THE TEXIANS AND THE TEXANS
THE
ANGLO­AMERICAN
TEXANS
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LIBRARY
INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
AT SAN ANTONIO
THE TEXIANS AND TEXANS
A pamphlet series dealing with the many kinds of people who have
contributed to the history and heritage of Texas. Now in print:
The Indian Texans, The German Texans, The Norwegian Texans,
The Mexican Texans (in English), Los Te;anos M exicanos (in
Spanish), The Spanish Texans, The Polish Texans, The Czech
Texans, The French Texans, The Italian Texans, The Greek T ex­ans,
The Jewish Texans. The Syrian and Lebanese Texans, The
Afro-American Texans, The Anglo-American Texans, The Belgian
Texans, The Swiss Texans and The Chinese Texans.
The Anglo-American Texans
Principal Researcher: John L. Davis
© 1975: The University of Texas
Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio
Jack R. Maguire, Executive Director
Pat Maguire, Director of Publications and
Coordinator of Programs
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 76-354177
International Standard Book Number 0-933164-01 -7
First Edition, Second Printing, 1980
This publication was made possible, in part, by a grant from the
HOUSTON ENDOWMENT, INC.
Printed in the United States of America
Cover: Anonymous Couple
Courtesy of David Haynes, San Antonio
Inside Cover: Croquet Game at Canyon City in 1890
Courtesy of Texas Department of Public
Safety, Ranger File
Back Cover: Hallettsville
Courtesy of Hallettsville Chamber of
Commerce
•
INTRODUCTION
After three centuries of Spanish domina­tion,
Texas in 1820 had an estimated
immigrant population of four thousand­most
of these from Spain or Mexico. Texas
Indians numbered an additional fifteen
thousand.
Then, in 1821, the border was opened
to immigration from the United States.
Fifteen years later there were an estimated
38,000 settlers in Texas of which 30,000
were from the United States. These latter
are called Anglos, a term usually mean­ing
that an individual's language was def­initely
English and that he was proba­bly
English in origin. Most of the Anglos
were, in fact, second or third generation
north Europeans whose families had
moved to the eastern and southern United
States. Most were of Anglo or Saxon or
Norman stock, but there were also Irish,
Welsh, Scandinavian, German, and a mi­nority
of central and southern Europeans
lumped together in the group called An­glo-
American.
This wave of immigration from the east
engulfed the whole area of Texas. In 1821
there were four major Spanish towns in
Texas, three areas of light settlement and
ranching, and four major roads. One
hundred years later the frontier was gone.
Most of Texas had been converted to
farms, ranches, towns, and cities. In 1836
Anglos represented about eighty percent
of the population. Today the figure has
dropped to about sixty-four percent.
Though settlers came to Texas from
many lands, the Anglos, numerically pre­dominant,
controlled social and political
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HARPER'S WEEKLY
affairs and the economy. Their legaL
educational, and religious institutions pre­vailed
with heavy borrowing from the
Spanish and Mexican cultures.
Spain, who ruled Texas until 1821.
came to distrust the aggressive Yankees
and excluded them from immigrating to
her American territories. Nevertheless
there were a surprising number of Anglos
in Spanish Texas. Some had acquired
Spanish citizenship in Florida or Louisi­ana
and-Spanish by political definition.
Anglo by race-were legally admissible.
A few others simply slipped in unnoticed.
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The Nacogdoches census of 1804 listed
thirteen Anglos who had lived in the area
at least since 1800. Other settlers drifted
into northeastern Texas. They probably
neither knew nor cared whether they were
on United States or Spanish soiL They
were far removed from regular Spanish
border patrols. It is doubtful that the
Spanish knew they were there.
Spain ceded Louisiana to France, who
sold it to the United States in 1803. Sud­denly,
this Louisiana Purchase put the
Anglo frontier on the border of castern
Texas.
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EARLY POPULATION
Most of the early population of Texas
came from the United States, three-fourths
of them from the nearby agricultural
south. Like others, they were attracted by
cheap land. In 1820 the United States
Congress enacted a law declaring that
public lands had to be bought for cash,
$1.25 an acre, a price few people could
then afford. In Texas a family could se­cure
4,605 acres of land by paying small
fees to the surveyor and empresario.
Another reason for a large Anglo influx
was a convenient geography. The border
between the United States and Texas was
for many miles an easily ferried river.
The woods on the Texas side were as
green, the prairies as lush, and the creeks
as clear as those on the United States side.
Immigrants from the United States found
the new land comfortably familiar.
The European had to make a long, haz­ardous,
and expensive ocean voyage to
Texas. The Mexican, arriving from the
south, faced a hard trek through a wide
semi-desert area on both sides of the Rio
Grande to reach the more hospitable por­tions
of the territory.
PROFESSIONAL
PIONEERS
Of all those who came to Texas, only the
Anglo-Americans had two generations of
successful pioneering in their recent ex­perience.
Their fathers and grandfathers
occupied successive frontiers, drove out
the Indians, and tamed the wilderness.
They yearned to exploit the land and
move on to the newer, greener fields
further west. This was a philosophy which
many Mexicans could not understand.
To them, land represented permanent
wealth: it symbolized power and prestige.
They established roots living with the
land until they could pass it on to their
posterity.
The Anglos also had extensive experi­ence
in waging successful revolution and
establishing permanent self-government.
Some were veterans of the American Rev­olution.
Many more were the sons and
grandsons of Washington's troops, nour­ished
on the legend of Yankee invincibil­ity.
They came better armed and in great­er
numbers than any other people to
enter the land called Texas.
HARPER'S WEEKLY
PETER SAMUEL
DAVENPORT
1794
Most spectacularly successful of the An­glo-
Americans in Spanish Texas was Peter
Samuel Davenport. A Pennsylvanian by
birth, he had become a Spanish subject
and prosperous trader at Natchitoches.
In 1794 he moved to Nacogdoches and
became one of the first few Anglo settlers
in Texas. Within four years he was a
partner in the House of Barr and Daven­port
which held a monopoly on trade with
the east Texas Indians. The firm pros­pered,
and Davenport became one of the
wealthiest landholders of the province.
In 1812 he violated his allegiance to
PETER SAMUEL DAVENPORT Texana Collection, UT Austin
Spain by joining the Gutierrez-Magee ex­pedition
and donating supplies and arms
to the cause. When this expedition failed
to carve an independent republic out of
Spain's holdings, Davenport fled to Loui­siana
with a price on his head. He re­turned
in 1819 with the Long expedition,
which he also helped to finance. Again
driven out, he spent his remaining days
on his Louisiana plantation.
DANIEL BOONE
1806
Not all of Spain's subjects in Louisiana
were happy with the Spain-to-France-to­United
States changes in sovereignty.
Many Spanish citizens-Anglos among
them-moved to Texas or other parts
of Mexico in order to remain under Span­ish
rule. One was Daniel Boone, nephew
and namesake of the famous frontiersman.
He had come to Opelousas, Louisiana, in
1794, disgusted with the United States
because it had failed to validate his uncle's
land titles. The uncle himself had moved
to Spanish Missouri for the same reason.
The younger Boone reached San Antonio
in 1806, where he became armorer at the
garrison, repairing the guns, swords, and
spears of Spanish soldiers. He remained
loyal to his adopted country until his
death in 1817 at the hands of Indians.
FILIBUSTERS
1812
Mexican desires for independence from
Spain, combined with United States hopes
for a Texas foothold, led to a series of
filibustering expeditions intended to be
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HARPER'S WEEKLY
"liberating" invasions. They had varied
success, but all were supplied and sup­ported
in the United States and partially
manned by Anglo-American volunteers.
First was the Gutierrez-Magee expedi­tion
which invaded Texas in 1812. It cap­tured
Nacogdoches, La Bahia, and San An­tonio-
the only towns of consequence in
Texas-and established the Republic of
the West, complete with a national flag,
Declaration of Independence, and Con­stitution.
Friction between Anglo and
Mexican leaders weakened the effort and,
in 1813, Spanish General Arredondo am­bushed
the revolutionists on the Medina
River, wiping out most of them and send­ing
the rest fleeing to the Sabine.
In 1819 Dr. James Long raised a force
of men, mostly Anglo-Americans, to al­legedly
liberate Texas on the questionable
theory that it already belonged to the
United States as a part of the Louisiana
Purchase. Long established a provisional
government at Nacogdoches and asked the
pirate Lafitte to aid him in taking the
other settlements. Lafitte refused. Long's
men scattered to live off the land, but
Spanish soldiers rounded up many and
drove them out.
Some of the adventurers who came
with the filibustering expeditions dropped
off along the avenues of retreat when the
ventures failed. They established isolated
camps in remote areas and lived by hunt­ing
and trading with the Indians. When
Austin's colony was founded, many of
these settlers joined it; others simply con­tinued
living in their remote clearings.
ADAM LAWRENCE
1815
One of the first Anglo-Americans to enter
Texas from the east was Adam Lawrence,
a native of Kentucky who became a tough
adventurer, Indian fighter, revolutionary
soldier, cattleman, and settler. There were
few things Lawrence did not try after
arriving at his uncle's home in what is
now Red River County, Texas, in 1815.
The uncle, also named Adam Lawrence,
had preceded him to Texas by a few
months.
Young Lawrence moved in 1821 to
Austin's colony where he worked on Si­mon
Miller's farm. In 1830 he married
Sarah Lucinda Miller, Simon's daughter,
and settled on New Year Creek in Wash­ington
County. He became a well-known
Indian fighter and made several unbeliev­a
ble escapes from pursuing Indians, once
by leaping with his horse off a fifteen ­foot
bank into the Trinity River.
Lawrence took part in the Siege of
Bexar and was at San Jacinto. He became
a prosperous farmer and stock raiser.
owning thousands of acres of Texas land.
After the Civil War, the elderly Adam
Lawrence went to California and estab­lished
a ranch near the present site of
Los Angeles. After some years of mis­fortune,
including the death of his wife,
he returned to Texas where he died in
1878.
JANE WILKINSON LONG
1820
Jane Wilkinson Long became known as
the "Mother of Texas." At seventeen she
had fallen in love with Dr. James Long,
himself only twenty-two. He had already
been a surgeon under General Andrew
Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in
1812. He was young and full of the spirit
of adventure that gave the westward­pushing
American frontier its energy and
tone. In 1819 he came with a small force
to free Texas and Mexico from Spanish
domination. Unable to stand the separa­tion
from her husband, Jane Long fol­lowed
in a month with their two little
girls-one only two weeks old. Traveling
much of the time in wretched cold weath­er,
she caught up with her husband at
Nacogdoches. But soon Spanish troops
forced the hasty retreat of Dr. Long's
little army.
Jane returned with her husband the
following year and was left at Bolivar
Point with her surviving five-year-old
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daughter and a Negro girl named Kian.
For months she waited without word from
her husband. When warlike Karankawa
Indians approached, she fired an ancient
cannon and hoisted an old red skirt up
the flagpole to give her little mud fort a
defended look. The Indians were success­fully
bluffed. The winter of 1820 was so
severe that Galveston Bay partially froze.
In this winter she gave birth to another
daughter-the first Anglo-American child
known to have been born in Texas. Final­ly,
after two lonely years on the penin­sula,
she received news that her husband
had been killed in Mexico City.
In time she opened a boarding house
in Brazoria. She eventually paid her hus­band's
debts and saved enough money to
clear and cultivate a farm at Richmond,
Texas, where her land grant was located.
There she started another boarding house.
At her death in 1880, she was attended
by the granddaughter of Kian.
MOSES AUSTIN
Moses Austin, born in Connecticut in
1761, was destined to initiate the large­scale
colonization of Texas by Anglo­Americans.
He moved from Virginia to
Spanish Missouri, operating lead mines in
both places. The War of 1812 ruined these
investments, and he lost the rest of his
money in bank failures .
To make a fresh start, Austin journeyed
to San Antonio de Bexar to apply for a
colonization grant. Governor Martinez
promptly ordered the enterprising Ameri­can
out. Austin, however, found a friend
in the Baron de Bastrop who induced the
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governor to forward Austin's petItIOn to
General Joaquin de Arredondo, chief civil
and military commandant of Texas. In
this petition the empresario proclaimed
himself "a vassal of His Catholic Majesty"
who desired to import three hundred fam­ilies
of "good character and conduct. All
of these, or the greater part of them, have
property. Those without it are indus­trious,"
he promised. Arredondo approved
the grant for 200,000 acres and three hun­dred
families on January 17, 1821.
Moses Austin began organizing the van­guard
of his colony, but did not live to
see its beginning. He died in June, 1821,
leaving his son Stephen to carry out his
scheme.
STEPHEN F. AUSTIN
1821
Stephen, Moses Austin's son, was not at
first enthusiastic about his father's Texas
plan. When the elder Austin died, how­ever,
he assumed full responsibility for the
project.
"We must resign ourselves to the dis­pensations
of Providence," he wrote his
mother and sister. "I shall go out and
take possession of the land and arrange
for the families to move in the fall. . ."
It was not that simple. Mexican revolu­tions
and quarrelsome colonists were to
give Austin little peace or prosperity.
This well-educated, reserved, bookish man
was in many ways ill-equipped for the
conquest of wilderness and the manage­ment
of settlers. But he persevered and
with tenacity overcame, outwitted, or
went around obstacles to achieve his goal.
Only two months before his death at
forty-three, Austin wrote a touching letter
to a close personal friend: "I have no
house, not a roof in all Texas that I can
call my own. The only one I had was
burned at San Felipe during the late in­vasion
of the enemy. I make my home
where the business of the country calls
me. I have no farm, no cotton plantation,
no income, no money, no comforts. I have
spent the prime of my life and worn out
my constitution in trying to colonize this
country. I am therefore not ashamed of
my present poverty."
THE AUSTIN GRANT
The original grant to Moses Austin
was not clearly defined. Stephen Austin
reached Texas in 1821 and explored the
coastal plains between the San Antonio
and Brazos Rivers with the aim of select­ing
a definite location.
Mexico had just won its independence
from Spain, and it was a new and some­what
unstable government that Austin
dealt with. The grant was approved, how­ever,
and the first settlers arrived in De­cember
of 1821. Then in a change of
heart, the government declined to validate
the grant, declaring that it wished to regu­late
all immigration. Austin went to Mex­ico
City seeking approval, which he even­tually
obtained.
In spite of years of political troubles,
settlers came. By March , 1822, Austin
STEPHEN F . AUSTIN
Engraving by Charles K. Burt
HARPER'S WEEKLY
reported 150 settlers in his colony; by
September of 1824, titles had been issued
to 272 families. A census of the colony late
in 1825 showed eighteen hundred people,
including 443 slaves. In 1825, 1827, and
1828, new contracts authorized the intro­duction
of nine hundred more families.
And Anglo immigrants would be entering
Texas in even greater numbers in the next
few years.
ROUTES OF
IMMIGRATION
Anglo settlers entered Texas by four prin­cipal
routes. Some proceeded through
north Texas from Arkansas, crossing the
Red River. Others came by one of two
routes through east Texas. The north road
through Nacogdoches crossed the Trinity
River and continued on to the town of
Washington. The more southerly Atas­cosito
Road crossed the Sabine at Gaines'
Ferry, continued to Atascosito (Liberty),
then terminated at San Felipe. Finally
there was the sea route from New Orleans.
JARED ELLISON GROCE
1822
The first big rich Texan, Jared Ellison
Groce II, pi.oneered in the large-scale pro-duction
of cotton, Texas' biggest money
crop. A native Virginian who made a
fortune in Alabama lumber, Groce came
to Texas in 1822. He brought with him
about one hundred salves, fifty wagons
loaded with tools and household goods,
and a good supply of cash. His slaves
built a squared-log mansion on a bluff
above the Brazos about four miles below
the present town of Hempstead. "Ber­nardo"
was then the finest house in Texas
and was the headquarters of vast agricul­tural
operations which spread from there
to the coast.
Groce, properly called the "Father of
Texas Agriculture," also brought cotton­seed
to Texas and by 1828 raised exten­sive
crops. He built the first gin in Austin's
colony and shipped his bales to the United
States by sea and to Mexico by land. In
1830 Groce armed a group of Negro slaves
as troops to oppose Indian raids in the
area.
During the Texas Revolution, Houston's
weary army camped for two weeks across
the river from Bernardo. Groce's gener­osity
became evident. Ladies of the plan­tation
doctored the sick, and Groce sup­plied
the army with clothing, food, and
ammunition. Everything possible was
melted down for bullets, including, leg­end
says, sacks of Mexican silver dollars
accumulated from cotton sales.
Groce died in November, 1836, at his
up-river plantation, the "Retreat," which
had served as a meeting place for the
provisional government of Texas after the
close of the convention which declared
independence.
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SAN FELIPE DE AUSTIN
1823
San Felipe was the hub of Austin's colony
and the unofficial capital of Anglo-Ameri­can
Texas. Laid out at Austin's request by
the Baron de Bastrop in 1823, it is located
at the old Atascosito crossing of the Brazos.
During colonial years many of the great
figures of early Texas could be found
there. The town was the site of the Con­ventions
of 1832 and 1833 and seat of the
provisional government until 1836 when
Washington h osted the Convention. San
Felipe was burned during the Texas Rev­olution,
but was partially rebuilt in 1837
and served as the seat of Austin County
government. Today the site is marked by
a State Park, r estorations and a museum.
MARY CROWNOVER
RABB
Pioneer T exas was "a 'h eaven for men
and dogs, but a h ell for women and oxen,"
in the words of the early chronicler, Noah
Smithwick. There were many Anglo wom­en
in early Texas, but their stories are
largely unwritten. Mary Crownover Rabb,
however, recorded her adventures in
rough but painstaking grammar. She
came to T exas in 1823 with h er husband,
a child, sixteen horses, and little else. She
set up housekeeping wherever her hus­band
went. Her first dwelling she des­cribed
as "made of logs that made a
chimny to it and the door Shetter was
made of thick Slabs split out of thick
peases of timber, we had aerthing flo or
in ouer house and then I was in my first
Texas hous and Andrew Rabb made a
spining wheel and made me a presant of
MARY RABB, BY MICHAEL WATERS
it. then I was vary much pleasd and I soon
got to work to make clothing for my fam­ily.
"
. When her husband was out farming or
hunting or searching for better land, she
was left alone with the threat of Indian
attack. "Now lonely as I was after riseing
early in the morning and attending to
ma'keing meal for the day I kept my new
spining wheel whisling all day and a good
part of the night for while the wheel was
rowering it would keep me from hearing
fTC Collection
the Indians walking around hunting mis­chieaf."
Mrs. Rabb raised a family, lost a child
to the bitter weather, gave birth in camp,
made her family's clothing, and cooked.
"I would pick the cotten with my fingers
and spin six hundred thread a round the
reel evry day and milk my cows and
pound my meat in a mortar and cook and
churn and mind my childern . . ." And
in doing all that, she turned a wilderness
into a home.
THE MEXICAN
CONSTITUTION OF 1824
Texans were generally pleased when
Mexico became a federal republic under a
constitution resembling that of the United
States. The document allowed individual
Mexican states to regulate immigration,
while easing bothersome restrictions. Set­tlers
also were given representation in the
legislature of Coahuila y Texas. Their
first representative was the wily Baron de
Bastrop.
When Santa Anna abrogated the Con­stitution
of 1824 and declared himself
dictator, many Mexican states rebelled.
One by one they were overwhelmed, until
Texas stood alone. In the early stages of
the conflict, Anglo Texans were fighting
as Mexican citizens opposing an over­throw
of their constitution.
STERLING C. ROBERTSON
1825
Sterling C. Robertson and a group of Ten­nesseans
formed the Nashville Company
in 1822 to bring settlers into Texas. In
1825 they secured a grant for eight hun­dred
families in the Brazos River basin
northwest of Austin's colony. Robertson
came in 1830, but the Law of April 6
prevented his forming a settlement here.
When the law was repealed in 1832, he
began recruiting. He was a delegate to the
Convention of 1836, where he became a
signer of the Texas Declaration of Inde­pendence.
He also served in the Republic's
first Congress. Robertson retired from pub­lic
life in 1837 and devoted his remaining
five years to the affairs of his colony.
MEXICAN FEDERAL ACT
1830
The Mexican government moved to halt
the flood of immigrants from the United
States to Texas. The act of April 6, 1830,
forbade the introduction of additional
slaves into Texas and attempted to void
all existing empresario contracts.
To offset the growing Anglo-American
population, it proposed settling convicts
from Mexican prisons and other undesir­ables
in Texas. The ill will generated by
this law added to some settlers' desires for
revolution.
MARY AUSTIN HOLLEY
1831
"First Lady Ambassador of Texas," Mary
Austin Holley earned her title as a prop­agandist
for both the colony and the Re­public
of Texas. An attractive, widowed
cousin of Stephen F. Austin, she first saw
Texas in 1831. From this trip came her
first book, Texas: Observations, Historical,
Geographical, and Descriptive, in a Series
of Letters Written during a Visit to Aus­tin's
Colony with a View to a Permanent
Settlement in That Country in the Au­tumn
of 1831.
Austin had set aside land for Mrs.
Holley and her brother, Henry Austin.
She visited Texas many times between
intervals spent as a teacher in Kentucky
and Louisiana. During the Revolution she
was instrumental in arousing sympathy
for the Texas cause in Kentucky. After
independence Mrs. Holley began a cam­paign
for annexation. On her last visit
MARY AUSTIN HOLLEY
Barker Texas History Center
in 1843, she gathered information for a
biography of Stephen F. Austin, but the
project was terminated by her death from
yellow fever at New Orleans in 1846. Her
writings and letters form an invaluable
first-hand impression of early Texas.
JUAN DAVIS BRADBURN
1832
The first real clash between Texas set­tlers
and Mexican officials was a quarrel
among Anglos. Juan Davis Bradburn,
commander of the Mexican garrison at
Anahuac, was a fiery tempered Ken­tuckian
who had joined the Mexican rev­olutionary,
Xavier Mina, in 1817. Later
Bradburn entered Mexican government
service. Placed in command at Anahuac
in 1830, he had immediately earned the
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10
enmity of the settlers by preventing is­suance
of land titles, closing all ports but
his own, and dissolving the ayuntamiento
(city council) at Liberty. Two years later
Bradburn declared martial law and ar­rested
three men. A group of colonists
promptly laid siege to his fort. Bloodshed
was avoided when the Mexican govern­ment
ordered Bradburn to withdraw.
DAVID AYRES
David Ayres exerted quiet influence on
Texas history as a Methodist layman.
When he landed at Matagorda in 1832,
Ayres smuggled ashore a trunkload of
English-language Bibles. These were dis­tributed
among Austin's colonists, most
of whom were Protestant in fact if not
legally. Catholicism had been declared
Mexico's official religion, and although
the law was repealed in 1834, Protestant­ism
was not encouraged.
Ayres worked diligently to bring Meth­odist
missionaries to Texas, as did his r' ,
friend William B. Travis. When Travis
took command at the Alamo he left his
young son with Ayres. When the Revolu­tion
ended, and religious freedom became
a reality in Texas, Ayres began teaching
one of the first Protestant Sunday Schools,
at the village of Washington, He re­mained
active in church work until his
death in 1878.
UNREST IN THE
AUSTIN COLONY
1833
While Stephen Austin was visiting the
Mexican settlements to persuade them to "SETTLEMENT OF AUSTIN'S COLONY," BY HENRY MCARDLE Texas Slate Capitol
join in seeking separate statehood, a group
of impatient colonists called another con­vention.
They went further by drafting
a proposed constitution for a separate State
of Texas. Of three delegates named to
present the requests to Santa Anna, Austin
alone made the trip to Mexico City.
He secured several concessions and had
started home when he was arrested at
Saltillo and returned to the capital, im­prisoned,
and held for eighteen months.
Mexican officials had intercepted a letter
he wrote in a moment of impatience urg­ing
Texans to proceed with formation of
a state regardless of federal approval.
Anger over the arrest of their leader,
frustration at their inability to communi­cate
with Santa Anna, and absence of Aus­tin's
calming presence in Texas did much
to bring the revolutionary pot to a boil.
Many settlers, instead of supporting Texas
as a state in a Mexican union, turned to
the idea of complete independence.
McKINNEY AND
WILLIAMS
1834
A business partnership formed in 1834
between Thomas F. McKinney and Sam­uel
May Williams was destined to be a
major factor in the Texas Revolution. Mc­Kinney,
one of Austin's "Old Three Hun­dred,"
was a Kentuckian with wide ex­perience
as a trader. Williams had been
secretary to the colony and a sometime
business partner of Austin. McKinney
and Williams quickly became aggressive
and prosperous Texans. They operated
river boats on the Brazos, sold imported
THOMAS F. MCKINNEY Rosenberg Library
supplies, bought products of the planta­tions
for export, and dealt in land.
McKinney and Williams financed the
beginning of the Texas navy and much
of the material for the army, extending
credit of over $90,000 to the provisional
government. Twenty years after the war
they collected $40,000 and never got the
rest. The firm survived this loss and be­came
one of Galveston's leading mercan­tile,
banking, and shipping establish­ments.
SARAH BRADLEY
DODSON
Sarah Bradley Dodson, the "Betsy Ross of
Texas," came with her parents from Ken­tucky
in 1823. Settling in Brazoria Coun-ty,
they were among Austin's "Old Three
Hundred." In 1835 Sarah married Arch­elaus
Bynum Dodson, a member of a Har­risburg
company of troops. Soon afterward
she made and presented to the company
the first Lone Star flag of Texas. Made
of coarse cotton cloth, the flag had equal
squares of blue, red, and white. For the
first time a lone, white star flew in a
blue field next to the flagstaff. The differ­ence
between Sarah's flag and the present
Texas flag was that each of its fields of
color was square, side by side, making a
long and narrow banner. Sarah Dodson
later lived in Fort Bend County and in
1844 moved to Grimes County, where she
died in 1848.
ERASTUS "DEAF"
SM ITH
New York-born Erastus "Deaf" Smith
contributed much to the Texas tradition.
Smith was hard of hearing and preferred
to be alone with his handicap. He settled
in San Antonio and married a Mexican
woman. He had little quarrel with Mexi­can
officials and remained neutral until
the Siege of Bexar in December, 1835.
The troops under the command of Gen­eral
Cos refused to let Smith through the
lines to visit his family; so, he joined
the Texas Army as a scout and spy.
He proved to be one of Houston's most
useful aides, destroying Vince's bridge to
prevent the escape of Mexican troops at
San Jacinto. After the revolution Smith
served as captain of a Ranger company
until he retired to Richmond where he
died in 1837.
/I
GAIL BORDEN, JR. Texana Collection, UT Austin
12
GAIL BORDEN. JR.
1835
A New Yorker, Gail Borden, Jr., who is
best remembered nationally as the inven­tor
of a process for evaporating mik, was
a key figure in the Texas Revolution.
With his brother Tom and Joseph Baker,
he published the Telegraph and Texas
Register at San Felipe. This newspaper
was the official organ of the provisional
government in 1835 and of the Conven­tion
and interim government in 1836.
Borden had been active in Texas' public
affairs since his arrival in 1829. He had
represented the Lavaca district at the Con­vention
of 1833. For many years the
signed manuscript copies of the Declara­tion
of Independence were lost, and hand­bill
copies, published by Borden, were the
only record of that document in Texas.
His press followed the r etreating Texas
government, moving from San Felipe to
Harisburg where it was dumped in the
bayou by Santa Anna. When the govern­ment
reorganized at Columbia after San
Jacinto, Borden established his newspaper
there, then moved it to Houston, the cap­ital.
Borden's creative mind occasionally
took unusual turns. He invented among
other things a "locomotive bath house"
for Galveston women who wished to frolic
in the Gulf of Mexico. Other inventions
were no more enduring except, of course.
for the condensed milk process and a meat
biscuit, which found favor with the mili­tary.
Borden died in Borden, Texas, in
January of 1874.
ROBERT M. WILLIAMSON
A brilliant young editor and lawyer,
Robert McAlpin Williamson was known
as "the Patrick Henry of the Texas Rev­volution."
Born in Georgia, he came to
Texas in 1826. The fiery editorials he
wrote in newspapers at Brazoria and San
Felipe, plus a rousing speech he delivered
at San Felipe in 1835, did much to solidify
the revolutionary spirit in the colony.
A victim of polio in his childhood,
Williamson's right leg was withered and
bent back at the knee on which he wore
a pegleg. This accounted for his popular
nickname, "Three-Legged Willie." The
handicap did not prevent him from par­ticipating
in frontier fights and frolics. At
San Felipe he was the life of many a
rowdy party - singing, dancing, and
playing banjo. During the Revolution he
commanded a ranging company in which
he held the rank of major. After the war
he was a circuit judge, member of the
Supreme Court, and a legislator.
Williamson's resourcefulness as a speak­er
was legendary. On one occasion he
was invited by a revival preacher to offer
a prayer before a crowd of drouth-stricken
farmers and their families. Welcoming
the opportunity, he solemnly intoned:
"0 Lord, Thou divine Father, the supreme
ru.ler of the Universe, who holdest the
thunder and lightening in thy hand, and
from the clouds givest rain to make crops
for thy children, look down with pity
upon them who now face ruin for lack of
rain upon their crops; and 0 Lord, send
us a drencher that will cause the crops
to fruit in all their glory and the earth
R. M. WILLIAMSON Legislative Reference Library
to turn again to the beauteous green that
comes from abundant showers. Lord, send
us a bounteous one that will make corn
ears shake hands across the row and not
one of those little rizzly-drizzly sprinkles
that'll make nubbins that all hell can't
shuck."
Williamson was a staunch advocate of
the annexation of Texas to the United
States and even named one of his sons
Annexlls. He lived to become a respected
elder statesman. Williamson County was
named in his honor.
DECLARATION OF
INDEPENDENCE
1836
Texas' first Anglo-American chief execu­tive
was Henry Smith, a Kentuckian. He
was elected by the Consultation of Octo­ber,
1835, which gave Texas its first
provisional government. This administra­tion
collapsed in February and was re­placed
a month later by the Convention
of 1836.
While Texas's organized military forces
were being trapped and destroyed at the
Alamo and La Bahia, delegates from the
scattered settlements gathered at the
Town of Washington to declare inde­pendence.
They met March 1st in an
unfinished frame buiding, approved the
HENRY SMITH Texas State Capitol
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811
Emigrants who are desileious of assist­ing
Texas at this important crisis of her
affairs may have a free passage and equip.
ments, by apldying at the
NEW. YORK and PHILADELPHIA
HOTEL,
On the .)Id Levee, near the Blue Stores.
Now is the time to ensure a fortune in Land:
To all who remain in Texas durin~ the War will
be allowed 1~80 Acres.
To all who remain Six Months, 640 Acres.
To all who remain Three Months, 3~0 Acres.
And as Colonists, 4600 Acres for a family and
14'10 Acres for a Sin~le Man.
New OrleanslJ April ?J3d, 1836.
TEXAS BROADSIDE
declaration on the 2nd, and by March
17th had established a functioning gov­ernment.
Of the fifty-nine who signed
the declaration, fifty-two were Anglo­Americans,
forty-five of these from the
south. Only ten had been in Texas over
six years, and two had arrived in 1836.
George Campbell Childress from Ten­nessee
was the primary author of the docu­ment.
Sam Houston, also from Tennessee,
was made commander-in-chief of the Tex-
The University of Texas
as army, and David G. Burnet from New
Jersey was elected interim President. Only
one official, Vice-President Lorenzo de
Zavala, was not an Anglo-American.
SAM HOUSTON
A colorful and controversial figure in
Texas history was Sam Houston, a Virgin­ia
native who grew up in Tennessee. He
had known fame and despair before he
came to Texas in 1832 to regain his for-tunes.
He had been adjutant general, con­gressman,
and governor of Tennessee, a
close friend of Andrew Jackson, and a
potential successor to the presidency. After
an unfortunate marriage, he had walked
away from the governorship to live in the
Arkansas wilderness with the Cherokees,
earning for himself the Indian nickname
of "Big Drunk."
Houston was the dominant military
and political figure in Texas almost from
his arrival until the Civil War. Without
his generalship the revolution might have
been lost; without his sound statesman­ship,
the Republic could have failed. His
San Jacinto campaign-a classic with­drawal
movement-enabled him to col­lect
and organize his volunteers while
the enemies were stretched across the
endless Texas prairies and trapped in a
sea of mud with supply lines cut by rising
rivers. His timing, in counterattacking an
over-confident Santa Anna, enabled the
Texans to rout a Mexican force nearly
twice their number in eighteen minutes.
In later years as a United States senator,
Houston fought to preserve the Union.
Elected governor in 1859, he opposed se­cession
and vacated the office rather than
give allegiance to the Confederacy. Near
the end of his public career he proclaimed
with little exaggeration: "I made the State
of Texas, but I did not make the people;
and if they do wrong, the State still re­mains
in all its beauty, with all its splen­did
and inviting prospects, with nothing
on earth to surpass it in its climate, soil,
and productions-all varied and delight­ful.
It remains the same beautiful Texas."
~
SAM HOUSTON Texas State Capitol
WILLIAM BARRET
TRAVIS
Few documents in history are as stirring
as the short letter written by Colonel
William B. Travis during the siege of
the Alamo. Addressed to "The people of
Texas and all Americans in the World,"
it stated the situation facing him and the
150 members of his garrison.
"I am besieged," it read, "by a thousand
or more of the Mexicans under Santa
Anna . . . I shall never surrender or re­treat."
Pleading for aid, he concluded, "if
this call is neglected, I am determined to
sustain myself as long as possible and
die like a soldier who never forgets what
is due to his own honor and that of his
country-Victory or death."
But the eloquence of the twenty-six­year-
old lawyer-soldier from South Caro­lina
brought little help. Of the scattered
and disorganized Texans, only thirty-two
men from Gonzales made it to the Alamo.
But Travis's words and the heroism of
his ill-fated men fired a fighting spirit
which later triumphed at San Jacinto.
JAMES BOWIE
Colonel James Bowie arrived at the Alamo
on January 17, 1836, with orders from
Sam Houston to destroy the fort and re­treat
to Gonzales. Neither order was fol­lowed.
Bowie stayed on, sharing command
grudgingly with Colonel Travis, until in­capacitated
by illness. This swashbuck­ling,
hell-raising Tennessean was one of
the most colorful and popular figures in
early Texas. As a youth in Louisiana he
had won an awesome reputation as a
15
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bronc buster, alligator rider, and deadly
duelist. He had made and lost fortunes
in slave running and land speculation
before coming to Texas in 1828.
In 1831 Bowie married the beautiful
daughter of Vice-Governor Veramendi
and, with these aristocratic connections,
became one of the most trusted Anglo­Americans
among the Mexicans. His wife
and two children died in a cholera epi­demic,
and Bowie went through a period
of drunken despondency. When he joined
the Texans in the Battle of Concepcion
and the Siege of Bexar, the Mexicans
considered him a traitor. Of all the men in
the Alamo, he alone was singled out for
personal retribution by the attackers.
JAMES BOWIE Texas State Capitol
DAVID GOUVERNEUR
BURNET
A venturesome Yankee from New Jersey,
who consistently failed in business and
quarrelled with his associates, gave Texas
a stable government in its time of greatest
turmoil and lived to become the grand
elder statesman of the Republic. David G.
Burnet had had revolutionary experience
long before he came to Texas. As the
youngest officer in the Miranda expedi­tion,
he was credited with firing the first
shot in the battle for Venezuelan inde­pendence.
In 1813, stricken by tuberculo­sis,
the twenty-five-year-old Burnet aban­doned
his trading post and law practice
in Louisiana to ride alone into the Texas
wilderness. He lived with the Comanches
until he regained his h ealth.
In Texas neither his plantation nor his
mill on the San Jacinto prospered, but he
was a respected lawyer and politician. Al­though
he was merely a visitor at the Con­vention
of 1836, Burnet was elected presi­dent
of the ad interim government. His
stubborn defiance of hotheads who de­manded
that Santa Anna be imprisoned
or hanged saved the infant nation from
disgrace. He served as vice-president in
Mirabeau Lamar's administration and be­came
acting president when Lamar re­signed
before his term expired. He was
named secretary of state in 1846.
After the Civil War, Burnet, who had
opposed secession, was elected to the
United States Senate but was n ever al­lowed
to serve. He died at eighty-two in
the home of friends at Galveston, ignored
and impoverished.
ANNA HUBERT, BY MICHAEL WATERS
fTC Collection
ANNA MARIA
SIMPSON HUBERT
"She came to Texas with her husband in
1836."
This tombstone inscription, simple as it
is, tells the essential story of thousands of
women who came to Texas not as politi­cians
or mercenaries, farmers or mer­chants,
but as wives. Quietly, and often
heroically, they raised families on a fron­tier
that offered few comforts.
Anna Maria Simpson fits the mold.
Coming from Maryland, she met her
husband Ben Hubert in Mobile, Alabama,
and came with him to Texas in 1836. The
young couple landed on Galveston Island
when Anna was seventeen. Her first home
was not the proverbial log cabin, but
a single room above a saloon. Through
cracks in the floor she could see the bar.
Occasionally a pistol ball, aimed casually
upward by an overindulgent drinker, in­terrupted
her chores.
Anna's first real home was at Boone­ville,
near present Bryan, where her hus­band
entered the real estate business. Ben,
however, died of yellow fever after the
Civil War, leaving Anna to raise eleven
children in the years that followed. She
died in 1911.
MARTIN RUTER
1840
The first institution of higher learning
in Texas was the brainchild and namesake
of a well-educated Methodist missionary.
Rutersville College, near La Grange,
opened in 1840 as a coeducational enter­prise
with a small but impressive faculty.
RUTERSVILLE COLLEGE
The Rev. Martin Ruter, born in Mas­sachusetts,
was a graduate of Transylvan­ia
University, had served as president of
three colleges, and was a published essay­ist
and historian when he heard of the
Texans' victory at San Jacinto. He volun­teered
to go to the new Republic as a
missionary.
In a sermon to its congress he men­tioned
his dream of establishing a college
in Texas. Donors offered land and support.
Ruter soon died, but his followers im­plemented
the plan. Rutersville College
operated until the Civil War. Its charter
was one of three which were combined
to form Southwestern University.
Methodist Centennial Yearbook
WILLIAM A. A.
"BIGFOOT" WALLACE
1842
William A. A. Wallace came to Texas
from Virginia when he learned that a
brother and a cousin had been executed
in the Goliad massacre. The strapping
nineteen-year-old, who stood six feet two
inches and weighed 240 pounds, set about
to "take payout of the Mexicans." In
old age he "believed the account to be
squared."
Wallace's first view of Texas, on land­ing
at Galveston, was not a favorable one.
Two surveyors laying off city lots tried
to sell him one. "I'll buy it provided
you'll put it on a boat so I can take it
somewhere else." He tried farming at La­Grange,
but found the occupation distaste­ful.
He moved to Austin in 1840 and on
to San Antonio soon after.
Wallace was with Texan troops who
fought General Adrian Woll's invading
Mexican army in 1842. He volunteered
for the ill-fated Mier Expedition, survived
the infamous drawing of the black beans,
and was sent to Perote prison. On his
release he joined Captain Jack Hays's
Texas Rangers and served with that outfit
during the Mexican War. By this time he
had already acquired the nickname, "Big­foot."
In the 1850's Wallace commanded
his own Ranger company, fighting both
border bandits and Indians. He had no
peer at following dim trails through the
wilderness. For a time he drove a stage­coach
between San Antonio and El Paso.
In the long evening of his life he lived
on a Frio County farm near the village of
17
WILLIAM A.A. WALLACE Gonzales Historical Museum
18
Bigfoot. The old bachelor frontiersman
would sit in a comfortable rawhide chair
beneath a shade tree and spin stories of
his escapades. The gusto, humor, drama,
and warmth of his talk captivated many
listeners, among them John C. Duval, who
recorded the best of the stories in a book
that has become a Texas classic. Wallace
died in 1899, having made a singular con­tribution
to Texas history, both in reality
and in myth.
DR. ASHBEL SMITH
Much credit for the survival of the infant
Texas Republic in the troubled interna­tional
affairs of its times was due to a
polished, Yale-educated Connecticut phy­sician.
Dr. Ashbel Smith was the Texas
charge d'affaires to England and France
from 1842 to 1844. He had studied in
France in his youth and established him­self
in the best circles.
Smith had been a close friend of Sam
Houston since arriving in Texas in 1837.
He was surgeon general of the Texas
Army and published the first major med­ical
treatise to come out of Texas. He was
also conceded to have the finest private
library in the Republic. After serving
brilliantly in the diplomatic service, he
was appointed secretary of state in 1844
and negotiated the treaty by which Mex­ico
agreed to recognize Texas's independ­ence.
Dr. Smith was a veteran of both
the Mexican War and the Civil War. As
a long-time member of the legislature, he
played a major role in founding The Uni­versity
of Texas and its medical branch at
Galveston.
R. E. B. BAYLOR Carroll, A History of Texas Baptists
R. E. B. BAYLOR
1845
Baylor University, today one of Texas's
major educational institutions, was char­tered
by the Republic in 1845 and named
for Robert Emmett Bledsoe Baylor. When
this erudite Kentuckian came to Texas in
1841 he was forty-eight years old and had
already made a name as a lawyer, soldier,
politician, and newly ordained Baptist
minister.
Judge Baylor left many marks on Tex­as
in addition to his namesake university.
As a circuit judge and associate justice
of the supreme court, he travelled over
Texas with his law books in one saddle­bag,
his Bible in the other, and his fiddle
strapped across his back. At night he
would tune up his fiddle and give a con­cert
to attract a crowd, then preach a
fiery sermon.
Baylor organized courts and churches
by the score. A leading Baptist, he or­ganized
that church's educational society,
which in turn founded Baylor University.
Judge Baylor established his home near
the University at Independence, teaching
its law classes without charge between
court sessions.
ANNEXATION
The annexation of Texas by the United
States was a topic of discussion from the
time of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
The voters of the young Republic ap-
LOWERING THE TEXAS FLAG AT ANNEXATION
proved annexation at their first election
in September, 1836, but the United States
was not interested at the time.
Due to British diplomacy Texas had a
choice of annexation or having her inde­pendence
recognized by Mexico. But Tex­as
was overwhelmingly Anglo and felt
strong ties to the United States. The Texas
Congress, in special session, met and ap­proved
annexation in June, 1845. A state
constitution was prepared and then ac­cepted
by the United States Congress on
December 29, 1845, the legal date of
Texas's official entry as the twenty-eighth
state. The transfer of governmental power
and the lowering of the flag of the Repub­lic
were carried out on February 19, 1846.
Barker Texas His/ory Center
19
20
JAMES PINCKNEY
HENDERSON
1846
James Pinckney Henderson, a wiry North
Carolinian, was the first governor after
annexation. A lawyer-soldier equally at
home on the battlefield or in a court­room,
he had come to Texas in June, 1836.
He was sent back to the United States
to h elp recruit soldiers for the revolution­ary
army. He served as attorney general
for the Republic, then as secretary of state
under President Sam Houston. In 1837
he was minister to England and France,
where he laid the groundwork for Texas's
recognition as a Republic by the two coun­tries.
While governor, Henderson took
leave to personally command troops in
the Mexican War. Refusing to seek re­election,
he was a senator from Texas
at his death in 1858.
JOHN S. "RIp·· FORD
The Mexican War, concluded in 1848,
defined the Rio Grande as the state's
southern boundary. One of the toughest
fighting men in that war gained an omi­nous
nickname through an act of formal
courtesy. As adjutant of Hays's Regiment,
it was Colonel John S. Ford's duty to noti­fy
the families of men killed in action.
He normally ended his messages with
"Rest in Peace," but as casualties mount­ed,
the condolence was abbreviated to
"R.I.P." Thereafter, he was known as
"Rip" Ford.
This South Carolina native, who grew
up in Tennessee and came to Texas in
1836, was a man of many talents-doctor,
JOHN S. FORD Webb, The Texas Rangers
lawyer, surveyor, newspaperman, soldier,
and politician. He was successful in all
these fields. In 1849 Ford and Robert
Neighbors blazed an immigrant trail from
San Antonio to El Paso. In the 1850's
"Rip" Ford fought Indians in west Texas
and chased bandit Juan Cortina along the
Rio Grande. During the Civil War he was
a Confederate cavalry commander on the
southern border. He participated in the
battle of Palmito Ranch, the last action
of that war, which occurred a month after
the surrender at Appomattox. Ford served
two terms in the Texas Senate and spent
his last years compiling his memoirs.
SARAH BOURDETT
Sarah Bourdett was an enterprising, Am­azonian
woman from Tennessee who ran
eating places and bordellos from Florida
to Arizona. Her patrons called her the
"Great Western," after the steamship of
the same name. She stood well over
six feet, was physically impressive, and
known for her kindness.
Serving as a cook and nurse in the
Mexican War, she made friends with
many Texas Rangers. G. W. Traherne
said that she was "a great nurse and
would always get up at night at any time
to get one something to eat." The Texans
in Taylor'S army regarded her very high­ly-
she was one person they respected.
Her impromptu cafe became an unofficial
Texan headquarters during the war.
When the fighting ended, the Great
Western drifted north and went into the
restaurant business at El Paso. She was
described by Rip Ford as "very tall, large,
and well made. She had the reputation of
being something of the roughest fighter
on the Rio Grande, and was approached in
a polite, if not humble manner by all of
us, the writer in particular." She was also
described as an excellent pistol shot who
often wore two six-sh ooters. In later years
she moved west from El Paso into New
Mexico and then Arizona.
RICHARD KING
1853
Eleven-year-old Richard King stowed
away on an Alabama-bound ship to escape
the tedium of life as a jeweler's apprentice
in New York City. He grew up to become
the best known of Texas's cattle barons.
He served on riverboat crews in Alabama
and in Florida during the Seminole War.
.-~
Cf£ice.;,'3lueee.;(?o .. 8J"eoc. //."9~
KING LETTERHEAD
Captain King commanded a riverboat on
the Rio Grande during the Mexican War,
and became a partner in a thriving Rio
Grande steamboating business before he
entered ranching.
In 1853 he bought the 15,500 acre Rin­con
de Santa Gertrudis grant in south
Texas, which became the nucleus of to­day's
vast King Ranch, with its interna­tional
operations.
In 1860 King sold a %'s interest in the
ranch to his old steamboating partner,
Captain Miflin Kenedy. During the Civil
War the partners made a fortune trans­porting
Confederate cotton to Mexico for
shipment to Europe and used the profits
to expand their holdings. The partnership
dissolved in 1868 and Kenedy established
a ranching empire of his own.
King laid strong foundations and suc­ceeding
generations have expanded and
improved upon them. Among other ac­complishments,
the ranch developed the
first breed of cattle, the Santa Gertrudis,
to originate in the Western hemisphere.
Lea, The King Ranch
OLIVER LOVING
1858
Oliver Loving is remembered today for a
famous cattle trail that bore his name.
Originally from Kentucky, he came to
Texas in 1845 and began farming, freight­ing,
and cattle trading. In 1858 he drove
a herd to market in Chicago and a year
later trailed another to Denver, arriving
there just as the Civil War opened. With
some difficulty he escaped back to Texas,
where he supplied beef to the Confederacy
throughout the war.
In 1866 Loving and Charles Goodnight
took a h erd through New Mexico to
Colorado, laying out a new trail as they
went. The next year, while following the
same route, Loving was fatally wounded
in an Indian attack. His last request to
Goodnight was, "Take me back to Texas.
Don't leave me in foreign soil." He is
buried at Weatherford.
Three of the routes pioneered by Loving
were later followed by thousands. His
route to Chicago became the Shawnee
Trail. His 1859 route to Denver later
approximated the Western Trail, and his
1866 route the Goodnight-Loving Trail.
LAWRENCE SULLIVAN
ROSS
1859
In the summer of 1859, Governor Sam
Houston appointed a 21-year-old graduate
from Alabama's Wesleyan University as
Ranger captain to lead an expedition
against the high-plains Comanches. Hous­ton
had first known " Little SuI" Ross as a
youthful jockey in the impromptu races
which were a popular frontier pastime.
The boy was the son of Shapley Ross, one
of Texas's most noted Indian fighters . He
had already proved his Indian fighting
abilities in summer campaigns while
home from college. Young Ross led an
expedition into west Texas, wiped out a
large Indian settlement, and killed the
war chief Peta Nocona.
LAWRENCE SULLIVAN ROSS Texas State Capitol
22
Ross left the Rangers in 1861 for Con­federate
service. He quickly rose from
private to brigadier general and was one
of the most effective cavalry officers on
the Southern side. After the war Ross
served as sheriff of his home county, was
a member of the Constitutional Conven­tion
of 1875, and served in the Texas Sen­ate.
In 1887 he became governor, the first
to serve in the present capitol building.
He retired in 1891 to head Texas A&M
College, turning a floundering young in­stitution
into a stable and growing college.
SARAH JANE NEWMAN
1860
In her heyday Sarah Jane Newman op­erated
a ranch in Bee County and another
near Banquete. On frequent cattle drives
she served as wagon boss with a long
black whip in one hand and a pistol on
each hip, "the whip for the horses and the
pistols for the men."
Starting at the age of thirteen Sarah
Jane went through six marriages, losing
husbands to annulment, divorce, drown­ing,
and her own guns (an accident). The
third marriage gave her the name by
which she was remembered, "Sally Skull."
She was also called "Six-shooter Sally," by
her Anglo acquaintances, and "Juana
Mestena" by her Spanish-speaking com­padres.
But she was called neither name
to her face.
She was respected as a deadly shot and
also as one of the most honest and reliable
suppliers of horses, guns, food, and am­munition
during the Civil War.
LUCY PICKENS ON THE CONFEDERATE $100 BILL
LUCY HOLCOMBE
PICKENS
Tennessee-born in 1832, Lucy Holcombe
came with her parents, Colonel and Mrs.
B. L. Holcombe, to a plantation near
Marshall, Texas. Here in 1850 her father
built a mansion which became the area's
social center. Lucy's fame as a gracious
hostess and Titian-haired beauty spread
throughout the south. From her Texas
home she frequently visited other south­ern
states, becoming the acknowledged
"Belle of the South." After one visit the
Mississippi legislature adjourned in order
to accompany her back as far as New
Orleans.
She lived in Texas about twenty years,
then in 1857 was married to Colonel Fran­cis
Wilkinson Pickens of South Carolina.
Within weeks he was appointed minister
to Russia by President James Buchanan.
She became a favorite of Czar Alexander
II and Czarina Catherine II; Lucy's only
child was born and christened in the Im­perial
Palace. The Czarina became the
Courtesy of Norman Brock's Bookstore
child's godmother and added some Rus­sian
names for the baby girl: Douschka
Olga Neva Francisca Eugenia Dorothy
Pickens. Even after the Pickens family
returned to America, both mother and
daughter continued to be showered with
jewels from Russia's royalty.
In 1860 Colonel Pickens was elected
governor of South Carolina and reputedly
gave the order for the fateful shot at Fort
Sumter that touched off the Civil War.
Lucy presided over both the executive
mansion at Columbia and the Pickens
plantation. During the war she sold her
jewels to outfit the Lucy Holcombe Regi­ment.
Her influence was felt throughout the
south, and her status as confidante and
advisor to those in power was rivaled only
by her beauty. She was the only woman
to be pictured on Confederate currency.
When Colonel Pickens died in the mid
1860's, she assumed management of their
South Carolina and Mississippi planta­tions.
ALBERT SIDNEY JOHNSTON Texas State Capitol
ALBERT SIDNEY
JOHNSTON
1861
A West Point graduate, Albert Sidney
Johnston served briefly in the United
States Army but came to Texas in 1836,
enlisted as a private in the Texas Army,
where he soon was appointed adjutant
general. In January, 1837, President
Houston made him commander-in-chief.
During President Lamar's administration
he served as secretary of war and led an
expedition against the Cherokee Indians
in east Texas.
Johnston served with distinction in the
United States Army during and after the
Mexican War, but at the outbreak of the
Civil War in 1861, he resigned his com­mission
and returned to Texas.
Jefferson Davis appointed him com­mander
of the Western Division of the
Confederate forces, and Johnston defeated
the Union forces at the Battle of Shiloh
in April, 1862. Unfortunately for the Con­federacy
Johnston was killed in the battle.
He is buried in the state cemetery at
Austin, where his grave is marked by a
famous statue sculpted by Elizabet Ney.
F RAN CIS R. L U B B 0 C K
When he came to Texas at twenty-one,
Francis R. Lubbock had already succeeded
as the manager of a cotton warehouse in
his native South Carolina, but he had lost
his earnings in an ill-fated drugstore ven­ture
in New Orleans. Following this mis­fortune
he worked briefly for a jeweler
before coming to Texas in search of a
brother who was fighting in the Revolu-
23
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tion. The brother, Thomas S. Lubbock,
was found at Velasco. Francis entered
business there and in Houston, which was
then the capital. At twenty-two he was
appointed comptroller of the Texas Re­public.
During the early statehood period Lub­bock
became an organizer of the Demo­cratic
Party in Texas and later was an
active secessionist. He served as lieutenant
governor before being elected governor
in 1861. As governor he helped maintain
financial stability and developed the
state's capacity for supplying Confederate
forces. Lubbock retired as governor in
1863 to seek an active role in the war.
He served on the staff of General John B.
Magruder and later of General John A.
Wharton before becoming an aide and ad­visor
to President Jefferson Davis. After
the war Lubbock served in various state
offices, including state treasurer, until he
finally retired as a member of the board of
pardons in the administration of Governor
James S. Hogg. Lubbock's memoirs, Six
Decades in Texas, is one of the basic refer­ence
sources in the study of Texas history.
JOHN H. REAGAN
The only Texan in the cabinet of the
Confederate government was John H .
Reagan, postmaster general. This Tennes­see
native had come to Texas in 1839,
working as a surveyor. After studying
law he became a county judge, member of
the legislature, and delegate to the Seces­sion
Convention. He was sent to the Con­federate
Congress prior to his cabinet ap­pointment.
JOHN H . REAGAN Barker T exas History Center
Imprisoned with President Davis after
the Civil War, Reagan urged the north to
show restraint in its treatment of the south
and advised Texans to accept the results
of the war, acknowledge the end of slav­ery,
and give the Negro his civil rights.
Despite this unpopular stand he retained
the respect of the constituents and was
called out of retirement in 1875 to serve
in the United States Congress. He was
regularly reelected until promoted to the
Senate in 1887.
Reagan was an author of the bill estab­lishing
the Interstate Commerce Commis­sion.
In 1891 he stepped down from the
Senate to accept appointment as first
chairman of the Texas Railroad Commis­sion,
founded at his urging.
LYNE TALIAFERRO
BAR R ET
1866
An imaginative east T exas planter, origi­nally
from Virginia, drilled the first pro­ducing
oil well in Texas in 1866, thus
pioneering a development which would
change the economy and history of the
state. Lyne Barret had leased land near
Oil Springs in Nacogdoches County in
1859, the year Col. Edwin Drake drilled
the world's first commercial producer in
Pennsylvania.
Delayed by the Civil War Barret re­sumed
operations in 1866, with a crude
rotary drill furnished by a local black­smith.
He made a strike at 108 feet. The
resulting production of ten barrels a day
was enough to tempt Barret to further
drilling, but not enough to secure finan ­cial
backing. He soon returned to farming.
Fifteen years later the Oil Springs area
was the site of a sizeable boom. Like many
pioneers Barret lost money on his impor­tant
discovery, but before he died at
eighty, he had seen T exas become the oil
capital of the world.
EDMUND J. DAVIS
1869
Edmund J. Davis, Texas's only Republi­can
governor, became the most hated po­litical
figure of the bitter Reconstruction
period, yet he was personally respected
as a man of culture and integrity. He had
come from his native Florida to Texas in
1838 and had served as district attorney
and district judge in the Rio Grande Val­ley.
He became embittered when he failed
EDMUND J . DAVIS Texas State Capitol
to be elected to the Secession Convention.
Thereupon, he joined the Union cause
and, for the duration of the Civil War,
commanded one of the two Texas regi­ments
in the federal army.
General Davis returned to Brownsville
at the close of the war and was a leader
in the Constitutional Conventions of 1866
and 1868. He looked upon all who had
favored the Confederacy as rebels and
advocated their disenfranchisement. He
proposed unlimited Negro suffrage and
other measures unpopular with the major­ity
of Texans.
Davis ruled Texas with an iron hand,
making free use of his State Police to en­force
his edicts. After his defeat by Rich­ard
Coke in 1873, he refused to surrender
the office, tried to declare the election ille­gal,
and called on President Grant for fed­eral
troops to support him. Grant refused
and Davis withdrew, just as Texas was on
the verge of its own civil war. He contin­ued
to live in Austin and was the leader of
the state's Republican Party until his
death in 1883.
RICHARD COKE
1873
The real hero of the violent Reconstruc­tion
era in Texas was a ponderous, schol­arly
intellectual named Richard Coke.
The son of a distinguished Virginia fam­ily,
he had come to Texas in 1850 to prac­tice
law. After the Civil War, which he
entered as a private and finished as a cap­tain,
he was appointed district judge, then
elected to the State Supreme Court. Re­moved
by General Sheridan as "an im­pediment
to Reconstruction," he was
elected governor in 1873, defeating E. J.
Davis.
When Coke took office Texas was dis­organized
and virtually bankrupt, law­lessness
was rampant, bandits ranged
freely on the Rio Grande, and Indians
were devastating the northwest frontier.
The new governor disbanded the hated
State Police and revived the Texas Rang­ers.
He sent one group to the Rio Grande
to restore order and another to the frontier
to help federal troops quell Indian dep­redations
and outlaw raids. The cost of
operating the state government was pared
RICHARD COKE Texas State Capitol
to the bone, taxes were greatly reduced,
and the state's credit was re-established.
During Coke's three-year administration
Texas was stabilized and put on the road
to economic recovery.
Richard Coke resigned the governorship
late in 1876 to enter the United States
Senate, serving until his retirement in
1885. For two decades this forbidding,
determined high brow had been the dom­inant
figure in the state's rough-and-tum­ble
politics, respected and admired by a
people who affectionately called him "Old
Brains."
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26
COL. w. L. MOODY
American National Insurance Co., Galveston
WILLIAM LEWIS MOODY
1874
The most critical problem of Coke's ad­ministration
was financial. Not only was
there no money in the treasury, but the
state's credit rating was so poor that bonds
were sold at only a fraction of their face
value.
Governor Coke turned to his old and
trusted friend, Colonel W. L. Moody,
a lawyer-legislator from Galveston. Like
Coke, he was a member of a distinguished
Virginia family who had served the Con­federacy
in a Texas unit. Moody was
captain of a company that he had organ­ized
at Fairfield, Texas. Captured and
then parolled, he later earned promotion
to colonel for valor in combat, was serious­ly
wounded, and invalided home. He soon
became Texas's leading cotton factor and
banker, with numerous ties to the eastern
money markets.
In the financial crisis which enveloped
Texas at the outset of Coke's administra­tion,
Colonel Moody was appointed fiscal
agent and sent to New York where $900,-
000 worth of Texas bonds issued by the
Davis regime were drawing ten percent
interest in the hands of bankers. They
were pledged against a loan of $300,000
and were encumbered by the claims of
agents. Valued at forty cents on the dol­lar,
they threatened to go even lower,
under forced sale. The astute Moody sold
a part of the old bonds at eighty-five
cents on the dollar and a new issue of
one million dollars at par. In three years
Texas bonds were bringing a premium,
with a lower interest rate. Taxes, mean­while,
had been cut to less than one-fourth
of the 1874 rate.
Back in Galveston Moody expanded
his financial empire to include not only
banking and cotton trading, but also ex­tensive
land holdings. He led in organiz­ing
the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Rail­road
and with help from his friend Coke,
now in the United States Senate, he suc­cessfully
championed a deep water port
for Galveston.
When he died in 1920, at the age of
ninety-two, Moody left his empire in the
capable hands of a son and grandsons who
added hotels, an insurance company, a
newspaper, and other concerns to the fam­ily
business. The Moody Foundation of
Galveston is one of Texas's most important
philanthropic institutions.
JOHN w. GATES Texana Collection, UT Austin
JOHN W. GATES
1877
A brash, young Illinois native convinced
the hard-bitten Texas cattlemen that con­trol
of their ranges could be assured with
the use of barbed wire. Fresh out of college
and only twenty-two years old, John W.
Gates built a corral with his new product
on Main Plaza in San Antonio and bet
all comers that it would hold the wildest
herd of longhorns they could find. He
won, and the astounded ranchers prompt­ly
bought a carload of barbed wire. That
event in 1877 marked the beginning of
the end of the open range and made pos­sible
the h erd improvements which would
replace the longhorn with fine beef cattle.
Gates soon quit his employer and
started his own company. A colorful, long-
shot gambler, he quickly picked up the
nickname, "Bet-a-Million." He became
. the early prototype of the wheeler-dealer
from Texas. When the Spindletop oil
boom hit in 1901, Gates returned to play
a major role in oil development. He made
his home at Port Arthur and became a
patron of the town. Port Arthur College,
which he built and endowed, is still in
successful operation.
MAJOR JOHN B. JONES
John B. Jones was a short, dapper, and
well-educated ex-soldier, who looked more
like a businessman than a gunfighter. He
commanded the Texas Rangers during the
time this unique group reached the pin­nacle
of its fame.
Jones had come to Texas with his
family from South Carolina in 1838. He
enlisted in Terry's Texas Rangers as a
private and rose to brigade adjutant dur­ing
the Civil War. Governor Coke selected
him to head the revived Ranger force in
1874. His Frontier Battalion played a ma­jor
role in taming the western border,
then swept through the state, cleaning out
gunmen and bandits. He also led in track­ing
down the Sam Bass gang and was
present at Round Rock in 1878 when its
leader was killed.
Jones was appointed adjutant general
of Texas in 1879 and continued in this
post until his death in 1881. He assumed
none of the colorful trappings of the
Western movie lawman. He was a cool
and calculating field commander who
made effective use of the forces at his
disposal. JOHN B. JONES Humanities Research CentPr, UT A ustin
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· --
C. R. MICHAEL FAMILY IN FRONT OF PARIS COX HOME Texas Tech University
PARIS COX
1879
Perhaps a more lasting influence than that
of the cattle barons was exerted by Paris
Cox, a North Carolina native. He traded
a prospering sawmill and lumbering busi­ness
in Indiana to a railroad company for
fifty thousand acres of choice Panhandle
range. Sometime in the late 1870's his
family and two others of the Quaker faith
moved into the Crosby County lands.
Hank Smith, a pioneer German settler,
was paid five dollars a foot to dig a eighty­two
foot community water well. Cox lived
in a sod house, while the other families
occupied tents. A severe winter, followed
by high spring winds, discouraged those
tent dwellers and they returned to their
previous homes. Cox, however, remained,
and other relatives and friends joined him
in 1882.
Many of these early arrivals were
Quakers, who labored industriously to
produce fine crops and bountiful orchards.
When Crosby County was formally or­ganized
in 1886, the little settlement, now
called Estacado, became the seat of local
government; and Cox himself served as
county clerk. A courthouse was completed
in 1888, the year Cox died. Hotels and
restaurants sprang up to accommodate
those who had business to conduct at the
new courthouse.
Not everyone was happy about this
kind of progress. Some of the Quakers
were greatly disturbed that their influence
had declined as n ew settlers moved in.
They became even more upset when their
daughters started marry ing the local cow­boys.
By 1900 recurring droughts and
grasshopper plagues had thinned the set­tlement,
but a beginning had been made
and others came to farm the plains. Today
the region is one of the state's most pro­ductive
agricultural regions.
LIZ Z I E JO H N SON
Not all of the people who got rich in the
cattle trade were men. Miss Lizzie John­son
became a cattle queen when men
dominated the business. Although born
in Missouri in 1843, she grew up near
Driftwood, Texas, where h er father estab­lished
in 1852 a school known as Johnson 's
Institute. Members of the family com­prised
the faculty. Miss Lizzie gave in­struction
in French, arithmetic, bookkeep­ing,
music, and spelling. Although she
kept it a well guarded secret, she wrote
magazine and newspaper articles under an
assumed name and made thousands of
dollars which she invested in the cattle
busin ess.
At thirty-six she married Hezekiah Wil­liams,
a preacher who unfortunately had
little business sense. But Lizzie managed
for both of them. When they married she
made him sign an agreement respecting
her separate property. This arrangement
wasn't always too clearly defined. They
used the same foreman for both of their
herds. Out of earshot, Lizzie would tell
the foreman to steal all of Hezekiah's un-
LIZZIE JOHNSON
Courtesy of Emmett Shelton, Austin
branded calves and burn her brand on
them, since Hezekiah would only lose
them anyway. But unknown to Lizzie,
the foreman had the same instructions
from Hezekiah regarding Lizzie's calves.
But when Hezekiah went broke, she
would bail him out and set him up in
business again. When he started making
money, shE: demanded repayment of every
dime. But she proved her love for him
once during a lengthy visit in Cuba. She
ransomed him from bandits for fifty
thousand dollars. When he died, they had
been married for thirty-five years.
By the time she reached a rather
eccentric old age, Lizzie had business
property all over Austin, including a
downtown office building in which she
made her home. The structure was heated
with wood burning stoves. She kept the
wood in a locked room and doled it out,
one stick at a time. She also contracted
with a nearby restaurant owner to provide
her daily soup on a year-round basis at
ten cents a bowl, regardless of which
vegetables were in season. She died in
1924. Born into a man's world and deter­mined
to succeed in it, she preferred the
company of men and came to think and
talk as the cattlemen did, while retaining
most of the manners of a southern lady.
GEORGE LITTLEFIELD
1890
One of the great benefactors of higher ed­ucation
in Texas was George W. Little­field.
Mississippi born and Texas raised,
GEORGE LITTLEFIELD Texas Stale Archives
he had been educated at Baylor Univer­sity,
on the battlefields of the Civil War,
and on numerous trail drives. After the
war, Littlefield became a highly success­ful
rancher in the Panhandle. In 1890 he
moved to Austin and entered the banking
business.
Littlefield became a regent of The
University of Texas in 1911 and in suc­ceeding
years donated large sums for its
development. He established an endow­ment
for the study of southern history,
contributed the money for purchase of
the internationally famous Wrenn library
of rare books, gave funds for the Main
Building and a dormitory, and donated
an elaborate fountain at the University's
main entrance.
JOHN C . DUVAL
1891
John C. Duval earned the title of "First
Texas Man of Letters" because he re­peatedly
captured, more successfully than
anyone else, the flavor of pioneer Texas.
Many of his most exciting stories were
based on his own adventures.
Duval had left St. Joseph's College in
his native Bardstown, Kentucky, late in
1835 to join a company of volunteers
headed for Texas. He was captured with
Fannin's men at Goliad and was one of
the few who escaped the Palm Sunday
massacre. After studying engineering at
the University of Virginia, he returned
to Texas in 1840 as a surveyor, then joined
Hays's Texas Rangers and became a com­panion
of "Big Foot" vVallace. This ac­quaintance
subsequently led to publica-
29
tion of The Adventures of Big Foot
Wallace, a Texas classic. Duval's other
enduring work was Early Times in Texas,
an autobiographical account of his experi­ences
in the Revolution. He died in Fort
Worth in 1891.
NOAH SMITHWICK
1897
Possibly the most vivid account of day-to-day
existence in colonial Texas was dic­tated
in 1897-98 by a ninety-year-old
blind man. Noah Smithwick's Evolution
of a State was published in 1900, a year
after his death. It has been many times
reprinted and is still widely read.
Born in North Carolina, Smithwick
grew up in Tennessee and came to Texas
in 1827 to work as a blacksmith. Four
years later he had to leave "two jumps
ahead of the law," but was back in 1835
in time to participate in the Revolution.
After San Jacinto he went to Bastrop,
where he worked as a blacksmith and
rode with ranging companies against the
Indians. He settled temporarily at Web­ber's
Prairie, serving there as postmaster
and justice of the peace, but by 1848 he
had moved west again to work as an
armorer at Fort Croghan (now Burnet).
Opposed to secession he quit Texas in 1861
and moved to California, where he lived
out his days.
Smithwick's book is a rich blend of
personal history, anecdote, and character
sketch. He relates, for example, the fol­lowing
story about Colonel Knight, a pio­neer
merchant who had first come to
Texas with one of James Long'S expedi-
30
NOAH SMITHWICK Smithwick, The Eyolution of a State
tions. In colonial times Knight operated
a trading schooner on the lower Brazos
River. Goods were left on shore at Colum­bia
until ox wagons hauled them away.
"Years afterward I met Colonel Knight
at Bastrop. Out in front of a store lay a
number of grinding stones with a chain
passed through the eyes and fastened with
a padlock. Colonel Knight cast a contemp­tuous
look at the pile, and turning to me
said:
"'Gad, Smithwick, the "better sort"
must have got here. Do you remember
how I used to pile my goods out on the
river bank and leave them for days at
a time? I never lost a pin's worth; in
those days we used to hear fellows with
"store clothes" on lamenting the crude
state of society and consoling themselves
with the assurance that the "better sort"
would come after awhile. I reckon they
have arrived; there; pointing to the pad­locked
grindstones, 'is indisputable evi­dence.'
"
JAMES STEPHEN HOGG
1900
Not until the turn of the twentieth cen­tury
did Texas produce a native son of
national political stature. By that time
J ames Stephen Hogg, the first native-born
governor, was such a powerful figure in
the Democratic Party that he was fre­quently
mentioned as a possible presi­dential
nominee.
Born near Rusk in 1851, Hogg was
quickly thrown on his own resources after
the death of his father in the Civil War.
Young Jim became a printer, newspaper JAMES STEPHEN HOGG Tpxas Slate Capitol
31
32
publisher, and student of law. He entered
politics in 1876 and by 1886 was attorney
general, campaigning against railroad
monopolies, driving wildcat insurance
companies out of Texas, and helping write
one of the first state anti-trust laws in the
nation.
Elected governor in 1891, he became
one of the most progressive and respected
executives in Texas history. Typical of
his approach was his statement, "let us
have Texas, the Empire State, governed
by the people; not Texas, the truckpath,
ruled by corporate lobbyists." Returning
to private practice in 1896, Hogg became
active in the oil business and within a few
years had built a sizeable fortune.
A large man, courageous, intelligent,
and devoted to the public good, James
Stephen Hogg set a pattern of public serv­ice
against which succeeding generations
of Texas governors have been measured.
CONCLUSION
Long ago, the term Anglo or Anglo-Saxon
referred to varied groups of Nordic Euro­peans
that populated much of the British
Isles and were the dominant racial stock
of the early United States. The designa­tion
was always more of a racial term
than a specific governmental or political
word.
At first the Anglo-American was mere­ly
a "United Statesian" who emigrated
to this new realm called T exas. After 1845
there was really no such person as an
"Anglo immigrant;" there were only
people from other states coming to the
twenty-eighth state of the Union. Today
-! , I
1
PROCTOR ST. IN PORT ARTHUR, 1901
the Anglo is most commonly a mixture
of English, Scottish, Irish, or Welsh stock
too long out of Europe to easily trace his
lineage. He is an immigrant like everyone
else, merely in greater numbers. As a
member of the majority in most areas of
Texas, the Anglo felt no need to form
benevolent societies. His community was
rarely built around church activities, as
was the case with some other ethnic
groups.
American Petroleum I nstitute, Washington
The Anglo Texan has exerted a domi­nant
influence in law, language, religion,
and social customs-although greatly
tempered by contact with other ethnic
groups. People of Anglo stock number
more than sixty percent of the state's
population. This collection has merely
presented representative examples of their
contribution to the start of the twentieth
century; it has not been a complete re­counting
of the Anglo story.
•
•
One of a series
prepared by the staff of
THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
INSTITUTE OF TEXAN CULTURES
AT SAN ANTONIO