
at home, her available neighbors often were invited to her home
for such modest entertainment as she could offer. She would
sometimes don her son's best suit and dance with her daughters
and the other girls as though she were a man.
Though famed for her sunny, optimistic nature, Esther,
through declining health, now had hours of enforced rest and
meditation. Musing perhaps on familiar scenes and associations
of her youth, mourning the loss of dear ones who had passed on,
and especially the deaths of her parents, which came only six
days apart, and more recently sorrowing for several beloved
nephews who made the supreme sacrifice at Gettysburg and on
other grim battlefields—perhaps at such times the brave Esther
was wont to water her cherished prairie flowers with her tears!
Esther Cullins and her family had lived in Texas under four
of her six flags. Arriving on a scene of turmoil and strife, and
finding the country in rebellion against Mexico, their hearts had
bled over the tragic fall of the Alamo, the horrible slaughter
at Goliad, and they had hailed those precious eighteen minutes
at San Jacinto, when a new nation was born. They had shared
in the ten momentous years under the Lone Star of the Re-
public, years brimful of stirring, thrilling events. They had
endorsed the entry of the new State into the then peaceful firma-
ment of the Red, White and Blue, and, subsequently, confident
in the South's justification, they had sanctioned its secession
from the Union. They survived the heartbreaking news of
General Lee's surrender, but before the expiration of the har-
rowing period of reconstruction both Esther and Daniel Cullins
had died.
In the old Beal family cemetery, on the farm of their daugh-
ter's family, adjoining their own farm home, they lie side by
side. In addition to a joint family marker, there is on the grave
of Esther Amanda Sherrill Cullins a bronze tablet placed by the
Sarah McCalla Chapter of the D. A. R., honoring her as a real
Daughter of the American Revolution. On March 4, 1868, within
less than five months after the death of her husband, this heroine
unsung "lay down to that long dreamless sleep that separates
Time's evening from Eternity's fair morn."
FOOTNOTES:
day declared that "she could outrun, outjump, walk more erectly, and ride
more gracefully than any other female in the mountains roundabout or
on the continent at large." It might be added that on a fateful June day
of 1776, "Bonny Kate" made an auspicious "home-run." Wandering from
the security of Fort Watauga to pick flowers on her father's near-by estate,
Daisy Fields, on the scenic Nollichucky, surprised by "Old Abraham" and
his band of Cherokees, she outran them to the stockade, and leaping over
the palisades, literally fell into the arms of her future husband, Colonel
John Sevier. History has accorded her much credit as the helpmate and
inspiration of her illustrious husband.
manche."
Revolution, aided by Milam County, bought seven acres of the old Nash-
ville grounds (the town gradually faded away after the Civil War)
which they deeded to the State of Texas for a park. They induced the State
to place a historic marker on the site, where, besides marking the grounds,
the D. A. R. chapter also placed a marker, memorializing the gallant men
and women who endured hardship and privation to pave the way for our
present civilization.
was over a long period--beginning several years after the Walker cabin
fight--closely associated with her aunt and her family, as was the writer's
father, Robert Todd, of Cameron, now (in 1943) past his ninety-first birth-
day. To them and to Esther and Daniel Cullins' granddaughters, the late
Mrs. Tyra Sneed, née Lillian Beal, of Georgetown, Mrs. Will Cullins, née
Minnie Cullins, of Brownfield, and Mrs. J. P. McBride, née Julia Cullins, of
Ft. Worth, is the writer indebted for much of the data recorded herein. The
family's version of the Walker cabin fight does not vary materially from
the versions given by some of the historians.
the date of the steamboat's arrival.
Pettibone, on the Santa Fe Railroad.
THE EXCELLENCE OF THE
SPANISH HORSE
*
"The animal which has been of the greatest importance to
the Spaniards of all those brought to these Indies [the Amer-
icas] is the Horse; because with its aid they have been able to
make so many and such notable conquests, have discovered so
many regions and have spread in so short a time through so
many and extensive lands."
1 So wrote the Jesuit father Bernabé
Cobo in the seventeenth century. The following translation of
a XVI century authority is presented for the purpose of perhaps
throwing a little light on the origin of the horses which Cobo
credited, and rightly, with playing so important a part in the
conquest of the Americas, and for the evidence which it may
furnish regarding the excellence of the original Spanish stock.
In 1580 Pedro Fernández de Andrada, in praising the stock
whence these horses sprang, emphasized four points, namely:
that the Spanish horsemen held their mounts in high esteem,
that the Spanish horse was of excellent stock, in fact the best
in Europe, that the best horses of Spain came from Andalucía,
and that, although some writers were of the opinion that the
Spanish horse had been improved by the introduction of the
Arabian stock, he and others had reason to believe that the
opposite was true.
The above views are especially interesting in the light of
modern writings concerning the Spanish horse in the Americas.
Present day historians, for the most part, are in accord with
Fernández de Andrada's first three conclusions. But the same
historians would perhaps distress this Spanish caballero
by their
common acceptance of the thesis that the original horses of the
Iberian Peninsula were improved chiefly by over seven centuries
of crossbreeding with the fine Arabian animals brought by the
Moors when they invaded southwest Europe.
On what authority did Fernández de Andrada write? Espasa
states that he was of noble birth, instructed in letters, and was
highly regarded by his contemporaries, that he had a passion
for horsemanship, and that his writings on horses and eques-
trians were drawn largely from first hand experience.
2 Con-
sidering these qualifications, his fourth contention, as shown
above and expressed in the translation from his De
la
natvraleza
del
cavallo
which follows, merits consideration.
Emanuel Philiberto, Duke of Saboya and Prince of Piamonte, said that
in this world there were three things in which Spain excelled: first, in
the fineness of her gold; second, in the strength of her men; and third,
in the beauty and swiftness of her horses. We shall treat of the latter,
as they are our profession. We shall discuss the topic briefly by pointing
out the provinces of Spain which produce the best horses, without con-
fusing the mind with references to all the horses of the world. Absyrtus,
in an account which discusses nearly all the horses of the universe, says
that the Spanish horses are large of body and have a fine and beautiful
stance, they are proud, have beautiful heads, equally well proportioned
bodies, and strength to endure the hardships of travel. He adds that they
are broad and heavy but do not require much spurring because they are
naturally swift, and above all he commends them for their good temper
and loyalty. Bohemius states that Spain was always noted for the beauty
and swiftness of her horses and that the rich saddle trappings indicate the
antiquity of horsemanship in Spain. Even Solinus and Pomponius Mela
write that Spain was always rich in natural products and particularly in
horses. Strabo says the same thing, adding that the Spanish horses are
as good as the horses from Parthia, for they excel all the others of the
world in gentleness, speed, and beauty, a fact which our experience veri-
fies; and although it is true that all Spanish horses are exceptional, still
some are better than others, and some men praise one group of horses
while others praise another. So Martial, after praising his native land,
which today we call Calatayud, for its wealth of beautiful horses, says
that in Asturias, which is commonly Viscaya and borders upon Cantabria,
there were many good horses though they were small. Pliny stressed
the various qualities of the horses of Galicia, another lauded the excellence
of those from the Alcárez Mountains, and still others those from the
kingdom of Granada; while there we authors said the best and most
perfect horses came from the kingdom of Murcia. There is no doubt that
the men who praised these provinces had never been in Andalucía, nor
had they ever seen the Andalucian horses, or they would not have dared
to rob Andalucía of its glory. In the abundance and breeding of superb
horses no province of Spain equals Andalucía. It is so fertile in grass
and pasture lands that the ancients spoke of its luxuriant verdure as the
Elysian fields, for no other land produces such excellent fruit, and just as
nature is more fertile and productive there, so does Andalucía produce
the greatest number of the best horses. Though it is true that Spanish
horses are the best, and the best of them are from Andalucía, even there
some are better than others, such as the horses from Sevilla, Jerez de la
Frontera, and Córdoba. The gentlemen of the latter two cities are
brothers-in-arms, yet they continually quarrel over the respective merits
of their horses. Likewise the horses from Ubeda and Baeza are among the
best, although they are not so trim; those of Jaen, Ecija, and Marchena
are considered good, as well as those from other parts of Andalucía where
gentlemen do not breed them, though there is fodder and grass which,
together with the climate and temperature, naturally produce good horses
from which nearly all the kings and princes of the world fill their stables;
for they value no horse that does not come from Andalucía. Some writers
say the excellence of these breeds comes from having mixed them with
African horses, but there are others who consider it more likely that the
African horses have been improved by the excellence of our horses, which
we can well appreciate, since we have so many of them that it would be
difficult to give an account of the superb horses that live today; and in
order not to go into too great detail I will not mention them here.
3
FOOTNOTES:
work entitled De la natvraleza del cavallo (Seuilla, 1580).
de bibliófilos andaluces, ser. 1, v. 19:2, 350.
Fernández de Andrada, Pedro.
horsemen and to historians working on the Spanish horse are Libro de la
gineta de España (Seuilla, 1599), and Nuevos discursos de la gineta de
España sobre el uso del cabezón (Seuilla, 1616).
GENERAL ARTHUR GOODALL WAVELL
AND WAVELL'S COLONY IN TEXAS
A NOTE
In Indian
Information,
July 1, 1943, Field Marshal Sir Archi-
bald Wavell mentions his grandfather's connection with the
colonization of Texas. Letters and documents in the manuscript
collections of the University of Texas, the Texas State Library,
and the General Land Office disclose this chapter of General
Wavell's career in considerable detail. The story begins in
Chile—or, perhaps, in Spain, where General Wavell served with
distinction in the Peninsular War against the French. In 1820,
at the age of thirty-five, he was second in command of the Chilean
national army with the rank of major general. The Chilean
government sent him to Mexico on a semi-diplomatic mission,
and there he met Stephen F. Austin and began his connection
with Texas. On July 4, 1822, he and Austin signed a partner-
ship agreement looking to the development of Austin's colony,
approval of which by the Mexican government seemed to them
then to be only a matter of days. Wavell was to enlist capital
and form a company in England to promote colonization, de-
velop mines, and carry on an extensive commercial business.
Lending Austin an unspecified amount of money to enable him
to remain in Mexico until his grant should be confirmed, Wavell
sailed from Vera Cruz in the French brig, L'Azema,
about the
middle of August, 1822, expecting toreach Bordeaux in fifty
days. A pirate sacked his ship on September 3, and robbed
Wavell of $1700 and all his property. L'Azema
then sailed to
Charleston, from which port Wavell continued his voyage on
the British ship London.
He arrived at Liverpool, November
11, and between that date and May 22, 1823, wrote Austin
seven letters, the burden of which was that he could not make
financial arrangements without documentary evidence that Aus-
tin's grant was confirmed. Actually, it was not confirmed until
mid-April, 1823, and Austin seems to have replied to none of
Waveil's letters. In 1824, Wavell returned to Mexico, still in
the service of the government, and there was an exchange of
letters, in which Austin said he was now ready to pay his in-
debtedness ; but Wavell declared many years later that he never
did.
in March, 1826, Wavell received from the State of Coahuila
and Texas a contract, approved also by the Mexican Federal
government, to settle five hundred families on a grant south of
Red River, which included all of the territory of our present
Lamar, Red River, and Bowie counties, parts of Fannin and
Hunt counties, and Miller County, Arkansas, which Mexico
claimed under an erroneous interpretation of the Florida Treaty
of 1819-21. Wavell employed Ben Milam to manage the settle-
ment of his colony. Just what Milam accomplished is uncertain;
according to Wavell, he introduced a considerable number of
colonists and might have fulfilled the contract for five hundred
families but for interference, first by the Mexican federal gov-
ernment, and, second, by Governor Polk of Arkansas, who
claimed nearly all of the territory for the United States. As a
result of the confusion, no titles were issued to actual settlers
down to the time of the Texas Revolution. Technically, there-
fore, Wavell fulfilled no part of his contract and was legally
entitled to no premium land for his service as empresario.
He believed, however, that he had a strong moral claim
against the government of Texas. In 1843, he recited his claims
in a memorial to the Senate of the Republic of Texas, and in
May, 1844, urged the British Government to exert diplomatic
pressure upon the Republic for its payment, but the Foreign
Office--after an opinion from the Crown law officer--told him
frankly that he had no claim on the government of Texas. He
took this rebuff philosophically, but continued to argue the
moral weight of his claim. He evidently formed a cordial friend-
ship with Dr. Ashbel Smith while Smith was representing
Texas in England, and perhaps with Smith's encouragement
continued to hope that Texas would recognize and compensate
his services. He died in 1860 at the age of seventy-five. He was
the father of ten children, of whom the youngest became the
father of General Archibald Wavell.
Mr. Sam Acheson published in the Dallas
News
of September
21, 1941, an interesting article, covering the substance of this
note. In it, he refers to Wavell documents placed in the Hall
of State by the Dallas Historical Society. Miss Harriet Smither,
State Archivist, has recently received, through the assistance of
Lord Halifax and General Archibald Wavell, a list of all the
family papers concerning General Arthur G. Wavell's American
connections and is assured that copies of them will be given
to the State Library.
LIFE OF GENERAL DON MANUEL
DE MIER Y TERAN
AS IT AFFECTED TEXAS-MEXICAN RELATIONS
In November, 1825, the last Spanish possession in Mexico,
the fortress of San Juan de Ulúa, fell into the hands of the re-
public. But the capture did not put an end to the strife between
the mother country and the new republic. From 1825 to 1828,
Mexican ships raided Spanish commerce; in Mexico there was
a feeling of hatred towards Spaniards and things Spanish.
Every means was resorted to to keep up the fight against the
former ruling class, who were accused of being incessant con-
spirators against the national independence. Continued agita-
tion, fostered by Victoria and later by Guerrero, resulted in
1827 in a national decree of expulsion, which sorely wounded
the pride of the Spanish government. The exiles undoubtedly
exaggerated the far from ideal political and economic conditions
in Mexico, and Spain gathered reason to believe that a favorable
moment had arrived to reconquer her former domain. Not only
were the Spaniards reckless in their attempt at reconquest, but
their actions showed that they were seriously misinformed as
to the actual situation in Mexico. They had listened so eagerly
to reports of disorders that they had convinced themselves that
the Mexicans were disgusted with their experiment in self-
government and that the mere presence of a Spanish force in
their midst would cause the people to rise en
masse
to return
to their old allegiance.
News of Spanish preparations began to reach Mexico through
various channels early in the spring of 1829. While Berlandier
was in New Orleans, in April, he sent Mier y Terán a clipping
from a newspaper published at that place which gave an extract
from a letter from a merchant in Havana to a citizen in New
Orleans, announcing the imminent embarkation at Cádiz of a
force hoped to be sufficient to return Mexico to her proper
allegiance.
1
Reports were current through June and July that from three
to seven thousand men were preparing to invade the eastern
coast of
Mexico. T. M. Rodney, the United States commercial
agent at Havana, reported that the Spanish expedition was
preparing to sail from Havana on June 23. The commander
of the expedition, according to Rodney, was by no means san-
guine of any good resulting from a descent upon the Mexican
coast and feared the attempt would prove a sacrifice of his
army of "thirty-five thousand men."
2 On June 16, a French
frigate brought news that a Spanish armada was preparing to
attack Mexico at some point on the eastern coast. Not wishing
to compromise the French government, the officers of the frigate
would give no more definite information than that the armada
would embark from Havana.
3
The government of Mexico, in spite of all the rumors of in-
vasion, did nothing to prepare for it. Consequently, when a
Spanish force under General Isidoro Barradas landed at Cabo
Rojo, near Tampico, on July 28, the government was totally
unprepared to meet the invaders. President Guerrero called
an extra session of congress, but the Spaniards had been on
Mexican soil ten days before congress met.
Meanwhile, two independent forces moved into the Tampico
area to defend the country from attack. Santa Anna, governor
of Vera Cruz, asked the government to send him to meet the
Spaniards wherever they might disembark. When he learned
of Barradas' incursion, he gathered about two thousand men
in the vicinity of Vera Cruz and Jalapa, obtained a forced loan
of 20,000 pesos
from the merchants of those two places, and
on August 4 set sail with his infantry for Tampico, dispatching
his cavalry by land.
4 His improvised fleet might easily have
been overpowered, but Barradas had no naval support; the
Governor of Cuba had ordered the fleet to return for other
duties as soon as the troops were landed.
5
When Felipe de la Garza, commandant general of the Eastern
Interior Provinces, learned definitely that the Spaniards had
landed at Cabo Rojo, he informed General Mier y Terán, and
asked him to take charge of the military forces of the provinces
under his command. Mier y Terán, although Garza's military
superior, refused to accept this honor, but instead offered to
serve in any capacity, wherever he might be needed, under
Garza. Garza then set out for Tampico and ordered Mier y
Terán to gather all regular and militia troops available and
follow him with all haste:
6 The last eight pages of Mier y
Terán's boundary commission diary constitute a record of his
trip from Matamoros to Tampico from August 4 to 13, 1829. It
is interesting to note that not once in it does he mention the
Spanish invasion or other military matters; he writes in the
same vein as that of the first part of the diary except that the
observations are much more brief. It contains notes on the
streams crossed, their economic value, the condition of the soil,
and plant and animal life. One can almost see how reluctantly
he gave up the scientific side of the trip by reading his entry
for August 12: "Yesterday, I returned all my instruments,
books, and papers to Matamoros, keeping only those absolutely
necessary for military observations."
7
Mier y Terán arrived at Altamira eight days after de la Garza,
on August 15. The Mexican government had, on August 11,
named Santa Anna general in chief of the army of operations
against the Spaniards. The forces of Barradas marched toward
Tampico, suffering from the heat, scarcity of water, and
myriads of merciless insects. Acting under immediate orders
from de la Garza, Mier y Terán proceeded to bar the Spanish
advance. He built two redoubts to defend the road—one at
Villerias and the other a league and a half away. On the night
of August 16, the Spaniards took the first redoubt after tena-
cious resistance on the part of the Mexican troops, and the
second fell shortly after, whereupon the Mexican forces retired
to Altamira.
8
Barradas reached Tampico on August 18, and took possession
without any serious opposition. From there, however, he found
his advance checked by Mier y Terán. Tampico is built on a
rocky peninsula and the Mexican forces found it comparatively
easy to keep the Spaniards hemmed in. The Panuco River and
several miasmic lagoons separate Tampico from the mainland.
These lagoons were the breeding places of hordes of deadly
mosquitoes, carriers of the yellow fever germs. The Spanish
forces were suffering from the unaccustomed climate and fever.
General Barradas thought it might restore the courage of his
men if he could win a decisive victory over the Mexicans under
Mier y Terán. He left a garrison at Tampico, composed largely
of invalids, and went forth to give attack. Santa Anna had
landed across the bay from Tampico at Tuxpám; he sent word
to Mier y Terán to keep Barradas occupied and then prepared
to cross the river stealthily by night and surprise the garrison.
On August 20, Santa Anna launched an attack on Tampico
which lasted for several hours and ended in a truce. In the
meantime, a short distance away, Barradas and the main body
of his troops were kept busy by Mier y Terán and Garza.
"General Teran," wrote one of his men, "like a good
insurgent does nothing but form skirmishing parties
against the Spaniards and when he loses one soldier he
has killed 15 or 20 of the enemy. This General and the
Commandant General Garza appear to despise the
balls, and are certainly the thermometer of the cavalry
and infantry. Of Teran, they say that he was directing
the firing of the artillery, seated on a gun carriage,
in one hand his cup of chocolate and a piece of bread,
which he was very quietly taking, while the other con-
tained his sword with which he directed their move-
ments."
9
The Mexican troops received very little support from the
government; it was not until August 25 that congress seemed
to realize the seriousness of the situation and invested the presi-
dent with extraordinary powers. He was then authorized to
adopt such measures as he deemed necessary.
10 The national
and state governments lost no time after that in making prepa-
rations on an extensive scale. Many believed that the forces
under Barradas were but an advance guard of a large army.
The president organized a reserve army to occupy positions in
Jalapa, Córdoba, and Orizaba, whence it could operate north
and south, and placed the vice-president, Bustamante, in charge
of this reserve. At the same time, he put Montes de Oca in
charge of a large force in the south. He then urged the state
governments to raise militia for defense.
11
On August 29, Santa Anna was promoted to the rank of
general of division. The main outpost of the Spanish forces
was a fortress on the bar of Tampico. General de la Garza was
sent on a mission to Guerrero at Mexico City, and Santa Anna
promoted Mier y Terán to the position of second in command,
ordering him to occupy the pass of Doña Cecilia.
12 This pass
was located about halfway between the fortress on the bar and
Tampico.
Santa Anna's action in promoting Mier y Terán to Garza's
place is of particular importance to this study. Some mystery
surrounds the mission of de la Garza to Mexico City; Lorenzo
de Zavala hints that Garza was guilty either of treason or
cowardice and that Santa Anna wanted to be rid of him.
13 He
states that Mier y Terán often retreated under orders from
Garza, when a few more hours of fighting would have assured
victory for the Mexicans. Santa Anna, in his letter of Septem-
ber 1, to the Secretary of War and Navy, announced, "I have
named Teran second in chief subject to the approval of the
president. I have also named him commander of Garza's divi-
sion of troops, having sent Garza to the capital on a special
mission to the president." Regardless of why Garza went to
Mexico City, it remains that Mier y Terán became commander
of his troops and held the position of commandant general of
the Eastern Interior Provinces until his death in 1832.
By early September, the Spanish forces were materially re-
duced by casualties and illness. Santa Anna's ambition was to
force them to their knees, and he projected a night attack on
the fort at the bar. Mier y Teran advised against a night at-
tack, and urged, instead, a long bombardment and a well-
prepared assault, but he could not prevail over Santa Anna's
impetuous spirit. After several hours of bloody conflict, the
attacking forces had to retire, leaving the field littered with the
dead and wounded.
14 At the request of Barradas, Mier y Teran
reconciled his humanitarian instincts with military expediency
and allowed the wounded on both sides to be removed to Pueblo
Viejo where they would receive medical attention. He then
prepared for a sustained cannonading of the Spanish outpost.
This time, Santa Anna was willing to listen to his second in
command. Mier y Teran's tactics brought a request from
Barradas for an interview which resulted in the terms of capit-
ulation of September 11, 1829.
15
Barradas dressed with care to meet Mier y Teran and was
surprised to find the Mexican general covered with mud and
indistinguishable from the lowest soldier. "You," said Mier y
Terán, "have forced me to receive you like this." Barradas
was surprised by the good nature which Mier y Terán exhibited
and was much charmed by his gentlemanly manners.
16 The
articles of capitulation attracted wide attention by their leni-
ency, and are an index of the humane spirit of Mier y Terán.
The invaders were allowed to capitulate with the honors of
war, the officers retaining their swords, their lives and private
rights were solemnly guaranteed, care was pledged for the sick
and wounded, and quarters for them were provided at Victoria
pending their embarkation for Havana.
17
Whether these lenient terms required explanation or apology
we do not know, but Mier y Terán in his notification to Santa
Anna made his position clear:
"The termination of wars between civilized coun-
tries is a transaction in which reparations in propor-
tion to the offense are demanded; but on this occasion
it was not considered as a conclusion of a war between
Mexico and Spain, but rather, a single act of hostility
toward us in which Spain pitted her soldiers against
those of Vera Cruz and Tamaulipas, that is to say,
before using half the forces which came from the in-
terior, the enemy was completely checked. It was im-
possible to use more men in the field. In such terms
your Excellency has conceded a capitulation which is
the end of the campaign, in which the interests of the
republic are not in the least prejudiced. These might
have been gravely affected if the invading expedition
had been taken prisoners of war as doubtless they
could have been in two or three more days of blockade.
"Why imprison those of a government so justly
discredited as that of Spain, which was capable of
leaving its troops in perpetual imprisonment--even of
sacrificing them? It is a matter of incalculable gravity,
and it seems to me that your Excellency has stipulated
the best possible settlement of the case, that of dis-
missing the enemy and forcing it to return to the pres-
ence [vista]
of the tyrant who sent it. The result has
been a short, but painful campaign which exposed
momentarily the valor of the Mexican army. . . . There
has not been a single desertion out of the two thousand
men under my command."
18
Writers are inclined to disagree as to the relative merits of
Santa Anna and Mier y Terán at Tampico. Walter Edgar Han-
cock, who has made a creditable study of the early career of
Santa Anna, defends that chieftain most vigorously and cor-
rectly rebuts the insinuations often made to the effect that
Santa Anna arrived at Tampico later than Mier y Terán, and
that he usurped the command of troops belonging to the latter.
19
Mier y Terán's diary clears up the first point; he did not arrive
at Tampico until after August 13, and Santa Anna arrived at
Tuxpám on August 11. We have seen, also, that Mier y Terán
had no troops under his command, except as de la Garza's sub-
ordinate, until his promotion by Santa Anna. There remains,
however, the matter of services rendered the country. Two of
Santa Anna's recent biographers are surprisingly generous to
his second in command. Frank C. Hanighen accords Mier y
Terán and the mosquitoes equal credit for the repulse of the
invaders, and hints that Santa Anna arrogated to himself more
responsibility for the result than he deserved,
20 and Valadés also
minimizes Santa Anna's part in the campaign.
21
Of the contemporary historians, J. L. Mora was possibly the
most prejudiced in favor of Mier y Terán. The political con-
nections of Mora and Mier y Terán will be discussed in another
connection, but for the present the following will illustrate the
lengths to which some were willing to go to show that all honors
should not go to Santa Anna:
"Teran was a scholar who was worthy of a distin-
guished place in the Paris Academy of Sciences, and
furthermore he was a man of the highest distinction
with regard to integrity of conduct, social qualifica-
tions, polish of manner, and even personal appearance;
he fought always in the cause of independence, and
this with honor, purity of purpose, intelligence and
ability, during a period when examples of these virtues
were rare enough, and examples of their opposing
vices woefully frequent. In his political faith he was
a progressive. . . . Teran had ambition, but being honor-
able enough to realize that such should not be satisfied
at the price of civil war, he abandoned such a field
to the vulgarly ambitious. But when his country's
cause was endangered by Spanish invasion, he hastened
to the field of battle, where he won the laurels of a
victory due almost entirely to his efforts and genius."
22
News of the defeat of the Spaniards reached Mexico City on
September 20, and Santa Anna and Mier y Terán became the
heroes of the hour. They were glorified in prose and verse;
pageants were staged in which children represented the heroes.
23
Mier y Terán was advanced to the rank of general of division,
24
and the state congresses of Vera Cruz, Puebla, Jalisco, and
Zacatecas declared the two generals "beneméritos del estado, y
ciudadanos." The general congress, by decree of April 27, 1833,
granted to Mier y Terán's widow a gold medal, on the face of
which was the national coat of arms and the inscription, "He
overthrew the proud Spaniard at Tampico," and on the reverse,
"General Congress, 1833."
25
The task of seeing that the articles of capitulation were car-
ried out fell entirely on Mier y Terán's shoulders. Santa Anna,
on the plea of ill health, left Tampico for Vera Cruz on Septem-
ber 19, placing everything in the hands of his second in com-
mand. Santa Anna praised Mier y Terán to the Secretary of
War, Francisco Moctezuma, and recommended him for his
sterling qualities of leadership and lofty ideals.
26
The treaty of capitulation was fulfilled religiously on both
sides. The Spanish prisoners were treated kindly and every
effort was made to make their sojourn prior to departure as
comfortable as possible under the circumstances. Spain had
spent $1,500,000 in the futile attempt to reconquer Mexico.
Barradas, humiliated and broken in spirit, never returned to
Spain, but went from Mexico to New Orleans and from that
place to Paris, where he spent the remainder of his days. In
Paris, Barradas admitted that Mier y Terán had proved himself
to be a most adept general at Tampico. He further stated that
his men were deeply impressed by the Mexican general's kind-
ness and consideration, and that he formed a great liking for
him.
27
On October 2, a Spanish squadron of six vessels appeared off
the coast of Tampico. Mier y Terán sent José Batres, who by
this time had joined him, to the commander to inform him of
the capitulation. An exchange of messages followed but the
squadron left without making any attempt to communicate with
the Spaniards who were waiting for transportation to Havana.
28
Mier y Terán remained in the Tampico area until the end of
the year. In addition to carrying out the provisions of the
treaty with the Spaniards, he assumed the duties of commandant
general of the Eastern Interior Provinces and again turned his
attention to affairs in Texas. His work in this connection will
be taken up in the following chapters.
President Guerrero's cabinet consisted of Lorenzo de Zavala,
Minister of the Treasury and President of the Cabinet; José
M. Herrera, Minister of Justice and Ecclesiastical Affairs;
Francisco Moctezuma, Minister of War and Navy; and José M.
Boqanegra, Minister of Interior and Foreign Administration.
29
Much opposition developed to the ministry. After the defeat
of the Spaniards there was a general lull in the attacks on the
government, but this was of only short duration. A coalition of
states was formed to oppose the government, and even to ignore
the federal authority. At a time when he should have shown
strength, Guerrero vacillated. His motive was to secure peace,
but his action was weak. He sought allies from among his
opponents and tried to disarm his enemies by acts of clemency.
The exiled leaders of the plan of Montano were pardoned.
Barragán and Bravo both returned to Mexico, and both caused
trouble later.
30 Bocanegra, under pressure, requested the recall
of Poinsett, and Zavala was practically forced to resign by the
state legislature of Mexico. Bocanegra was transferred to the
treasury department and Agustín Viesca became minister of
relations. After Zavala's retirement, the partisans of Guerrero
became divided among themselves. The vice-president, Busta-
mante, made use of the reserve army at Jalapa with which
Guerrero had entrusted him, and under the pretense of restoring
constitutional order, proclaimed the Plan of Jalapa on Decem-
ber 4, 1829. Santa Anna tried to prevent the movement;
31
Bustamante issued a circular to the states in which he asked
their cooperation. Guerrero hoped to prevent a revolution by
surrendering his dictatorial powers, but congress refused to
accept his offer. He then assumed personal control of the army
and Bocanegra was named president ad
interim.
32 A successful
revolution, of short duration, followed; before the end of 1829,
all the states except Vera Cruz accepted Bustamante's plan.
Santa Anna, who was in control there, declared that he would
defend the established government with his life. When he
learned that Guerrero had abandoned the fight, however, he
recognized Bustamante.
33
Article 4 of the Plan of Jalapa provided that there should be
a complete change in the officials of the government.
According to Lorenzo de Zavala,
Mier y Terán accepted the
plan of the conspirators, under condition that this provision
should not apply to such officials who had been elected "by
popular appointment," and Zavala disapproves at some length
of the mischievous nature of this condition. He further dis-
approves of Mier y Terán's action in turning over to Busta-
mante certain compromising letters from José María Alpuche,
who headed a group in the Chamber of Representatives who
looked to Santa Anna and Mier y Terán to lead a counter-
revolution against Bustamante's usurpation, Alpuche had
opposed Mier y Terán's appointment as plenipotentiary to
Britain; and Zavala indicates that personal resentment might
be the key to the latter's action.
34
On January 1, 1830, Bustamante, as vice-president, assumed
the office of chief executive of Mexico. He appointed to his
cabinet Lúcas Alamán, Minister of Interior and Foreign Rela-
tions; José Ignacio Espinosa Vidaurre, Minister of Justice and
Ecclesiastical Affairs; Rafael Mangino, Minister of the Treas-
ury; and José Antonio Facio, Minister of War and Navy. He
offered the war and navy post to General Mier y Terán, who
declined it.
35 Facio and Mier y Terán had been fellow-students
in the College of Mines,
36 and were close friends. Thus, when
Mier y Terán turned his attention to affairs in Texas, he had
three close, personal friends high in government positions who
promoted the operation of his plans. His friendship with
Alamán, as we have seen, began when they were members of the
ministry under the poder
ejecutivo.
His friendly relations with
Bustamante began when the boundary commission reached
Laredo in February, 1828.
FOOTNOTES:
Archivo General de Mexico, Guerra, Frac. 1, Leg. 7, op. mil. 1836. The
University of Texas (Barker) Transcripts.
in Correo de la Federación Mexicana, June 5, 1829; further discussions in
M. Rivera, Historia de Jalapa, II, 524-529; C. M. de Bustamante, in Voz de la
Patria, I, June 17, 1829.
No. 937, August 29, 1829; No. 940, September 19, 1829, p. 54.
Méjico, XI, 749.
MS., in Wagner Collection, Yale University Library. The University of
Texas Microfilm.
chea to Jesús de Ybarra, Camp, 3 leagues from Altamira, August 18, 1829,
in The Texas Gazette, September 25,1829. [Translated from the Constitu -
tional Gazette of Coahuil-texas, published at Leona Vicario, dated Sep-
tember 4.]
27, 1829, in The Texas Gazette, September 25, 1829. Carlos María de
Bustamante mentions Mier y Terán's serenity under fire at Tampico. "His
military and political conduct is applauded in North American newspapers,
and in one of them he is shown seated on the gun-carriage of a cannon
during an attack, placidly eating a chocolate bar as his only food for that
day . . ."—La Marimba, July 13, 1832.
Gazette, under "National Affairs", October 24, 1829.
September 1, 1829, in Correo de la Federación Mexicana, September 10, 1829.
This promotion was subject, of course, to Guerrero's approval, but that
was soon forthcoming. N. Zamacois, Historia de Méjico, XI, 768.
1829, announced Garza's arrival, and defended his ambiguous statements
about events at Tampico as a part of the government's plan of secrecy in
regard to operations there. See letter from Santa Anna to Guerrero in
Voz de la Patria, March 2, 1831.
y Terán as an able military strategist pleading with the reckless Santa
Anna without avail.
translation into English differing slightly in punctuation and in minor
details appears in Niles' Weekly Register, XXXVII, No. 947, November 7,
1829, p. 166. Several copies in Spanish are available. See Correo, Septem-
ber 22, 1829; N. Zamacois, Historia de Méjico, XI, n. (2), 793-794; J.
Suárez y Navarro, Historia de México, n. 159-160; C. M. de Bustamante,
Memorias para la Invasión, etc., 1921; since this paper was originally pre-
pared the writer has had the privilege of examining the rare manuscript
collection of Hernández y Dávalos, Documentos Inéditos para la Historia
de México. Expediente No. 20 contains a wealth of source material on the
Spanish Invasion but does not change the story as here told. Of particular
interest to this study are Relación de la expedición de Barradas sobre Tam-
pico en Julio de 1829 formada por el General Don Manuel Mier y Terán "La
voz de la Patria". 7 de agosto. [Letter táb Oct. 18,1830]; Partes de Garza
al Gral. Mier y Terán, de Julio 29, sobre una acción para impedir que los
españoles se apoderen del Puerto de Tampico; Carta del Gral. Santa
Anna al Gral. Mier y Terán, agosto 24 de 1829, nombrándolo general en se-
gundo del Ejército de operaciones. Besides these priceless manuscripts
Davalos preserved copies of El Boletín Oficial (Mexico, 1829) in which all
official correspondence concerning the attempted invasion was published,
See Nos. 22-34 inclusive.
Moreliano (Morelia), October 8, 1829; Correo, October 5, 1829.
1794-1833, MS. (Thesis, 1933) The University of Texas Library, 460-481,
Moreliano, October 12, 1829; ibid., October 15, and 22, November 2, 1829;
Francisco Ortega, "Aniversario de Tampico," in V. Filisola, La Guerra de
Tejas, I, 148-153.
Historia de Jalapa, II, 547.
Históricos de la Heroica Ciudad de Vera-Cruz, II, 345. Two short extracts
will serve to illustrate the attitude of Mexican historians towards the
leaders at Tampico: "We defended our Independence at Tampico, and if we
survive today as a nation, we owe it to the valor of Santa Anna, and to the
prudence of Terán." C. M. de Bustamante, Memorias para la Invasión,
etc., 29. "He [Santa Anna] with his activity, Terán with his prudence,
foresight, and knowledge, the officers with their intrepidity, the soldiers
with their bravery, and all with their patriotism and constancy in their
labors, contributed to bringing about a happy ending to the enterprise which
the government had entrusted to the first." N. Zamacois, Historia de
Méjico, XI, 803.
September 19,1829, in Correo, October 2, 1829; El Astro Moreliano, October
12, 1829, pp. 221-224.
October, 14, 1829. There is no need further to concern ourselves with the
Spanish invasion and its settlement. Further details of purely military
interest are given in the following correspondence: Mier y Terán to Vicente
Romero, Governor of San Luis Potosí, Doña Cecilia, September 9, 1829, in
Suplemento al Astro Moreliano, September 21, 1829; Same to Same, Pueblo
Viejo, October 17, 1829, in Correo, November 5, 1829, p. 250; Mier y Terán
to Carlos María de Bustamante, Pueblo Viejo, October 4, 1829, in Correo,
November 2, 1829, p. 246, and November 5, 1829, p. 250. See also, The
Texas Gazette, October 13, 1829. Rafael Maria Camargo wrote Mier y
Terán from Bordeaux, December 15, 1829, congratulating him on his victory
over his old enemy, Barradas. MS., in archives of Hospital de Jesús in
Archivo General de la Nación, México, Legajo 416, Expediente 1.
"Guerrero did the thinking; Herrera helped him; Zavala contradicted
him; Bocanegra put their thoughts in Spanish and Moctezuma carried
them out.
For the above mentioned affair
Two men were more than enough;
But they being such as they were
Four were necessary.
--Iriarte, Fable of the Four Cripples.
C. M. de Bustamante, in Voz de la Patria, January 21, 1830, p. 8.
Méjico, XI, 745-746.
of Mier y Terán's accusations Alpuche was exiled for a period of six years.
M. Rivera, Historia de Jalapa, II, 590. N. Zamacois, Historia de Méjico,
XI, 835, gives the date of Alpuche's letter, January 23, 1830, and says
that Mier y Terán sent all the evidence to Facio, Minister of War. See
also J. Suárez y Navarro, Historia de México, 199-200.
Méjico, XI, 831.
CHECK LIST OF TEXAS IMPRINTS
1846-1876
Edited by
E. W. Winkler
Editor's
Note:
The following is the fourth installment of Mr. Winkler's "Check List of
Texas Imprints, 1846-1876." In the first installment, which appeared in the April, 1943,
Quarterly,
Mr. Winkler requests any person having knowledge of any additional item which
should appear on the list to write him care of The University of Texas Library, Austin 12,
Texas. It is expected that any information thus received will be utilized in subsequent re-
printings of this bibliography.
Baggerly, G. G.
A sermon on baptism and communion, preached at Macedonia
church, Travis county, Texas, October 20, 1850, by Rev. G. G.
Baggerly, Pastor of the Baptist church, Austin. . . . [Text.]
Austin: Printed at the State Gazette office. 1851. 17 p. 20.5
cm. 210
TxU.
Baptists. Texas.
Minutes of the fifth annual session of the Colorado
Baptist
association,
held with the Macedonia church, Travis county,
Texas, September 12, 13, and 15, 1851. Austin: Printed by
Cushney &
Hampton, State Gazette office. 1851. 15 p. 20 cm. 21
1
TxFwSB.
Minutes of the second annual session of the Eastern
Texas
association
of United Baptists, begun and held at the Zion
church, Shelby county, Texas, on the second Lord's day in Octo-
ber, 1851. San Augustine, Texas. Printed at the Redland
Herald office, November, 1851. 8 p. 22 cm. 212
TxFwSB.
Church covenant and constitution of the Ebenezer
Baptist
church. Organized on Cash's Creek, November 9th, 1851. Mata-
gorda: Printed at the "Colorado Tribune" office, [n. d. 1851?]
8 p. 21 cm. 213*
TxU. Wright.
Minutes of the third annual meeting of the Elm
Fork
associa
-
tion
of United Baptists, begun and held with Union church,
Dallas Co., Texas, on Friday before the second Saturday in
October, 1851, and following days. [At end:] Advertiser print,
Bonham, Texas. 4 p. 28 cm. 214
Caption title.
NHC-S (typed copy).
Minutes of the fourth annual session of the Baptist
state
convention
of Texas, held at Independence, in June, 1851. Wash-
ington: Printed at the Texas Ranger office. 1851. 24 p. 22
cm. ppw. 215
NHC-S. TxFwSB. TxU. TxWB.
Minutes of the twelfth annual meeting of the Union
Baptist
association,
held with Washington church, Washington Co.,
Texas, on the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th days of October, 1851.
Galveston: Printed by J. M. Conrad, at the "News" job office.
1851. 14, [2] p. 21 cm. 216
NHC-S. TxFwSB. TxHSJM. TxU (microfilm).
Bell, P. H.
To the people of Texas. . . . [Announces his candidacy for
re-election to the office of governor.] P. H. Bell. Austin, May
22, 1851. 217*
Not seen: reprinted in the Texas
Republican,
June 14, 1851, p. 2
Burress, A. D.
To the voters of Harrison and Upshur counties. . . . [An-
nounces himself an independent candidate for representative.]
A. D. Burress. July 5, 1851. 218*
Not seen: reprinted in the Texas
Republican,
July 19, 1851, p. 1.
To the voters of Harrison and Upshur counties. ... [I have
concluded to decline the canvass.] A. D. Burress. Marshall,
July 29, 1851. 219*
To the people of Texas. ... [I am a candidate for your
suffrages at the approaching election for the office of governor
of the State.] T. J. Chambers. 220*
Not seen: reprinted in the Texas
Republican,
July 5, 1851, p. 1.
Choctaw nation.
Memorial of the executive and legislative departments, and of
many citizens of the Choctaw nation. To the Legislature of the
State of Texas. [Austin: Printed by Cushney & Hampton,
State Gazette office. 1851.] 221*
Not seen: 500 copies ordered to be printed (Senate
Journal,
4th
Leg
-
islature,
1st
session,
p. 145-146, 174.)
Coles, W. T. F.
To the voters of Lamar and Fannin counties. . . . [An-
nounces his candidacy for representative.] W. T. F. Coles. 222*
Crosby, Stephen.
To the voters of Texas. . . . [Announces his candidacy for
commissioner of the General land office.] Stephen Crosby. Aus-
tin, April 23, 1851. 223*
Epperson, Benjamin H.
To the voters of the State of Texas. . . . [Announces his
candidacy for governor.] Benj. H. Epperson. Henderson,
Texas, June 27, 1851. Broadside. 1 p., printed in three columns.
26.5 x 37 cm. (20.5 x23 cm.) 224
TxU.
Fisher, Orceneth.
The Christian sacraments; or, A scriptural exhibition of the
nature, design, mode and subjects of Christian baptism. . . .
Nacogdoches. March, 1851. 225*
Not seen: cited on title page of History
of
Immersion.
.
. By Orceneth
Fisher. Rusk,
1852.
Freemasons. Texas.
The constitution of the Grand
lodge
of Free and Accepted
masons,
of the State of Texas, adopted at the grand annual
communication held in the city of Austin, January, A. D. 1848,
A. L. 5848. Houston: Printed at the Beacon office. 1851. 28 p.
20 cm. 226
IaCrM. PPFM.
Proceedings of the Grand
lodge
of Texas, at the fourteenth
grand annual communication, held at the town of Henderson,
commencing on Monday, January 20th, A. D. 1851. A. L. 5851.
Huntsville: Printed at the "Texas Presbyterian" office, 1851.
199 p. 19 cm. 227
IaCrM. MBFM. NNFM. TxElp.
Constitution of the Grand
Chapter
of
Royal
Arch
masons,
for the State of Texas, [adopted by the Convention at Galveston,
December 30th, 1850.] Washington: Printed at the Texas
Ranger office, 1851. 227a
*
Not seen; reprinted in Transactions
of
the
Grand
Royal
Arch
chapter
of
Texas
from
its
organization
in
1850,
to
1890,
inclusive,
... by Geo.
Lopas, Jr., Grand secretary. . . . Volume I, 1850-1872. Dealy & Baker,
. . . Houston, Texas. 1897. vol. I, p. 19-25. Cited hereinafter as Lopas
(comp.) Transactions
Grand
Royal
Arch
Chapter
of
Texas.
Constitution of the Grand
Royal
Arch
chapter
of Texas, re-
vised and adopted, at Huntsville, on the 23d June, A. D. 1851,
R. A. M. 2385. Austin: Printed at the office of the State
Gazette. 1851. 24 p. 21 cm. 228
Constitution of the General Grand Royal Arch chapter, as amended on
10th September, 1850, is printed on pages [12]-24.
NNFM. PPFM. TxU.
Proceedings of the convention of Royal
Arch
masons
for the
State of Texas, [held in Galveston December 27, 28, and 30,
1850.] Washington: Printed at the Texas Ranger office:
1851. 228a
*
Not seen; reprinted in Lopas (comp.) Transactions
Grand
Royal
Arch
Chapter
of
Texas,
vol. I, p. 13-19.
Proceedings of the Grand
Royal
Arch
chapter
of Texas, at its
session in the town of Huntsville, on the 23d of June, A. D. 1851,
R. A. M. 2385. Austin: Printed by Cushney & Hampton, State
Gazette office. 1851. 88 p. 21 cm. ppw. 229
The cover title reads: Proceedings of the Grand Royal Arch of Texas,
held in the town of Huntsville, June 22, 1851; together with tine constitu-
tions of the State and General Grand chapters. Austin: Printed at the
office of the State Gazette. 1851.
NNFM. OC. TxU.
Greer, John A.
To the voters of the State of Texas. . . . [Announces his
candidacy for governor.] John A. Greer. San Augustine, Texas,
March, 1851. 230*
Hunt, Memucan.
Address of Memucan Hunt, to the people of Texas, soliciting
the payment of his claims against the State, at the next regular
session of the Legislature, with a few of his public and private
papers, in behalf of what he deemed the best interests of Texas
in 1836, until annexation; together with a speech of the Hon.
W. M. Williams, before the last regular session of the Legisla-
ture, in behalf of said claims; with which speech is a copy of a
letter from Ex-president Houston, in reference to Memucan
Hunt in 1836. Galveston: Printed at the office of the News.
1851. 83, [1] p. 20 cm. 231
The address (Pages [3]-14) is dated, Austin, April 3, 1851. It is ac-
companied by the following documents:
1. To the brave and generous. Oxford, North Carolina, August 8th,
1836. pp. [15]-18.
3. Gen. Hunt to Mr. Forsyth. Texian Legation, Washington City,
August 4, 1837; John Forsyth, Department of State, Washington, August
25, 1837, to General Hunt; Gen. Hunt to Mr. Forsyth, Texian Legation,
Washington City, September 12, 1837. p. [21]-43.
4. Address of Memucan Hunt, Galveston, July 6th, 1844, published in
the Galveston
News,
July 20th, 1844. pp. 43-56.
5. Address to the people of Texas, by a Committee at Galveston, of
which Memucan Hunt was chairman, March 28, 1845, in favor of annexa-
tion, pp. 56-78.
CU. TxU.
Memorial of Memucan Hunt to the Legislature of the State
of Texas. Austin: Printed by Cushney and Hampton, State
Gazette office. 1851. 6 p. 20.5 cm. 232
The memorial is dated, Austin, November 24, 1851.
TxWFM,
Supplement by Memucan Hunt to his Memorial, presented to
the Legislature of Texas, Nov. 24, 1851. [Austin:] State
Gazette office. 1851. Broadside. 1 p. 21 x 20.5 cm. 233
The Supplement is dated, Austin, Nov. 29, 1851.
TxWFM.
Johnson, M. T.
To my Fellow-citizens of Texas. . . . [Announces his candi-
dacy for governor.] M. T. Johnson. Henderson, Texas, April
14th, 1851. 234*
Keenan, C. G.
To the voters of Texas. . . . [Announces his candidacy for
lieutenant-governor.] C. G. Keenan. 235*
Not seen: reprinted in Texas
State
Gazette,
June 7, 1851, p. 329
McKinney, Samuel.
Address [at the laying of the cornerstone of Austin College,]
. . . Huntsville, Texas, 1851. [n. p. Huntsville ? 1851.]
12 p. 236
The cornerstone was laid June 24, 1851
DLC.
McLeod, Hugh.
Speech of Gen. Hugh McLeod. Delivered at Austin, Saturday,
May 17, 1851. [n. p. Austin ? 1851] Broadside. 2 p., printed
in three columns. 34.5 x 49.5 cm. (29.5 x 44.3 cm). 237
McLeod was candidate for congressman. Printed also in the Texas
State
Gazette,
May 24, 1851, p. 312-313.
Tx. TxU.
Milam, James.
Memorial of the heirs of Benjamin R. Milam, to the Legisla-
ture of Texas, praying relief. . . . Austin: De Cordova and
company, S. W. American office. 1851. 7 p. 20 cm. 239
TxWFM.
Odd-fellows. Texas.
Constitution and by-laws of Victoria
lodge
no.
9,
I. 0. 0. F.
State of Texas. Instituted at Victoria, March, 1849. . . .
[Motto] Victoria: Logan & Sterne, pr[inter]s. 1851. 24 p.
18 cm. 240
TxU.
Pease, E. M.
Fellow-citizens of the State of Texas. . . . [Announces his
candidacy for governor.] E. M. Pease. Brazoria, May,
1851. 241*
Peters' colony. See
Texan emigration and land company.
Protestant Episcopal church. Texas.
Journal of the proceedings of the second annual convention
of the Protestant Episcopal church in the Diocese of Texas, held
in Trinity church, Galveston, from May 1st
to May 3d, inclusive,
A. D. 1851. With an appendix. Houston: Printed at the Tele-
graph office. 1851. 40 p. 20 cm. ppw. 242
ICU. IU.
MB. MBD. MiD-B. NBuDD. Tx. TxU.
Roberts, O. M.
To my fellow-citizens of the first Congressional district. . . .
[Announces his candidacy for representative in Congress.] O.
M. Roberts. Shelbyville, Texas, March 14, 1851. 243*
Not seen: reprinted in the Texas
Republican,
March 22, 1851.
Ruthven, A. S., Grand secretary.
To the worshipful master, wardens and brethren ... [Relative
to the long delay in printing the Proceedings of the Grand lodge
for 1851.] A. S. Ruthven, Grand secretary. Houston, August
1, 1851. 243
a*
Not seen; reprinted in Ruthven (comp.) Proceedings
Grand
Lodge
of
Texas,
I, p. 486.
Schott, James, and Whitney, E. D.
Memorial of James Schott and E. D. Whitney, to the Legis-
lature of Texas, praying for a compliance with the contract
made with them, in the name of their associate, by the late
Republic of Texas, for furnishing, in the year 1838, the vessels,
armaments, clothing, provisions, etc., for its naval service, [n.
p. Austin,] 1851. 16 p. 20.6 cm. 244*
The Memorial is dated Philadelphia, Oct. 22, 1851. The Memorial of
Fred'k Dawson, their associate, appears on pages 13-16. Cf.
no. 141a.
Tx. TxWFM.
Supplemental memorial of James Schott and E. D. Whitney,
to the fourth Legislature of the State of Texas, [n. p. Austin,]
1851. 13 p. 21 cm. 245
The supplement is dated Austin, December 1st,
1851. Attention is called
to an error in the report of the Auditor and Comptroller, published since
their Memorial was prepared.
Tx. TxWFM.
Smith, Nathan.
To the voters of Harrison county. . . . [Announces his can-
didacy for representative.] N. Smith. July 1st,
1851. 246*
Not seen: reprinted in the Texas
Republican,
July 5, 1851, p. 2
Southern rights association.
Circular of the Southern Rights association of Matagorda
county. To the friends of Southern rights in Texas: ... By
order of the association. James C. Wilson, P. E. Peareson,
M. Talbot, pub. committee. 246
a*
Not seen: reprinted in the Texas
Republican,
Jan. 11, 1851, p. 1.
Taylor, Joseph.
To the voters of Texas. . . . [Reply to the attacks of a rival
candidate.] Joseph Taylor. Marshall, August 2, 1851. 247*
Texan emigration and land company.
Memorial of the trustees of Peters' colony. To the Legislature
of the State of Texas, praying for a settlement and compromise
of the matters in controversy between the State, the contractors,
and the colonists. Austin: Printed by De Cordova & Company.
1851. 15 p. 19.9 cm. 248
TxWFM.
Texas (Provisional government). General council.
Fall of Bejar and Surrender of General Cos !! [Austin ?
1851.] 249*
Not seen. A reprint of this broadside was arranged for by General
Burleson shortly before his death. (Senate
Journal,
4th
Legislature,
1st
session,
p. 286).
Texas. Attorney-general. (Ebenezer Allen.)
Report of the Attorney-general. Austin: Printed by Cushney
& Hampton, "State Gazette" office. 1851. 13 p. 18.5 cm. 250
The report was transmitted by the Governor to the Legislature on
December 8, 1851.
TxWFM.
Texas. Auditor and Comptroller.
Report of the Auditor and Comptroller to the fourth Legis-
lature, on the public debt of Texas. Austin: Printed by Cush-
ney & Hampton, "State Gazette" office. 1851. 12 p. 20.5 cm. 251
John M. Swisher, Auditor; James B. Shaw, Comptroller. The report is
dated Austin, November 12, 1851.
M.
Tx. TxU. TxWFM.
Document A, accompanying the Report of the Auditor and
Comptroller, on the public debt. [Austin: Printed by Cushney
& Hampton, "State Gazette" office.] 1851. 6p. 20.5 cm. 252
TxWFM.
Texas. Commissioners to investigate land titles.
Report of the Commissioners to investigate land titles west
of the Nueces. [Austin: Printed by De Cordova & Co., 1851.]
61 p. 20.5 cm. 253
TxSa. TxWFM.
Texas. Comptroller's office. (James B. Shaw.)
Report of the Comptroller, for the years 1850 & 1851. Austin:
Printed by De Cordova & co., S. W. American office. 1851.
224 p. 20 cm. 254
The report is dated November 14, 1851, and covers the period from
Oct. 31st, 1849, to Oct. 31st, 1851. A contract for printing 500 additional
copies was made with De Cordova & co., Dec. 13, 1851. (Senate
Journal,
p. 182, 533.)
Tx. TxU. TxWFM.
Texas. Governor, 1849-1851. (P. H. Bell.)
Message of the Governor of the State of Texas, with the ac-
companying documents, read to the Legislature, Nov. 10, 1851.
Austin: Printed by Cushney & Hampton, State Gazette office.
1851. 82 p. 21.5 cm. 255
TxWFM.
An edition of the Governor's message, without the documents, was
ordered to be printed at the South-western American office. (House
Jour
-
nal,
4th
Legislature,
1st
session,
p. 75.) Not seen: the message appears
in Senate
Journal,
p. 24-49, and House
Journal,
p. 39-45.
Botschaft des Governeurs des Staates Texas gelesen in beiden
Haeusern der vereinten Sitzung der Legislatur, am lOten No-
vember, 1851. Mit Staats Ermächtigung. Austin: Gedruckt
in der Druckerei des "State Gazette". 1851. 32 p. 20.2 cm. 257
Printed in Roman type.
TxU.
Message of November 10, 1851. Spanish edition. 258*
Not seen: 500 copies were ordered to be printed. (Senate
Journal,
p.
148; House
Journal,
p. 75.)
Proclamation. By the Governor of the State of Texas. . . .
[Orders a general election of state and district officers to be
held August 4, 1851.] P. H. Bell, Governor. Austin, May 24,
1851. Broadside. Ip. 41.5 x 52.5 cm. (25.8 x 43.8 cm.) 259
Tx
Texas. Governor, 1851-1853. (P. H. Bell.)
Inaugural address of Governor Bell, and inaugural address of
Lieutenant-governor James W. Henderson, December 22,
1851. 260*
Not seen; 1000 copies ordered to be printed. (House
Journal,
p. 372.)
These addresses appear also in Senate
Journal,
p. 201-209, and in House
Journal,
p. 364-370.
Texas. 4th Legislature
Proceedings of the Senate and House of Representatives of
the Legislature of Texas, on the occasion of the death of General
Edward Burleson, which occured Dec. 26, 1851. Printed at the
State Gazette office, by Cushney & Hampton. 1851. 31 p.
20.5 cm. ppw. 261
Those who spoke were James C. Wilson, in the Senate; Hamilton P. Bee
and B. E. Tarver in the House of Representatives; Guy M. Bryan, before
the two Houses in joint session; James Webb, before the Supreme court;
and Rev. Edward Fontaine, at the grave.
TxU
Texas. 4th Legislature. Senate.
A bill to provide for the reception and deposit of a portion of
the indemnity due the State of Texas by the United States, for
the sale of a portion of her north-western territory, under the
provisions of an act of the Congress of the United States, ap-
proved September 9th, 1850. 262*
Not seen; 50 copies ordered to be printed (Senate
Journal,
p. 154.)
A bill providing for the liquidation and payment of the debt
of the late Republic of Texas. 263*
Not seen; 150 copies ordered to be printed (Ibid.,
p. 158.)
Texas. 4th Legislature. House of Representatives.
A bill to be entitled an act to provide for the liquidation of the
public debt of the late Republic of Texas. 264*
A bill to be entitled an act confirming- the action of the Audi-
tor and Comptroller under the provisions of an act of the Leg-
islature of the State of Texas providing- for the ascertaining of
the public debt of the late Republic of Texas, approved March
20, 1848, and the act supplementary thereto, approved Febru-
ary 5, 1850. 2
65
*
Not seen; 200 copies ordered to be printed (Ibid.,
p. 235)
A bill to be entitled an act to provide for the reception and
disposition of a portion of the indemnity due the State of Texas
by the United States for the sale of a portion of her northern
and eastern [sic] territory, under the provisions of an act of
Congress approved September 9, 1850. 266*
Not seen; 200 copies ordered to be printed (Ibid.,
p. 235)
A bill to be entitled an act making an appropriation for the
payment of that portion of the debt of the late Republic of Texas
for which impost revenues of said late Republic were not
pledged, according to the decision of the President of the United
States. 267*
Not seen; 200 copies ordered to be printed (Ibid.,
p. 235-236)
A bill to be entitled an act to provide for the liquidation and
payment of certain claims, bonds and liabilities of the late Re-
public of Texas. 268*
Not seen; 200 copies ordered to be printed (Ibid.,
p. 236)
A bill to encourage internal improvements in the State of
Texas, with the substitute reported by the majority of the com-
mittee on Internal Improvements. 269*
Not seen; 200 copies of the substitute ordered to be printed (Ibid.,
p
284-286.)
Communication of the Auditor to the House of Representa-
tives, in reference to Memucan Hunt's account, with the report
of the Committee to whom said account was referred. 4 p.
20 cm. 270
Caption title. Appears also in House
Journal,
p. 339-343, 348-350.
TxWFM
Not seen; 200 copies ordered to be printed (Ibid.,
p. 13.)
Texas. Supreme court,
Reports of cases argued and decided in the Supreme court of
the State of Texas, during December term, 1848. By James
Webb and Thomas H. Duval, Counsellors-at-law, and Reporters
of the decisions of the Supreme court of Texas. Volume 111.
Austin: State Gazette office--Cushney & Hampton, printers.
MDCCCLI. [viii,] 571 p. 20.7 cm. 272
Ar-SC. Ct. G. Ia. IaDaGL. In-SC. L. LNUCA. MdBB. Me-L. MoKB.
NN. NNLT. Nb. Nj. Nv. PPTU-L. PU-L. RPL. TxDaM-L. TxGR.
TxHSA. TxSaSM-L. TxU-L. TxWB-L. US1C. W.
Theobalds, W. W.
Address; delivered before Frontier division, Sons of Temper-
ance, and the citizens of Brownsville, on the occasion of the
celebration of Washington's birth-day, February 22d, 1851. By
W. W. Theobalds, Esq. Brownsville: Printed at the office of
the Sentinel. 1851. 16 p. 19 cm. 273
CSmH. InID.
Wallace, B. Rush.
To the electors of the first Congressional district. . . . [An-
nounces his candidacy for representative in Congress.] B. Rush
Wallace. San Augustine, March 7, 1851. 27
4*
Ward, Matt.
To the voters of Texas. . . . [Announces his candidacy for
governor.] Matt. Ward. 275*
Circular. . . . [About his candidacy for commissioner of the
General land office.] Thos. Wm. Ward. 276*
Not seen; reference is made to this circular in the Texas
State
Gazette,
July 26, 1851, p. 384.
Webb, James.
To the voters of Texas. . . . [Announces his candidacy for
associate justice of the Supreme court.] James Webb. Austin,
March 20, 1851. 277*
Williams, William M.
Circular. . . . [Announces his candidacy for state senator
for the district composed of Lamar and Fannin counties.] Wil-
liam M. Williams. 278*
Not seen; reference is made to this circular in the Texas
State
Gazette,
July 26, 1851, p. 383.
Wood, S. D.
To the voters of Harrison county. ... [Announces his can-
didacy for representative.] S. D. Wood. 279*
Not seen; reprinted in the Texas
Republican,
June 28, 1851, p. 2.
Baptists. Texas
Minutes of the sixth annual session of the Colorado
Baptist
association,
held with Plum Grove church, Fayette county,
Texas, September 10, 11, and 13, 1852. Printed at "The Monu-
ment" office, La Grange, 1852. 13 p. 20 cm. 290
TxFwSB.
Minutes of the third annual session of the Eastern Texas
association
of United Baptists, held on the second Lord's day
of Oct. 1852, with the Rocky Spring church, Cherokee county,
Texas. San Augustine: Printed at the office of the Herald.
1852. 8 p. 16 cm. 291
NHC-S.
Minutes of the fourth annual meeting of the Elm
Fork
asso
-
ciation
of United Baptists. Begun and held with the Liberty
church, Collin county, Texas, on the second Saturday in October,
1852, and following days. [n. p.] 4 p. 28 cm. 292
Caption title
NHC-S (typed copy).
Minutes of the fifth annual session of the Baptist
State
con
-
vention,
of Texas, held at Marshall, in June, 1852. Washing-
ton: Printed at the Lone Star office. [1852?] 32 p. 20 cm. 293
NHC-S. TxWB.
Baylor university. Independence, Texas.
A catalogue of the Board of trustees, faculty and students of
Baylor University. 294*
Not seen; receipt of a copy acknowledged by the Texas
State
Gazette,
June 26, 1852, p. 354.
Burnet, David G.
Review of The
Life
of
Gen.
Sam
Houston,
as
recently
pub
-
lished
in
Washington
city
by
J.
T.
Towers.
By D. G. Burnet,
First president of Texas. Galveston: News power press print.,
1852. 15 p. 21.5 cm. 295
The preface is dated, Oakland, Texas, May 5, 1852,
MoSM. Tx. TxU.
Chappell Hill college. Chappell Hill, Texas.
[Chappell Hill college. Heretofore Chappell Hill male and
female institute . . . was reopened on Monday, the 4th of Oc-
tober last . . . The next spring session will commence on . . .
the 7th of March, 1853] . . . [n. p.] Broadside. 1 p., printed
in two columns. 18.5 x 23.5 cm. (14.5 x 15.5 cm.) 296
Txu.
Crawford, G. W., and Applewhite, I., Committee.
Statistical address to the people of Austin & Washington
counties, on the subject of railroads, by a Comittee. 297*
Not seen; receipt of pamphlet is recorded in South-western
American,
August 11, 1852, p. 2.
Democratic party. Texas.
Proceedings of the Democratic state convention, assembled
at Austin, Jan. 8, 1852. [Austin:] Printed at the office of the
South Western American. 1852. 16 p. 20.2 cm. 298
TxU.
Circular of the Democratic state central committee to the
members of the county committees. Austin, Texas, August 28,
1852. W. D. Miller, chairman state central committee. 299*
Not seen; reprinted in Texas
State
Gazette,
Sept. 4, 1852, p. 18.
To the Democracy of Texas. . . . [Call for a State conven-
tion to meet at Austin, February 22, 1853.] W. D. Miller, Chair-
man Democratic state central committee. Austin, December 6,
1852. 300*
Fisher, Orceneth.
History of immersion, as a religious rite; from its rise among
the Jews, to the present time. Including its introduction into
the Christian church, and the several changes it has undergone
at different periods since that time. By Orceneth Fisher, author
of the "Baptismal Catechism," "Christian Sacraments," etc.
[Revelations, 1:3.] Rusk: Printed at the "Cherokee Sentinel"
office. 1852. 90 p. 20 cm. 301
Preface is dated, Rusk, Texas, March 20, 1852.
TxU.
The Temple of Solomon: and its signification: or, The moral
of ancient free masonry: the substance of a sermon preached
before Euclid lodge, no. 45, of Free and Accepted masons, in
the town of Rusk, Texas, June 24, A. D. 1852, A. L. 5852.
By Rev. Orceneth Fisher, D. D., and published at the unanimous
request of the lodge. [Rusk: Printed at the "Cherokee Sentinel"
office. 1852.] 302*
Fontaine, Edward.
Address of Rt. W. Edward Fontaine, Grand chaplain, de-
livered at Austin, on the 22d January, 1852, at the installation
of the officers of the Grand lodge of Texas. Austin: State
Gazette job office--Cushney & Hampton, printers. 1852. 15 p.
20.5 cm. ppw. 303
Cover title. Cf.
no. 307.
MH. PPFM. TxU. TxWFM.
Freemasons. Texas.
By-laws of Austin
lodge,
no.
12.
Ratified, January 14, 1845.
Austin: State Gazette job office--Cushney & Hampton, printers.
1852. 7 p. 20.5 cm. ppw. 304
Cover title.
TxU.
By-laws of Freedom
lodge,
no.
100,
Fredericksburg, Texas.
Austin: Printed by Cushney & Hampton, 1852. 7 p. 20.5
cm. 305
IaCrM.
[Official list of the grand officers elected by the Grand lodge
of Texas, at Austin, January 19, 1852.] A. S. Ruthven, Grand
secretary, [n. p.] 2 p. 27 cm. 306
PPFM.
Proceedings of the Grand
lodge
of Texas, at the fifteenth
grand annual communication, held in the city of Austin, com-
mencing January 19, A. D. 1852, A. L. 5852. Ordered to be
read in all the lodges under this jurisdiction, for the informa-
tion of the brethren. A. S. Ruthven, Grand secretary. Austin:
Printed by Cushney & Hampton, Gazette office. 1852. 192,
xv p. 21 cm. 307
Address of Rt. W. Edward Fontaine, Grand chaplain delivered at the
installation of the Grand officers, p. i-xv.
IaCrM. MBFM. NNFM. TxElp. TxU.
Proceedings of the Grand
Royal
Arch
chapter
of Texas, at
the third grand annual convocation, held at the town of Bren-
ham, commencing June 22d., A. D. 1852, R. A. M. 2386; to-
gether, with the Proceedings of the Council of the Order of
High Priesthood for the State of Texas. James M. Hall, Grand
secretary, Crockett, Houston county, Texas. 1852. Washing-
ton—Printed at the Lone Star office. 72 p. 19.5 cm. 308
OC. TxU.
Galveston and Red River railway company.
Circular of the Commissioners of the Galveston and Red
River railway company, to the Citizens of Texas. Paul Bremond,
President board of commissioners. 309
*
Gibson. L. S.
A discourse delivered on the occasion of the death of Mrs.
Lurana Jane Buckley, in the Presbyterian church, Houston,
Texas. . . Galveston, Tex. 1852 310
PPPrHi.
Guadalupe high school. Seguin, Texas
"Catalogue of the officers, members of the association and
students of the Guadalupe high school." Seguin, Texas. 311*
Not seen; receipt of catalogue mentioned by the Texas
State
Gazette,
Aug. 28, 1852, p. 11.
Hamilton. A. J
To the people of Texas. . . [Announces his candidacy for
attorney general.] A. J. Hamilton. Austin, June 30, 1852. 312*
Hamilton. James
To the people of Texas. . . [A plan for paying the public
debt.] James Hamilton. Austin, Texas, Feb. 20, 1852. Austin:
The Texas State Gazette Extra. 1852. Broadside. 1 p., printed
in double columns. 22 x 48 cm. (19.5 x45 cm.) 313
Appears also in the Texas State
Gazette,
Feb. 21, 1852, p. 211.
TxU.
Hancock v. Horton.
... Argument in the Supreme court of Texas, at Austin
November term, 1851, by John Sayles, attorney and counsellor-
at-law, Brenham, Washington County. Austin: Printed at the
State Gazette office, by Cushney & Hampton. 1852. 20 p.
20.5 cm. 314
"Hancock vs. Horton" at head of title page. At end, John Sayles, att'y
for app[ellan]t.
TxU.
Hartley, Oliver C.
[Letter.] 0. C. Hartley, Galveston, Oct. 18th, 1852, to Thomas
B. Lincoln, Esq., Rusk. [Comments on the points raised in
Lincoln's letter to Jno. H. Reagan, dated Oct. 12, 1852. [n. p.]
Broadside. 1 p., printed in two columns. 15.5 x 35.5 cm.
(12 x3O cm.) Cf. no. 318. 315*
Tx.
Hyde, S. Monroe.
Circular. To my fellow-citizens of the sixth Judicial Dis-
trict. . . . [Announces his candidacy for district attorney.]
S. Monroe Hyde. 31
6*
Not seen; reprinted in the Texas
Republican,
June 12, 1852, p. 2.
Indianola, Texas. Merchants.
Circular to the People of Western Texas. . . . [List of
premiums to encourage the traders and producers.] Indianola,
Texas, October 1, 1852. 317*
Lincoln, Thomas B.
[Letter.] Thomas B. Lincoln, Galveston, Oct. 12, 1852, to
Hon. Jno. H. Reagan. [Suggests changes in existing laws to
encourage railroad construction.] [n. p.] Broadside. 1 p.,
printed in two columns. 15.5 x 29.8 cm. (12 x 22.7 cm.) Cf.
no. 315. 318*
Tx.
Odd-fellows. Texas.
Proceedings of the R. W. Grand lodge I. 0. 0. F., of the State
of Texas, at its semi-annual communication, held at Galveston,
August 2, 1852. Galveston: Printed at the "News" office. 1852.
162[?]-177 p. 20.5 cm. ppw. 318a
TxWB.
Physicians of Austin and Travis county.
To all regular authorized physicians of the State of Texas . . .
[Call for a state medical convention to meet at Austin, January
17, 1853.] Austin, Texas, December Bth, 1852. 319*
Protestant Episcopal church. Texas,
Journal of the third annual convention of the Protestant
Episcopal church, in the Diocese of Texas, held in St. Luke's
church, Chappell Hill, from May 13 to May 15, inclusive, 1852.
Galveston: Printed by W. Richardson, at the News job office.
[1852.] 54 p. 20.5 cm. ppw. 320
Cover title.
Railroad convention.
Memorial of the Railroad convention, through their com-
mittee, to the Legislature of the State of Texas. Austin:
Printed at the State Gazette office, by Cushney & Hampton.
1852. 18 p. 20.2 cm. 321
I. A. Paschal, chairman. A. F. Marshall, A. M. Lewis, L. C. Clopton,
Committee concurring.
TxU. TxWFM.
Sayles, John.
To the voters of Texas. . . . [Announces his candidacy for
attorney general.] John Sayles. Brenham, Washington county,
June 1st,
1852. 322*
Statement of the entire debt of the Republic of Texas as de
fined by the Auditorial Board of the State of Texas, 12th No-
vember, 1851, and classified--in conformity with the decision
issued by the U. S. Treasury Department, 13th September,
1851--by act of the Legislature approved 31st January, 1852.
[n. p. n. d.] Broadside. 1 p. 20.5 x 31.7 cm. (16.7 x 24.2
cm.) 323
TxU.
Texan emigration and land company.
To the colonists of Peters' colony. . . . [Statement of what
the law of February 10, 1852, requires the colonists to do to
obtain titles to their lands. By] Henry 0. Hedgcoxe, Agent of
the Texas [!] emigration and land company. Collin county,
May 1, 1852. S. W. American print, [Austin.] Broadside. 1 p.,
printed in two columns. 30 x 44 cm. (20.5 x 29.5 cm.) 324
Tx.
Report of the committee appointed [at a mass meeting of the
settlers of Peters' colony in Dallas county,] July 10, 1852, to
examine into the management, etc., of the office of H. O. Hedg-
coxe, agent of the Texan emigration and land company. 325*
Not seen; 2000 copies were ordered to be printed (Texas
State
Gazette,
July 31, 1852, p. 397.)
[Letter.] Willis Stewart and John J. Smith, Trustees of the
Texan emigration and land company, Louisville, September
18th, 1852, to John C. Easton, Esq. [The trustees declare that
they are ready and willing to cooperate with the colonists in
securing titles to their land.] 326*
Texas. Attorney general. (Ebenezer Allen.)
[Opinion.] Ebenezer Allen, Attorney general's office, June
3rd, 1852, [to] Hon. Stephen Crosby, Commissioner of the Gen-
eral land office. . . . [On issuing titles to Peters' colonists.]
[n. p.] Broadside. 1 p., printed in two columns. 25.8 x 44 cm.
(19.3 x 33.8 cm.) 327
Tx.
Texas. Comptroller. (James B. Shaw.)
Circular to assessors and collectors. . . . [Regarding their
settlement for delinquent taxes.] James B. Shaw, Comptroller,
rhos. H. Duval, Secretary of State. Austin, September 14, 1852.
Folder with one page of print. 24.0 x 23.6 cm. (16.3 x 17.3
cm.) 328*
TxHSJM.
Circular to assessors and collectors. . . . [In regard to giving
receipts to their predecessors for the records of their office.]
James B. Shaw, Comptroller, [n. d. 1852?] Broadside, 1 p.
21.3 x27 cm. (16 x 11.2 cm.) 329
*
TxHSJM.
Texas. General land office.
Abstract of land claims, compiled from records of the Gen-
eral land office of the State of Texas, and published under the
superintendence of the Comptroller, by authority of an act of
the Legislature, approved February 11, 1852. (Said law pro-
vides that "Nothing in this act shall be so construed as to give
validity to any claims published in said abstract, that are void,
invalid, or incomplete.") Galveston: Printed at the Civilian
book office. 1852. 610, 1 l., 16, [2] p. 22.5 cm. 330
Texas land claims grouped by land districts, pp. 3-518; Mexican and
Spanish titles, pp. [519]-610; a list showing the land districts in which
the different counties are located, 1 leaf; appendix, errata, pp. 1-16;
omissions. 1 leaf.
CSmH. DLC. MH-L. Tx. TxDa. TxElp. TxHSJM. TxU.
To the colonists of Peters' colony. S. Crosby, Commissioner
General land office, Austin, Dec. 27, 1852. 331*
Texas. Laws, statutes, etc
An act relating to lands in Peters' colony. Approved, Febru-
ary 10, 1852. [n. p. Austin? 1852?] Broadside. 1 p., printed
in two columns. 29.5 x59 cm. (19.5 x43 cm.) 332
Copy certified by the Secretary of State on February 17, 1852
Tx.
Laws of the fourth Legislature of the State of Texas. Volume
IV. Published by authority. Austin: Printed by Cushney &
Hampton, "State Gazette" office. 1852. 142, [I], ix p. 19.5
cm. 333
Volume IV-Part I comprises the general laws.
CU-L. Ia. IaU-L. In-SC. L. MdBB. Mi-L. Nj. RPL. Tx. TxDaN.
TxU-L. W. WaU.
Special laws of the fourth Legislature of the State of Texas.
Volume IV. Published by authority. Austin: Printed by Cush-
ney & Hampton "State Gazette" office. 1852. 226, viii p. 21
cm- 334
Texas. 4th Legislature, 1st session (Nov. 3--Feb. 16, 1852.)
Joint committee.
The report and accompanying bill of the Joint committee to
whom was referred the report of the Commissioners, Bourland
and Miller, upon the land titles west of the Nueces river. 335*
Not seen; 200 copies ordered to be printed. (Senate
Journal,
4th
Legis
-
lature,
1st
session,
287-290, 291.)
Report of the Select Joint committee, to whom was referred
that portion of the Governor's annual message, and his special
message, transmitting the report of the Attorney general and
accompanying documents, which relate to difficulties in Peters'
colony, etc. [Together with] A Bill to be entitled an Act to
quiet the land titles within the limits of Peters' colony and to
provide for locating and surveying the lands, and issuing the
certificates and patents to which the colonists and contractors
are entitled, [n. p.] 9 p. 34.7 cm. 336*
R. P. Crump, chairman com. on the part of the House. G. W. Hill, chair-
man com. on the part of the Senate. Report not dated; the copy printed
in the House
Journal,
(pp. 477-486), is dated Jan, 6, 1852.
Tx.
Texas. 4th Legislature. Senate.
A
bill to quiet the land titles within the limits of Peters'
colony; and to provide for locating or surveying the lands and
issuing the certificates and patents to which the colonists and
contractors are entitled. 337*
Not seen; 100 copies ordered to be printed (Senate
Journal,
4th
Legisla
-
ture,
1st
session,
p. 294).
A bill to
incorporate the Texas Western railroad com-
pany. 338
*
Not seen; 100 copies ordered to be printed (Ibid.,
p. 316)
A bill to apportion the Senators and Representatives of the
Legislature among the several counties of this State, according
to the requirements of the constitution. 339*
Not seen; 100 copies ordered to be printed (Ibid.,
p. 323)
Journal of the Senate of the State of Texas. Fourth Legis-
lature. Published by authority. Austin: Printed by Cushney
& Hampton, "State Gazette" office. 1852. 557 p. 20.5 cm. 340
ICU. Tx. TxGR.
The report of the committee on Internal Improvements, on
a bill to establish the New Orleans, Texas and Pacific railway
company, for the extension of the New Orleans, Algiers and
Opelousas railroad through Texas, and the bill. 341*
Texas. 4th Legislature. House of Representatives.
A bill to incorporate the Texas and Louisiana railroad com-
pany. 342*
Not seen; 200 copies ordered to be printed (House
Journal,
4th
Legisla
-
ture,
1st
session,
p. 353).
A bill providing for the liquidation and payment of the debt
of the late Republic of Texas, originating in the Senate. 343*
Not seen; 150 copies ordered to be printed (Ibid.,
p. 416, 417).
A bill to establish a system of common schools, with the re-
port of the committee on Education. 344*
Not seen; 200 copies ordered to be printed (Ibid.,
p. 417).
A bill relinquishing the right of the State to certain lands
therein named, with the report of the select committee, accom-
panying same. 345*
Not seen; 200 copies ordered to be printed (Ibid.,
p. 461-464).
A bill to encourage internal improvements in the State of
Texas, with amendments. 346*
Not seen; 200 copies ordered to be printed (Ibid.,
494).
A bill, to be entitled an Act providing for the liquidation and
payment of the debt of the late Republic of Texas, [n. p. Aus-
tin. 1852?] 3 p. 18.3 x 32 cm. 347
TxU.
A bill to apportion the Senators and Representatives of the
Legislature among the several counties of this State. 348*
Not seen; 200 copies ordered to be printed (Ibid.,
pp. 556, 571).
A substitute for "a bill to apportion the Senators and Rep-
resentatives" etc. 349*
Not seen; 100 copies ordered to be printed. (Ibid.,
p.
634).
Exhibit of all the bounty, donation and headright certificates
issued to administrators since the establishment of the office
of Adjutant-general by an act of the Legislature of 1846. 349x
See the report of the special Committee to examine and report upon the
condition of the Adjutant-general's office, dated January 16, 1852 (House
Journal,
4th
Legislature,
p. 465-467), of which the Exhibit forms a part.
Journal of the House of Representatives of the State of Texas:
Fourth Legislature. By authority. Austin: Printed by Cushney
& Hampton, "State Gazette" office. 1852. 881 p. 20.5 cm. 350
"Appendix to House Journal." The House Journal contains a number
of references to an Appendix; see
pp. 631, 737, 739, 744, 754. Not seen;
probably not printed.
Tx. TxCsA. TxU.
Texas. Supreme court.
Opinion of the Supreme court of Texas in the case of Han-
cock vs. McKinney, delivered at Austin, November term, 1851.
Austin: Printed by Cushney & Hampton, "State Gazette" of-
fice. 1852. 21 p. 20 cm. 351
TxU.
Reports of cases argued and decided in the Supreme court
of the State of Texas during a part of December term, 1849.
By Oliver C. Hartley. Vol. IV. Galveston: Printed at the
Civilian book office. 1852. vii, 539 p. 22.5 cm. 352
CFrCL. G. KyLxFL. L. MBS. MdBS. NNLI. Nj. Nv. PPiAL.
PPiDL PU-L. RPL. Temple-L. TxSC. TxDaM-L. TxU-L. TxWB-L.
USIC. W.
Reports of the cases argued and decided in the Supreme court
of the State of Texas during a part of December term, 1849,
at Austin, and a part of Galveston term, 1851. By Oliver C.
Hartley. Vol. V. Galveston: Printed at the Civilian book
office. 1852. vii, 634 p. 1 1. 22.8 cm. 353
G. Ia. In-SC. KyLxFL. L. MBS. MdBS. NNLI. Nj. PPB. PPiAL.
PU-L. RPL. Temple-L. TxBeaCiA. TxDaM-L. Tx-SC. TxWB-L. US1C.
W.
Texas. Treasurer. (James H. Raymond.)
Report of the Treasurer of the State of Texas to the fourth
Legislature. Austin: Printed by Cushney & Hampton, "State
Gazette" office. 1852. 11 p. 20 cm. 354
The report is dated Nov. 12, 1851, and covers the fiscal year ending
Oct. 31. 1851.
TxU.
Washington, Texas. Citizens.
Stop the Murderer!! . . . [Reward for the arrest of Geo. P.
Lynch.] Joseph H. Wood, and seven others. Washington, Texas,
June 27, 1852. Broadside. 1 p. 34.5 x 47 cm. (32.5 x 32.5
cm.) 355*
Tx.
Whig party. Texas.
[Call for the Whigs of Travis county to meet at the Capitol,
July 17, 1852.] 356*
TEXAS COLLECTION
In order to crystallize growing popular interest in local his-
tory, a Committee to Publicize American History has been ap-
pointed by Edward P. Alexander, president of The American
Association for State and Local History. Christopher Crittenden
is chairman, and the following are members: Herbert A. Kellar,
Douglas C. McMurtrie, S. K. Stevens, Mrs. Herbert P. Gambrell,
David C. Duniway, William G. Roelker, Culver H. Smith, Roy
F. Nichols, Lester J. Cappon, Bertha E. Josephson, Floyd C.
Shoemaker, George N. Fuller, H. Bailey Carroll, Dorothy C.
Barck, Arthur Pound, and Morris Bishop.
The Committee seeks practical suggestions from all interested
persons as to how it may be of service to the local historian, so
that he may better present his subject to the public. The follow-
ing methods have been suggested as workable means of pub-
licizing American history.
1. By more and better teaching of local history in the schools, colleges
and universities.
2. Through the newspapers.
3. By magazine articles.
4. By radio.
5. Through historical displays.
6. Through historical museums.
7. By the preservation and restoration of historic buildings, and the
marking of historic sites.
8. Through historical plays and pageants.
Any comments on this program should be addressed to Chris-
topher Crittenden, Chairman of the Committee to Publicize
American History, Box 1881, Raleigh, N. C.
Through the kindness of Miss Elizabeth G. Patterson, 2 Elm
Street, Cooperstown, New York, there has been presented to
the Association a beautiful copy of the General
Regulations
for
the
Government
of
the
Army
of
the
Republic
of
Texas
(Houston,
1839). The book was presented as a gift from the library and
collection of the late Brigadier General John H. Patterson of
the United States Army, a resident of Cooperstown. This is a
valuable addition to Texiana and to the rare book collection. A
more extensive note on General Patterson will appear in the
April Quarterly.
Each year a large number oí the members of the Association
request information on the Junior Historian writing- contest.
The following announcement will make it possible for adults
to explain the contest to young persons and local school au-
thorities and to invite their attention to the essay contest and
its opportunities.
The Junior Historian Writing Contest for 1944
$445 Offered in Prizes
The Junior Historian Writing Contest for 1944, sponsored by The Texas
State Historical Association, will close on April 1, 1944. The prizes offered
for writings on Texas subjects are as follows:
First prize $100.00
Second prize 75.00
Third prize 50.00
Fourth prize 25.00
Fifth prize 20.00
Sixth prize 15.00
Six honorable mention prizes 10.00 each
A part of each award will be made in good current Texas books. Any prize
award will carry with it a signal distinction.
Again, as in the past, students may write upon any topic in Texas his-
tory, but contestants are urged to work upon some subject related to their
community or local history. The following paragraph will suggest some
topics that will be suitable subjects, but this list is suggestive and not
definitive.
For example, papers may be written upon cattle, cattle trails, ranching,
cowboy amusements, cattle rustling, fencing, saddles, boots, Stetsons,
Indians, Indian depredations, sheep and goats, nesters, the packing indus-
try, cutting horses, oil booms, the oil industry, farming, lumbering, busi-
ness enterprises, early industries, newspapers, transportation, exploration,
wildlife, flora, circuit riders, early churches, pioneer settlements, forts,
missions, stage stands and stagecoaches, sea stories, air stories, marine
life, natural history, expeditions, descriptions of scenic places, state parks
(any one), place name studies, grass (varieties and usage), timber, horses,
home life, social life, Texas artists, musicians, writers, or a biographical
sketch on any worth while, interesting, or picturesque Texan. The biograph-
ical sketch need not be of a historically prominent person but can be of
someone who has been significant or interesting to some local area.
The Association offers a special prize of $25 for the "best paper having
to do with the Texas Gulf Coast area. This paper should tend to make
Texans conscious of our great extent of sea coast and its possibilities.
Another way of expressing the Association's interest is to say that we
have the feeling that Texans should no longer be insular in their thinking.
Papers here may deal with marine life, ships, canals, Texas foreign
trade, etc.
Also, another prize is offered through The
Junior
Historian
by the Texas
Folk-Lore Society. This prize is for the best folk-tale or legend of Texas
submitted or for the best story of observations of animals or natural
objects in Texas. The only restriction in subject here is that the story
of animals must not be a glorification of slaughter. The first prize award
will be $10 worth of good Texas books; second prize $7.50 worth; third
prize $5.00 worth; and fourth prize $2.50 worth.
Special prizes of $25 each are offered for the best acceptable papers
dealing with the history of La Grange, Texas, and with the history of
Lampasas, Texas.
Papers may compete in any combination of the contests but the same
paper is not eligible for two awards.
The closing date of this contest is April 1, 1944; all papers considered
must be postmarked not later than midnight of that date. Any young
person, under the age of twenty-one, who is a regular member of a Junior
Historian Chapter or who has become a Member-at-large through sub-
scription to The
Junior
Historian
is eligible for competition. This means
that the contest is open to more than half a million boys and girls in Texas.
As far as possible papers should be on typewriter size paper (8 1/2 x 11
inches), typewritten on one side only, double spaced, numbered, with
writer's name and school or address on the top right corner of each page.
Maps and pictures pertaining directly to the manuscript may be submitted.
The above is suggestive, and no paper will be refused consideration for
some slight technical flaw or omission. If paper is not typewritten, it
must, however, be clearly legible. From five to ten pages of double-spaced
copy may be considered average length for the papers; those in excess
of twenty-five hundred words will be handicapped in selection for publica-
tion in The
Junior
Historian.
The finished manuscript should be clipped
or bound together.
The judges will be advised that it is not necessary for the papers to
deal with a well-known place or incident. Papers will be ranked for clarity,
unity, accuracy, interest, and the picturesqueness of detail.
Young people or their sponsors are invited to write: The Editor, The
Junior
Historian,
Box 2145 University Station, Austin 12, Texas, concern-
ing any question that may arise regarding the contest. The winners will
be announced in the May number of the magazine. All entries become
the property of the Texas State Historical Association.
"Early Criminal Law in Texas" by Charles S. Potts in the
Texas
Law
Review,
XXI, 394-406, discusses the early criminal
law in Texas and the development of the criminal code. There
is an excellent discussion of the situation in Texas prior to the
Revolution, showing the work of Stephen F. Austin, the diffi-
culties inherent in the Mexican judicial system, and the efforts
of the colonists to secure reform. Dr. Potts traces the action
taken during the Revolution by the Consultation and General
Council to set up the common law of crime in Texas. "In three
successive solemn documents adopted within a period of less
than fourteen months--the Plan and Powers for a Provisional
Government, the Constitution of the Republic of Texas, and the
Act Punishing Crimes and Misdemeanors--the fathers of Texas
turned from the chaos of colonial days [Spanish Civil Law]
to the harsher but more familiar system [English Common Law]
they had known in the States." The Act of 1836 "formed the
basis of the criminal law for twenty years" until it was sup-
planted by the Penal Code in 1857. This article is urgently
recommended, for it clearly demonstrates how closely legal de-
velopment is connected with the history of a people.
Some six months ago the suggestion was made by Judge
Hobart Huson of Refugio that the Association compile a list
of all persons known to be interested or informed on the history
of some Texas county. Requests were made through the news-
papers of the state, to the membership, county officials, etc.,
and a file of the responses has been prepared in the office. In-
formation received to date is given below. This present list is
incomplete, but it is hoped that its publication will stimulate
others to send information of this type to the Association.
ANDERSON COUNTY
Dr. Bonner Frizzell
Palestine, Texas
ANGELINA COUNTY
Mr. I. A. Coston, Supt. of Schools
Lufkin, Texas
ARANSAS COUNTY
Mr. Fulton
Corpus Christi, Texas
Mr. W. H. Gray
Rockport, Texas
Judge Hobart Huson
Refugio, Texas
Mr. George C. Martin
5627½ S. Flores St.
San Antonio, Texas
Mrs. Norvell
Rockport, Texas
Mr. Ed Peets
Rockport, Texas
Mr. D. R. Scrivner
Rockport, Texas
Mr. J. M. Sparks
Rockport, Texas
Judge James A. Steele
Burnet, Texas
ARMSTRONG COUNTY
Miss Inez Christian
Claude, Texas
BEE COUNTY
Mr. George H. Adkins
Editor, Bee
Picayune
Beeville, Texas
Mr. Raymond Dixon
Great Southern Bldg.
Houston, Texas
Mrs. I. C. Madray
Beeville, Texas
BELL COUNTY
Dr. C. C. Cline
University Station
Austin, Texas
Mr. H. L. De Golyer
S. M. U.
Dallas, Texas
Mr. William Seymour Rose, Sr.
Salado, Texas
BEXAR COUNTY
Mr. C. Stanley Banks
230 Mary Louise Drive
San Antonio, Texas
Dr. P. I. Nixon
1022 Medical Arts Bldg.
San Antonio 5, Texas
BORDEN COUNTY
Editor of the Borden
County
Sun
Gail, Texas
Judge L. A. Pearce
Court House
Gail, Texas
BOSQUE COUNTY
Mr. J. B. Barry
Walnut Springs, Texas
Hon. H. J. Cureton
Meridian, Texas
Mr. Ed Nichols
Morgan, Texas
BROOKS COUNTY
"Captain" Brooks
Falfurrias, Texas
Mr. Ed Rachal
Falfurrias, Texas
BROWN COUNTY
Dr. T. R. Havins
Howard Payne College
Brownwood, Texas
Mr. James C. White
Editor, Brownwood
Banner
Brownwood, Texas
BURNET COUNTY
Mr. L. C. Chamberlain
Editor, Burnet
Bulletin
Burnet, Texas
Mrs. Alta Holland Gibbs
Burnet, Texas
Mrs. Mary Johnson Posey
Austin, Texas
CALDWELL COUNTY
Mr. J. Henry Martindale
P. O. Box 67
Lockhart, Texas
CALHOUN COUNTY
Miss Rebecca Rupert
Port Lavaca, Texas
CAMERON COUNTY
Judge Harbert Davenport
Brownsville, Texas
CHEROKEE COUNTY
Mr. E. W. Cole
Alto, Texas
CLAY COUNTY
Mrs. Katie Christian Douthitt
Henrietta, Texas
Mrs. Lillie S. Graves
Henrietta, Texas
Mr. W. C. Kimbrough
Haskell, Texas
COLLIN COUNTY
Capt. Roy F. Hall
Box 105
McKinney, Texas
Mrs. Stella Wheelis McMurry
RFD No. 1
Leonard, Texas
COLLINGSWORTH COUNTY
Mr. C. C. Bishop
Wellington, Texas
COMAL COUNTY
Mr. E. R. Dabney
University of Texas
Austin, Texas
COMANCHE COUNTY
Hon. George Black
President, Texas Rangers Assoc.
Comanche, Texas
CROCKETT COUNTY
Mr. Will Baggett
Ozona, Texas
Mr. Claude S. Denham
Ozona, Texas
DALLAS COUNTY
Mrs. Thomas Bond Griffith
3411 University Blvd.
Dallas, Texas
Mr. Herbert P. Gambrell
Hall of State
Dallas, Texas
DAWSON COUNTY
Mr. W. V. P. Baker
Lamesa National Bank
Lamesa, Texas
Mr. J. Hardy Morgan
Lamesa, Texas
DENTON COUNTY
Mr. William Lee McCormick
915 West Highland St.
Denton, Texas
Mrs. Will Williams
516 West Oak Street
Denton, Texas
DEWITT COUNTY
Dr. W. A. McLeod
Cuero, Texas
Mrs. Julia Sutherland
Cuero, Texas
Mr. C. T. Traylor
Cuero, Texas
EASTLAND COUNTY
Mr. Ed T. Cox
Eastland, Texas
ECTOR COUNTY
Mr. Carl Akin, County Clerk
Odessa, Texas
Mr. W. T. Henderson, Postmaster
Odessa, Texas
Mrs. R. T. Waddell
c/o Mayor R. T. Waddell
Odessa, Texas
ELLIS COUNTY
Mr. Jake Reagor
Georgetown, Texas
EL PASO COUNTY
Mr. C. H. Rhodes
3108 Pershing Drive
El Paso, Texas
FANNIN COUNTY
Dr. Rex W. Strickland
College of Mines
El Paso, Texas
FAYETTE COUNTY
Mrs. George Wilrich
La Grange, Texas
Mr. Richard Henniger Monroe
Route 6, Box 108U
San Antonio, Texas
Mr. Houston Wade
Route 5, Box 247
Schulenburg, Texas
FLOYD COUNTY
Mr. R. E. L. McLain
3925 Avenue M
Fort Worth, Texas
FORT BEND COUNTY
Miss Lee Nesbitt
Columbus, Texas
GALVESTON COUNTY
Mr. Walter E. Grover
2520 Avenue 0½
Galveston, Texas
Mr. J. S. Ibbotson
c/o Rosenberg Library
Galveston, Texas
Mr. William M. Morgan
2600 Avenue O½
Galveston, Texas
Dr. Edward Randall
900 American Nat'l Insurance Bldg.
Galveston, Texas
GILLESPIE COUNTY
Mr. E. R. Dabney
University of Texas
Austin, Texas
Miss Esther Louise Mueller
2626 Speedway
Austin, Texas
Miss Julia Estill
Fredericksburg, Texas
GOLIAD COUNTY
Mr. Wallace Fowler
Goliad, Texas
Mr. J. Littleton Talley
Goliad, Texas
Judge J. A. White
Goliad, Texas
GONZALES COUNTY
Mr. B. B. Hoskins, Jr.
City Tax Collector
Gonzales, Texas
GRAY COUNTY
Mrs. Edna Carr Vincent
Lefors, Texas
GREGG COUNTY
Mr. W. E. Jones
Longview, Texas
HALL COUNTY
Mr. John Thomas Duncan
2208 Pearce St.
Austin 21, Texas
HARRIS COUNTY
Miss Julia Beazley
4515 Walker
Houston, Texas
Mr. Tracy Clark
Galena Park, Texas
Mr. Herbert Fletcher
Fletchers' Book Store
403 Fannin
Houston, Texas
Mrs. Pearl Hendricks
1810 Rutland
Houston, Texas
Mr. L. W. Kemp
214 Westmoreland
Houston, Texas
Mr. Ike Moore
San Jacinto Museum of History
San Jacinto Monument, Texas
Mrs. Hally Bryan Perry
Plaza Hotel
Houston, Texas
Mr. Jesse Ziegler
Olive Hotel
Houston, Texas
HARRISON COUNTY
Mr. Robert M. Sikes
P. O. Box 605
Marshall, Texas
HAYS COUNTY
Mr. Dudley Dobie
San Marcos, Texas
HILL COUNTY
Mrs. Ella Stevens Watson-
Hillsboro, Texas
HOOD COUNTY
Mrs. Mary Berry Gardner
2121 Bolsover
Houston, Texas
HOUSTON COUNTY
Judge A. A. Aldrich
Crockett, Texas
Mr. J. B. Lightman
4701 Caroline Street
Houston, Texas
HOWARD COUNTY
Mr. John R. Hutto
University Place
Abilene, Texas
JACKSON COUNTY
Mrs. Edwards
c/o The Alamo
San Antonio, Texas
Mr. E. T. Rose
Edna, Texas
Mr. George F. Simons
Edna, Texas
Dr. I. T. Taylor
Edna, Texas
JEFFERSON COUNTY
Mr. J. Austin Barnes
Calder Place
Beaumont, Texas
Mr. Harvey Gilbert
Gilbert Building
Beaumont, Texas
Mrs. R. F. Pray
P. O. Box 1058
Lufkin, Texas
Mrs. C. C. Roberts
1710 Sabine Pass Avenue
Beaumont, Texas
JOHNSON COUNTY
Mrs. Frances D. Abernathy
Cleburne, Texas
Mrs. V. M. Fulton
Carnegie Library
Cleburne, Texas
Mrs. J. D. Goldsmith
Cleburne, Texas
KERR COUNTY
Mr. Henry M. Nowlin
Center Point, Texas
Mr. Jim Starkey
Kerrville, Texas
KING COUNTY
Mrs. Mary Berry Gardner
2121 Bolsover
Houston, Texas
LAMAR COUNTY
Mr. A. W. Neville
Paris, Texas
LAMPASAS COUNTY
Mrs. Julia A. McAnnelly
Lampasas County
Lometa, Texas
Prof. J. J. Montgomery
Lometa, Texas
MASON COUNTY
Mr. E. R. Dabney
University of Texas
Austin, Texas
McCULLOCH COUNTY
Mr. Hardin Jones
Brady, Texas
Mr. A. B. Reagan
Brady, Texas
Mr. Clarence Snider
Brady, Texas
McLENNAN COUNTY
Miss Lucy A. Erath
1304 N. 13th St.
Waco, Texas
Prof. Guy B. Harrison, Jr.
Baylor Univ.
Waco, Texas
Judge W. M. Sleeper
Box 529
Waco, Texas
MEDINA COUNTY
Judge Herman Haass
Hondo, Texas
Julis Nott Waugh
601 Camden St.
San Antonio, Texas
MITCHELL COUNTY
Mrs. J. Lee Jones
Colorado City, Texas
MORRIS COUNTY
Mr. Charles Howard Floyd
Cason, Texas
NACOGDOCHES COUNTY
Mr. R. B. Blake
1910 Wichita Street
Austin, Texas
Mrs. Guy Blount
Stephen F. Austin State Teachers
College
Nacogdoches, Texas
Mr. Charles Kinchloe Chamberlain
1002 North Fredonia
Nacogdoches, Texas
Miss Vergia Sanders
Nacogdoches, Texas
NOLAN COUNTY
Judge R. C. Crane
President of the West Texas His-
torical Association
Sweetwater, Texas
NUECES COUNTY
Miss Marie V. Blucher
123 North Carrizo St.
Corpus Christi, Texas
Judge Edward R. Kleberg
Corpus Christi, Texas
Mr. Coleman McCampbell
Corpus Christi, Texas
Mrs. Howell Ward
1900 Stillman
Corpus Christi, Texas
Mrs. Dee Woods
Corpus Christi, Texas
PARKER COUNTY
Mr. G. A. Holland
Weatherford, Texas
Mr. A. A. Patrick
Herald Publishing Company
Weatherford, Texas
Mr. R. K. Phillips
Weatherford, Texas
Judge T. F. Temple
Weatherford, Texas
POTTER COUNTY
Miss Laura Hamner
Amarillo, Texas
Dr. Ernest Charles Shearer
2605 Van Buren St.
Amarillo, Texas
Mr. Earl Vandale
1010 Jefferson St.
Amarillo, Texas
Mrs. Lucile Goodman Moreland
1000 Sunset Terrace
Amarillo, Texas
RAINS COUNTY
Miss Annie May Schrimser
Box 204
Emory, Texas
RANDALL COUNTY
Dr. L. F. Sheffy
W. T. S. T. C.
Canyon, Texas
Mr. Boone McClure
P. P. Hist. Society
Canyon, Texas
REFUGIO COUNTY
Mr. E. W. Bartholomae
Bayside, Texas
Mr. Sam Chamberlain
Refugio, Texas
Judge Hobart Huson
Box 54
Refugio, Texas
Judge Frank Low
Refugio, Texas
Mr. George C. Martin
567¼ S. Flores St.
San Antonio, Texas
Judge T. W. McGuill
Refugio, Texas
Rev. Father William H. Oberste
Refugio, Texas
Mrs. Thomas O'Connor
Victoria, Texas
Mrs. Mary A. Simmons
Refugio, Texas
ROBERTS COUNTY
Judge J. A. Mead
Miami, Texas
RUSK COUNTY
Judge R. T. Brown
Henderson, Texas
Dr. J. Ed Watkins
Henderson, Texas
SABINE COUNTY
Judge W. F. Goodrich
Hemphill, Texas
Mr. Alford Palmer Stark
Dept. of State
Washington, D. C.
SAN AUGUSTINE COUNTY
Mr. William G. Sharp
San Augustine, Texas
Mr. Ray Stripling
San Augustine, Texas
SAN JACINTO COUNTY
Miss Ruth Hansbro
Cold Springs, Texas
SAN PATRICIO COUNTY
Mr. John D. Cochran
Sinton, Texas
Mr. B. S. Cornett
Beeville, Texas
Miss Ruth Dodson
Mathis, Texas
Mr. James R. Dougherty
Beeville, Texas
Miss Lida Dougherty
RFD
Mathis, Texas
Mr. Harwood
Taft, Texas
Mrs. May Mathis Watson
Gregory, Texas
Mr. Phillip G. Young
Refugio, Texas
SAN SABA COUNTY
Mrs. J. R. Bannister
Santa Anna, Texas
Dr. Walton Hinds
Supt., Galena Park High School
Galena Park, Texas
Mr. Edgar T. Neal
Box 736
Galena Park, Texas
SHACKELFORD COUNTY
Miss Etta Soule
237 Broderick St.
San Francisco, California
Mr. J. R. Webb
Albany, Texas
SMITH COUNTY
Miss Adele Henderson
Tyler High School
Tyler, Texas
Dr. W. A. Woldert
Tyler, Texas
STEPHENS COUNTY
Mr. C. L. Peeler
Peeler Printing Co.
Breckenridge, Texas
TARRANT COUNTY
Mrs. J. E. Taulman
3430 Avenue G
Fort Worth, Texas
TAYLOR COUNTY
Mr. John R. Hutto
University Place
Abilene, Texas
TRINITY COUNTY
Capt. C. A. Brannen
Groveton, Texas
Miss Adele Mansell
Trinity, Texas
UPSHUR COUNTY
Mrs. B. A. Miller
Gilmer, Texas
UVALDE COUNTY
Miss Florence Fenley
Uvalde, Texas
Mr. Ike Moore
San Jacinto Museum of History
San Jacinto Monument, Texas
VICTORIA COUNTY
Mr. Leopold Morris
Victoria, Texas
Mrs. Thomas O'Connor
Victoria, Texas
WALKER COUNTY
Prof. J. L. Clark
Sam Houston State Teachers College
Huntsville, Texas
Mrs. Mae Winne McFarland
1313 Castle Court
Houston, Texas
WASHINGTON COUNTY
Mr. W. F. Tottenham
Brenham, Texas
WEBB COUNTY
Mr. Seb S. Wilcox
Box 573
Laredo, Texas
WHARTON COUNTY
Mr. Raymond Dixon
Great Southern Bldg.
Houston, Texas
WICHITA COUNTY
Mr. Mart Banta
Plectra, Texas
Mrs. N. D. Cooper
c/o Electra
News
Electra, Texas
Mrs. L. P. Douglas
Electra, Texas
Miss Louise Kelly
Kemp Kort
Wichita Falls, Texas
Mr. J. W. Williams
2220 Piedmont Place
Wichita Falls, Texas
WILBARGER COUNTY
Mrs. Bertha Doans Ross
c/o Vernon
Times
Vernon, Texas
YOUNG COUNTY
Dr. M. H. Chism
1421 W. 15th Street
Huntsville, Texas
ZAVALA COUNTY
Mr. Ernest Holdsworth
Crystal City, Texas
Professors William Curry Holden and Ernest Wallace, of
Texas Technological College, are at present collaborating on
the preparation of a manuscript of an ethnological nature,
dealing with the Comanche Indians.
Wanted: Information on "Texas" poker. What are the facts
regarding the form of poker which was traditional in Texas in
the days of the Cattle Kingdom? There seems to be no doubt
that Texas had its own distinctive poker "which was not ac-
cording to Hoyle." It has been suggested that the straight flush
never had any recognized standing in the Texas gambling houses
or with Texas cowboys except as an ordinary flush. The ex-
pression in the cattle country seems to have been: "Four aces
is the best hand in Texas." Vague stories go the rounds of
trouble in Dodge City where professionals would try to cheat
the Texans with a straight flush cold hand. Who can give all
the facts regarding "Texas" poker? Please write directly to
the Association.
Dr. Ralph A. Smith, Assistant Professor of History in
Hardin-Simmons University, has been granted a leave of absence
to enter military service.
W. M. Pearce, Jr., Instructor of History at Texas Technologi-
cal Calloge, is now on leave, and is a lieutenant in the Tank
Corps, serving at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Professor Samuel Wood Geiser of Southern Methodist Uni-
versity, Dallas 1, Texas, sends to the Texas Collection a note
of inquiry on and information relating to two early Texans,
both of Polk County in the 1860's.
Col. Lewis M. Henry Washington (d. 1857)
And
In the Official
Records
[Civil War] (ser. I, v. 26, pt. 2, p. 191-93) is
printed a Report on the Iron Region of Northeastern Texas. This report
(dated at "Smithfield P. 0., Polk County, Texas, Aug. 31, 1863")
* was
written by one "H. Washington," who was a volunteer aide-de-camp, with-
out compensation, to General J. B. Magruder. Later in the same year
(1863) he was at headquarters in Houston, to give, as needed, informa-
tion on the East Texas terrain, etc.
This excellent, brief report was made directly to Capt. Edmund P.
Turner, A.A.G., C.S.A., in anticipation of the arrival in East Texas of
Gen. Benjamin Huger (then inspector of artillery and ordnance in the
Trans-Mississippi Department.) The paper has escaped the eyes of Darton
and Nickles, both of whom have published very comprehensive bibliogra-
phies of North American geology, in the bulletins of the U. S. Geological
Survey.
I need to know who this "H. Washington" was. Certainly he was not
Col. Lewis M. Henry Washington, a warm friend of Sam Houston [see
Williams & Barker, The
Writings
of
Sam
Houston.
. ., III, 1940, 16n, et
passim], for he died in 1857. Colonel Washington was "one of those brave
and daring spirits who came to Texas in her darkest hours, and shared
all the hardships, perils, and dangers of a soldier's life. . . . He was the
life of society, full of anecdote, humor, and wit. . . . He was charitable,
humane, and kind in disposition." (Austin Southern
Intelligencer,
May 6,
1857.) Colonel Washington lived on the Trinity River, on land which he
bought before
1840,
for in that year, one of the leagues of land granted
to the Coushatti Indians was found to be on land to which he had a prior
title. He was friendly to the Indians and was willing that they should
stay there and cultivate their fields. Col. Washington in an evil day fili-
bustered with Gen. Walker in Nicaragua, and on 19 February, 1857 was
wounded at Castillo Viego on the Río San Juan, was captured by the
Costa Ricans, and later shot. The notice of his death in the Intelligencer
mentions that he was a talented newspaper writer, and that "he edited
several newspapers in Texas, and was well and favorably known." Doubt-
lessly: but it seems almost impossible to secure extended information of
him today. Jim Dan Hill (The
Texas
Navy
.
. .,
1937, 169) in speaking
of the purchase of the S.S. Merchant
for the Texas Government, does not
choose to mention Washington, who was co-purchaser with E. W. Moore,
they advancing their personal credit for the purchase, (v.
Claim Papers,
Texas State Archives.)
There has been confusion of the two Washingtons in the minds of even
the best students and archivists, as I know from correspondence. After
the death of Col. Washington, "H. Washington" of my first paragraph
seems to have entered into his estate. The 1860 Census for Polk County
includes him as "Hamilton Washington, age 35, nativity Kentucky, lawyer,
personal property $32,900, real property $41,000." He seems to have
continued the friendly attitude of his ?uncle toward the Indians: "in
1867, Gov. J. W. Throckmorton made him Agent of the Coushattis, and
Washington advocated the transfer of the Indians to the guardianship of
the United States. The Indians, who had remained landless through the
years, had their village on his land, during the period of his agency.
A number of his letters are in the Indian Papers and Governors' Letters
in the Texas State Library. He died about 1870." [Miss Harriet Smither.]
Two papers, which I surmise are by Hamilton Washington, are pub-
lished in the Texas
Almanac
for 1861: "Trinity River and its Valley"
(pp. 122-26), and "The Friendly Indians of Trinity River, in Texas"
(pp. 126-31). Hamilton Washington is also credited with four poems,
printed in Francis D. Allan's Lone
Star
Ballads,
1874, a collection of
Southern patriotic songs made during Confederate times. His address is
given as "Cold Springs, Polk County, Texas" [now Coldspring, San Jacinto
County]. But the 1870 census schedules of Polk County give no Hamilton
Washington, all the Washingtons (six in number) being colored.
I should like to learn the familial relationship and anything available
on the early years, education, and careers in Texas of both Col. Lewis
M. Henry Washington and Hamilton Washington. Any scrap of informa-
tion will be of value.
"The Banks Expedition of 1862," by George Winston Smith,
in the Louisiana
Historical
Quarterly,
April, 1943, states that
the object of the expedition was to conquer Texas. Its support-
ers in the East counted on the aid of the German settlers of
West Texas. Unionist refugees from Texas like A. J. Hamilton,
William A. Alexander and E. J. Davis supported the plan.
"Sam Houston's Brother," by Frances Shiras is the title of
a sketch of John P. Houston, clerk of Izard County, Arkansas,
in the September, 1943, Arkansas
Historical
Quarterly.
Mr.
E. W. Winkler points out that this seems to be a case of mis-
taken identity. Sam Houston had a brother John, but so far
as is known he did not live in Arkansas. See Brief
Biographi
-
cal
Accounts
of
Many
Members
of
the
Houston
Family
accom
-
panied
by
a
genealogical
table,
compiled by Reverend Sam'l
Rutherford Houston (Cincinnati, 1882), p. 25.
The
Future
of
the
Great
Plains
is the title of the report of
the Great Plains Committee (75th Congress, Ist Session, House
document no. 144. U. S. serial no. 10,117). Rupert N. Richard-
son calls this report "the best resume of the natural resources
of the Great Plains and their utilization that has yet appeared."
He has annotated the "Summary Foreword" with a bibliography
of recent literature. A real service was rendered by the re-
printing in the Mississippi
Valley
Historical
Review,
June, 1943.
S. S. McKay, Professor of History at Texas Technological
College, whose Seven
Decades
of
the
Texas
Constitution
of
1875
was recently published, is now preparing a biographical study
of W. Lee O'Daniel.
The
Panhandle
Plains
Historical
Review,
1942
(L. F. Sheffy,
editor) contains Estelle D. Tinkler's "The History of the Rock-
ing Chair Ranche." The English spelling of ranch in the title
indicates that the account goes back to those early days of the
inclosed range when the capital for many of the early ranches
came from England and Scotland. This was the case with the
Rocking Chair. This number of The
Review
will be a "must"
item with collectors of county histories, for it contains a well-
written chapter on the organization of Collingsworth County.
Probably any person having even the least interest in Texas
history will find the piece of cartography on the opposite page
intriguing. The map was furnished Professor Webb by Mr.
E. N. Noyes, 2204 Tower Petroleum Building, Dallas, Texas.
Mr. Noyes, however, had only a photostat and had no knowledge
of the original source of the photostat. The map is dated Sep-
tember 23, 1851, and the title shows it to be, "Map of the Coun-
try from Austin to El Paso: Sketch and Observations taken
by F. B. E. Browne." Internal evidence on the map, however,
brings up questions as to whether the trip was made in 1849
or in 1851. Several persons have thought the map might possibly
have been made by a member of the Robert S. Neighbors--John
S. Ford party. Captain Roy F. Hall of McKinney leans to this
position and sends the following note on this expedition:
In 1849 the citizens of Austin, in conjunction with the U. S. Government,
organized an expedition to explore a route from Austin to El Paso for a
proposed trade route. It left Austin March 23, under joint command of
Maj. Robert S. Neighbors and Dr. John S. Ford, going via the Concho-
Horsehead Crossing-Pecos upper watershed, thru the Carrizo Pass to El
Paso, where it arrived May 2. On May 6 started back, coming by way
of the Guadalupe Mountains to the Pecos at Horsehead arriving there
on June 2, 1849. No difficulties experienced on the whole march.
Circulation through The
Quarterly
will probably find the
person who knows all the answers to the questions raised by
the map. Who was F. B. E. Browne? What are the facts re-
garding his travel? Who was Glanton? Has anyone found the
gold indicated as positive on the map? What of Thompson and
party? The map invites possibly a full-length article on identi-
fication.
The latest addition to Judge O. W. Williams' remarkable
collection of pamphlets on Texas and the Southwest is entitled
Alsate:
The
Last
of
the
Chisos
Apaches.
This pamphlet gives
the story of the capture of the last of the wild untrammeled
Indian tribes of Texas. Living principally in the Trans-Pecos
triangle of Texas, the Chisos Apaches, pressed from time to
time by Rangers in Texas or Rurales in Mexico, moved back
and forth from the Chisos Mountains in Texas to the Carmel
Mountains in Mexico.
Oddly enough it was the Mexican government which struck
the last blow at these Texas Indians. In 1882 the Apaches were
in Mexico, and Diaz, motivated more strongly by a desire to
keep troops along the Rio Grande border region--the hotbed
of
revolution--than by outrage at the scattered and infrequent
Apache raids, determined to exterminate the band.
The plan centered around Lionecio Castillo, a Mexican
"ratero" or petty thief, who was used as stool pigeon. Castillo
knew Alsate, the most important of the three Apache chiefs,
and pretending to be a representative of the Mexican govern-
ment, Castillo went into the mountains, found a group of the
Apaches, and persuaded them that the Mexican government
planned to take them as wards and treat them in the same
manner as the United States treated the Indians under treaty
agreement. After much palaver and show of gold seals and
tinsel, the Indians were convinced, and arrangements were made
for every Apache--man, woman, and child--to come to the
Presidio of San Carlos, where the treaty would be signed and
each Apache would be given a red blanket, a belt, and provisions.
When the appointed day arrived, the Indians came in, and
were royally treated to a feast in the plaza. Barrels of different
kinds of "fire water" were brought out. The Indians, thrown
off their guard, soon became drunk, and early the next morning
a band of soldiers came in and captured the entire group. The
Apaches were then marched to southern Mexico and put into
slavery.
Alsate, however, escaped and became a "ghost" about his
former haunts. Years later his mummified remains were found
by hunters in a cave. The last of the Chisos Apaches had lived
free unto death.
A letter from Mrs. John T. Dyche of the Fort Stockton Public
Schools reveals how the Association is frequently of service
through bringing members with information to the attention of
those who have a particular problem in Texas history.
Our Texas history department will be forever grateful to the Association
for the assistance you have given us in suggesting good material for our
library shelves. I received most interesting letters from Miss Grace Bitner
of the San Angelo Schools, Miss Grace Matthews of Austin, Miss Llerena
Friend of Wichita Falls, and Miss Frances Donecker of San Antonio.
Each submitted a valuable "bibliography with annotations and told in detail
the interesting projects and activities she was undertaking. Many pub-
lishing houses sent me price lists and descriptive detail on their Texas
books for my grade level. I was surely happy and grateful for so many
excellent suggestions.
Already we have ordered and received about fifty books which were
selected from the bibliographies suggested by your members. Next yeai
I hope we can add still more to our Texana shelves.
Robert M. Webb, Domestic Relations Court, City of New
York, 111 Schermerhorn Street, Brooklyn, New York, writes
as follows:
I am interested in securing information which will be of assistance to
me in writing a biography of General John B. Hood. I have found little
information about his private life although I am reasonably familiar with
his military career. Since General Hood commanded Texas troops, I have
thought it possible that some members of the Association could supply
me with the facts of his life or direct me to materials from which
I can secure the facts.
Information on General Hood's private life should be sent
directly to the inquirer.
Professor Samuel Wood Geiser of Southern Methodist Uni-
versity, Dallas, Texas, also contributes to this Texas Collection
a valuable note on an early Texas engineer and railroad build-
er. The conclusion which he draws regarding the importance
of The
Handbook
of
Texas
to all who are interested in the his-
toric past of Texas is inescapable.
The negative results of the biographical footnote on "A. M. Gentry" in
The
Writings
of
Sam
Houston,
1818-1863,
VIII, p. 30, drives home again
to one how scanty our knowledge is of the lives of early Texans in non-
political and non-military fields of work. From my own specialized view-
point, it seems impossible that two such careful and tireless scholars as
the editors of that work could not have been aware of Gentry's very im-
portant part in the planning and construction of the Texas & New Orleans
Railroad (Houston to Orange) before the Civil War. S. G. Reed, in his
fine History
of
the
Texas
Railroads,
84-87, has written briefly of this
road, of which Gentry was president. The present instance merely points
the emergent need for the projected Handbook
of
Texas,
which shall in-
clude historical, biographical, and statistical information on all
phases
of
Texas, written by specialists. It also points the need of adequate biograph-
ical information on such important engineers
of early Texas as James
Converse, Caleb G. Forshey, Albert M. Lea, William C. McKinstry, Gus-
tavus Schleicher, and Tipton Walker--to name but a few. Physicians have
written on early Texas physicians, and lawyers, ministers, and teachers
on pioneers in their respective professions; but not so the engineers, so
far as I know. To put on record data on the life of this early and im-
portant engineer and railroad builder, I subjoin a brief abstract of my
data:
was born m Brookville, Indiana, 14 May, 1821, and died in Huntington,
Long island, N. Y., 20 February, 1883. He was the son of Joseph Gentry,
Virginian, and Mary VanMeter, of Brownsville, Pa. A. M. Gentry came
to Houston, Texas, in 1838, and engaged in merchandising. In Houston he
married (29 Oct., 1844) Mary Frances Rather (1828-1917). They lived at
first principally in Houston, and for short periods in New Orleans and
Galveston. The Texas & New Orleans Railroad (chartered 24 December,
1859), whose prosperity the Civil War interrupted, was mainly Gentry's
enterprise. He carried his surveys as far as New Iberia, La., and his con-
struction from Houston to Orange—a distance of 106 miles. The railroad
was in operation at the beginning of the War. Gentry was frequently in
New York City during the period of construction, both before and after the
War. In some way, he was connected with the supply and commissary
department of the Confederate States Army. After the War, Gentry lived
in New York City and Huntington, Long Island, where he had property,
although he always maintained his residence at Houston. He had a wide
acquaintance in Philadelphia and New York City, where he spent much
time in his last years, trying to finance the Texas Western Narrow Gauge
Railroad, out of Houston. This road (chartered 18 January, 1875) be-
came the Texas Western Railroad (of which U. S. Grant and his son
F. D. Grant were directors), which was chartered 28 April, 1881. By 1881,
the T. W. N. G. Railroad was built as far as Sealy; but it is said that the
draw-bridge across the Brazos was never operated, since it was never
paid for (fide
Wilmer Waldo, engineer, of Houston). Today, scarcely a
vestige of the bridge construction is left; and the low-graded road-bed has
been plowed out. Here and there at old bridge sites one can identify a
head of the embankment for the approaches. Mrs. Gentry died at the age
of 89, on 31 July, 1917: she was a native of Tuscaloosa, Ala., and had
come with her parents to Houston in 1840. Abram M. Gentry was buried
in Glenwood Cemetery at Houston.
Miss Mary C. Pierson, Box 178, Marathon, Texas, would like
to know the location of Deer Creek, near which the Battle of
Deer Creek was fought between Indians and Rangers, probably
in the seventies.
* * *
John Hutchinson Cook, 333 West State Street, Trenton 8, New
Jersey, a new member of the Association, writes regarding his
interests in Texas:
As to my interests in Texas history, I should say that I am mainly
interested in the period extending from Texas' entry as a state into the
Union until the end of the Reconstruction Period. Of course, I cannot be
too dogmatic about the exact years in which I am interested, as so much
of what happened in the years following 1845 can only be explained by
the history of the Republic of Texas and even by the Mexican period.
Then, too, the effects of the Civil War outlasted Reconstruction and can
be found in the turbulent period of the eighties. My interest, however,
mainly centers about the War and the period directly before and after it.
I am also interested in early Western expansion, in which Texas played
such an important part. We have spoken before about the various theses
on Wigfall, Texas and the Crisis of 1850, and Texas in the War for South-
ern Independence, which so much need to be published. I am wondering
whether there has ever been a full length study on the Secession Move-
ment in Texas. I should think that this would make an excellent study
for publication.
Mr. Woldemar Kuhlmann, Route 4, Fredericksburg, Texas,
writes that there are a number of historic graves in the Oak-
wood Cemetery in Austin, some of which are as follows:
Governors James Stephen Hogg, Andrew Jackson Hamilton, Oscar
Branch Colquitt, Elisha M. Pease and Oran M. Roberts; Mrs. Susannah
Dickinson and her daughter, Angelina, "Babe of the Alamo" (who sur-
vived the Alamo massacre); William Henry Huddle; Ethel Estes Porter
(wife of 0. Henry); Mrs. Thomas F. (Bride Neill) Taylor, eminent
Austin humanitarian and author of Elisabet
Ney:
Sculptor.
Also, in the
Taylor lot with Mrs. Taylor is the grave of Cresencia ("Cencie") Simath
faithful friend and housekeeper of the sculptress, Elisabet Ney, and her
husband, Dr. Edmund Montgomery. Miss Simath was a native of the
Austrian Tyrol.
Mr. Kuhlmann suggests that since the graves are so difficult
to find signs should be placed at the main entrance of the ceme-
tery indicating the location of the graves. Probably the most
enduring marker that any of these persons could have would be
a biographical sketch in The
Handbook
of
Texas,
in which we
hope to indicate the places of interment of significant Texans.
Mr. L. H. Elkins, Española, New Mexico, has presented to
the Association copies of the Corsicana
Semi-Weekly
Light,
containing Judge C. L. Jester's "Short History of Corsicana
and Navarro County." This was in response to a request in
the October Texas Collection. Mr. Elkins, by his donation,
performs a real service for the preservation of a valuable piece
of writing on Texas history.
Dr. J. E. Watkins, First National Bank Building, Henderson,
Texas, whose father came to the Rusk County area in 1836,
writes regarding an interesting coin, which was picked up years
ago on the Trammel Trace in East Texas. The coin was of
copper, about the size of a half dollar, and had on it the follow-
ing Latin inscription:
Dr. Watkins would be glad to hear from any numismatist
who can identify the coin.
Ray Wood of Raywood, Texas, has received national recogni-
tion for his books, Mother
Goose
in
the
Ozarks
and The
Amer
-
ican
Mother
Goose.
He is now gathering copy for yet another
book. His newest project is to prepare a volume of singing
games used by American school children, with music, descrip-
tions, and illustrations. Mr. Wood desires to secure versions of
traditional games as currently played or as they have been
played within the memory of contributors. He is particularly
interested in games whose text or music indicate American or
Southwestern invention. Mr. Wood will be glad to hear from
instructors, folk lore collectors, historians, teachers, or camp
and playground counsellors who can give him information as
desired above.
George G. Umstead, 4724 Chester Avenue, Philadelphia 43,
Pennsylvania, wishes to obtain a photograph, postcard, or clear
picture of any statues or monuments to the memory of Indian
chiefs or Indian subjects in Texas. Mr. Umstead would like to
know the name of the sculptor and the location of the statues
and monuments together with any other references or data
which the informer may be able to furnish. The photograph or
information should be sent directly to the inquirer.
The Sons of the Republic of Texas conduct an annual essay
contest among the students of high schools in Texas. The sub-
ject this year is "The San Jacinto Campaign from March 11
to April 21, 1836, Inclusive." Houston Wade, treasurer of The
Sons of the Republic, suggests that the subject will call for
much use of Dr. Barker's "San Jacinto Campaign" in Volume
4 of The
Quarterly.
We can supply the high school libraries
a limited number of copies of this volume. Prices for back
numbers of The
Quarterly
are given on the back page of the
cover on each issue of the magazine.
The West Texas Historical Association, because of wartime
conditions, missed its annual meeting this year for the first
time since it was organized in 1924. The Yearbook
of the As-
sociation will, however, be published as usual.
Two theses dealing with Texas subjects have recently been
completed at Texas Technological College. They are "The His-
tory of Terry County" by 0. S. Buckner, and "The History of
Brownfield, Texas" by Mrs. 0. S. Buckner.
J. W. Williams, 2220 Piedmont Place, Wichita Falls, Texas,
sends to the Texas Collection an interesting list dealing with
ghost towns. Williams states that the list is probably not com-
plete but that it may be useful in connection with the Handbook.
We should like to list in the Handbook
all the ghost towns of
Texas and should like to request all persons having information
on this topic to send in lists similar in form to the one below:
1. Red River Station
2. Eagle Point, about seven miles northeast of Nocona
3. Uzz, south of Forrestburg in Montague County
4. Pella, about five miles southeast of Sunset, just south of the Monta-
gue County line
5. Queen's Peak, some six miles northwest of Bowie, near the present
Ringgold Road
6. Tiger Town, some six miles northwest of Bowie, on the present
Wichita Falls Road
7. Old Buffalo Springs, twenty miles south of Henrietta and one mile
northeast of the present village of Buffalo Springs—first proposed
site for the fort finally built at Jacksboro
8. Cambridge, three miles east of Henrietta; it had six hundred popu-
lation in 1879
9. Wichita City, about six miles northeast of Henrietta
10. Hogeye, on the Butterfield Trail, fifteen miles northeast of Jacks-
boro
11. Thrift, some five miles northwest of Burkburnett—it was an oil
town of the 1918-1920 period
12. Bradley's Corner, about two miles northwest of Thrift
13. Bridgetown, on the south side of Red River, near the end of the
bridge that was due south of Granfield, Oklahoma: 1918-1920
14. Doan's
15. Tee Pee City, northeast of Matador
16. Otta, on the north branch of Wichita River, north of Gutherie
17. Belknap, at the old fort by that name
18. Fort Griffin, at the old fort by that name
19. Nesterville, just south of Burkburnett
20. Gertrude, in northwest Jack County, about two miles west of the
bridge over Cambron Creek on the paved road from Wichita Falls
to Jacksboro
Probably the most important of these towns were Red River Station
Buffalo Springs, Cambridge, Belknap, Fort Griffin, and Doan's.
Mr. Clyde Wantland spoke to the San Antonio Historical
Society on October 15. His address dealt with frontier life and
characters.
The Institute of Latin-American Studies of The University
has recently published Marcus S. Goldstein's Demographic
and
Bodily
Changes
in
Descendants
of
Mexican
Immigrants,
a study
which makes physical comparisons between Mexicans in Mexico
and Mexicans in Texas. Among other things "a substantial
increase in stature" is noted for the Mexicans in Texas—"in
other words, the children probably had more of a chance to
grow and grow up than was the case with the elders."
The following communication is from Dr. Charles C. Carroll,
202 Washington Avenue, Natchitoches, Louisiana.
As a former Texan, for many years a resident of Louisiana, I should
like to say a word in appreciation of the letters of Dr. John Sibley of
Natchitoches, Louisiana, now being printed in The
Southwestern.
Historical
Quarterly
and edited by Dr. Kathryn Garrett. To my mind Dr. Garrett
is making a distinct contribution to the historical data concerning early
Texas history. If I am not in error, Dr. Garrett discovered the seventy-
five letters, written by Dr. Sibley in the years 1808 to 1814, in the Old
Records Division of the Adjutant General's Office in the Department of
War, at Washington, D. C, and her work with them is of especial interest
to me personally as I have made some research in the relationship of
Natchitoches to the colonization of Texas. Beyond some twelve or fifteen
letters from Dr. Sibley, reference to which has been made at various times
in Louisiana publications, Dr. Garrett's discovery of the additional letters
from Sibley carries the exploration of the decade following the Louisiana
Purchase into an unknown, but rich mine of information. The Local
Chapter, the St. Denis of the National D. A. R., began an endeavor to
get the letters of Dr. Sibley published, but through correspondence with
Dr. Garrett received assurance of her intention of publication. As a
matter of fact, the copies of the photostats of the letters have been
promised to the St. Denis Chapter of the D. A. R. I do congratulate
The
Quarterly
and Dr. Garrett on the publication of these letters.
J. Frank Dobie's syndicated newspaper article, regarding
David Crockett's rifle, has aroused the interest of several Texans
in that celebrated shootin' iron. Dobie points out that the rifle
was presented to Crockett at Philadelphia in the spring of 1834.
Crockett's own words are, "there was no mistake in Betsey."
Crockett had Betsey with him in the Alamo, and Joseph E. Field
reported that Crockett came near taking the life of Santa Anna
with a long shot on the day before the Alamo fell. The gun
dropped out of history for about twenty-five years, after which
time it was reported by Lieutenant (afterwards Major Gen-
eral) Zenas R. Bliss as being in the hands of Jack Woodland
at Fort Davis. Shortly after 1861 Woodland was attacked by
Indians somewhere along the Rio Grande, and, after being
seriously wounded, passed Betsey over to a Mexican boy, who
took the rifle to Presidio del Norte. In his unpublished memoirs
in the Archives of the University, Bliss tells that the rifle was
still in "a little town in Mexico." Professor Dobie suggests that
the rifle probably could still be located somewhere across the
border in Mexico. It would be a prized piece of Texiana and
is worth serious effort to effect its recovery.
Mrs. G. C. Baum, 307 W. Water St., Whitesboro, Texas,
writes:
I have received a copy of The
Junior
Historian,
September, 1943, from
Jane Combs, who won the state prize on "Pattern for a Hero." The hero
is my son, Charlie Baum, now a prisoner of the Japanese. I appreciate
this for my son's sake.
I want to compliment The Texas State Historical Association and the
editorial staff on this very fine work among our young people. After being
Junior Historians, they will cherish the history of our forefathers who
did such a fine job of pioneering this Land of Freedom. I think we have
all learned in our duties to be loyal to the principle of brotherhood among
all peoples. May God continue to bless us and may our leaders always be
true to obligations of duty to God and man.
Mrs. Baum is the granddaughter of Captain Ambrose B.
White, founder of the town of Whitesboro and the person from
whom the town took its name. No one can deny that she writes
an inspiring letter, like a true daughter of a great Texas her-
itage.
Dr. Rupert N. Richardson, author of the much acclaimed
recent history, Texas,
The
Lone
Star
State,
is now acting presi-
dent of Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene.
Frank 0. Skidmore, 1206 Galloway Avenue, El Paso, Texas,
writes that he has recently acquired a farm near Presidio,
Texas, upon which the remains of old Fort Leaton are to be
found. Mr. Skidmore reports that the old building has some
thirty-two rooms, and that it is at present in a bad state of re-
pair; especially is a new roof needed and also some restoration
on the walls. He states that he is personally unable to finance
the restoration but feels that some department of the State of
Texas should do so.
Mr. Skidmore states a specific problem but it is one from
which some general problems may be raised. We have not done
enough in Texas toward the marking and preserving of his-
toric sites.
A recent communication from the Committee to Publicize
American History of the American Association for State and
Local History makes the following recommendation:
The preservation, restoration, and marking of historical sites . . . [is
much to be desired.] During the past twenty-five years a wave of interest
in work of this kind has swept the country and a great deal has been
accomplished, with the National Park Service showing the way. As a
matter of fact, however, the surface has barely been scratched, for there
are still tens of thousands of historical houses, water wheels, old bridges,
battlegrounds, and other historical sites which are crying out for proper
attention. The historic site is something which people can actually see and
touch—not merely something they read and hear about. The restoration
of colonial Williamsburg is an object lesson of what can be accomplished
in this field. Obviously we all can not develop Williamsburgs, but every
one of us can accomplish a great deal in a more limited way along the
same lines.
The marking of historic spots is closely connected with restoration and
preservation. Certain states, such as Virginia, have pioneered in this field
and the program has aroused considerable interest. A great deal more,
however, needs to be done.
Somewhere in Texas there should be a definite board set up
to handle problems such as Mr. Skidmore presents. This might
be the State Board of Parks or the Highway Commission. In
either case, these groups should probably work officially or un-
officially with the Association. In passing through Kansas, I
have observed that splendid work has been done throughout
that state in the preservation of historic sites by the joint
efforts of the Kansas Historical Society and the Kansas High-
way Commission. In all probability the Texas Legislature would
be inclined to be as generous in preservation of our historic
sites as the Kansas legislature has been. Texas seems to need
a specific board, created to take care of such problems.
Bus patrons of San Antonio, Texas, packed into every availa-
ble inch of transportation space, were glad to see even the
ancient buses of several years ago revived to relieve crowded
transportation conditions. That, however, did not make riding
in them any easier.
Then the rumbling old vehicles began to appear on the streets
of San Antonio wearing names right out of the family album
with a little accompanying phrase calculated to bring a smile
and a stir of patriotism to the most harassed bus rider, proving
that a Texas sense of humor is not out of place even in times
of global war.
Some of the names are:
"Methuselah"—To be laid to rest after Victory.
"Cinderella's Coach"—Will vanish when the clock strikes
Peace!
"Yehudi"—Here today, gone tomorrow.
"Old Gray Mare"--Ain't what she used to be.
"Old Man River"--Just keeps rollin' along.
"Rip Van Winkle"--Revived for the duration
"Spirit of '76"—Still good for '43.
Joe B. Frantz, who was just a short time ago Assistant Di-
rector of the San Jacinto Museum of History, writes a most
interesting letter from "Ha'va'd" where he is now Ensign
Frantz, USNR, Mass A-33, NTS, Harvard University, Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, and engaged in naval communications
work. He thinks that in December he will be leaving "the land
of ivy, ancestors, and muggy coolness." He writes of Texas
with a nostalgic stroke.
Frank Goodwyn, who became known to many members of
the Association through his services as auctioneer at last year's
book auction, is soon to become a full-fledged author. Goodwyn
hails from Kenedy County down in the South Texas brush coun-
try. His book, The
Wizard
of
Los
Puentes,
is a novel telling the
story of a plain brush country vaquero who was forced by the
superstitions of his associates to become a brujo
or wizard. The
book will be published by Farrar and Rinehardt in April or
May, 1944.
The Texas Institute of Letters selected as the best Texas
book for 1942-43 Kendall
of
the
Picayune
by Fayette Copeland.
Savoie Lottinville, Director of the University of Oklahoma
Press, spoke in Austin in November on "University Presses."
He dispersed a delightful sense of humor among thoughtful
considerations for the culture of the Southwest. An advocate
of things having value in a regional culture, Lottinville pointed
out that in many ways it would be advisable for the Southwest
to hold together rather than tear itself apart internally. In a
good-natured coming to grips with Texas-Oklahoma differences,
he pointed out that, although some existed, they did not appear
to be insurmountable. Lottinville's solution regarding Red
River questions which might separate Texans and Oklahomans,
as the river does in a physical sense, brought forth hearty
Texan laughter from his audience.
There are differences of opinion about . . . whether the Red River should
flow through Texas instead of Oklahoma, and if not through Texas, then
why can't it be dammed up so it will flow over Oklahoma?
Judge Hobart Huson of Refugio was a visitor in Austin
during the early days of November, doing a little check-up
work which looked toward the completion of his manuscript on
the history of Refugio County. The work which he is doing
gives every promise of becoming the most extensive county his-
tory ever done in Texas. It was my pleasure to see the complete
outline of the book and to go over a part of the manuscript.
While the judge is doing primarily the history of a county, he
is at the same time doing a sectional and regional history. Not
only does Refugio County appear, but there is also much on
Aransas, Bee, San Patricio, Goliad, and Victoria counties, as
well as on the Gulf Coast region in general. Occasionally the
story goes into Mexico. I do not know that it will be a com-
plete history of Corpus Christi, but there is certainly much on
that Texas city. Judge Huson goes far in telling the story of
Fannin's and Dimmitt's commands. He deals with the Mexican
local government system, the functioning of the ayuntamiento,
and the story of Mexican land grants. There is a section on the
Republic of the Rio Grande and a detailing of Hobby's and
Ford's regiments and their part in the Civil War. From my
necessarily brief inspection of the manuscript, I feel confident
that it will give the people of Refugio County a new apprecia-
tion of their part in the story of Texas, and that it will be
warmly welcomed by the Gulf Coast area in general as well
as the general followers of Texas history. Some idea of the
scope of the work may be had when one realizes that at the
present time the manuscript consists of 1600 pages done in
élite type.
Mrs. Marcelle Lively Hamer of the Texas Collection in the
University Library sends the following book note:
The most noteworthy achievement in the Texas Collection in The Univer-
sity of Texas Library, is the cataloguing and placing on the shelves of
approximately twelve hundred items from the McKie Collection. The ap-
pearance of so many beautifully bound books gives added distinction to
the Texas Collection. Several hundred McKie Collection books have recently
been catalogued and are ready to be placed on the shelves within the near
future.
As you have remarked in previous issues of the Texas Collection, this
addition to the Library's Texas Collection will make it the most inclusive
and distinctive, perhaps, of any collection of Texas material in existence.
How many of the readers of Texas Collection know what a
herpetologist is? Next, how many know that Texas has long
been known as the herpetologist's paradise? Frankly, I did
not know the answer to either query until I encountered re-
cently Samuel Wood Geiser's article, "Dr. Benno Matthes: An
Early Texas Herpetologist," in Field
and
Laboratory,
IX, Num-
ber 2, (May, 1941). I admit to quite an acquaintance with
Texas rattlesnakes, but I did not know that a herpetologist was
one who studied the structure, classification, and habits of rep-
tiles. In the article Professor Geiser gives an excellent account
of the work of Dr. Matthes in Texas. Matthes, a Silesian phy-
sician, was "the earliest devoted herpetologist who worked in
Texas." He arrived in Texas in August, 1853, and resided here
until his death on April 30, 1911, with several trips to Germany
in the interval. "Matthes wrote at least five herpetological
papers of merit all dealing with Texas animals." Also he found
a new species of salamander, now known as Ambystoma texa-
num (Matthes) in Fayette County. Dr. Geiser's entire note is
interesting to any person concerned with Texas history, and the
resume of Matthes's works, particularly of "Reise-Bilder von
Dr. Benno Matthes; Bilder aus Texas," leads one to agree with
Dr. Geiser that a translation would be valuable.
Frances Donecker, member of the Executive Council of the
Association and Junior Historian Sponsor at Harris Junior
School of San Antonio, spoke to the San Antonio Historical
Association November 19 on: "A Search for Quivira in Texas."
Miss Donecker's sixth grade workbook in Texas history, The
Story
of
Texas,
was recently published by Steck and Company.
The
Story
of
Texas
is not only excellent for classroom work
but any adult interested in Texas history will find the answer-
ing of the questions therein a stimulating enterprise.
In the Fredericksburg jubilee memorial volume, Fest-Ausgabe
zum
.
.
.
Friedrichsburg,
compiled and published by Robert
Penniger in 1896, occurs the following advertisement of a
distinctive Texas hostelry:
Strikt Erster Klasse, und für ausgezeichnete
Aufwartung seiner Gäste im ganzen Staat bekannt
Hauptquartier aller Reisenden und Sommergaeste
C. H. Nimitz, Eigenthuemer
FOOTNOTES:
is included in the 1858 Texas Almanac as in Polk County. The village is
now known as "Ace"; it is in the extreme southwestern part of present
Polk County, near the Liberty County line, between Menard and Long
King creeks. (It should be remembered that the Polk County of the
'fifties to 'seventies comprised, roughly, present Polk and San Jacinto
counties.)
LETTERS AND DOCUMENTS
DR. JOHN SIBLEY AND THE LOUISIANA-TEXAS
FRONTIER, 1803-1814
Natchitoches May 8th, 1809
I have Observed in the proceedings of the last Session of
Congress In Consequence of a representation from Governor
Claiborne, affording relief to the Tribe of allibamis Indians
Relative to their Lands has been a Subject of Consideration. I
could have wished that the cases of all these Indian Tribes in
this Territory, who have no land Could have been Considered
at the same time. The Boluxes [Biloxis] who in the year 1805
lived on Bayou Beauf in the County of Rapides on lands they
Inherited from their Ancestors, have Since been removed from
their Lands by a Company of Individuals who claim them under
a purchase said to have been made of the Indians while Louisi-
ana was in the hands of the Government of Spain & Sanctioned
by it. They have since been Rambling about the Neighbour-
hood of Avoyal [Avoyelles] ,
60 & the White Inhabitants Complain
of their encroachments. There is another Tribe Called Huani
Choctaws, who emigrated from the Huani Choctaw Town on the
East Side of Mississippi upwards of 15 years ago, who with the
Permission of the Boluxes Settled Near them on the Bayou
Beauf on Lands then belonging to the Boluxes, who have been
likewise with them Removed; They since (or part of them)
Settled Themselves at the Cooks Prarie about 40 Miles Southard
of Natchitoches between Red River and the Sabine where they
fenced fields & Cultivated them with the Plow, Built Comfort-
able Huts, and were Collecting about them Some Stocks of
Domestic Animals; when some Surveyors were Sent Out, who
Surveyed the Lands they Occupied, Ordered the Indians off;
& the Claimants have Since Sent Out Labourers to fence in
the Lands & Built Houses on them & one Man has fixed there
a Large Stock of Cattle. The Chactoos
61 a Very Ancient
Tribe of Louisiana Indians are in a Similar Situation to the
Boluxos. The Principal Village of the Pascagolas [Pascagoulas]
is on Red River about 50 Miles below Natchitoches On Lands
Given them by the Spanish Government More than 40 Years
Ago when they emigrated from the Pascagolo [Pascagoula]
River on the East Side of the Mississippi. Their Lands are
Claimed by an Individual Under an Indian purchase Sanctioned
by the Spanish Government. In Consequence of which The
Tribe have become divided &
Scattered. One party of them
Under a Chief or leader has Gone &
Settled themselves On
Lands belonging to the United States below Avoyal Partly
between Oppolousas [Opelousas] & Point Cupe [Pointe Coupee]
Another party of them have Ascended, & Settled On Red River
about 50 Miles above Natchitoches on Lands of the United
States in the Vicinity of the Compte Settlement, a Small dis-
tance above where the Natchitoches Indians now live. The
Neighbouring white Inhabitants Complain of their Killing up
their Stocks of Cattle, Hogs etc & those of them who Still
Remain at the Old Village are Urged to Move off by the Claimant
of their Lands. The Lands Occupied by the Tensaw
[Tenisaw] or Appelach Indians
62 On Red River a few Leagues
above the Rapides are Claimed by the Same Company who have
Succeeded in Removing the Boluxas & the Huani Choctaws.
There are likewise Several Rambling Tribes of Choctaws in
this Territory who have no Lands (viz) in the Parishes of
Washita, Acatahola, on Bay Chico in the Parish of Oppolousas
[Opelousas], about Rapides and between this Town & the Sabine.
There are likewise Several parties of emigrant Vag-
abond Creeks, Commonly Called Conchettas, one party of them
with Some Alibamis have Settled on Red River about Latitude
32° 40°; Another On the East Side of the River Sabine about
70 Miles South westwardly from Natchitoches, Some On the
West Side of the Sabine, & Some who have no fixed place of
residence.--Difficulties of one Kind & Another occur almost
every day between Some of these tribes, or between some of
those &
other Settled Tribes or Nations, or between them &
the White Inhabitants, or they have Some wants [manuscript
illegible] Nation or Tribe to represent, which Claims an atten-
tion Rendered perplexing & difficult, by their Scattered & Un-
settled Condition which destroys all National responsibility or
Pledges of their Good behavior. If they are urged to adopt
more Civilised habits by immitating their white Neighbours,
or Some of their Red brethren towards the Rising Sun by
Cultivating fields of Corn & Cotton & making Cloth they reply
"Give us land & Protect us in the peaceable possession of it
from your own people & we will then take your Advise." I
think all of Each Nation Should be brought to live together.
Lands Should be Allotted them subordination to their Chiefs
should be encouraged, & to place in Our Government & Laws
an entire Confidence, by which they Should always find pro-
tection, justice & impartiality. Should you be of the Opinion
that the Subject of this letter merits Attention. I beg you to
have the goodness to Submit the Same to the proper depart-
ment for Consideration.
ment for Consideration.
I am
Sir
with very great
Respect & Esteem
Your Obt. Hble Servant
John Sibley. Indian Agent
For Orleans Territory
The Honourable
The Secretary of War
Natchitoehes May 10th 1809
I had the honor to receive a Coppy of your Circular of the
15th of March Enclosing the Acts of Congress relative to public
Accounts etc., by the last Mail, and shall in future punctually
Observe the provisions of the Law in Such accounts &
expendi-
tures as may accrue in that Section of the Indian department
of which I am Agent.
63 previously to the receipt of those In-
structions I have drawn on the Secretary of War for the sum
of $500 in favour of Mr Thomas Irwin late Assistant Factor
at this place, my letter of advice I believe expressed only (as
usual) "Contingencies" of this department. The Bill was drawn
to pay to Mr Gaspard Philebere $270 for Nine Months Service
as Interpreter of Indian Languages, for which I hold his dupli-
cate receipt for Nine Months preceeamg 30th March 1809. the
Balance was to pay the Armorer I have employed to repair
Indian Guns etc. I hold Likewise his receipts. Mr Irwin
the late Assistant Factor left this place for Philadelphia On the
13th Instant. Mr Linnard not having Returned nor no person
to Take Charge of the Factory, An Inventory was made Out.
I gave Mr Irwin my receipt for the whole & have since per-
formed the duty of Factor, with the assistance of Mr Philebere
the Interpreter (who is a good man) & we shall Continue to
do the Same in a manner Accomodating to the Indiana Who
are Coming in in Considerable numbers at this Season of the
year to trade, & Shall do all in my power to prevent the In-
terest of the United States from Suffering till Mr Linnard
Arrives who I anxiously expect Daily. There being I believe
about ten Thousand Deer & Bear Skins On hand, I have persons
employed to beat them to prevent their being Destroyed by
Worms.—-A Return of the amt of Stock on hand Should have
been made before now Agreable to the Instructions of the
Supermtendant of trade this I Shall Still defer doing for Some
Short time in expectation of Mr Linnard's Arrival.
Since the first day of January last I have in Addition to
the $30 a Month Salary to Mr Philebere the Indian Interpreter
Given him two Rations a day which the Contractor here has
Issued on my Order this Addition was made in Consequence
of Mr Philebere having got married & finding his Salary In-
sufficient for his support & Could have done better than remain in
Our Service without that addition, he is a faithful, Honest, Sober,
attentive Man, & Can Interpret for Any Indians who visit us
& there are within the Limits of my Agency More than Twenty
different Tribes of Indians, most of whom speak Languages
peculiar to Each Tribe & he serves in a Double Capacity; as
Interpreter to me & likewise to the Factory; & is never Out
of the way, when he is wanted; his place Could not be well
Supplied in Any Other One Man. I hope therefore this Addi-
tional Small Allowance to his Salary will meet your Approbation.
Capt Glass
64 has just returned here from a Trading Voyage
Amongst the Panis &
Hietan Nations of Indians, who Inhabit
the Country towards the head of Red River, and reports that
the Panis & Hietans appear particularly Attached to the Gov-
ernment & People of the United States, during his Travels &
residence amongst the Indians where he spent more than Eight
Months he was Conducted by Indians to a place where he Saw
in Large Masses of many thousands of pounds weight a Singular
Kind of Mineral, it in colour resembles Iron but whiter, it is hard
as Steel, Yet ? as gold or silver, it is obedient to the
Magnet, but less so than Iron. Neither the Nitric Sulphuric
nor Muriatic Accid will touch it, it is not Flexible in the greatest
heat that Can be produced in a Blacksmith's furnace, it will
neither Corrode nor Rust by exposure to the Atmosphere, it
receives a polish as Brilliant as a diamond & of a quicksilver
Colour, it is found in a Limestone Country & entirely unmixed
with any mineral or other matter. If it is not Platina, I do
not know what it is; I have Some of it in my possession &
have Sent a piece of it to Philadelphia to be tried. Capt. Glass
says an hundred Thousand pounds of it Could be Obtained
should it prove Valuable; he Saw several other Curiosities which
I find noticed in his Journal which he has permitted me to
peruse.- Capt Glass farther Says that when he left the
Panis Nation a party of Panis & Hietans to the number of
about one Thousand Warriors had gone to War Against the
Ozages on the River Arkensa, with a determination to ex-
terminate that Band of Robbers; who are Constantly stealing
their Horses; a party of them stole from Capt. Glass 36 Val-
uable Horses from Near the Panis Village, and during the last
year he believes they Stole from the Panis Near One Thousand
head. These Ozages are regarded by all white & Red people in
this quarter as a Common peste to mankind.--
Sir with Great Esteem
Your Obt. Servant
John Sibley Indn Agent
The Honourable
Secretary of War
Natchitoches July sth 1809
More than two Years ago I was specially Instructed by the
late President of the U. S.
65 to endeavour to procure an Inter-
view with the Several tribes of Indians Inhabiting the Sea
Coast Along the Bay of St. Bernard
66 I sent Messengers amongst
them several times with tokens &
friendly invitations to visit
Natchitoches; & different Parties of them at different times
set off to come here & were turned back by the Spaniards. I
have lately Succeeded in procuring a friendly visit from three
parties, (viz) a Chief & ten principal Men from a Village of
A Tribe called Attakapos
67 who live near the Mouth of the
Trinity River at or near the Accokesacos [Orcoquizas]. Also a
chief & 23 principal persons of a Tribe called Man
Eaters
68 who
live farther South at the Bay of St Bernard; & also a chief &
Ten principal persons of the Tribe called the Bedies
69 who live
Alternately on the Sea Shore & Back upon the Brasos [Brazos]
& Collerado [Colorado]. I have held friendly Talks with all of
them and made them such presents as in my Judgment were
Suited to the Occasion. I took much pains to display & explain
to them a United States Flag & to inform them it was Such as our
Ships carried and when they saw a Vessel off their Coast with
Such a flag they would know whose it was and that the people On
Board were their friends, & If any of our Vessels in a Storm
should be driven a Shore & Broke; It was the request of their
great Father the President of the United States,
70 that they
should be kind to the unfortunate people, & Assist them all in
their power in Saving the property in the Vessel, and Conduct
the people (should they require it) to where white people live.
All which with one Accord they promised to do. I hope that
the Amicable Arangements I have made with these people
may be the Means of Saving the lives & property of any unfor-
tunate Vessels Crew Who may be Cast upon the Dangerous
Shore they Inhabit. The Indians were here on the 4th
of July, the firing of Cannon seemed to make a Considerable
impression upon them being the first they ever heard or Saw.
They were well pleased and went Away apparently gratified
with their Visit. The Chiefs Said, "now they had found out the
Road they should frequently visit Natchitoches for the pur-
pose of trading at the factory."
71
I have so many Guns, farming Utensils etc to get repaired
for the Indians. I Could get it done much Cheaper & Better &
with less difficulty If I had a set of Smiths Tools. I beg there-
fore you will be pleased to Order a Set to the Care of Mr Saul
of New Orleans for me, or Otherwise as you may think proper.
I want likewise Eight or Ten Indian Chiefs Medals, to fulfill
some promises I have made.
I am Sir with very Great Esteem
Your Obt. Hble. Servant
John Sibley
Honourable Samuel Eustice
Secretary of War
FOOTNOTES:
the Parish along the waters of Red River. It included over one hundred
and twenty families, principally French. Carter, Territorial Papers of the
United States, IX, 63, 729.
about ten miles south of Bayou Rapides on Red River towards Opelousas,
that they were aborigines of the country, and that the lands they claimed
were "inferior to no part of Louisiana in fertility and richness of soil, and
growth of timber." Hackett, Pichardo's Treatise, II, 272.
not make the Apalachies and the Tenisaws the same tribe. The Tenisaw,
he said, emigrated from a river by that name, which emptied into Mobile
Bay, and that they had lived on Red River for about forty years. The
Apalachies he described as emigrants from West Florida, where they had
lived on a river which bears their name, and that they had come to Red
River about the same time as the Biloxes. Ibid., II, 270, 272.
War, and Navy Departments. See, Annals of Congress, 10th Congress,
2nd Session, 1833-1835.
out from Natchitoches on June 20, 1808. Sibley to Secretary of War
November 20,1808, MS., O.R.W.D.
Spanish form Attacapa is commonly used. Bolton, Texas in the Middle
Eighteenth Century, 3, 334.
form is Bidai. Bolton classifies the Bidai, Orcoquiza, Deadose, and Atta-
capa as members of the Attacapan family. Bolton, Texas in the Middle
Eighteenth Century, 3.
Territory was that he was pursuing instructions sent to him in 1805.
He was to use all means at all times to conciliate Indians, who, in case
of a rupture with Spain, would be "either useful or mischievous to the
United States," and to direct his attentions to Texas Indians as far as
San Bernardo Bay. Secretary of War to John Sibley, May 25, July 8, 1805,
Letter Book B, April, 1804-July, 1809, 80-81, 89, I.A.D.I.
A LETTER FROM OLD GOLIAD
*
Edited by
Fort Defiance Laberdeo Texas March 8, 1836
[Gerard Burch Esqr.
Columbus, Ga.
U. States]
1
Dear Sir
I avale my self of the oppitunity of addrising you a few lines to let you
know that I am well and harty. I am at this time stationed at Laberdeo
on the San Antonio River. The enemy is at hand we expect to be attacked
every hour. They have arrived at San Antonio six thousand troups and
have been fighting the Americans Troops for the last fifteen days. We
recieved an exprese this evening that the Americans have not had a man
killed and only three slightly wounded. There is about two hundred that
has possision of the Fort
2 and will keep possision of it if there ammunition
holds out till they can be reenforced. The citizens of Texas is turning
out to a man, the Mexicans has got possision of San Patricio and are
concentrating their troops and fortifying that place. Colonel Johnson with
about twenty men was attacked at that place in the knight and only
four or five made there escape and John Love was one of the men (Doctor
Hart that lived) Doctor Brodneax was seen to fall in the street and has
not been heard of since. Rubin Brown and Colonel Grant with about thirty
men was attacked in a open perary and both of them fel and all of there
men that was not kiled was taken prisoners. I have not time to write
you the perticulars. I wish you to attend to my business and not let my
family want for any thing until I return. State to my wife that I am
well and was going to write to knight and send the letter with this but
since I have been writing this letter they have been an exprese receved
that two thousand Mexicans has landed at a creek in nine miles of us
and there is no doubt but what we shall be attacked before day. They
have foure canon with them. I have no time to write more. You shall
here from me by every oppertunity. This letter is sent with a exprese.
Thomas B. Rees
M. B. The exprese recieved to night from the sorce it came by all
probability is not true but we are preparing for them. Texas has
declared Independence
Thos. B. Rees
FOOTNOTES:
Texas; it was written by her great-grandfather, Thomas B. Rees, who
came to Texas in 1836 as a member of the Georgia Battalion. Rees is
listed on page 5, Army Rolls in the General Land Office as "Thomas B.
Rees, First Lieutenant of Captain William A. 0. Wadsworth's Company
at Muster, February 29, 1836."
The letter was postmarked April 19, 1836, at New Orleans; it was sent
by Pony Express to Matagorda from Goliad and by boat to New Orleans.
Lt. Rees was killed several days later at Goliad.
been written at "Coleta Creek La Bohia."
Marian Yeager
A MEXICAN WAR LETTER
Edited by
Marjorie Clark
Monterrey, Mexico
Oct. 8th, 1846
[Mrs. M. H. Clark
Montgomery, Ala.
Care of Capt. Long--Montgomery, Ala.]
1
Dear Mother:
I suppose you are by this time quite anxious to hear from Elijah and
myself again. I believe it is now about a month since I wrote to you, it
having been about that time since I left Comayo for this place. Since
leaving Comayo for this point I have had but little time for any other
business than that pertaining to my present occupation. I had an expedi-
tious but uninteresting trip from Comayo to Chinco the place of destina-
tion from the former place. I found the country broken and less desirable
than any over which I had previously passed. I rather expected to have a
sight of the enemy on the way, but was disappointed. I reached Chinco
in safety, and after two days tarry started for this city. The latter part
of our road was speedily accomplished, the men being stimulated by the
information that we would certainly have to fight at this place. The
country between this point and Chinco is very picturesque, and in many
places fertile. The mountains came in view some seventy or eighty miles
distance from this place, and they are still ahead of us. Indeed we are
surrounded by mountains. This place is built immediately at their base,
it has a valley adjourning of many miles in extent, of the richest soil, and
abounding in every thing necessary for the subsistance and comfort of
man. All kinds of tropical fruits are found here, and never since I left
New Orleans have I feasted so upon the good things of this earth. Nature
has done much in every way for this quarter of the world. A beautiful,
swift running and clean stream skirts the city on two sides from which the
inhabitants, by means of many small and indifferent ditches water their
gardens, and clean their streets. The climate is fine and the soil equal to
any on earth, and with proper cultivation would yield enough to support
fifty times the number of inhabitants. With a little work added to the
natural defences of the place, it might almost bid defiance to the world.
With all of these blessings and advantages however, the people are the
most worthless I have ever fallen among. They exhibit some industry,
in fact considerable but in almost all of the avocations of life they seem
to be about fifty years behind us. When I see what sort of people they are
in their every day businesses, I am some what surprissed that they do so
well (bad enough 'tis true) here. That is that they did prepare a place
so well for attack as they have this. They have some intellegent men
among them here, but I attribute this success in preparation for war
more to the knowledge and skill of their hired officers of foreign nations,
than to any mind of their own. Be this as it may, be however they had
prepared very well here for our reception and they fought better than I
supposed they would.
their cavalry were out in front of the city, when we came. They fired a
few times at our advance guard, to let us see I suppose that they intended
resistance, and fled. In a few minutes they commenced upon us with
cannon, and we had to leave, or get out of the way. They kept this up
during the day as our men would show themselves. We camped about
three miles off, and did nothing until Monday the 21st,, when the game
opened in style and earnest at both ends of the city. I never made so
many runs in my life as I did during Monday and other days of the battle.
This aspect was paid by all, who were not immediately in the way of the
cannon balls as they came along. I was not in a fight until the last day,
but was much exposed during the whole time sending orders from point
to point. They honored me with several shots as I crossed the plain on
Monday. None of them however did any damage, though the last came a
little nearer than I ever want another ball to come. We engaged the
enemy in the lower part of the city on the last day of the battle and
fought them from about 11 O'clock in the morning until nearly sunset.
We were then called off. We were progressing finely and every man heard
with regret and sorrow the order for retiring. We were within one square
of the grand plaza, or square and nearly the whole force of the Mexicans
had retired. If we had not been taken out the city that night, there would
have been an unconditional surrender of the place the next day, instead
of the capitulation. Very many are dissatisfied at the arrangement and
I think with reason. Elijah was with me during the most of our fight.
Neither of us were hurt.
You will see in General Henderson's report, when published I presume,
how I conducted myself. Our men are being disbanded and are going
home, not because they are tired but because they have no prospects of
anything more to do before spring if then. I shall start home in four or
five days. It will take me about 8 weeks to make the trip. My respects
to all.
Your son,
Edward [Clark]
2
FOOTNOTES:
to New Orleans where he received most of his education. When he was
seventeen years old his father died and he and his mother moved to Mont-
gomery, Alabama. While living in Montgomery he studied law. About
the year 1838 he came to Texas and settled in Marshall where he began
the practice of law.
During the Mexican war he served on the staff of General James Pinck-
ney Henderson, first with the rank of major, and was later made a colonel.
In 1846 he fought in the battle of Monterrey which he described in the
foregoing letter. He was a member of the Constitutional Convention and
helped to write the Constitution of Texas. He served as a representative
from Marshall in the first legislature, and was a senator of the second
legislature, and was Secretary of State for two terms under Governor
Pease, 1853-1857. In 1859 he was elected lieutenant-governor with Sam
Houston as governor. When Texas withdrew from the Union, Houston
refused to take the oath of allegiance to the Confederacy, and Edward
Clark was made governor in 1861.
At the end of his term he joined the Confederate Army as a colonel
and organized a regiment of men from East Texas and was later promoted
to brigadier general. He was wounded in Louisiana. After the war he
resumed his law practice in Marshall, where he died in 1880.
BOOK REVIEWS
Charles
DeMorse:
Pioneer
Editor
and
Statestman.
By Ernest
Wallace. Lubbock (Texas Tech Press), 1943. Pp. v+27l.
$3.00.
Charles DeMorse was born in Massachusetts, January 31,
1816, and died at Clarksville, Texas, October 25, 1887. Pro-
fessor Wallace expresses in his preface a just characterization
of DeMorse's public service. "No one service of DeMorse," he
says, "has great magnitude, but the myriad of services which
he performed should place him among those whose life's records,
so closely interwoven with that of the history of Texas, should
be preserved."
DeMorse arrived in Texas somewhat casually on March 2,
1836, and a few days later was made lieutenant of marines on
the schooner Independence.
His ship carried President Burnet
from Galveston Island to Velasco after the battle of San Jacinto,
and he saw there the excitement aroused by the effort of the
government to return Santa Anna to Mexico in accordance with
the terms of the Treaty of Velasco. In July, 1836, he resigned
from the Navy, joined the army and was appointed a major
by General Rusk. Following Houston's demobilization of the
army in 1837, DeMorse practiced law in Matagorda. He moved
to Austin early in 1839, was appointed to a minor political office
by President Lamar, became reporter of the House of Repre-
sentatives and edited a little newspaper, probably The
Daily
Bulletin.
Members of Congress from northeast Texas urged
him in 1842 to establish a paper in the Red River region and
offered to help him finance it. In response to this somewhat
unusual overture, he established The
Northern
Standard
at
Clarksville and began his life work.
The Standard
was in operation, with some intermissions,
from 1842 until 1887, and DeMorse came to be recognized as
one of the notable editors of his day. He maintained an un-
usually good news service, and many of his editorials were sum-
marized or quoted by Niles'
Register,
the national weekly of
its day.
ters of the relation of the Standard to annexation, the Mexican
War, the development of Secession, the Civil War, reconstruc-
tion, the formation of the constitution of 1876, and the ques-
tionable land policy inaugurated by Governor O. M. Roberts in
1879. Naturally, DeMorse favored annexation and supported
the Mexican War, which he regarded as a heaven-sent occasion
for paying the Texan score against the Mexicans. He was a
mild Unionist and questioned the legality of the method by
which Texas was united with the Confederacy, agreeing with
Sam Houston that the Secession Convention had no authority
to join the Confederate States without a referendum to the
people. Nevertheless, he organized a regiment and led it with
distinction during the last three years of the war. It was from
1865 until his death that DeMorse earned the right to be
deemed a statesman. His attitude toward reconstruction was
moderate and sound. He was one of the most influential mem-
bers of the Convention of 1875, which restored home rule to
the State. He suspended the Standard when he went to Austin
to serve in the convention and retired to his farm after the con-
vention was over. He revived his paper in 1879, however, to
oppose the policy inaugurated by Governor Roberts of selling
public lands to large holders at fifty cents an acre. He be-
lieved the policy detrimental to the agricultural development
of the west and contrary to the interests of public education.
He was successful in his campaign to reverse the policy and
served under Governor Ireland on the State Land Board to undo
as much as possible of the consequences of the Roberts ad-
ministration.
Though Professor Wallace has acquainted himself with all
the pertinent authorities, his principal source has been the al-
most complete file of the Standard
in The University of Texas
library. He has used these public, objective materials with
critical discrimination and has produced a sound biography
within his limitations. Very little material was available for the
more personal human characteristics of Ms subject. He was
able to acquire a reasonably intimate appreciation of home life
and personality, which he pictures in Chapter I. His book is
a real and permanent contribution to our knowledge of lesser
known characters to whom we owe much of our heritage.
The University of Texas
Eugene C. Barker
Kendall
of
the
Picayune.
By Fayette Copeland. Norman (Uni-
versity of Oklahoma Press), 1943. Pp. ix+351. Illustra-
tions. $3.00.
George Wilkins Kendall was a descendant of Francis Kendall,
who came to Charlestown, Massachusetts, in 1640, and of Bray
Wilkins, who landed at Salem, Massachusetts, with Governor
John Endicott in 1628. He was born on August 22, 1809, in the
village of Mont Vernon in present-day Hillsboro County, New
Hampshire, as the oldest son of Thaddeus and Abigail Wilkins
Kendall. He spent ten years in the home of his grandfather,
Deacon Samuel Wilkins, and subsequently acknowledged his
gratitude for the training which he received there by always
including "his middle name 'Wilkins' in his later famous signa-
ture."
At the age of sixteen he became an apprentice in the shop of
the Amherst (New Hampshire) Herald,
and once this interest
in newspaper work took possession of him he was not to lose it
until his death on October 21, 1867. In January, 1837, he and
Francis Asbury Lumsden formed a partnership in New Orleans
to engage in the newspaper business, and on January 25, 1837,
they distributed the first issue of The
Picayune
in New Orleans.
From that time on, newspaper journalism was the very life and
blood of George Wilkins Kendall, and, no matter what his
primary business was, news reporting and writing articles for
The
Picayune
always demanded some of his time.
For many years New Orleans was his legal residence, but
Texas has a claim on his citizenship for the period from 1856
to 1867. He owned a tract of land on the Nueces, had a ranch
home near New Braunfels, and finally moved to his ranch on
Post Oak Spring near Boerne, Texas, in the county that was
created and named for him in 1862. In Texas he did much to
improve the sheep on his ranches, and less than two months
before his death he was in San Antonio where he tried "without
success to borrow money to promote a factory for the manu-
facture of woolens in New Braunfels."
The circumstances of the times gave Kendall four full years
in which to build up the business of The
Picayune.
(Picayune,
by the way, comes from the French picaillon,
Spanish picayón,
a coin worth six and a fourth cents, the cost of one copy of
The
Picayune.)
Then, early in 1841, Kendall heard of the pro-
posed Santa Fe expedition which President Lamar was spon-
soring. New Orleans always heard of interesting and exciting
things that were happening or about to happen in Texas. Ken-
dall went to Texas and shared the trials and hardships of those
who went to Santa Fe. His experiences were recorded in his
Narrative
of
the
Texan
Santa
Fe
Expedition
(New York, 1844).
Kendall's next great experience was his reporting of the
Mexican war, and for this work the author correctly calls him
the "first modern war correspondent." He organized a pony
express to carry his war correspondence from Scott's forces to
Vera Cruz. It was a great good work that Kendall did and it
meant much for the circulation of The
Picayune.
The author's
treatment of this phase of Kendall's life is his real contribution
in this book.
A chapter on revolution and romance records Kendall's work
in France in 1848 on the revolution of that year and relates
the story of his courtship of and marriage to Adeline de Valcourt
in 1849. Seven years more Kendall's wife stayed in France,
while he went back and forth to Texas to make ready the ranch
home just a few miles from New Braunfels near Waco Spring.
When the Kendalls came to Texas they brought only Georgina
and William Henry along; Henry Fletcher, their infant son,
was too young to make the long journey, but came to Texas in
December, 1858, with his grandmother, Madame de Valcourt.
Caroline Louise, the oldest daughter, accompanied her parents
to Texas in 1866. Georgina married Eugene J. Fellowes, lived
for a while in Chicago, and now, at the age of ninety-three
years, is living in San Antonio, where she is well known as
Mrs. Georgina Kendall Fellowes. In his dedication the author
calls Mrs. Fellowes the "real biographer" of George Wilkins
Kendall.
The last three chapters of this intensely interesting and ad-
mirably written biography deal with Kendall's experiences as
a sheep rancher near New Braunfels from 1856 to 1861 and on
his Post Oak Spring ranch near Boerne, Texas, from February,
1861, until his death in October, 1867. These last eleven years
of Kendall's life were full but also hard. He still wrote for
The
Picayune,
but his weekly letter "dealt almost exclusively
with the past, as if there were no present and would be no
future." It is, however, this part of Kendall's life that will in-
terest Texans and will make them happy to own this book.
Mexico, Illustrated, in collaboration with Carl Nebel, who made
the drawings. This book, which appeared in 1851, was printed
in the Picayune shop and was marketed by D. Appleton and
Company. Kendall wrote a longer history of the Mexican War,
but one obstacle after another prevented the the publication of
this work, and finally Mrs. Georgina Kendall Fellowes "gave
the manuscript to The University of Texas."
The author gives various short personal and character
sketches of Kendall. Possibly the best of these reads: "This
was one of the evidences, increasing as the years passed, of the
impatience which stamped his character. Always he had chafed
at obstacles, but his energy and his resourcefulness carried
him past barriers which turned back less determined men.
These characteristics made him a versatile reporter, a success-
ful publisher, a great correspondent, and a pioneer who con-
tributed immeasurably to the development of his adopted state."
Just a little more must needs be said. The book shows up
well in its general appearance. It is remarkably free of typo-
graphical errors, and the illustrations, only nine in number,
are excellent and remarkably well chosen. The bibliography,
which is very lengthy and shows a considerable amount of re-
search, might have included a few more items on the Santa Fe
expedition, such as H. Bailey Carroll's dissertation, "The Route
of the Texas Santa Fe Expedition," Peter Gallagher and
Stephen Hoyle's "Journal of the Santa Fe Expedition," and
Peter Gallagher's "Diary for 1841-1842." All in all, this biogra-
phy is a good one and has its place in Texana, the history of
Louisiana, the history of the Southwest, and the history of
American journalism.
The University of Texas
R. L. Biesele
When
the
Bishop
Blesses.
By Albert M. Schreiber, O.S.B. San
Antonio (Standard Printing Co.), 1943. Pp. 139.
This little book is a narrative of the labors of Bishop
Emmanuel B. Ledvina and of Abbot Paul M. Nahlen, O.S.B.,
in founding and developing Corpus Christi College-Academy.
It tells of the work and worry of the Benedictine Fathers in
founding a school in the Diocese of Corpus Christi, and is the
story of the big-heartedness and generosity of the people of
South Texas towards the College-Academy from its foundation
in 1927 to the present time.
The book is divided into eight chapters. The first four de-
velop the story of the Bishop's solicitude for education and the
need for a high school in the vicinity of Corpus Christi; the
invitation to the Benedictines to open a school; the donation
of the school property by Mr. and Mrs. John Dunn; the fi-
nancial difficulties; and the construction of the buildings under
the supervision of Father Paul Nahlen, the first president. The
second half of the book contains the story of the school proper:
the small beginnings, the increase in enrollment, the problem
of accrediting the various subjects to the State Department of
Education, athletic achievements, and the general progress of
the school. Throughout the narrative the activities of Bishop
Ledvina and Father Paul serve to give continuity to the story.
While the title stresses the Bishop's role, the book is about
equally divided between the two chief personages and is as much
an account of the educational labors of Father Paul as a com-
mentary on the educational zeal of the Bishop.
The author, Albert Schreiber, director of studies at the Col-
lege-Academy, has effectively marshaled the facts revealed by
the manuscript sources; he has, furthermore, nicely supple-
mented that story with first-hand observations gained on the
scene, drawn from his fifteen years of personal labors at the
school. The study shows care and balance throughout, and is
well planned and organized. Delightfully interwoven with the
story are happy little human interest pictures of the Bishop,
faculty, and students which give color and help to make the
account most readable. The chapter headings are perhaps ultra
and fanciful; the appendices contain lists of faculty members
and graduates and statistics on enrollment. There is a bibliogra-
phy, and the work is excellently illustrated; unfortunately there
is no index.
Father Schreiber deserves credit for what he has done. While
the work is of special value as a chapter in the educational ac-
tivities of the Benedictine Order, it has a yet wider appeal and
should be useful to all those interested in the development of
high school education in Texas. A similar study of other private
high schools throughout the state could profitably be made that
a complete over-all picture might be available. To this end it
is an invaluable contribution, and individuals interested in
making a similar study may profitably examine the methoc
the organization, and the plan of this work.
St. Mary's University
Joseph Schmitz
Confederate
Mississippi:
The
People
and
Policies
of
a
Cotton
State
in
Wartime.
By John K. Bettersworth. Baton Rouge
University Press) 1943. Pp. xii+386.
Illustrations. $3.00.
This book bridges the gap between the works of Percy L
Rainwater on the secession movement in Mississippi and of the
late James W. Garner on reconstruction. It is a valuable addi-
tion to the steadily growing literature on the Confederacy that
is being published, and it carries forward vigorously that newer
slant which scholars have given to their studies of this period
of the history of the South. The laudatory style of treatment
which made the Confederate era heroic and dared mention
little that was derogatory came to an end with Nathaniel W
Stephenson's The
Day
of
the
Confederacy,
which appeared in
1919. Since that time the attempt to restore the balance has
been steadily going on through the monographic studies of
Albert B. Moore's Conscription
and
Conflict
in
the
Confederacy,
Frank L. Owsley's State
Rights
in
the
Confederacy,
Ella Lonn's
Desertion
during
the
Civil
War,
Bessie Martin's Desertion
of
Alabama
Troops
from
the
Confederate
Army,
Louise B. Hill's
Joseph
E.
Brown
and
the
Confederacy,
and through the works
of various other scholars. Realism has pushed out romance, and
as all new brooms sweep clean, there is the evident danger that
in the zeal of wielding that new broom too much may be swept
out.
Professor Bettersworth has in this instance written a highly
readable and scholarly account of Mississippi in the Civil War,
and the only adverse criticism this reviewer would make is that
the author has overbalanced his work with the seamy side. It
should not be corrected by eliminating anything but rather by
adding to the account of the positive accomplishments and sac-
rifices made in carrying on the war and in maintaining life in
those terrible years. Such subjects as relief of soldiers' families
and other sacrifices for the war, though mentioned, receive only
meagre attention. But this is not to belittle the solid worth of
the content of the book.
Professor Bettersworth has given a vivid account of the
troubles Mississippi made for the Confederate administration
by insisting on local defense, by unsound financial measures,
by trading through the lines with the enemy, by opposing the
suspension of the writ of habeas corpus, by desertions from the
army, and by various other activities common to the other Con-
federate states. Religion, education, newspapers, and literary
pursuits also receive attention. As seems proper, military ac-
tivities find no further mention than is necessary for clarifying
general developments; yet a whole chapter on military cam-
paigns within the state would have fitted well into a complete
picture of Confederate Mississippi. The book deals effectively
with the well-known myth that the "Free State of Jones" se-
ceded from Mississippi and set itself up as an independent
republic.
The author has based his work on the use of practically every
available source--an unusually large amount of manuscript
material, newspapers, official documents, much other primary
printed material, and the worth while secondary accounts. A
map of the state with the counties as they existed in 1860 is
used as end-papers, and a number of well-chosen contemporary
illustrations add interest. An extensive bibliography and an
effective index are also included.
The University of Texas
E. M. Coulter
William
Preston
Johnston:
A
Transitional
Figure
of
the
Con
-
federacy.
By Arthur Marvin Shaw, Baton Rouge (Louisi-
ana State University Press), 1943. Pp. xv+299. Illustra-
tions. $3.00.
A large proportion of the Confederate officials rightfully
played a prominent part in helping the South resume its place
in the nation. The field of education probably offered the great-
est opportunity for service during the transitional period. The
exact number of ex-Confederates who became college or uni-
versity presidents is not known by this reviewer, but the number
was considerable; General Robert E. Lee set the example. It
was not long after Lee became president of Washington College
that he invited Colonel William Preston Johnston, son of the
late General Albert Sidney Johnston, to join his faculty.
father and took a leave of absence from the college in 1872.
Two years later he resigned his professorship. The biography
was published in 1878 and won for the author recognition as
both scholar and writer. It was his best literary production
and probably was an important factor in the election of Colonel
Johnston as president of Louisiana State University in Octo-
ber, 1880.
President Johnston was beset with many trying and difficult
problems at Louisiana State University. He was relieved of the
unhappy burden when his friends chose him to head the new
Tulane University in January, 1883, at double his former salary.
He was president at Tulane until his death in 1899.
Colonel Johnston was a fluent speaker, and his services were
in demand throughout the South at varied public functions, and
especially at college commencements. On these occasions he
endeavored to further the cause of education. He set an example
of creative scholarship; his published works during these busy
years were impressive in volume and high in scholarship.
Professor Shaw has written a full-length biography of Colonel
Johnston which is a worthwhile contribution; his style is clear
and direct and his research thorough. He has done so well that
there will be no necessity for soon re-doing it. The footnotes
are adequate and the eleven-page bibliography is extensive and
sufficient. The ten-page index enhances the usefulness of the
book. The volume is typical of the high standard of work of
the Louisiana State University Press. The proof reading was
excellent and the reviewer detected only one error.
Louisiana Polytechnic Institute
G. W. McGinty
CONTRIBUTORS
J. W. Williams, "The National Road of the Republic of Texas,"
now owns a new home at 2220 Piedmont Place, Wichita Falls,
Texas, which he uses as headquarters from which he explores
the roads and trails of early Texas. Williams is a frequent con-
tributor to The
Quarterly
and The
West
Texas
Historical
Year
Book.
He was recently given, through the Association, a Rocke-
feller Grant-in-Aid for the completion of his manuscript on
the early trails of West Texas.
Frank
E.
Vandiver,
"Texas and the Confederate Army's Meat
Problem," has for permanent address 1208 Castle Hill, Austin,
Texas. Young Vandiver is something of a
prodigy, for he is
now about to reach his eighteenth birthday and is preparing for
induction into the army. He has had no academic training in
history, but has, for about four years, been studying the Con-
federacy, specializing on its food problems. All of his Confed-
erate studies have been inspired by the late Charles W. Rams-
dell. He has published in the William
and
Mary
College
Quar
-
terly,
Louisiana
Historical
Quarterly,
and Tyler's
Quarterly
Historical
and
Genealogical
Magazine.
Eugene C. Barker, "General Arthur Goodall Wavell and
Wavell's Colony in Texas," is the dean of Texas historians. See
The
Quarterly,
XLVI, April, 1943.
Olive Todd Walker, "Esther Amanda Sherrill Cullins: a Pio-
neer Woman of the Texas Frontier," a native Texan, is the
daughter of Robert and Ella Evans Todd, of Cameron, Texas.
Both parents were of Milam County pioneer families.
Mrs. Walker attended Baylor Female College, and after teach-
ing several years in the public schools, she turned to business,
where her varied experience included secretarial work, office
management, and selling real estate, oil leases, insurance and
bonds.
Besides her membership in the Order of the Eastern Star,
Mrs. Walker is affiliated with the following historical and
patriotic societies: State Association of Texas Pioneers, Daugh-
ters of Texas Trail Drivers, The Texas State Historical Asso»
eiation, and Daughters of the American Revolution, of which
she is a past regent.
John
J.
Johnson,
"The Excellence of the Spanish Horse," is at
present doing research in Latin-American History at the Uni-
versity of Chicago as the University of California William Har-
rison Mills Traveling Fellow in International Relations. Mr.
Johnson's master's thesis was on "The Introduction of the Horse
into the Western Hemisphere and its Spread to Peru."
Kathryn Garrett, "Dr. John Sibley and the Louisiana-Texas
Frontier, 1803-1814," is the head of the Social Science Division
in Paschal High School, Fort Worth, Texas.
Marian Yaeger, "A Letter from Old Goliad," is a Junior His-
torian of San Antonio. She is a member of the Junior Historian
Chapter of Brackenridge High School, which Mrs. Lydia Ma-
gruder sponsors. The letter from Thomas B. Rees was found
as a part of the Junior Historian work of the chapter.
Marjorie Clark, "A Mexican War Letter," is a resident of
Dallas, where she is a member of the Adamson High School
Junior Historian Chapter, sponsored by Miss Abigail Crane.
Governor Clark, the writer of the letter from Monterrey, was
Miss Clark's great-grandfather.
E. W. Winkler, "Check List of Texas Imprints, 1845-1876,"
is Bibliographer in The University of Texas Library and a
walking encyclopedia of Texas books.
TEXACO
THE TEXAS COMPANY
How to cite:
Volume 47, Number 3, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v047/n3/issue.html
[Accessed Sat Mar 20 14:21:33 CDT 2010]
