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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THE TEXAS STATE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
AUSTIN 12, TEXAS
1897-—The Oldest Learned Society in Texas—l897
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E. W. Winkler
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Walter P. Webb
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H. Bailey Carroll
Herbert Gambrell
THE SOUTHWESTERN HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
EDITORS:
Walter Prescott Webb
H. Bailey Carroll
ASSOCIATE EDITORS:
Charles W. Hackett
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," 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. 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, 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 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.
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. 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. Major Stell's
plat shows that this road passed through the town of Paris,
and subsequent information identifies it with Bonham street,
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. 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 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 was once located there, and
in later years the Barnes Bridge was built a half-mile up the
stream. Not far across the East Fork, Major Stell blazed the
surface of an ash tree 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 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. A locust post was set at
Yeary's southeast corner; 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, 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. 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. 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. 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, owned the land just east of the present bridge. He
built a frontier fort--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.
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. 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. 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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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, 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. 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, 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.
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. 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. An old trail from Jones-
boro to Nacogdoches, the origin of which is attributed to a
certain Mr. Trammel, was blazed about 1820. 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. 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. 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. In a few years a mail route
connected the Red River area with San Augustine, 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. 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. 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, 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.
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, 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. 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.
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. 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. In the early part of
the war, some, at least, of the Rebel camps fared well in the
matter of meat. With all the meat the soldiers consumed, there
were still 40,000 cattle ready for packing in the Confederacy at
the end of 1861. 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. 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, 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. 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. 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.
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."
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. 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.
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. 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.
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. Even after cutting the
issue of salt meat to a fourth of a pound, Lee had only three
days' supply.
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.
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.
While this was going on, Northrop, by intercepting a communi-
cation from two Florida men to the Secretary of War, 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. 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. 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."
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.
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. 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, and the main area of
reserve stores had been reduced to Georgia, Virginia and North
Carolina. 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. 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.
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; 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.
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.
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. The great center of Jefferson, Texas, besides
being an important quartermaster depot, 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. 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.
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. 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.
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.
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 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 the Cullins family removed to
the new capital of Nashville, 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, 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. 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. 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, 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