Texas Collection
MAY 27 was the twenty-first birthday of Santa Rita, The
University of Texas discovery oil well in the Reagan
County area. The anniversary was observed with fitting cere-
monies in Austin. About a month before the May 27 date,
George C. Gibbons, Executive Vice-President of Texas Mid-
Continent Oil and Gas Association, called from Dallas to say
that his Association considered Martin Schwettmann's book
Santa
Rita
one of the greatest tributes ever paid to the oil
industry, and that his Association was interested in paying
tribute upon the anniversary date to the Historical Association,
The University of Texas, and the original enterprisers con-
nected with the well.
The story of Santa Rita and of the founding of the University
was written in a radio script by J. Edward Morrow, Oil Editor
of the Dallas News.
The script was produced by Mrs. Edith
Beale Hamilton of Radio House at the University and was broad-
cast over the Texas Quality Network at 12:30 on Saturday, May
27. Climaxing the day's activities was a dinner in the Maxi-
milian Room of the Driskill Hotel given by the Texas Mid-
Continent Oil and Gas Association honoring the Texas State
Historical Association and The University of Texas. It was a
party that Life
magazine should have attended. Beauford Jester,
chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission and a former
member of the Board of Regents of the University, was master
of ceremonies. President Homer P. Rainey spoke for the Uni-
versity and called attention to the fact that the permanent fund
of the University is now approaching $44,000,000 and that
most of these funds have been derived from oil income. George
A. Hill, Jr., President of the Houston Oil Company and Vice-
President of the Association, spoke as the representative of
the petroleum industry. Among the hundred or more persons
present at the dinner were Mrs. Carl Cromwell, wife of the
Santa Rita driller, and Mrs. W. E. Peavy, Jr., his daughter,
Carlene. Frank T. Pickrell, one of the partners in the company
which drilled the well, flew in from California to be present
on the occasion. His impromptu speech telling of the Santa Rita
development was one of the highlights of the program. Dr.
Eugene C. Barker spoke as the representative of the Association,
making a talk which impressed all present with the necessity
for having more history in business. The text of Dr. Barker's
and of Mr. Hill's addresses are carried as separate articles in
this issue of the Quarterly.
Some three years or more ago the Santa Rita derrick was
transported from Texon to the campus of the University. It
was first expected that the derrick would be re-erected in the
mall between two engineering buildings then being constructed.
Later, plans appear to have been changed and the regents seem
not to have made a designation for a new spot upon which the
derrick is to be erected. It is hoped, however, that this can be
accomplished quite soon. The University of Texas could not
do anything more proper in expressing its appreciation of the
contribution Santa Rita has made to the life and material re-
sources of the University.
* * *
It was most fortunate for me to be called to the Rio Grande
Valley in the latter part of May, for I was able to make a re-
acquaintance with a section of Texas which previously I had
encountered in only the briefest and most superficial manner.
The Valley is frequently referred to as the Magic Valley, and
it is just that. It is a section apart, and yet it is Texas and
deserves to be understood and appreciated by all Texans. When
I first crossed the Nueces, the thought which was uppermost
in my mind was that I was entering the birthplace of the cattle
kingdom, for it was between the Nueces and the Rio Grande
that the method of handling cattle on horseback developed, was
institutionalized, and from there spread to the rest of Texas and
eventually to the western half of America. That was approxi-
mately a century ago, but on the upper levels of the Valley the
Longhorn has been replaced by the sacred white cows of India --
not so sacred now in the Valley -- but entirely functional. But the
Brahmas do in general seem to have preserved something of
their heritage, because they have a sort of philosophical aloofness
as they graze alongside the Herefords or the Santa Gertrudis
cattle -- descendants of old Monkey.
Getting into the Valley proper one leaves the remnants of
the cattle kingdom and goes into an entirely new world, where
a finger of Texas reaches for the tropics. Land of towering
palms where citrus fruit and vegetable gardening now predom-
inate, the Valley is magical in the way in which it produces.
The citrus crop consists mainly of oranges and grapefruit, but
in lesser numbers are to be found also limes, lemons, tangerines,
and other varieties. The 1944 citrus crop of the Valley grossed
$53,000,000, and at about the same time the tomato crop
added yet another $18,000,000. The Valley is still a new frontier,
for it reproduces today something of the boom times of other
years. Fortunes are still made or lost almost overnight in land
speculation and development; but the processes of stabilization
are also definitely beginning. I saw something like a thousand
acres of carrots which had been plowed under and a new swift
try made with cotton. The Valley is a place which works
feverishly against deadlines. There is a deadline in irrigation,
and unless one is ready to take the water as it flows in the ir-
rigation ditches, then one loses the opportunity for the watering
of the land. The citrus crop must be got out against the dead-
line when the Mexican fruit fly puts in its appearance. And
tomatoes must be pulled green at exactly the correct time or
they lose much of their export value as they go into "ripes."
There is also the frenzied hurry in the further clearing of land.
Here the industrial revolution has come to the Valley, and the
cactus and mesquite thickets are now swiftly cleared by giant
cats and bulldozers which pull up and push out the trees and
pulverize the land to a depth of four and five feet, making it
ready for new seedling trees. And the patient Mexican labor,
which formerly grubbed out of the ground more undergrowth
than was above the topsoil, now goes into other channels.
The Valley is conscious of its opening into the Gulf, and
conversation flows as easily to tarpon, Spanish mackerel, and
flounder as does the patient river which feeds three levels of
irrigated land.
As much as anything else the Valley proves the great di-
versity of Texas. The Valley is cosmopolitan. One is almost
overcome with the wealth of contrast between the natural
manifestations to be seen there and those that exist still around
J. Evetts Haley's JH Ranch along the Canadian in the brakes
and on the High Plains of Texas. Certainly the contrasts are
equally as sharp there as those which might be found from
east to west in Texas -- as from Lufkin to El Paso.
mingling with the fragrance, a packing house stench of a
thousand acres of cabbages rotting in the fields. In the swift
tempo of the Valley something happened, and the cabbages
were not quite got out in time.
I was also interested to find in the Valley yet another distinc-
tive Texas hotel. The Casa de Palmas in McAllen, with its
thoroughly authentic Spanish architecture and its spacious 111
rooms, belongs in any such category. The Casa de Palmas was
built in 1918 but apparently has been discovered by northern
and eastern tourists more than by Texans. Also the Valley
has a distinctive newspaper -- a community sheet more in-
terested in its own locality and what is news there than in
settling Washington's international problems or advancing
a cosmic view for the Tasmanian peoples. This is the Mission
Times,
edited by Joe T. Cook, who was about a dozen years ago
editor of The
Daily
Texan.
Last year the paper was awarded the
Dallas News
trophy for being "the most excellent weekly news-
paper in Texas."
The record the Valley has recently made and is making today
should be preserved for Texas history while it still has the
pioneer flavor. I earnestly hope that along the Broadway of
America there may be developed the Rio Grande Valley Historical
Society. The lower Valley needs an interpreter who can do for
it what Harvey Fergusson did for the upper reaches in his book,
Rio
Grande.
The Valley should pause to consider that it is as
essential to preserve the record as it is to make it. Judge Harbert
Davenport of Brownsville would be an ideal person around
whom an interest in the historical past of the Valley might
be institutionalized. The Association would welcome such de-
velopment and would be glad to assist as far as limited facilities
will permit.
From Pvt. George Crawbuck, Fighter Training Center, 2
Fighter Trading Squadron, A. P. 0. No. 762, c/o Postmaster,
New York -- now in North Africa -- has come a request for
a listing of all the articles in the Quarterly
relating to South-
western Indians and particularly to those of Texas. Thinking
that if the list were wanted in North Africa, it might also
be of interest to numbers of persons in Texas, I am appending
it below. The list is also an excellent testimonial to the wide
variety of materials available on Texas in the files of the
Quarterly.
ARTICLES IN THE SOUTHWESTERN
HISTORICAL
QUARTERLY
RELATING TO SOUTHWESTERN AND TEXAS INDIANS
Hackett, Charles W., "The Revolt of the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico
in 1680," XV, 93-147.
Hatcher, Mattie Austin, "Description of the Tejas or Asinai Indians,
1691-1722," XXX, 206-218, 283-304; XXXI, 50-62, 150-180.
Kenney, M. M., "Tribal Society Among Texas Indians," I, 26-34; an
error corrected, I, 226-227.
Roberts, O. M., "Prehistoric Races in Texas," I, 145-150.
Winkler, E. W., "The Cherokee Indians in Texas," VII, 94-165.
Any person who has driven across Tennessee, Virginia, or
Kansas--to pick but three examples -- needs no argument
that Texas has not integrated her history and natural wonders
with her system of modern highways and transportation as
well as have some of the other states. I previously mentioned in
other "Texas Collection" items the advisability of bringing
the Texas Highway Department and the Association into closer
contacts so that visitors to the state and our own citizens may
receive useful and authentic information regarding the historic
places of Texas. A short time before the Annual Meeting
this subject was discussed in a conference between D. C. Greer,
State Highway Engineer, Charles Simons of the Texas Good
Roads Association, President L. W. Kemp, and the writer. All of
us agreed that more ought to be done in pointing out and
marking historic trails, roads, natural wonders, and places
of interest in the state. Where a modern road has been built
along an ancient highway, the information to that effect will
add to the appreciation of the traveller thereon. After the
conference Mr. Greer wrote a letter to the office, es-
pecially commending J. W. Williams' "The National Road
of the Republic of Texas" which appeared in the January num-
ber of the Quarterly.
. . .
The source of the F. B. E. Browne map published in the
January, 1944, Quarterly,
opposite p. 306, has finally been run
to earth by Judge C. L. Greenwood of Austin. Judge Greenwood
will also contribute in the "Notes and Documents" section of a
following issue additional accounts dealing with travel across
West Texas in 1849. The Browne party is identified by the fol-
lowing note taken from the Texas
Democrat
(Austin), April
21, 1849:
A party of some twenty or thirty Californians left here on Wednesday
last for the gold region, by way of Fredericksburg and El Paso. They
were for the most part residents of the coast counties in this State, and
among them some of our most substantial citizens. We remember the
names of Col. W. J. Kyle, David S. Terry, John Hodges, Pinck. Smith,
William Bradley, and George Davis. They were well equipped in every
respect, and had with them five able bodied negro men. They expect to
pursue the route taken by Capt. Haynie and his party, who left here some
four weeks ago.
We learn also that Capt. William W. Thompson's have begun to
rendezvous at Fredericksburg, where they will all unite and proceed
thence about the Ist of May. This company will be amply provided with
wagons, and will consist of about three hundred persons--among them
several families.
Since the foregoing was written, two other parties have arrived,
bound for California. Of these, we are able to mention only the following
names: R. Dunham, Wm. Simmons, and Martin Anderson, from Bastrop
County; Capt. B. F. Hanna, of Galveston; L. S. Perkins, Dr. F. B. E.
Brown, Dr. Stone, Mr. Patton, and Mr. Turner, of Harris County; Dr.
John C. Ogburne, William Pollard, A. J. Dickson, Allen Williams, C.
Barry, and J. O'Neill, of Navarro County. As the route from this city
may now be considered as fairly opened, we may expect arrivals and
departures almost daily throughout the spring and summer.
Note that Captain William W. Thompson's party is identified
above and that it is the same one whose route is shown by
Browne from the Pecos to El Paso. Also mentioned above is
L. S. Perkins, who cooked the antelope's head as shown on the
Browne map. Now that Browne is identified as Dr. F. B. E.
Browne of Harris County, some of the students of that county
should be able to throw further light on his career. Apparently
he was back in Texas in 1851. Possibly he had gone west only
as far as El Paso.
Captain Roy F. Hall, Box 105, McKinney, Texas, has been
much interested in information concerning the locomotive
named General
Sherman
which was operated by the Buffalo
Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway Company. Captain Hall
is interested in any picture of the locomotive which may have
survived. Andrew F. Muir, 946 Courtlandt Place, Houston,
Texas, who has made extensive researches in the early railroad
history of Texas, has furnished the following information on
the locomotive.
The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway Company locomotive
General
Sherman
was the first introduced into Texas.l It was purchased
second-hand in Massachusetts, probably from one of the railroads in
which Jonathan F. Barrett, the first president of the company, owned
stock. Though second-hand, it was considered substantial, serviceable,
and efficient.
2 It weighed twelve
3 or thirteen
4 tons, had inside connections,
5
and was capable of running thirty-five miles an hour.
6 In 1857, it and
its tender were valued at $4000.
7
The locomotive arrived in Galveston in November, 1852, and Galveston
townspeople gave a dinner for Sidney Sherman in recognition of his
bringing it to Texas.
8 Late in November or early in December, 1852,
a storm at Galveston injured it.
9 The damage was repaired and steam
raised on the locomotive in January, 1853.
10 It was in bad running order
in 1855.
11 On July 24, 1861, mobs damaged four locomotives of the
B. B. B. & C.,
12 and the General
Sherman
may have been one of these.
The locomotive was owned by the company as late as June 11, 1874, when
the property of the B. B. B. & C. was sold to the Galveston, Harrisburg
and San Antonio Railway Company.l3
graph of the locomotive be furnished?
The following significant information regarding the state
flower of Texas was taken from the Tyler Courier-Times-
Telegraph
of April 2, 1944.
The bluebonnet, state flower of Texas, has already begun to open
early blooms in Tyler and in a few weeks more, the flowers will be
at the height of their beauty. What few people know is that a native-born
Tyler woman, Mrs. Sawnie Robertson, was the first person to conceive
the idea of having the bonnet-shaped blossom made the State flower.
The information that Mrs. Robertson was responsible for the blue-
bonnet being adopted as the state flower, was revealed Saturday in an
old Texas Scrapbook printed by the Texas Scrap Book Society of Dallas.
Pace's Texas
Scrap
Book,
as the edition is called, was given recently
to the Tyler Junior College library, along with another Texas literary
collection, by Hampson Gary, formerly of Tyler, but now Solicitor in the
Export-Import Bank in Washington, D. C.
Mrs. Robertson got the Texas chapter of the Colonial Dames of America,
of which she was a member, to petition the Legislature officially to declare
the bluebonnet as state flower. She asked Senator Barry Miller of
Dallas to present the petition and introduce an appropriate concurrent
resolution. This was done, and the Senate and House of Representatives
passed the resolution in the 27th Legislature in 1901.
Born and reared in Tyler, Mrs. Robertson was originally Miss Ellen
Boren, daughter of Samuel H. Boren, East Texas pioneer. She married
Sawnie Robertson, a young Tyler lawyer, and they built and resided in
a home on the present site of Judge P. W. Fischer's residence on the
Noonday Road. They moved to Dallas in 1878 where Robertson attained
statewide fame as a lawyer and was for several years associate justice
of the Supreme Court of Texas. His son, John C. Robertson, was born
in Tyler, and is one of the leading attorneys in Dallas at the present.
Mrs. Robertson's brother, James N. Boren, was a lieutenant in the
heroic First Texas battery of Artillery, CSA, organized and led throughout
the War Between the States by Major James P. Douglas of Tyler and
John J. Goode of Dallas. Lieutenant Boren was killed in action in the
battle of Richmond, Ky. Many older citizens of Tyler recall his and Mrs.
Robertson's sisters who lived here, Mrs. O. Loftin, Mrs. Franklin N.
Gary, Mrs. Charles Goodman and Mrs. Mary Pegues. Two brothers, Capt.
B. N. Boren and R. L. Boren, also lived here until they moved to Dallas
in the 1880's.
The Scrapbook, which gave information about Mrs. Robertson and
her husband, was originally the property of Charles Smith of Beaumont,
a native Smith countian.
The bluebonnets were especially beautiful this spring, and
many of the men in service desired to send bouquets of the
flowers to relatives and friends in the North and East. This
led Austin florists to undertake the shipment of bluebonnets
for the first time. Professor Webb forwarded a box of blue-
bonnets to Lewis Gannett of the New York Herald
Tribune.
Mr. Gannett's reply should prove of interest to the entire
membership.
The bluebonnets arrived today--a miracle that they could stand the
long journey and keep so fresh. Some of them are already on Mrs. Van
Doren's desk, and some are in a vase awaiting the return of our Professional
Texan, Stanley Walker, who usually turns up in the office here each day.
And the rest are about to go home with me, to delight Ruth too. I'm glad
to know just what "Texas bluebonnets" look like, and our office is celebrating
Texas Week.
Ensign Nelson Klose, USNR, Com MTB, Rons, 7th Fleet,
c/o Fleet Post Office, San Francisco, California, was recently
in New Guinea, from which he wrote to send in his member-
ship dues and instructions that his Quarterly
should be sent
to him at his new address. It is a remarkable testimonial to
the magazine that practically all of the old members of the
Association who have entered the service have not only kept
up their membership but have written repeatedly any new ad-
dresses so that the Quarterly
could reach them wherever sta-
tioned. Today the Quarterly
is carrying the Texas record
entirely around the world.
Colonel M. L. Crimmins, 312 Geneseo Road, San Antonio,
has an article in the June, 1944, Frontier
Times
entitled "How
Camp Creek Was Named." The article answers a question
raised by Anthony Brollier in "Place Names in Wichita County"
in the March, 1944, Junior
Historian.
A. K. Weymouth, 706 N. Hampton Road, Dallas 11, Texas,
gives the following additional information on ghost towns
of Texas:
In the January, 1944, issue of the Quarterly
you requested information
on the ghost towns of Texas for use in the Handbook.
The following is a
partial list.
Birds Fort, in Tarrant County. A few miles east of the present town
of Birdville, on what was known as Calloways Lake. Famous as site of
important council between Sam Houston and the Indians.
limits of Dallas.
Cross Timbers, in Tarrant County, fourteen miles east of Fort Worth;
site in 1867 of the Rural Academy and the Mansfield Academy.
Duck Creek and Embree, in Dallas County near Garland. In 1886,
when the Santa Fe established the station of Embree, there was a
sharp rivalry between the two towns until the citizens finally agreed
to a post office on the site of the original Duck Creek, called Garland.
Embree declined.
Fort Gates, near present town of Gatesville in Coryell County. Estab-
lished in 1849. Only town in county in 1853, but in 1854 post office
established at Gatesville and Fort Gates rapidly declined.
Golconda, once county seat of Palo Pinto County, which is one of the
few counties in Texas with complete records from date of organization.
However, there is no mention in the records of what became of Gol-
conda. Meetings of the commissioners court were held at Golconda in
May, 1858, and thereafter at Palo Pinto. As far as can be ascertained,
the name of Golconda for the county seat does not seem to have been
officially confirmed.
Grande Rancho, Palo Pinto County. In 1870 was the only post office
besides Palo Pinto; located on Palo Pinto creek and was headquarters
for cattlemen.
Howe Settlement, on Chambers Creek in Ellis County. Before organiza-
tion of Ellis County, when it was under the jurisdiction of Navarro, first
county court session of Navarro was held at this place. Later the town
of Forreston developed on this site.
Towash, in Hill County; described in 1878 as one of the principal
post office centers and having about 300 population. Situated on the
Brazos River and commanded large trade; an important Indian com-
munity prior to settlement of white people.
Mobeetie. In June, 1824, after the Adobe Walls fight, survivors settled
on Sweetwater Creek in what is now Wheeler County. They called the
place Hidetown. In 1875, Fort Elliott was established about a mile from
this town, and the name was changed to Sweetwater. It was known
as Sweetwater until 1879, when Wheeler County was organized. The
town of Sweetwater was designated as the county seat of Wheeler County,
and a post office was established there. But it was found that there
was already another post office in Texas of that name, so the name was
changed to Mobeetie, which is Comanche for Sweetwater. In 1888, when
the Fort Worth & Denver reached the Panhandle, it passed many miles
south of the old town of Mobeetie. In 1903, when the Rock Island was
built through Wheeler, a station was established called Wheeler, and later
the county seat was changed to this town. More recently old Mobeetie
has moved several miles to a new location on a railroad. This town
was for many years the chief trading point in the eastern Panhandle.
New Birmingham, in Cherokee County. Was scene of the great East
Texas iron rush in 1891. Was once prosperous community of about 3,500
and had electric lights and an electric street railway. After a brief
boom the town died. The last remaining houses were demolished a
few years ago with the building of a new highway. For many years
the pretentious structures of the iron industry stood.
Trinity Mills, near present town of Carrollton in Dallas County.
Was famous for its race track. First called Witt's Mill, then Poor's Mill,
and then Trinity Mills. When station was made at Carrollton, the old
town declined.
Washington-On-The-Brazos, in Washington County. Originally called
La Bahia. Three times capital of the Republic; first capital of the Munic-
ipality of Washington; first capital of the Jurisdiction of Brazos; first
county seat of Washington County. All public buildings and some private
residences of the old town were built of brick, some being three stories
high. The town was laid off in 1835 by John W. Hall and had a population
in the fifties of some 1,500. The refusal of the citizens of the town to
pay the Houston & Texas Central Railroad a bonus of $11,000 in 1858
caused the railroad to be built to Navasota and the old town gradually
declined until now little remains.
Old Tascosa, about forty miles northwest of Amarillo, is perhaps
the best known ghost town in Texas. Here, on the north bank of the
Canadian River, where once four blocks of business buildings served a
motley frontier population, nothing remains but the rock courthouse and
a few crumbling adobe structures. Tascosa developed from the sheep
camp called Plaza Atascosa. In 1876, Harry Kimble opened a blacksmith
shop and general merchandise store, and a saloon soon followed. A north-
bound cattle and freight trail crossed the Canadian at the old Tascosa ford.
The second town in the Panhandle, Tascosa soon won the title of "The
Cowboy Capital of the Plains," and no community of the old west ever
had a more hectic existence.
The above list is by no means complete, but I hope that it may be of
use to the Association. I have been told by early settlers in Texas of at
least one hundred towns that have faded from the scene. So far I
have only been able to check and authenticate the existence of less than
half of these ghost towns.
In a privately printed book entitled Colonel
Bill
Ted Dealey
tells the story of William Greene Sterett, charter member and
first Washington correspondent of the Dallas News.
The story
is reprinted from the October 1, 1935, Golden Jubilee Edition
of the News.
Mr. Dealey points out in the foreword that
"Colonel Bill" was one of the last of the "old time 'personal'
journalists" with whose "passing has gone some of the color
of the press." By recording the flavor of Sterett's life the
author has helped to preserve the "heritage of fine traditions
[left] to the present generation of newspaper writers" by these
old-timers. Mr. Dealey in writing the story has fulfilled his
purpose, which he states in the following words:
In this true story of a great newspaper man we hope you will find in-
spiration . . . and an increased regard for the profession to which we
both belong.
Mrs. Richard G. Halter, President of the Alamo Mission
Chapter, Daughters of the Republic of Texas, San Antonio,
Texas, sends to the Quarterly
the following letter which cor-
rects statements made in a previous Texas Collection note with
reference to John Glanton.
May I call your attention to an article (on page 430) by Colonel
M. L. Crimmins on John Glanton in the April issue of the Southwestern
Historical
Quarterly,
Vol. XLVII? It states, in the last paragraph, that
"he [John Glanton] was the grandfather of Zuleme LaCoste, who married
Ferdinand Herff."
That is incorrect. The grandfather of Zuleme LaCoste was Antonio
Mendosa. Zuleme LaCoste's mother was Antonia Manuela Mendosa who
married Jean Batiste Ducaran LaCoste of France. Zuleme Herff Simpson,
daughter of Zuleme LaCoste, is a member of our chapter of the Daughters
of the Republic.
This "scalp hunter" Glanton, Col. Crimmins speaks of married Joaquina
Mendosa, aunt of Zuleme LaCoste, so is not even blood kin.
The mistake should be corrected as a matter of genealogical record.
(Mrs. R. G.) Edith Simpson Halter.
Miss Grace Bitner, Junior Historian sponsor at San Angelo
High School, who did a thesis on Tom Green County at the
University a few years ago, recently spoke to the Knights of the
Round Table at San Angelo on the subject of Tom Green County.
Miss Bitner is now preparing an entirely new history of Tom
Green County which should be published some time within the
next twelve months.
To the constantly growing group of War Department field
records in the National Archives has recently been added the
correspondence of the Judge Advocate and Quartermaster, De-
partment of Texas, 1879-1916.
At the meeting of the Executive Council of the Association
on April 28, G. B. Dealey, publisher of the Dallas Morning
News
was elected an Honorary Life Member of the Association. This
is the highest honor which the Association can confer. Mr.
Dealey was already a charter member and a Life Member of
the Association. He joins a highly select group, as he is the
fourth person to be so honored by the Association, the others
being Judge O. W. Williams of Fort Stockton, Mrs. Hallie Bryan
Perry of Houston, and Dr. Robert T. Hill of Dallas.
The May meeting of the San Antonio Historical Association
was held on the 19th at Cos House. Martin Schwettmann, author
of Santa
Rita,
spoke on "The Discovery of the University of
Texas' Golden Flow." Also a report was made on the annual
meeting of the Association held in Austin on April 28 and 29.
A note in the Dallas Morning
News
of May 9, 1944, indicated
that Mr. and Mrs. J. W. Dawson, 2105 Hickory, Texarkana,
Arkansas, are in possession of valuable information on Tram-
mel's Trace, blazed from Red River County to Nacogdoches by
Nicholas Trammel about 1820. Dr. Rex Strickland, College of
Mines, El Paso, is at present preparing an article for the
Quarterly
on Trammel's Trace.
The late Hendrick William van Loon's "Every Man a His-
torian" in the May, 1944, Rotarian,
is worth any man's reading.
Van Loon says:
... I urge my indulgent readers to lose themselves in a few first-rate
history books. It will prove wise preparation for their post-war lives.
It will reveal to them that history is not merely a vague and distant
subject that should be left to a few absentminded professors who live
obscure lives in the bowels of our libraries. On the contrary, it is the
most vital and necessary study to which a citizen who means well by
his fellowmen and the community at large can ever hope to devote himself.
For the purpose of history is to give meaning to that which otherwise
would make no sense. And sense is the basis for that reasonable and
decently human life for which we are fighting.
Brigadier General J. Watt Page of Austin, State Director of
Selective Service, has sent to the Association the Infantry
Journal
for March, 1944, which has a detailed account on page
13 of operations of Texas' 86th Division in Italy in an article
entitled "The Taking of Hills 370 and 900."
John V. Haggard, who was translator of the Bexar Archives
before he entered military service, was promoted to Captain
on April 26. Haggard is serving in the Signal Corps and may
be addressed at Box 1124, Central Station, Arlington, Virginia.
The receipt of a Scrapbook
of
Young
County:
A
Pictorial
History,
which was issued by Young County Federation of
Women's Clubs in 1938 and edited by Mrs. C. F. Marshall of
Graham, Texas, impresses me with how fugitive Texas county
history items really are. This item was not in any library from
which I drew information for Texas
County
Histories:
A
Bibliography
and was therefore overlooked and not entered.
The book is packed with information on Young County and must
contain approximately one thousand pictures. Among the pic-
tures is one of L. W. Kemp, president of the Association. It is
also pointed out that two presidents of The University of Texas
were reared in Eliasville: the late Harry Yandell Benedict and
Dr. Homer Price Rainey. Miss Lucille Gay contributed materially
to the photographic section of the book.
* * *
The Baker family is well known in connection with the
history of cattle in Texas. The following note was written by
W. H. Roberts of Llano, Texas, a nephew of Captain Dan
Roberts of Texas Ranger fame. Mr. Roberts himself had an
interesting period of service with the Rangers in the early
eighties.
James H. Baker, one of Sam Houston's men, moved a young family
to Bastrop County in the early forties and engaged in the ranching
business, raising horses and cattle. Later he settled on Onion Creek, in
Travis County, Texas. He did not live long. He was a wealthy man.
To use his wife's brief description of his career, he never touched any-
thing that did not make him money. He owned quite a lot of negro slaves
and his herd of cattle grew extensively in a few years. This all hap-
pened before the Rebellion. He was given a grant of land for his seventeen
months services with Sam Houston. He selected this location on the
San Saba River, now in San Saba County, about eight miles above
the present town of San Saba. In later years this location was known
as "Baker Valley."
In about 1856, after the death of James Baker, his young sons moved
6000 head of the Baker cattle from Travis County to the Baker Valley and
ranched them on the holdings left them by their father. These two
young boys, for such they were, were Jim Baker, Jr., and George Baker.
Neither of them was 21 years old.
To digress a little, the writer obtained this information from the
venerable Rube Gray, who had settled on Cherokee Creek, 16 miles south
of the San Saba River.
The Baker cattle was the biggest herd I ever saw on the move, and
I have seen thousands of them on the move. I asked Mr. Jim Baker
how many cattle he had in this herd and he answered about 6000. It
took them an hour to pass my place. He had a motley bunch of cow
hands, white men, Mexicans and Negroes. These cattle grew to an
alarming number in five years. In 1861 the war broke out between the
states. About that time Jim Baker was badly wounded by the Indians.
He could not serve as a soldier. George Baker went into the army
just barely a grown man. Consequently, the Baker cattle were put into
the hands of two youths, John and Tom Sloan, the increase to be divided
at the end of the war. The cattle were so numerous in a short time that
they moved about 8000 head up the river to a point just below Fort
McKavitt, leaving these cattle ranging from the mouth of the San Saba
River to the head of it. There was not much sale for cattle at that time,
hence the magnitude of the growth of this herd.
One day, during the Rebellion, about 300 Apache Indians came in,
divided into two parties, and drove the San Saba River a distance of
about ten miles, and drove approximately 8000 head of cattle off. All these
cattle were not the Baker cattle, some belonging to the other men who had
ventured out a little too far and owned cattle on the range.
The war had caused the soldiers to be moved from Fort McKavitt,
leaving the country exposed to the Indians so that they were not molested.
A few ranchmen followed the Indians at a safe distance where they
wanted to see where the Indians seemed to be going. They moved toward
the head of Devils River, supposedly headed for Mexico. These cattle
were never recovered.
Mr. John Sloan gave the writer quite a bit of information of these ad-
ventures. He also told me that Jim and George Baker were two of the finest
specimens of citizenship and frontiersmen he had ever had the pleasure
of knowing.
After the war was over, the Baker Brothers took hold of the stock
and ranch interests. To give you an idea of the size of this herd of
cattle, they were ranging from the head of the San Saba River to Onion
Creek in Travis County, a distance of over 150 miles. The Baker Brothers
drove three big herds to Trinidad, Colorado, from 1869 to 1871 and
established a ranch near that place. Their route was from San Saba,
Fort Sumner, at which place they sold a lot of beef cattle to the Gov-
ernment, then on to Trinidad, Colorado, where they established a ranch
with stock cattle.
One of these drives, while crossing the plains from the head of the
Concho to Horse Head Crossing on the Pecos, they had the misfortune
of losing a big lot of cattle, caused by a barrel of water dropping from
the water wagon and bursting. The rear cattle having smelled the water,
turned and by their awful thirst, they milled or tromped this spot of
ground until all efforts of the men to move them were exhausted. How-
ever, the lead cattle or the stronger cattle never turned back, but moved
on toward the Pecos.
This Baker Brand was considered not only one of the biggest stocks
of cattle in Texas, but also a most conspicuous brand and mark, B on
the left hip and the ear mark was grub the right and swallow fork
the left, thus:
These cattle also bore a slight nick of the tail bone, which did not
disfigure the animal. I asked Mr. George Baker why he used this con-
spicuous mark and brand. He simply informed me that as a means of
identity it was quite easy in working big round-ups. He had only to
glance at the animal's head or hip to see a very different look to any
other animal in the round-up. For instance in the early spring before
the cattle shed their winter coat of long hair, minus the right ear or
the nick tail was sufficient for identity.
Mr. Baker was a very practical man in his ranch business and very
successful. To use his words, he told me he never owned anything that
a cow did not pay for. He was very proud of his family and his occupation.
My mother was Mary Baker, a sister of Jim and George Baker, and I
claim the distinction of being the oldest descendant of the Baker family
now living in Texas.
Esther S. Wohl, 4104A Utah Street, St. Louis 16, Missouri, is
interested in compiling a list of places in Texas that have been
made famous by American writers. In addition to the informa-
tion, Miss Wohl would like pictures of such places wherever
they can be furnished. Information should be sent directly to
the inquirer.
Dr. W. Stanley Hoole, librarian of North Texas State
Teachers College at Denton, sends the following information
which should prove valuable in connection with V. E. Gibben's
article on "Lawrie's Trip to Texas in 1854 and 1855" which
is to be published in the October issue of the Quarterly:
In a relatively obscure magazine (The
Water-Cure
Journal,
XX, 80-81,
Oct., 1855) I have run across a long analysis of the "Texas Industrial
Colony," called the Société de Colonization Europeo-Américain au Texas,
organized in 1855 to settle in North Texas, Dallas County. It is signed
by the Committee of Direction: D. H. Jacques, Stephen Young, and
Milo A. Townsend. The colonization project is apparently based on the
explorations of M. Victor Considérant and Albert Brisbane. Because
this reference may help some one especially interested in colonization
I am forwarding it on to you.
Dr. H. K. Crews, 310 Florida Bank Building, Orlando, Florida,
wishes complete references on the life of Col. James W. Bullock,
who defeated Piedras at Nacogdoches in 1832. Dr. Crews would
like a complete statement of Bullock's vital statistics and the
references thereto. Information should be sent direct to the
inquirer.
Lt. Col. John W. Thomason, Jr., USMC, died at San Diego,
California, on March 12, 1944, He was born at Huntsville,
Texas, in 1893 and attained distinction as a writer, artist, and
soldier. Numbers of his original drawings are deposited in the
authors' file at The University of Texas, of which he was an
ex-student. He endeared himself to a generation of Texans --
and Americans.
Dr. Walter G. Stuck, 1426 Nix Professional Building, San
Antonio, has sent in the interesting Bowie Knife illustration
appearing below. This is a reprint from The
Illustrated
London
News
of February 17, 1844. Readers should not fail to notice
the notches in the knife of the blade shown.
All members of the Association who have not already done
so are urged to fill out the Biographical Information sheet and
return for the files. If any member has mislaid the copy sent
originally, a post card request will bring another copy promptly,
Copies received to date have been very helpful in making assign-
ments for the Handbook.
In years to come this will be an in-
valuable file of the interests, activities, and accomplishments
of the members of the Association. It will also contain vital
statistics of tremendous value. Send your record to the office
at your earliest convenience.
The January Quarterly
(p. 297) carried a list of Texas
County "Oracles." To that list should be added the following:
PERSONS INFORMED ON THE HISTORY OF
VARIOUS TEXAS COUNTIES
BASTROP COUNTY—Miss Margaret Belle Jones, Bastrop, Texas.
COLORADO COUNTY—O. A. Zumwalt, Columbus, Texas.
Washington, D. C.
The Lincoln Memorial Museum recently acknowledged two
bequests within the same week. One was from a Miss Anna
Walstrom in the amount of $500 and the other from H. Fletcher
Brown in the amount of $250,000. Both contributors believed in
the ideals of the Lincoln Memorial Foundation. Both contribu-
tions were acknowledged in about the same manner by the foun-
dation. Both contributors were memorialized in good taste be-
cause of their bequests.
There must be many Texans who believe in the program for
the preservation of the historic past of Texas for which the
Association has labored for almost a half century. The Associa-
tion's record must be good enough to warrant its being left
bequests either in the amount of $500 or $250,000 with the
confidence that such monies would be handled with every care
and the donor memorialized in an appropriate manner. In plan-
ning for the disposition of their estates Texans should give
some consideration to the Association as a worthy Texas
institution.
Further emphasis was given to this point in an article by
Charles Messer Stow in the May 12 issue of the New York Sun.
At that time Editor Stow told the story of Edward Bausch's
gift of the Rochester Museum of Arts and Science to the
people of Rochester, New York. Mr. Stow tells how much the
museum has contributed to the cultural development of
Rochester.
Texas needs a new group of Breckenridges, Littlefields, and
Schreiners -- men of great resources -- who are willing to put
some of their resources back into the cultural betterment of
Texas.
Within the last year, so many inquiries have reached the
office regarding the King Ranch of Texas that it seems advisable
to give in the Texas Collection a reference to "The World's
Biggest Ranch" in Fortune,
December, 1933, pp. 49ff. The
article is the best ever done on the ranch. It is splendidly il-
lustrated and a beautiful color map locates the three divisions of
the ranch in Texas. The King Ranch is an empire of cattle
containing 1,250,000 acres stocked with Herefords, Brahmas, and
the ranch's own special Santa Gertrudis breed. The ranch op-
erates with an annual profit of about $400,000.
Captain James Taylor, AC, 0-910883, Hq. VII AF, APO No.
953, c/o Postmaster, San Francisco, California, writes from the
Gilbert Islands on March 28, that he is a long way from home --
a long way from Texas. He sends greetings, however, to all his
friends in the state and relates that he finds the Gilbert natives
friendly and interesting. He flew from Oahu to the Gilberts.
S. W. Geiser, of Southern Methodist University, Dallas, sends
the following inquiry to this department regarding a noted
horse-tamer, who was in Texas in 1855.
A recent volume, Bookmen's
Holiday
(Deoch Fulton (ed.), The New
York Public Library, 1943), has lately come into my hands. It is a
book in honor of Harry Miller Lydenberg, long-time member of the
staff, and from 1935 to 1941 Director of the library. Among its many
fine essays (chiefly on bibliographical subjects) is one by Robert W.
Henderson on JOHN SOLOMON RAREY (1827-66), world-famous horse-tamer
and -trainer.
I confess to delight in this essay. For many years I have been interested
in Rarey because of his "apprenticeship" in early Texas. His life has
been written by contemporaries, and the Dictionary
of
American
Biography
has a sketch of him. T. B. Thorpe (1861)
1 published an account of
Rarey, and obituary notices appeared in the New York Times
(Oct. 8,
1866, p. 5, col. 2), the New York Tribune
(Oct. 9, 1866, p. 9, col. 5),
2
and Turf,
Field
&
Farm
(Oct. 13, 1866). There is a sketch in Appleton's
Cyclopaedia
of
American
Biography,
and in John S. Hart's The
School
Room
(1868), ch. xxi. There is also an account of Rarey's demonstration
of his remarkable abilities as a horse-tamer before Queen Victoria, the
Prince Consort, and the English Court, at the royal stables at Windsor.
3
Sara Lowe Brown, in her "Rarey, the Horse's Master and Friend,"
4
and her book, The
Horse
Cruiser
(1925), has also given much of the
greatest interest on the life of this remarkable man. Yet certain chapters
in the all-too-brief life of Rarey [he died at the age of 39] are still in-
adequately known.
My particular interest in Rarey is this: In 1855, after having worked
out his "system" of horse-taming in Ohio, Rarey's "success was so
positive that the true magnitude of the field before him opened on his
view, and now he felt that he must in turn become a student. With this
modest idea he left Ohio [with one Captain Atkinson] for the distant
plains of Texas, where upon the wild inhabitants of the prairies he
found his law of kindness operated 'as a charm.' On his return [from
Texas] he gave his first public exhibition at Columbus [Ohio]. . . ."
(Thorpe, Harper's
New
Monthly
Magazine,
XXII, 618). Rarey, in
a letter to the London Times,
5 states that he "passed a length of time
experimenting [in Texas] on wild horses, mules, &c.," and his grand-
niece, Mrs. Sara Lowe Brown, tells me that he "spent several months
in Texas." She was not, however, able exactly to locate J. S. Rarey's
work in Texas.
I am keenly interested in learning of any contemporary--1855--Texan
accounts of Rarey in Texas. Houston, Galveston, Austin, or San Antonio
papers may give such. So far, I have been able to secure only two
references to men of the Rarey name, in Texas newspapers.
6 J. S. Rarey's
oldest brother, William H. Rarey (b. 1812), a successful horse-tamer,
was in Texas in February, 1859, taming horses and lecturing. He
traveled extensively throughout the Union in this capacity, after the
fame of his younger brother was secure. He is mentioned here to clear
up the reference in the Henderson Southern
Beacon
of that date. Any
information on further newspaper references will be most cordially
appreciated.
E. W. Winkler has called to my attention the fact that in 1856 a
"third edition, revised and corrected" of Rarey's book, The
Modern
Art
of
Taming
Wild
Horses,
was printed at the State
Times
Office in Austin;
the verso
of the title-page reads: "Entered according to Act of Congress
in the year 1856, by J. S. Rarey, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court
of the United States, for the District of Texas." This should be added
to the editions listed in Robert W. Henderson's essay on Rarey, first
above mentioned.
While on the subject of horses, may I ask another query, which has
interested me for a long time: While it has long been known that imported
live stock was brought into Texas for breeding purposes at an early
date, and that Texans sought to improve racing stock in Texas and
had race tracks in almost every town of importance in early Texas,
7
I have been able to find only one reference regarding the importation
of horses. William Martin Lubbock and Henry Saltus Lubbock in 1860
are reported (American Stock
Journal,
II (1860), p. 16) to have
imported from Bridport, Vt., purebred Devon cattle, and a filly sired
by Edgar Hill's "Black Hawk Chief." A careful running of the files
of livestock journals some years ago in the library of the U. S. Depart-
ment of Agriculture in Washington netted this one item for horse-
stock importation. Who were the other breeders that brought into
early Texas fine equine stock? (We have, of course, numerous records
of importations of purebred cattle and sheep before the Civil War.)
Again, any information, no matter how slight or fragmentary, will be
most welcome.
Professor Geiser has also contributed the following note on
the Bethel Coopwood herd of camels in Bastrop County, 1876-78.
The death, at the age of 88, of Mrs. John Wesley Lanfear of Austin
(January 31, 1944) recalls to me an editorial read some years ago
(National Live
Stock
Journal,
IX (1878), p. 299). This editorial relates
Lanfear's part in an interesting camel-breeding experiment in
Bastrop County. It reads, in part, ". . . [The camels] feed on cactus
and brush, eschewing all grasses that cattle and horses eat, if the
favorite cactus can be had. . . . [Results] seem to indicate that camel
raising is a profitable business in Texas. Mr. [E. L.] Lanfear says
there is one camel in the herd that has traveled 150 miles between sun
and sun, and that almost any well-broken camel is good for more
than 100 miles in a day. . . ."
John Wesley Lanfear (1856-1919) was born in Pasadena, California,
and died in Elgin, Bastrop County. His father, Enon L. Lanfear, was a
native of New York State who moved to California at the time of the
Gold Rush, taking his family. After a few years the family moved
back East to Manteno, Kankakee County, Illinois, where J. W. Lanfear
received an elementary education. In 1876 Enon L. Lanfear, his wife,
and two sons, John Wesley and Eugene, came to Bastrop County, and
settled at about the place where the location of the town of Elgin was
planned. The survey of the H. & T. C. railroad building to Austin was
changed, and missed the Lanfear place by about four miles.
The herd of camels belonged to Bethel Coopwood, a lawyer and former
resident of California. They numbered about forty; and in the year or
two that the Lanfears cared for the camels, before the herd was sold,
one or more calves were born. The camels were herded by day and
penned at night to prevent straying. About once a week they were driven
to Wilbarger Creek for water. During the winter the camels lived, by
preference, on prickly pears, rather than on the mesquite grass which
was abundant.
Chris Emmett of San Antonio (to whom we are indebted for much
of what we know of camels in Early Texas) has mentioned this Bastrop
County herd in his Texas
Camel
Tales,
pp. 243-246.
Margaret Bierschwale, recently Librarian at John Tarleton
Agricultural College, but now residing at Mason, Texas, writes
that she is working on topics having to do with the history of
Mason County.
J. A. R. Moseley of the Smaller War Plants Corporation, who
is residing at present in Apartment 679, The Mayflower, Wash-
ington, D. C, has written regarding a distinctive hotel of early
Texas.
In the April issue of the Southwestern
Historical
Quarterly,
mention
is made of an article by Eleanor Stuck on the early days of the Menger
Hotel at San Antonio, and the question is put as to what are the most
historic and distinctive hostelries in Texas.
I want to submit the name of the "Excelsior Hotel" of Jefferson, as
being within the first half-dozen in flavor and romance. It was here
that the jury stayed during the celebrated trial of Rothschild for the
murder of "Diamond Bessie," which is one of the most celebrated trials
in the jurisprudence of Texas. General U. S. Grant was also registered
at the Excelsior and the expression about "grass growing in the streets"
originated here upon the visit of Jay Gould to Jefferson when its
townspeople were trying to prevent the railroads from building into
Texas, because they knew that such development would destroy Jefferson
as the head of navigation, and Gould wrote this on the register at the
Excelsior Hotel.
When my job is up here, I might submit an article on the Excelsior
Hotel for the Quarterly.
The
State
and
Local
History
News
(Vol. II, No. 6) for May
includes the following comment:
"Texas Collection," in the April number of the Southwestern
Historical
Quarterly,
includes an item about the most celebrated hotels of Texas.
The Menger of San Antonio, the Driskill of Austin, and the Nimitz of
Fredericksburg are mentioned. . . . This is an interesting phase of social
history and deserves more widespread attention.
We shall look forward to the promised article on the Excelsior.
As a matter of fact, the whole distinctive history of Jefferson
has never yet been completely done.
The General Electric Monogram
for December, 1943-January,
1944 (pp. 22-45) contains an excellent article entitled "TEXAS:
The
Monogram
Surveys the Fabulous Cornucopia of the Gulf
Coast." There are over fifty well-chosen illustrations accompany-
ing the article. Much source material therein is drawn from
The
Texas
Almanac
(which guarantees its accuracy). The
Monogram
pays the following tribute to the Dallas News
and
Stuart McGregor, editor of the Almanac
:
The Dallas News
and associated enterprises, is the oldest Texas
business institution, having had its centennial in April, 1942. Since
January 1, 1857, this paper has published The
Texas
Almanac.
It is
the most complete and amazing compilation of information and fact
about this or any other state which has come to our attention. We
acknowledge our dependence on it in the preparation of this article,
and hereby express our thanks and appreciation to Editor Stuart M.
McGregor of the News
staff who is in charge of the Almanac.
In the
early days, the only two books carried by the pioneers as they pushed
their way across the Texas plains were the Bible and The
Texas
Almanac.
If you want to know anything about Texas, get a copy of this remarkable
book--a three-hundred-page encyclopedia.--Ed.
The American Phamaceutical Association of Washington,
D. C, through its librarian, Miss Hester Jones, has presented
to the Association several volumes of duplicate copies of the
Quarterly.
Such thoughtfulness is much appreciated.
Thomas J. Barnes, McMinnville, Tennessee, would like in-
formation on a Captain or Lieutenant Davis, who was a mem-
ber of the Texas Rangers during the Civil War and who is re-
ported to have served in Tennessee in Confederate raiding ac-
tivities. Davis is reported to have been in the Dug Hill fight
and to have been killed at the Billie Officer Place in Sinking
Cane near the present Monterey, Tennessee. Any information
should be sent directly to the inquirer.
Professor Hugo Tristram Engelhardt of the School of Medicine
of Tulane University, who was born in Houston in 1912, is a
new member of the Association. Dr. Engelhardt would hardly be
spoken of as having reached middle age, and yet he has already
published twenty-one articles in the leading medical journals
of America. Such splendid achievement should probably merit
a twenty-one gun salute.
Volume 1, Number 2 of the new magazine The
Sons
of
the
Republic
of
Texas
has made its appearance. Included in this
number are the following articles: "Texans at Salerno, 1943";
"Launching of the USS
San
Jacinto";
"The Schooner San
Ja
-
cinto,
Texan Navy," by L. W. Kemp; "Sidney Sherman," by
Odin M. Kendall; "George and Herman Brown"; and "Why We
are in This War" by Harry Pennington, Sr., who is the Presi-
dent of the Sons and who is also serving as editor of the new
magazine. Included also are memorial notes on Edward House
Andrews, John Ira Kercheville, and Jesse Granville Watkins.
C. L. Patterson of Bandera has recently done an attractive
county history booklet entitled, History
and
Directory
of
Bandera
County.
Santa
Rita
continues to receive favorable comment as indicated
by the following letter from the Director of the Oxford Press.
THE CLARENDON PRESS
Oxford
Dear Mr. Carroll,
I had already written to Professor Webb about Santa
Rita
when your
letter of 15th December arrived. It is very kind of you to send me the
book, which I value. My eyes, accustomed for four years to the deepening
gloom of "austerity" printing, are almost dazzled by the fine workmanship
and materials of the book. This is certainly the style in which permanent
books should appear. I like your decisions not to use half-tones for
the illustrations -- the bold black line figures match the type far better.
The binding is very pretty indeed. One day you must come along
here to Oxford -- when there are not so many Americans about! -- and
let me show you around.
With all good wishes,
Yours sincerely,
A. P. Norington.
Dan Williams, 712 Jackson Place, N. W., Washington 6, D. C,
who covers the White House and the State Department as
news correspondent, writes that he has never been so busy
"seeing history in the making," but that he is always interested
in "seeing through" his Quarterly
upon its arrival.
From the Ricker Ranch in Reagan County comes a generous
letter from Rupert P. Ricker regarding the Santa
Rita
book
and story. If any enlargement of the slim book had been made,
it probably should have been in the direction of further emphasis
on the prime part which Ricker played in initiating the moves
which led to the final development of the Reagan County oil field.
His part was invaluable, and in compensation he realized less
than five hundred dollars -- probably less than expenses.
There should be some way, however, for a grateful people
to confer upon Ricker the title of "Distinguished Texan" --
for in this world of extreme commercialism, it is almost a
"believe it or not" that Ricker's main interests were in aiding
The University of Texas and the distressed ranchmen of his
Reagan County homeland. He accomplished his major ob-
jectives in both particulars, and to him it has only been incidental
that his efforts brought him no personal profit.
Like an old school Texan, he has gone on without bitterness
and has throughout the years been a good citizen in the state
where his services should also have made him a first citizen.
There is a good earthiness in his letter: he has been the only
"foreman, hired hand, and what-not" to the sheep through a
trying winter. His son and the other hands have gone to war,
but he carries right on reporting as follows: "We have had a
hard winter; it's cold here now, but I am looking for a change,
and it will only take a light rain to carry us 'til June." And
then he adds -- as virtually every letter from any part of West
Texas has stated through the winter -- "I had to change feed
four times this winter on my sheep on account of the protein
shortage."
Rupert Ricker and his type have not yet been adequately
memorialized in Texas. * * *
Houston Wade of Schulenburg sent to many of his friends
a valuable remembrance at Christmastime of 1943. This was
a thirty-three page booklet, David
Wade:
A
Texas
Pioneer.
David Wade was the great-grandfatner of Houston Wade, who
has served many years as Treasurer of the Sons of the Republic
of Texas, and who is well known for his books and studies on
the Mier expedition.
Through the instrumentality of President L. W. Kemp the
State Board of Control has presented to the Association one of
the state seals removed from the Centennial markers. This seal
consists of separate pieces of star and wreath. It seems that
vandals had partially dislodged these seals from the markers,
making their removal advisable. A newspaper suggestion that
the rest of the seals be removed and sold for junk was effectively
counteracted by President Kemp. A program of public edu-
cation designed to protect markers and save them from being
defaced is much in order.
J. E. Conner spoke on "The History of Fort Sam Houston"
at a meeting of the San Antonio Historical Association held
at Cos House on March 17, 1944.
President L. W. Kemp was personally responsible for the
addition of twenty new members to the Association in the
month of December.
The publicity incident to the annual meeting was handled
again this year in a highly satisfactory manner by Professor
Duncan Robinson, Director of Publicity for N. T. A. C, and
by Miss Lorena Drummond, of the Public Relations Bureau of
the University. Our sincerest thanks are extended to both.
I think every member of the Association will agree that the
letter which follows is a genuine historical document which
ought to be preserved. It is an authentic picture of ranching in
Texas in the winter of 1943-1944. Perhaps Evetts Haley un-
consciously writes history any time he sits down to his type-
writer.
JH Ranch
Feb. 6, 1944
Dear Walter P.:
Since this is Sunday morning and I have been fortified with a small
shot of religion via the radio, and three more by way of the old fashioned
coffee pot, I decided I had better kick back the tablecloth, dig out my type-
writer, and wrestle out one of my biennial reports to you. It will be
the first time I have devoted a Sunday to such spiritual activity in a
long while.
You have probably gathered that we have been engaged as usual
and as it will be in the future, in a tough tussle with the weather.
Actually it has been the toughest I have ever seen. I like for the going to be
rough; I never really get interested and screw down in my saddle tree
until it does. But I like to have some chance of coming out on top sometime,
and at times this winter it looked like old mother nature was going
to turn out to be the best man, to use a slightly mixed metaphor, which
is nothing to how everything else is mixed up these days.
I will not try to detail all the perversities of the season to date. I
have done that for others until it is more than a twice-told tale. We
have had one snow on top of another until, by my conservative figures,
we have had at least three feet in all. We have had some nice rains
mixed in that would drive any cowman crazy in December and January.
We have had the damnedest blizzard since the Amarillo weather station
was established, fifty years and more ago, with the exception of one
in 1899 which froze everything, "even the mortgages," one old-timer
said. That is the report of the weather bureau, but any old-timer will
tell you that is all "stuff." To say the least I have never found life
more interesting in quite a spell, and while the snow is gone, winter
is not, and March and early April have finished many a cowman after
a hard winter. But we are lucky; we have had about three weeks of
lovely weather, which drove off the snow after everybody had resigned
himself to wade through it until March, and gave us a little time in
which to shape up our herds, get in more feed, and get ready for the
long and hard pull to warm weather and the coming of grass.
When I am snowed in, like I was on January 7, and couldn't get
outside except for a few minutes at a time without getting frozen
to a crisp, I storm around the house and kick everything out but the
window lights. After it is over and I can set down in the middle of a
good horse and get to work, I still may not be a paragon of agreeableness,
but somehow my family finds me "tollable." Jimmie has helped keep
the picture a little brighter when the sun could not make it through.
Soon after the first foot of snow fell December 9, followed by a nice sleet
of two or three inches, we had ridden over to our nearest neighbor --
a cowcamp about four miles southeast —to see if the roads had been
broken from there to the Plains, above (and "above" not only means
up, but north, in Texas, as you know). On the way back the crust was
breaking through with our horses at almost every step, jerking them
to pieces and not helping my stove-up back much. Jimmie, feeling sorry
for his pet horse, Jerry, said: "When I get to be an inventor, the first
thing I am going to invent is snowshoes for horses," and I agreed that
would be fine.
But after that storm in January hit, I saddled a short-coupled, rock-
bottomed horse that could plow snow like a caterpillar, and headed
for the Rocking Ds, the ranch we have some twelve to fourteen miles
west. I crossed Lake Creek, upon which we are located, on the ice, and
picked the ridges and the high country, through the sandhills to the
west, trying to keep out of the deep drifts. When I reached Carson Creek,
named for old Kit, the snow was banked across it in gentle riffles. I
got to the west side, where the sandhills rise high, windblown, and
steep from the bed of the creek, and tried to make it out. Buster was
a-sweating, and his square-built quarters were churning his tight little
frame through the belly-deep snow with a powerful stride. The sandhills
were almost in reach when he stopped; my tapaderos were setting
deep in the snow; Buster had no traction —he had high-centered. We
backed out, took a circle, hit the bank at another spot, and soon Buster
and I were snaking up the bare, brown ridges that mark the shifty
crests of the Carson sandhills for miles in every direction, high, but
not dry, and frozen into a firm footing for Buster's confident stride.
But we were soon off these, and breaking through the drifts of the
choppy little hills beyond, where the tall red sage grass sometimes stuck
through the snow; sometimes merely humped up under the snow and
ice in miniature hills itself.
Everything was going well except I had taken a bath the night before
and put on a new suit of heavy underwear, and I kept shifting uneasily
in the saddle with a trouble not associated with rough terrain alone.
I soon discovered the trouble. The underwear had a button in the wrong
place for a man who acquired his bow legs just setting around -- "just
settin' around a horse," as Curly said. I worked it to one side and
pushed on, but it pushed right back. On the ridge between Carson and
Moore's creek I went through a wire gap, and while I was off I un-
buckled my leggings, pulled down my Levi's, got out my knife, and --
standing there in a gentle breeze and a foot of snow, cut that brightly
polished button off and let it drop into a drift. "When I get to be an
inventor," I said to myself, "the first thing I'm going to invent is a
pair of underwear on which the button does not abut slap dab upon
your saddle seat." After that we sailed smoothly along until we reached
Moore's Creek. It was belly deep to a tall Indian for a hundred yards,
with the drifts running in great waves, and curling back under at
the crests, like those of the sea frozen in motion. Everywhere under foot
in the thickets along the creek, were turkey tracks made while these
long-legged wild birds hunted hackberries that still clung to the branches
of the scrubby trees, and in one giant cottonwood were a bunch of robins,
as mixed up on the seasons as everybody else.
At the Ds it was pitiful. By that time we had been under a foot of
snow for a solid month. Our feed pastures -- our smoothest country,
did not have a thing showing except the tips of the bear grass and once
in awhile the rusty red of a little coarse sage grass. In the first one
we had our cows and baby calves. For a solid month they had stood
or slept for twenty-four hours a day on snow and ice. Faint touches
of green on the noses of the calves showed the signs of futile struggles
to chew a little substance out of the stringy tips of the bear grass. Once
in a while I would see an old cow get hold of a bundle of the spines,
and stand and pull, shaking her head from side to side like a bulldog
on a badger, trying to pull the stems out, and I thought: Food or fiber?
In Mexico it is fiber; they make it into ropes. Here it was the only feed
besides the pitiful dole of cake that we were putting out. Once in
awhile I would see an old cow that had managed to pull out a bundle of
the center stems. She would be standing sore-footed, humped high, but
with her head held up, a satisfied look on her face, chewing away, with
the soapsuds boiling out of her mouth, and falling to be frozen into
infinitesimal bubbles of ice upon the white crust below. Of course the
milk that they gave was a tragic drop, and as we drifted them in from
the ridges to the feed grounds, where we could reach them with a
wagon, blood often marking the tracks they cut deep through the ice
-- for the snow froze into a cake that encrusted our whole world -- I
noticed that these baby calves rustled for a bite of feed far beyond
their mothers, symbolic of a youthful determination, it seemed, never to
die. We found four under the drifts of that blizzard; six more have
died since, besides a cow and two yearlings, in as pretty weather as a
cowman could wish. It is the old and familiar reaction after the storm.
I came into the headquarters of the Ds after a ride of fourteen
miles, and there in the feed wagon with old Dan, an old-time cowpuncher
whom I have on that ranch, was my brother, John. He had heard we
were reaching hard for the snubbing post, had left the ranch west
of Midland, driven up opposite the Ds on the highway, borrowed a
horse, and had ridden in to help. We made medicine and ate up a pot
of beans. It looked hopeless to him. Everybody in the country who had
a place to move to was going out. Many had already shipped to market
and taken their losses. He thought I ought to go out with ours; ship
them down on him, even though it might throw us short there. I
talked with Mr. Dent, by long-distance. He never quits fighting. We
decided to stay, even though it looked like a repetition of 1918 and
snow on the ground until spring. We had drifts around the pinnacles
that ranged from ten to fifteen feet deep. We dug in.
I told John that this was the worst one in history. The maximum wind
at Amarillo was 48 miles an hour, but it was going up hill there.
Here it was coming down hill and I know it was 50 to 60, and so wrote
Bailey, I believe, the day it was on. Anyway, I am kind of like the old-
timers now; I don't believe the weather bureau. To quote old Frank
Mitchell, great and good cowpuncher who figured in the Goodnight book,
who once wrote Beal Queen about an earlier storm: "the way it
snowed and blowed was a caushon." I said to John: "The weather
bureau says it is the worst in fifty years, but old Dan won't agree."
"How did you like this one?" Dan asked. "This was the worst," I said.
"The bureau says the worst in fifty years." "Hell," said Dan scornfully,
"back there on April 8, 1912 when I was on the freight trail," he
began, naming one that I had not even heard before, "we had one
that
. . ." and I laughed, but not out loud, for Dan is a man of powerful,
positive convictions. But as for me, I was inclined to agree with Jimmie.
The morning after the storm we went out to the corrals to catch
our horses and pack out some feed to my stuff at the JHs. The boys
were just ahead of me, and as I came up to the gate I could hear
twelve year old Jimmie, who had just passed, a five foot drift in the
middle of the corral that was twisted into weird designs, popping off
to our thirty-seven year old cowpuncher: "Van," he was saying, "we
will sure have something to tell our kids about now."
Later John observed why the old storms were always worst; "The
old-timers were out in them, then; they are inside sitting next to the
fire, now." As I said, the sunshine and the thaw finally came. During
the first few days, you would see cattle and horses standing, motionless,
in the snow for hours, seemingly soaking up the warmth of that low-
slanting sun. The first day made us all happy and hopeful, and I recall
Jimmie's rushing inside and saying to his mother: "Mother, why don't
you come outside and enjoy the sunshine with the rest of the animals."
He got tremendously interested in shovelling trails to the woodpile,
the chicken house, corrals, outdoor toilet, and elsewhere. The ground
froze as hard as flint, to considerable depth, and shut off our water,
so that we had to fall back on the old outhouse, down under the bank.
The next night I found Jimmie outside gazing contentedly across the
moon-lit valley of Lake Creek to where he could see the cows nibbling
at the skunk brush on the far bank, one hundred and fifty yards away --
a night so still and cold and crisp that we could hear them stepping
around in the snow. It was a beautiful night, with the thermometer
at the kitchen door standing at twelve degrees above at the time. Jimmie
was almost daydreaming, drinking in the scene with proper appreciation
—"I have just been thinking, Daddy," he said, "how much of the
beauties of nature you miss by enjoying the comforts of the home."
But this letter is running too long. I must quit this spiritual exercise
and get down to good hard work. Sunday, with us, is still just another
day for labor and hope.
Regards,
Evetts
Philip C. Tucker, III, 2124 13th St. W, Bradenton, Florida, is
still remembered by many of the older members of the Asso-
ciation as one of the outstanding contributors of documentary
material relating to Texas back in the early days of the Associa-
tion's existence. Mr. Tucker then resided in Galveston, and al-
though he has recently passed his 80th birthday, we have
recently been favored with several letters from him which
speak a warm appreciation of the Quarterly
and especially
of the way in which the Texas Collection keeps him in touch
with historical activities in the State.
Mr. Tucker writes that he has the feeling that Andrew F.
Muir's "Destiny of Buffalo Bayou" does not give a full and
complete picture of activity along the coastal area, and that
Houston is favored at the expense of Galveston. Mr. Tucker
says that had Galveston not become the metropolis of Texas
and had her port facilities not been developed, Houston, like
several early towns, would have died; and that it was Galveston
which was a concentration point for cotton cargoes and for
storage. Mr. Tucker has appended to his letter extracts of a
letter written from Galveston in 1852 to P. C. Tucker of
Vergennes, Vermont, his grandfather, who later came to Texas
and practiced medicine at Galveston.
Galveston, [Texas] Nov. 30th, 1852.
[P. C. Tucker, Esq.
Vergennes, Vermont.]
My dear Sir:
things that would have furnished material for a letter had I written
earlier -- that I have not done so is owing to a variety of causes more
easily conceived than described. . . .
The Governor of this state has at last in response to the general
wish of the people called an extra Session of the Legislature -- Al-
though the Apportionment & some other minor bills were the pretext
for this Call Yet the great question which will be discussed will be that
of internal improvements by the State Government.
The whole State is awake to the necessity of having free and safe
Communication with the Coast from the interior -- The only question
is what plan shall be adopted -- All have determined on Railroads but
every little community & town has its own cherished route & that
route must be directly by their doors -- then again as to the means and
the method of raising them there is still greater diversity of opinion --
The plan proposed by the Galveston Convention of July last, of making
the State Credit available seems to me the most feasible of any I
have yet seen --the idea of making large donations of land to effect
the object would it seems to me be a most ruinous policy-- it would
lock up the only available means of State Credit, Create large landed
corporations. Keep out Emmigration and give rise to a host of minor
evils that even Railroads would scarcely counterbalance -- I send you
herewith a paper -- "The News Extra" published by subscription for
distribution through the State --I may state here that the State Con-
stitution must be amended to admit of the State engaging in internal
improvements.
Speaking of Railroads, the first shipment of iron, Locomotives etc.
for Texas arrived here a few weeks since for the Harrisburgh R.Road --
I hardly know how long this road has been in progress but I believe
about two years. It commences at Harrisburgh, a few miles below
Houston on Buffalo Bayou and will extend to the Brazos somewhere
about San Felipe -- the movement is an important one, much more so
than people generally believe. It will take nearly the whole of the trade
of the upper Brazos -- And much of the lower, especially when the water
is low on the Bar at the mouth of the river -- it will, also when finished
injure Houston very much if it does not entirely ruin it--Between
Galveston & Harrisburgh there is plenty of water both as regards
depth & width, while between that place & Houston the Bayou is very
narrow-- Not sufficiently wide for two Steamers to run abreast, or for
one to turn around, & were it not for a small inlet of the Bayou at
Houston which affords them facilities for turning, navigation would
be impossible for other than the smallest kind of Craft. Added to these
advantages that Harrisburgh affords a much better landing, lighter
soil (for Houston is a perfect mortar bed in wet weather) is quite as
easy of access to the Country: and it is not very difficult to forsee the
effects of this road upon Houston. I think that the road has progressed
finely considering the opposition it has met from Houston and the dis-
couragement from almost every quarter —At present about 20 miles of
the road are graded and they are progressing with the remainder as
fast as possible with the small number of laborers they have been able
to procure -- for they can't procure Irishmen here by the asking, &
Negroes are scarce. . . .
From whatever point or points in the interior a road may start I
think it must terminate at Galveston -- the Bay might be bridged
easily and at comparatively trifling cost -- there is a group of islands
some 10 miles from the City called Deer Islands. (I send you a chart
of the Bay &c) These are scattered across as to offer every facility
that could be desired for this purpose ---. With a line of road terminating
here & branching off in the Country Galveston would in a short time
rival N. Orleans: For we would have a line of Steamers between N. York
& this port -- Just imagine a line of Railroad from San Antonio to the
Gulf —at Galveston, as it must eventually terminate -- A road branching
from this to Red River, connecting at Shreveport with the Vicksburgh
& Shreveport R.R. & passing through the oldest settled & richest Counties
in Texas & bringing the whole of the trade of Upper Red River to this
port to say nothing of that of Arkansas & Mississippi, for much even
of that would come here in preference to New Orleans.
Planters would do better here than at the former place -- they would
have to pay less for their goods and would receive more for their produce --
Our Charges are much less -- Freights are less from New York here
than from N.Y. to N.O. --harbor dues are less -- pilotage is less &
towage is not an item in the bill of shipping expense here -- Rents
here are much lower -- Clerk hire is less because the expenses of living
are less -- With all these advantages, added to that of a good harbor, I
can not see why with a line of road or roads as contemplated, Galveston
may not dispute with New Orleans the possession of the Southern trade
&
Shipping business -- I think that she might claim the precidence over
almost any Southern City even if she were to confine her exports and
imports to her own State.
Business in Texas is increasing very rapidly -- the amount of Cotton,
Sugar & Molasses exported this year will nearly double that of the last
immigration is pouring in through every avenue, and were Texas only
a moderately sized State instead comprising a territory equal in extent
to nearly the whole of the Middle & Northern States it would soon
be a thickly settled country —as is all Yankeedom with its utmost
ingenuity cannot make it such —We have had heavy rains both on
the island and throughout the country lately & they have doubtless oc-
casioned a permanent rise in the rivers and produce of all kinds is
coming in rapidly -- the Cotton & Sugar crop is unusually large --
There is even more of the two latter staples than there are vessels
here to ship it on --Freights have advanced from ½ to ⅞th of a cent per
lb. on Cotton to New York. Please write at your earliest convenience.
Very respectfully & Truly Yours;
Samuel B. Hurlburt M. D.
Again the book auction was a feature of the annual meeting.
This year's auction was specially designated by the Executive
Council as the G. B. Dealey Auction of Texana. Auctioneers
again this year were Donald Day and Frank Goodwyn; both
kept the crowd amused and both sold Texas books in quantity.
To both the Association extends a sincere v.ote of thanks. The
forty-five persons and firms who contributed to the auction are
listed below:
Mr. G. B. Dealey
Mr. Walter P. Webb
Mr. E. T. Miller
Miss Amelia Williams
Mr. E. C. Barker
Mrs. Lipscomb Norvell
E. C. Steck & Co.
Mr. J. Evetts Haley
Mr. M. L. Hankins
Mr. Thomas Gilcrease
Rev. Joseph W. Schmitz
Mr. C. L. Patterson
Mr. Lovick Pierce
Mr. H. Bailey Carroll
Mr. Earl Vandale
Houston Public Library
Mr. Houston Wade
Mr. & Mrs. Dan Ferguson
Dr. P. I. Nixon
Miss Frances Donecker
Mr. Edward Stevenson
Mr. George P. Isbell
Mr. J. Marvin Hunter
Mr. Lewis Gannett
Mr. S. W. Geiser
Mr. L. F. Sheffy
Mr. L. W. Kemp
Mr. Frank Caldwell
Mr. Chris Emmett
Mr. Arthur E. Thomas
Mr. Ted Dealey
Mr. Paul Adams
Mr. S. G. Reed
Miss Frances McMinn
Mr. W. A. Philpott, Jr.
Mr. J. C. Dykes
Mr. Frank Rosengren
Mr. Carl Hertzog
Mr. Tom Lea
Mr. E. M. Coulter
Mrs. Sallie Giberson
Mr. Claude Elliott
Mr. W. A. Whatley
The Naylor Company
If any contributor's name has inadvertently been omitted,
please call the attention of the office to the omission.
Already there has been one contributor to next year's auction:
Dr. P. I. Nixon, Vice-President of the Association, sent in an
item in May labeled, "For the Book Auction in '45." Other mem-
bers may do likewise any time a duplicate is discovered on
the shelf.
For valuable services at the auction, the thanks of the As-
sociation are extended to Anna Buchanan, Dorothy Louise
Fields, Mrs. Nella Mae Dieter, and Genevieve Ferguson.
Stuart McGregor was elected a Fellow of the Association
at the April meeting of the Executive Council. McGregor has
for many years been editor of The
Texas
Almanac.
He has re-
cently been serving as editor of the Dallas News.
Artist Tom Lea, of El Paso, now internationally known and
a veteran artist-reporter of the war for Life
magazine, made
another striking contribution in Life,
May 29, with "Three
Airmen," in which he presented portraits of Jimmy Doolittle,
Bernt Balchen, and Claire Chennault, finding in the three
men characteristics of all fliers. Chennault is a native Texan,
having been born at Greenville.
Tom Lea, despite his globe-girdling, however, remains a
Texan. Success and recognition have left him with his roots
mesquite-like -- firmly imbedded in the Texas soil. Original
Tom Lea pictures now command "eastern" prices in the eastern
markets, but recently Tom and his long-time friend, Carl
Hertzog, ignoring offers already in hand for the Santa
Rita
original drawings, bundled up most of them and sent them to
the Association. An accompanying letter provided for their
distribution: one went to the book auction, one has been placed
in the Association's office, and three —of special historical
significance -- went into the authors' file in the library. Thus
do Tom Lea and Carl Hertzog continue to render splendid
services, repeatedly serving values and making contributions not
to be expressed in dollars and cents. Such acts were charac-
teristic of the "old-time" Texas spirit, and they still make
Texas and the world a better place to live in.
J. Evetts Haley was in Austin early in June and brought along
a highly favorable report on the address given by Boyce House
at the annual dinner of the Panhandle Plains Historical Society
in Canyon. Boyce House is a folklorist, humorist and historian
and is the author of I
Give
You
Texas,
Oil
Boom,
and Were
You
in
Ranger?
Evetts was especially interested in House's
philosophy of history upon which he had taken the following
notes:
History is not the exclusive property of the Ph.D.'s -- much less of
the writer of that most unread and unreadable production of the human
brain: the master's thesis. Nor is history solely an account of things
of long ago. History is anything important and significant which has
happened. It might have been in 1492 or it might have been yesterday.
And history is not just the doings of generals and politicians. Wherever
men have planned and played and plowed, wherever they have smiled
and sung and splendidly swaggered, wherever men and women have
wooed and wed and worked and wrought and worshipped, wherever they
have dreamed and died -- there is history. I like to think of the history
of Texas as being not something past and dead but as a mighty, living
force projecting itself into the present and profoundly affecting the future.
Boyce House has further distinguished himself by being
one of the few Texans not knowing exactly where Coronado
was at a given time; and contrasting the Spaniards to the
weather-beaten old-time Texans, House had the following to say:
And here stands one who is not among the Coronado addicts. The
Spaniard was picturesque, all right, in his shining armor--(I suppose
it was shining)--hunting for non-existent cities of gold -- but what
need is there to spend a lifetime trying to decide whether he camped for
a single night three miles west, or six and a quarter miles east, of the
present city of Abilene, Texas? To me, there is more romance in the
weather-beaten countenance of a Texas rancher and there is more nobility
in the heroic features of a ranch wife and mother -- a couple who, with
raw courage and bare hands, despite northers, sand, wind and sun (or
perhaps because of these challenging conditions) wrought in the wilder-
ness a civilization that is richer in dollars and infinitely richer in human
values than the seven golden cities that Coronado sought -- even if
they had existed.
Dr. L. F. Sheffy is Executive Secretary of the Panhandle
Plains Historical Society and the editor of the Panhandle
Plains
Historical
Review.
Year after year the Review
has made sig-
nifiicant contributions to the history of the Plains area of
Texas. The museum founded and operated by the society is
known through the nation. The Panhandle-Plains people have
preserved a valuable portion of the Texas cultural heritage.
The Houston Chronicle
for April 28, carried an excellent
article about the Association, its work and program, written
by Ed Rider, Capital Staff Correspondent. The article was most
timely, as it appeared on the opening day of the annual meeting.
Progress continues to be made on The
Handbook.
The tentative
check-list of all topics for The
Handbook
should be issued by
October. It is hoped that each member of the Association upon
receipt of the check-list will check it carefully and recommend
additions and omissions. The article written on Colonel E. M.
House by Charles Seymour, president of Yale University, is
given below as an illustration of some of the articles now being
received. Other typical articles will appear in subsequent Texas
Collections.
Edward Mandell House was born in Houston, Texas, July 26, 1858.
He was the seventh of seven children. His father, Thomas William
House had left England as a young man, landed in Texas, fought under
General Burleson and married Mary Elizabeth Shearn, the daughter of
a distinguished jurist of the Texan Republic. The elder House acquired
wealth and achieved influence as a property owner and private banker.
The younger House, brought up in an atmosphere which reflected the
frontier as well as the cultivation of a landholding, almost a feudal
society, passed a childhood colored by the turmoil of war, blockade running,
and reconstruction. From his father he inherited an appreciation of the
values of a highly civilized life, as well as a taste for adventure and
a capacity for mixing freely and gladly with the rangers and hunters,
the desperadoes and the town marshals of this transitional period of
Texan history. At the age of seventeen he was sent north to the Hopkins
Grammar School in New Haven, Connecticut. Here he formed a close
friendship with Oliver Morton, son of the Indiana Senator, and was led
by Morton to enter Cornell in the autumn of 1877. There he remained
two years. More important educationally than his school or college
experiences were the opportunities which the young House developed for
meeting political figures in New York and Washington largely through
the influence of Senator Morton. Already as a college sophomore House
had developed clear-cut ideas of the sort of political career he would like
to follow.
He was recalled from college in 1880 by the death of his father, who
left to his sons an estate which, when divided, enabled House to live
in moderate affluence, chiefly depending upon the income from his cotton
plantations. On August 4, 1881, he married Loulie Hunter, of Hunter,
Texas. Following a year's travel in Europe the young couple settled in
Austin, largely because House desired to be at the center of state politics.
A decade passed before he actively entered the political scene, a period in
which he established wide personal relationships and came into close touch
with many aspects of the economic as well as the political life of Texas.
In 1892 Governor Hogg, seeking re-election, placed House in virtual charge
of his campaign, which because of skillful organization and despite the
opposition of powerful railroad influence terminated in success. From
Hogg House received, despite his protest, his commission as Colonel, a
title which accompanied him through life. His political skill was manifested
in succeeding election campaigns for the governorship which resulted
in the election of Culberson, Sayers, and Lanham. His personal relations
with the Governors were close, especially so in the case of Culberson;
but House invariably refused any official position.
In 1911 his interest in the national political scene was heightened by
the opportunity which the fresh tide had opened for the Democratic party.
He sought for a candidate whom he might support. Interested by the
record of Woodrow Wilson in New Jersey, he first met him on November
24, 1911, at the Hotel Gotham in New York. Each was immediately at-
tracted by the other and a close intimacy developed.
in two phases of the campaign: in securing the forty votes of the Texas
delegates for Wilson and in his persuasion of Bryan to assume a
not unbenevolent attitude. In the presidential campaign House was chiefly
concerned in the settlement of Democratic squabbles; victory was virtually
assured by the Taft-Roosevelt feud.
When Wilson became President he had already given House his complete
confidence and personal affection. The latter refused any official appoint-
ment. But during the seven succeeding years the President undertook no
important step without preliminary consultation with Colonel House,
and the latter's biography, at least until the signing of the Versailles
Treaty, can hardly be distinguished from the history of the Wilson admin-
istration. "Mr. House is my second personality." His outstanding achieve-
ment was to win from the British and French acceptance of Wilson's
Fourteen Points as the basis of the peace. House was appointed one of
the five American Commissioners at the Peace Conference and served
as Wilson's second in command, taking his place in February and March
when the President was in the United States. After the signing of the
peace treaty, June 28, 1919, Wilson appointed House to represent him
at London in the drafting of provisions for operation of the Mandate
System set up by the Versailles Treaty.
House returned to the United States in the fall of 1919, so ill that he
was carried from the boat on a stretcher, to find that the President
was incapacitated by a stroke. The two never met again. When House
recovered and called at the White House he was told that the President
was too ill to see him. Minor rifts between the two had been apparent
during the Peace Conference but had never developed into anything
like a quarrel. But the President never invited House to Washington after
illness struck him down and the latter refused to break in upon Wilson's
isolation. Although he ceased to exercise direct influence upon public
affairs, during the last eighteen years of his life House carried on actively
with his innumerable personal contacts, involving the outstanding figures
of the nation and the world. No man of importance came to New York
without calling upon him, his advice was sought by leaders of both political
parties, and on his frequent trips to Europe House was brought into con-
sultation by leaders in both the French and British governments. In
1932 he was once more active and influential in the councils of Democratic
leaders that resulted in the nomination of Franklin D. Roosevelt, but
he made no effort to resume the political influence he had exerted under
Wilson. His intimate correspondence with important political figures con-
tinued through his last years. He died on March 28, 1938, in New York
City. He is buried in Austin, Texas. There survived him his wife, his
daughter Mona, married to Randolph Tucker, and his daughter Janet,
married to Gordon Auchincloss.
Colonel House was generally regarded as taciturn and reserved, and
it is true that he disliked large public gatherings, that he made no speeches,
and issued few statements. With his intimates his conversation was fluent and
stimulating, shot through with graceful humor, based upon broad reading
and an unparalleled acquaintance with men of all sorts. He had an almost
chemical quality in personal relations that stimulated the self-confidence
of the person he worked with and fostered sympathy and trust. This was
true of his contacts with many others besides Wilson, notably Sir Edward
Grey, Balfour, and Clemenceau, together with a host of lesser personalities.
His kindness to younger men was unlimited and he started many on the
road to success. The rule he laid down in politics was invariably: "Do
what's right." Through his relations with Wilson and his innumerable
personal contacts he influenced United States policy more than any
other American not holding office.
Charles Seymour
Bibliographical Note: The mss. papers, personal and political, of Colonel
House form the nucleus of the House
Collection,
Yale University Library.
Intimate
Papers
of
Colonel
House,
Ed. Charles Seymour, 4 v., N. Y., Mac-
millan, 1926-1928. Arthur D. Howden Smith, Mr.
House
of
Texas,
N. Y.,
Funk and Wagnalls, 1940 (Popular biography based upon the foregoing.)
The first shot opening the Italian campaign at Salerno has
been officially certified to as having been fired by a Texan,
Captain Ross Ayres of Lubbock. Ayres is of Texas' 36th Di-
vision and has been awarded the Silver Star for gallantry.
His was another shot which must eventually be heard 'round
the world.
Major General Fred L. Walker, 0-3029, has been for some
time in command of the 36th, our Texas National Guard Di-
vision. On May 5, 1944, General Walker was awarded the Dis-
tinguished Service Medal. His citation reads:
For exceptionally meritorious service in a position of great responsibility
as Commanding General, * * * United States Infantry Division, in the
Fifth Army's invasion of Italy in September, 1943. General Walker planned
the landing of his division and attached units on the beaches of the Gulf
of Salerno, Italy, and coordinated the action of all units in such a manner
that the entire force performed as a cohesive team. The disposition of the
division and the tactical order of landing, determined by General Walker
with exceptional foresight, were of major importance in the success of the
invasion. Landing with the leading elements of his division, he commanded
all United States Forces during the first 36 hours of the operations. For
a period of 12 days, he fought and maneuvered his forces in one continuous
and unrelenting operation in the face of determined enemy resistance,
successfully terminating the operation by driving the enemy from all the
territory in his division sector. General Walker's exceptional foresight in
planning and his superior handling of the forces at his command contributed
importantly to the securing of the Fifth Army's bridgehead on the continent
of Europe.
A program was given by the San Antonio Historical As-
sociation at Cos House on June 30, honoring Colonel M. L.
Crimmins, distinguished Texas historian and genealogist. The
program was conducted by Chris Emmett and Mrs. Lydia
Magruder. The speakers for the occasion were General Beau-
mont B. Buck, Stanley Banks, and Dr. P. I. Nixon.
An advance copy of a Grizzly
in
the
Coral
Sea
has just been
received from the press of Carl Hertzog. Words and pictures
are by Tom Lea, West Texan and Life
magazine correspondent.
Tom Lea's remarkable facility with words —as well as with
pen and paint brush -- was previously shown in El
Randado.
The present book tells the story of the aircraft carrier Hornet
off Guadalcanal, and is a splendid memorial to that hornet of
the seas. The book is also a Texas item for in addition it is
a memorial to Herbert Jackson of Waco, who was on the Hornet.
Also, Mount Franklin at El Paso is graphically portrayed.
Only two hundred copies are to be sold, so the beautiful book
will not be generally available.
FOOTNOTES:
Monument (La Grange).
1856, in Rail Road Papers, Reports, Inspections (MSS. in Archives, Texas
State Library, Austin). Affidavit of John A. Williams, March 24, 1856, in
ibid. James P. Hector to Board of School Commissioners, February 16,
1858, in Proceedings of the Board of School Commissioners Created by
"An Act to Provide for the Investment of the Special School Fund in
the Bonds of Railroad Companies Incorporated by the State"--Passed
August 13th, 1856. (MSS. in Archives, Texas State Library), A, 57-62.
Lubbock Looscan Papers (MSS. in San Jacinto Museum of History,
San Jacinto Monument, Texas).
correspondence (MSS. in Archives, Texas State Library).
fice, Houston), XIII, 274-76.
Department; the Library of Congress copy of this issue fails to show
the obituary.
Society (1916), XXV.
p. 2, col. 3 (reprinted from the Henderson Southern Beacon).
227.
How to cite:
H. Bailey Carroll, "Texas Collection", Volume 48, Number 1, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v048/n1/contrib_DIVL1512.html
[Accessed Tue Nov 24 4:20:05 CST 2009]
