The Capitol (?) at Columbia
grades of schools throughout Texas have reproduced a
photograph or drawing of a dilapidated shack that stood
in West Columbia, and which is erroneously referred to as
the first capitol of Texas. 1
Columbia, now West Columbia, was the temporary seat of
government of the Republic of Texas, but whether or not it
was ever the capital, in the true sense of the word, is debatable.
Granting, however, for the sake of argument, that it was the
capital, the much publicized building could not properly be
called the capitol. It was just one--and not the most important
--of several buildings utilized by the government during its
short sojourn in Columbia.
The Constitution of the new Republic required that an
election be held on the first Monday in September to select a
president, a vice-president, and members of Congress. David
G. Burnet, president ad
interim,
by proclamation dated July
23, 1836, ordered the election held, fixed the first Monday in
October as the date for Congress to convene, and named
Columbia as the meeting place. He did not designate Columbia
as the capital, and he had no authority to do so.
It is commonly stated, too, that the First Congress was
held in Columbia. This is but partly true. Only the first session
of the First Congress was held there. Congress convened Oc-
tober 3 and recessed December 22, to meet later at Houston
to complete its session. Houston, founded August 30, 1836,
2
was being surveyed as a townsite when, on November 30, by
joint resolution, Congress selected it as the temporary seat
of government.
3
The principal building used by Congress and governmental
departments at Columbia was a two-story building of five
rooms constructed in 1832 by Henry S. Brown and used for
a time, after his death in 1834, by the pioneer mercantile firm,
W. C. White and Company, composed of Walter C. White and
James Knight. This building was torn down in 1888. The
often photographed capitol (?) was a one-story building of
perhaps one room, and certainly not more than two, that had
been used as a store by Leman Kelsey. It was blown down in
the severe hurricane of September 8, 1900.
In Brown's A School History of
Texas,
4
there is a drawing of a two-story building, beneath which is
printed the caption, "House in which the first Congress met
at Columbia, October 3, 1836."
After the first election under the Republic, President Burnet, by proclama-
tion, assembled the First Congress, President and Vice-President at the
town of Columbia, on the Brazos, on the 3rd of October 1836. No other
place in Texas, at the time (excepting, perhaps Nacogdoches, in the ex-
treme east), had sufficient house room to meet the emergency. There was
in Columbia a large two-story house, divided in the center by a wide
hall and stairway into large rooms above and below--one on each side
of the hall, and an ell containing several rooms. It had been erected and
occupied in 1832-3 by Captain Henry S. Brown, father of the author,
and in it he died July 26, 1834. ...
In this building the First Congress of the Republic of Texas assembled
under President Burnet's proclamation on the third of October, 1836. In
it on the 22d of the same month, President Burnet delivered his farewell
message, and at the same time Sam Houston, as first Constitutional
President, and Mirabeau B. Lamar, as Vice-President, took the oath of office
and delivered their inaugural addresses. In it all of the first Cabinet
took the oath of office, viz. Stephen F. Austin as Secretary of State (died
on the 27th of December following); Ex-Governor Henry Smith, as Sec-
retary of the Treasury (died in the mountains of California, March 4, 1851);
Thomas J. Rusk, as Secretary of War (resigned a few weeks later and
was succeeded by William G. Fisher, who died in 1845, while General
Rusk died in 1857); and Samuel Rhoads Fisher, as Secretary of the
Navy (who died in 1839). A portion of the offices were in other buildings
and for a time one House of the Congress occupied a different building.5
A feature story on the history of East Columbia and West
Columbia in Brazoria County appeared in the Galveston Daily
News,
Sunday, January 9, 1898. It was written by Richard
Spillane, presumably a reporter for the paper, who had visited
the two towns in order to interview old settlers and to inspect
historic sites and old landmarks. West Columbia in 1836 was
known as Columbia, and the present East Columbia was suc-
cessively known as Bell's Landing, Marion, Columbia, and East
Columbia. It was called Columbia at the time of Spillane's visit.
At West Columbia Spillane saw a dilapidated one-story
frame building-, the property of John C. Underwood, in which,
he was informed, the House of Representatives of the First
Congress of the Republic had convened. He was told that the
Senate met in a larger building which had been torn down, as
had been numerous log buildings near by which were used
by various governmental departments in 1836-37.
John Adriance, an outstanding citizen of the community,
was among those interviewed by Spillane. In October, 1835,
when a youth of seventeen, Adriance had sailed from New
York City for Texas on the schooner Julius
Caesar.
He located
at the present East Columbia, then known as Bell's Landing,
and there resided for the rest of his long life. During the
spring campaign of 1836 he served in the Army of Texas as
a member of Captain Jacob Eberly's Company of mounted
gunmen. He was eighty years old when interviewed by Spillane,
who wrote of him:
In a somnolent old town on the west bank of the Brazos there lives a
scholarly old man who knows more, perhaps, of early Texas history than
any other person now living. He is one of the few links between the past
and present, one of the few men who took an active part in the stirring
events of more than sixty years ago, when Texas battled for freedom
and the armed host of Mexico overran the whole region which is now
known as South Texas. This man is John Adriance. . . .
Texas history. Now in the twilight of life he spends his days among his
papers. He is past the eighty-year mark, but he is as bright and keen
in intellect as a man of sixty. His library is large and well stocked, but
of all his books and manuscripts those that will be most highly prized
are the ones that deal with the days of Houston and of Austin and the
noble band of men whose valorous deeds made luminous the story of the
Texas republic.
After telling how Columbia, the present East Columbia, had
declined as a commercial center over the years, Spillane
continued:
But if Columbia has been distanced in the great race of trade, no place
in all Texas can rival it in historic lore. Less than two miles west of the
town [in West Columbia] on a noble thoroughfare called the Avenue
there stands the ruin of a structure, every part of which should be held
sacred by the people of Texas. It is a barn-like old building, all battered
and decayed, its roof broken in and its doors and windows shattered and
gone, but in the old house scenes were enacted of which, alas, too little
is known, for that building was part of the first capitol of the republic
of Texas. . . .
I went to Mr. Adriance and asked him to tell me the history of the old
building I had seen. He said it had been the first house of representatives
of the republic. There was a somewhat larger building to the south of it
which was the senate chamber, but it was torn down years ago.
The two buildings," said Mr. Adriance, "were originally put up for
use as stores. The one that became the senate chamber was occupied by
White and Knight, who came to Texas in 1826. The house of repre-
sentatives was occupied by a merchant named Kelsey. There were a great
many log buildings nearby which were used by the different depart-
ments of the republic for offices,"
There is no doubt that there was an understanding between
President Burnet and the former publishers of the Telegraph
and
Texas
Register
about the re-establishment of that paper.
During the spring and early summer of 1836, Texas was without
a newspaper, the hand press of the Telegraph
having been
thrown into Buffalo Bayou at Harrisburg April 14 by Santa
Anna's army. A new press had been purchased in Cincinnati
to be installed, it appears, at the town most likely to become
the capital of the Republic. On August 2, 1836, the Telegraph
began publication at Columbia, following Burnet's proclamation
of July 23. Burnet no doubt thought that Congress would
select Columbia as the capital, and certainly this must have
been the belief of the publishers of the Telegraph.
Later they
lost no time in moving their paper to Houston when the newly
laid-out town on Buffalo Bayou was made the capital. In fact
the Telegraph
and the executive departments of the Republic
were transported from Columbia on the same boat, April
16, 1837.
6
It being the province of Congress to select a capital for the
Republic, the Senate on November 2, 1836, adopted a joint
resolution providing-,
that each House of Congress appoint a committee of three whose duty it
shall be to report the most eligible point, at which to locate the Seat of
Government of the Republic from and after the adjournment of the
present Congress . . .
7
It is probable that Columbia would have been selected as the
capital had its citizens promptly furnished sufficient houses
to conduct the affairs of government. This they failed to do.
They "had either failed to procure a sufficient number of
houses," wrote E. W. Winkler, "or else they had not con-
templated the increase of offices accompanying the organiza-
tion of the constitutional government."
8
On November 7, President Houston sent the following mes-
sage to Congress on the subject of the proper accommodations
for the government:
Gentlemen:
The important trusts committed to our charge as the representatives
of a Nation and the guardian of her free institutions, demand at our
hands, the arduous and incessant toils which responsibility and moral
consciousness always impose, when they flow in their natural and ap-
propriate channel.
Industry and application, put in requisition by mature judgment, must
still be conducted by system, organization and method; for these are
necessary, and cannot be attained or exercised without the convenience
of houses.
The present position of our Government is one of great inconvenience
and absolute embarrassment.
9 We have accomodations for no branch of
the public trusts. Congress is itself scarcely provided as a body, with suf-
ficient buildings. No Offices for the Chief Departments of the Executive
branch of Government, and the personal accomodations of all are very
deficient.
The Head of no Department can now transact with convenience the
functions devolving upon him. The Secretary of the Treasury and all
his Subordinate Officers, are without rooms and without any place to per-
form his highly important business. The discharged soldiers of our
army, are now waiting at great expense for their "honest dues at the hands
of that officer. The financial concerns of the Government, will be deranged
and our credit at home and abroad will be depreciated.
I would call your particular and immediate attention to this subject;
and am compelled by my station to suggest that business cannot profitably
proceed, unless Congress will adjourn to some point, where better accomo-
dations and greater conveniences can be speedily obtained or buildings
furnished at this place.
To induce the meeting of Congress at this point, nineteen rooms for
offices had been promised but the pledges remain unredeemed. The pledge[s]
given are herewith enclosed.
Sam Houston
All the Chairs and Tables necessary for Both Houses of Congress.
Sepr. 16, 1836.
W. C. White & Co.
Fitchett & Gill
Jacob Eberly
Geo. Brown
G. & T. H. Borden
10
"Perhaps only those marked (V) had been placed at the
service of the government at this time," wrote Winkler.
It appears that space in the Senate chamber was set aside
for the president's private office and that when the Senate
held secret session, which it frequently did, the president and
his private secretaries were obliged to retire. On October 27,
Senator William H. Wharton had moved to allow them "to
retain possession of their rooms during the secret sessions
of the senate." The motion, however, was lost.
11
Congress, as has been shown, contemplated selecting a place
to become the capital "after the adjournment of the present
congress," but agreeing with Houston that business could not
profitably proceed, unless Congress adjourned to some point
where better accommodations were afforded, it voted that the
seat of government be located "during the present session of
congress. . . ."
12 Houston was selected as the seat of gov-
ernment, effective April 1, 1837. Congress did not convene there,
however, until May 1, due to delay in completing a two-story
building being constructed as a capitol for the Republic by
Augustus C. and John K. Allen, proprietors of the town.
If one accepts as true the undisputed statement of John
Henry Brown that when Congress first convened both houses
met in the two-story building which had been erected by his
father and that later one house of Congress occupied a different
building; if one accepts as true the statement of John Adriance
that the House of Representatives met in the shack while the
Senate met in a larger building; if he believes that the pres-
ident's office was in the same building with the Senate, there
is only one conclusion to be reached: the first capitol was the
two-story building constructed by Henry S. Brown--provided,
of course, it is established that Columbia was ever the capital
of the Republic.
FOOTNOTES:
Ginn & Co., 1897), 14; Dudley G. Wooten, A Complete History of Texas
(Dallas: The Texas History Co., 1899), 246; Joseph L. Clark, The Story
of Texas (Evanston, Ill.: Row, Peterson & Co., 1932), 183; Clarence R.
Wharton, History of Texas (Dallas: Turner & Co., 1935), 202; Ralph
W. Steen, History of Texas (Austin: The Steck Co., 1939), 173; Wharton,
Lone Star State (Dallas: Southern Publishing Co., 1932), 153. Clark did not
include a picture of the building in his A Complete History of Texas,
Land of Promise (Atlanta: D. C. Heath & Co., 1940). Steen reproduces
a photograph of the building in his Texas, A Story of Progress and
correctly identifies it as "one of the government buildings in 1836. . . ."
(Austin: The Steck Co., 1942), 251.
by the Allen brothers in which they stated that the town "is now for the
first time brought to public notice." For that reason August 30 is con-
sidered the birthday of Houston by its citizenship.
(ed.), The Laws of Texas, I, 1138, 1139.
the General History of John Henry Brown (New York: J. J. Little & Co.,
1894), 164.
L. E. Daniel, 1895), 53.
Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, X, 169. Winkler cites
the Telegraph of August 12, 1837.
Telegraph, November 9, 1836.
retary of State, attributed Austin's death not alone to the mental and
physical strain under which he labored but also to "the exposure in a
small clapboard shed-room, without fire, which was his bedroom and
office."--William G. Scarff, A Comprehensive History of Texas, I, 590.
Austin died at the residence of Judge George B. McKinstry, December
27, 1836.
MS Messages of 1 Tex. Cong., 1 Sess. State Department; see also Amelia
W. Williams and E. C. Barker (eds.), The Writings of Sam Houston: 1813 -
1863, I, 474.
The above building, often referred to as the first capitol of Texas, was
but one of several used by the Congress and government of the Republic
of Texas at Columbia in 1836.
How to cite:
L. W. Kemp, "Capitol (?) at Columbia", Volume 48, Number 1, Southwestern Historical Quarterly Online, http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/publications/journals/shq/online/v048/n1/contrib_DIVL310.html
[Accessed Sun Nov 8 14:38:07 CST 2009]
