Runaway Scrape - The Reminiscences of Mrs. Dilue Harris

This is an excerpt from a piece which was first published in the Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume IV, 85-127, 155-189, Volume VII, 214-222.  This part of Mrs. Harris's recollections is from Volume IV, 160-179 and covers the time period from the fall of the Alamo, March 1836 to the return after the victory at San Jacinto.  The manuscript is based on her memories of the time and a journal kept by her father, Dr. Pleasant W. Rose.  These reminiscences were written when she was seventy-four years old and are a primary source for early Texas history.  

March, 1836. - The Fall of the Alamo

     The people had been in a state of excitement during the winter.  They knew that Colonel Travis had but few men to defend San Antonio.  He was headstrong and precipitated the war with Mexico, but died at his post.  I remember when his letter came calling for assistance.  He was surrounded by a large army with General Santa Anna in command, and had been ordered to surrender, but fought till the last man died.  A black flag had been hoisted by the Mexicans.  This letter came in February.  I have never seen it in print, but I heard mother read it.  When she finished, the courier who brought it went on to Brazoria.  I was near eleven years old, and I remember well the hurry and confusion.  Uncle James Wells came home for mother to help him get ready to go to the army.  We worked all day, and mother sat up that night sewing.  She made two striped hickory shirts and bags to carry provisions.  I spent the day melting lead in a pot, dipping it up with a spoon, and moulding bullets.  The young man camped at our house that night and left the next morning.  Our nearest neighbors, Messrs. Dyer Bell, and Neal, had families, but went to join General Houston.  Father and Mr. Shipman were old, and Adam Stafford a cripple, and they stayed at home.
     By the 20th of February the people of San Patricio and other western settlements were fleeing for their lives.  Every family in our neighborhood was preparing to go to the United States.  Wagons and other vehicles were scarce.  Mr. Stafford, with the help of small boys and negroes, began gathering cattle.  All the large boys had gone to the army.
     By the last of February there was more hopeful news.  Colonel Fannin with five hundred men was marching to San Antonio, and General Houston to Gonzales with ten thousand.
     Father finished planting corn.  He had hauled away a part of our household furniture and other things and hid them in the bottom.  Mother had packed what bedding, clothes, and provisions she thought we should need, ready to leave at a moment's warning.  Father had made arrangements with a Mr. Bundick to haul our family in his cart; but we were confident that the army under General Houston would whip the Mexicans before they reached the Colorado river.
     Just as the people began to quiet down and go to work, a large herd of buffaloes came by. There were three or four thousand of them.  They crossed the Brazos river above Fort Bend, and came out of the bottom at Stafford's Point, making their first appearance before day.  They passed in sight of our house, but we could see only a dark cloud of dust, which looked like a sand storm. Father tried to get a shot at one, but his horse was so fractious that it was impossible.  As the night was very dark we could not tell when the last buffalo passed.  We were terribly frightened, for it was supposed that the Indians were following the herd.  The buffaloes passed and went on to the coast, and the prairie looked afterwards as if it had been plowed.
     We had been several days without any news from the army, and did not know but that our men had been massacred.  News was carried at that time by a man or boy going from one neighborhood to another.  We had heard that the Convention had passed a declaration of independence and elected David G. Burnet president, and Sam Houston commander-in-chief of the army.  On the 12th of March came the news of the fall of the Alamo.  A courier brought a dispatch from General Houston for the people to leave.  Colonel Travis and the men under his command had been slaughtered, the Texas army was retreating, and President Burnet's cabinet had gone to Harrisburg.
     Then began the horrors of the "Runaway Scrape."  We left home at sunset, hauling clothes, bedding and provisions on the sleigh with one yoke of oxen.  Mother and I were walking, she with an infant in her arms.  Brother drove the oxen and my two little sisters rode in the sleigh.  We were going ten miles to where we could be transferred to Mr. Bundick's cart.  Father was helping with the cattle, but he joined us after dark and brought a horse and saddle for brother.  He sent him to help Mr. Stafford with the cattle.  He was to go a different road with them and ford the San Jacinto.  Mother and I then rode father's horse.
     We met Mrs. M-.  She was driving her oxen home.  We had sent her word in the morning.  She begged mother to go back and help her, but father said not.  He told the lady to drive the oxen home, put them in the cow pen, turn out the cows and calves, and get her children ready, and he would send assistance.
     We went on to Mrs. Roark's, and met five families ready to leave.  Two of Mr. Shipman's sons arrived that night.  They were mere boys, and had come to help their parents.  They didn't go on home; father knew that Mr. Shipman's family had gone that morning, so he sent them back for Mr. M-'s.  It was ten o'clock at night when we got to Mrs. Roark's.  We shifted our things into the cart of Mr. Bundick, who was waiting for us, and tried to rest till morning.  Sister and I had been weeping all day about Colonel Travis.  When we started from home we got the little books he had given us and would have taken them with us, but mother said it was best to leave them.
     Early next morning we were on the move, mother with her four children in the cart, and Mr. Bundick and his wife and negro woman on horseback.  He had been in bad health for some time and had just got home from visiting his mother, who lived in Louisiana.  He brought with him two slaves, the woman already mentioned and a man who was driving the cart; and, as Mr. Bundick had no children, we were as comfortable as could have been expected.
     We had to leave the sleigh.  Sister and I had grieved all the day before about Colonel Travis, and had a big cry when our brother left us.  We were afraid Mrs. M- would be left at home.  We had a fresh outburst of grief when the sleigh was abandoned, but had the satisfaction of seeing Mrs. M- and her children.
     Mr. Cotie would not go to the army.  He hauled five families in the big blue wagon with his six yoke of oxen, besides negroes, provisions, bedding, and all the plunder the others could carry.

March, 1836. - The Runaway Scrape

     We camped the first night near Harrisburg, about where the railroad depot now stands.  Next day we crossed Vince's Bridge and arrived at the San Jacinto in the night.  There were fully five thousand people at the ferry.  The planters from Brazoria and Columbia with their slaves were crossing.  We waited three days before we crossed.  Our party consisted of five white families: father's, Mr. Dyer's, Mr. Bell's, Mr. Neal's, and Mr. Bundick's.  Father and Mr. Bundick were the only white men in the party, the others being in the army.  There were twenty or thirty negroes from Stafford's plantation.  They had a large wagon with five yoke of oxen, and horses and mules, and they were in charge of an old negro man called Uncle Ned.  Altogether, black and white, there were about fifty of us. Every one was trying to cross first, and it was almost a riot.
     We got over the third day, and after traveling a few miles came to a big prairie.  It was about twelve miles further to the next timber and water, and some of our party wanted to camp; but others said that the Trinity river was rising, and if we delayed we might not get across.  So we hurried on.
     When we got about half across the prairie Uncle Ned's wagon bogged.  The negro men driving the carts tried to go around the big wagon one at a time until the four carts were fast in the mud.  Mother was the only white woman that rode in a cart; the others travelled on horseback.  Mrs. Bell's four children, Mrs. Dyer's three, and mother's four rode in the carts.  All that were on horseback had gone on to the timber to let their horses feed and get water.  They supposed their families would get there by dark.  The negro men put all the oxen to the wagon, but could not move it; so they had to stay there until morning without wood or water.  Mother gathered the white children in our cart.  They behaved very well and went to sleep, except one little boy, Eli Dyer, who kicked and cried for Uncle Ned and Aunt Dilue till Uncle Ned came and carried him to the wagon.  He slept that night in Uncle Ned's arms.
     Mother with all the negro women and children walked six miles to the timber and found our friends in trouble.  Father and Mr. Bundick had gone to the river and helped with the ferry boat, but late in the evening the boat grounded on the east bank of the Trinity and didn't get back until morning.  While they were gone the horses had strayed off and they had to find them before they could go to the wagons.  Those that travelled on horseback were supplied with provisions by other campers.  We that stayed in the prairie had to eat cold corn bread and cold boiled beef.  The wagons and carts didn't get to the timber till night.  They had to be unloaded and pulled out.

March, 1836. - Crossing the Trinity River

     At the Trinity river men from the army began to join their families.  I know they have been blamed for this but what else could they have done?  The Texas army was retreating and the Mexicans were crossing the Colorado, Col. Fannin and his men were prisoners, there were more negroes than whites among us and many of them were wild Africans, there was a large tribe of Indians on the Trinity as well as the Cherokee Indians in East Texas at Nacogdoches, and there were tories, both Mexicans and Americans, in the country.  It was the intention of our men to see their families across the Sabine river, and then to return and fight the Mexicans.  I must say for the negroes that there was no insubordination among them; they were loyal to their owners.
     Our hardships began at the Trinity.  The river was rising and there was a struggle to see who should cross, first.  Measles, sore eyes, whooping cough, and every other disease that man, woman or child is heir to broke out among us.  Our party now consisted of the five white families I first mentioned, and Mr. Adam Stafford's negroes. We had separated from Mrs. M- and other friends at Vince's bridge.  The horrors of crossing the Trinity are beyond my power to describe.  One of my little sisters was very sick and the ferryman said that those families that had sick children should cross first.  When our party got to the boat the water broke over the banks above where we were and ran around us.  We were several hours surrounded by water.  Our family was the last to get to the boat.  We left more than five hundred people on the west bank.  Drift wood covered the water as far as we could see.  The sick child was in convulsions.  It required eight men to manage the boat.
     When we landed the lowlands were under water, and everybody was rushing for the prairie.  Father had a good horse, and Mrs. Dyer let mother have her horse and saddle.  Father carried the sick child, and sister and I rode behind mother.  She carried father's gun and the little babe.  All we carried with us was what clothes we were wearing at the time.  The night was very dark.  We crossed a bridge that was under water.  As soon as we crossed, a man with a cart and oxen drove on the bridge, and it broke down, drowning the oxen.  That prevented the people from crossing, as the bridge was over a slough that looked like a river.
     Father and mother hurried on, and we got to the prairie and found a great many families camped there.  A Mrs. Foster invited mother to her camp, and furnished us with supper, a bed, and dry clothes.
     The other families stayed all night in the bottom without fire or anything to ear, and with the water up in the carts.  The men drove the horses and oxen to the prairies, and the women, sick children, and negroes were left in the bottom.  The old negro man, Uncle Ned, was left in charge.  He put the white women and children in his wagon.  It was large and had a canvas cover.  The negro women and their children he put in the carts.  Then he guarded the whole party until morning.
     It was impossible for the men to return to their families.  They spent the night making a raft by torch light.  As the camps were near a grove of pine timber, there was no trouble about lights.  It was a night of terror.  Father and the men worked some distance from the camp cutting down timber to make the raft.  It had to be put together in the water.  We were in great anxiety about the people that were left in the bottom; we didn't know but they would be drowned, or killed by panthers, alligators or bears.
     As soon as it was daylight the men went to the relief of their families an found them cold, wet, and hungry.  Many of the families that were water bound I didn't know; but there were among them Mrs. Bell's three children, and Mrs. Dyer and her sister, Mrs. Neal, with five children.  Mr. Bundick's wife had given out the first day that we arrived at the river.  Her health was delicate, and as she and her husband had friends living near Liberty they went to their house.  When the men on the raft got to those who had stayed all night in the Trinity bottom they found that the negroes were scared, and wanted to get on the raft; but Uncle Ned told them that his young mistress and the children should go first.  It was very dangerous crossing the slough.  The men would bring one woman and her children on the raft out of  deep water, and men on horseback would meet them.  It took all day to get the party out to the prairies.  The men had to carry cooked provisions to them.
     The second day they brought out the bedding and clothes.  Everything was soaked with water.  They had to take the wagon and carts apart.  The Stafford wagon was the last one brought out.  Uncle Ned stayed in the wagon until everything was landed on the prairie.  It took four days to get everything out of the water.
     The man whose oxen were drowned sold his cart to father for ten dollars.  He said that he had seen enough of Mexico and would go back to old Ireland.
     It had been five days since we crossed the Trinity, and we had heard no news from the army.  The town of Liberty was three miles from where we camped.  The people there had not left their homes, and they gave us all the help in their power.  My little sister that had been sick died and was buried in the cemetery at Liberty.  After resting a few days our party continued their journey, but we remained in the town.  Mother was not able to travel; she had nursed an infant and the sick child until she was compelled to rest.
     A few days after our friends had gone a man crossed the Trinity in a skiff bringing bad news.  The Mexican army had crossed the Brazos and was between the Texas army and Harrisburg.  Fannin and his men were massacred.  President Burnet and his cabinet had left Harrisburg and gone to Washington on the bay and were going to Galveston Island.  The people at Liberty had left.  There were many families west of the Trinity, among them our nearest neighbors, Mrs. Roark and Mrs. M-.

April, 1836. - The Battle of San Jacinto

     We had been at Liberty three weeks.  A Mr. Martin let father use his house.  There were two families camped near, those of Mr. Bright and his son-in-law, Patrick Reels, from the Colorado river.  One Thursday evening all of a sudden we hear a sound like distant thunder.  When it was repeated father said it was cannon, and that the Texans and Mexicans were fighting.  He had been through the war of 1812, and knew it was a battle.  The cannonading lasted only a few minutes, and father said that the Texans must have been defeated, or the cannon would not have ceased firing so quickly.  We left Liberty in half an hour.  The reports of the cannon were so distant that father was under the impression that the fighting was near the Trinity.  The river was ten miles wide at Liberty.

     We travelled nearly all night, sister and I on horseback and mother in the cart.  Father had two yoke of oxen now.  One yoke belonged to Adam Stafford and had strayed and father found them.  The extra yoke was a great help as the roads were very boggy.  We rested a few hours to let the stock feed.  Mr. Bright and two families were with us.  We were as wretched as we could be; for we had been five weeks from home, and there was not much prospect of our ever returning.  We had not heard from brother or the other boys that were driving the cattle.  Mother was sick, and we had buried our dear little sister at Liberty.

     We continued our journey through mud and water and when we camped in the evening fifty or sixty young men came by who were going to join General Houston.  One of them was Harvey Stafford, our neighbor, who was returning from the United States with volunteers.  Father told them there had been fighting and he informed them that they could not cross the Trinity at Liberty.  They brought some good news from our friends.  Mr. Stafford had met his sisters, Mrs. Dyer, and Mrs. Neal.  He said there had been a great deal of sickness but no deaths.  He said also that General Gaines of the United States army was at the Neches with a regiment of soldiers to keep the Indians in subjection, but didn't prevent the people from crossing with their slaves.  General Gaines said the boundary line between the United States and Mexico was the Neches.

     The young men went a short distance from us and camped.  Then we hear some one calling in the direction of Liberty.  We could see a man on horseback waving his hat; and, as we knew there was no one left at Liberty, we thought Mexican army had crossed the Trinity.  The young men came with their guns, and when the rider got near enough for us to understand what he said, it was "Turn back!  The Texans have whipped the Mexican army and Mexicans are prisoners.  No danger!  No danger!  Turn back!"  When he got to the camp he could scarcely speak he was so excited and out of breath.  When the young men began to understand the glorious news they wanted to fire a salute, but father made them stop.  He them to save their ammunition, for they might need it.  

     Father asked the man for an explanation, and he showed a dispatch from General Houston giving an account of the battle and saying it would be safe for the people to return to their homes.  The courier had crossed the Trinity River in a canoe, swimming his horse with the help of two men.  He had left the battlefield the next day after the fighting.  He said that General Houston was wounded, and that General Santa Anna had not been captured.  

     The good news was cheering indeed.  The courier's name was McDermot.  He was an Irishman and had been an actor.  He stayed with us that night and told various incidents of the battle.  There was not much sleeping during the night.  Mr. McDermot said that he had not slept in a week.  He not only told various incidents of the retreat of the Texas army, but acted them.  The first time that mother laughed after the death of my little sister was at his description of General Houston's helping to get a cannon out of a bog.

April, 1836. - On the way back Home

     We were on the mover early the next morning.  The courier went on to carry the glad tidings to the people who had crossed the Sabine, but we took a lower road and went down the Trinity.  We crossed the river in a flat boat.  When Mr. McDermot left us the young men fired a salute.  Then they travelled with us until they crossed the river.  

     We staid one night at a Mr. Lawrence's, where there were a great many families.  Mrs. James Perry was there.  She had not gone east of the Trinity.  Her husband, Captain James Perry, was in the army. Mrs. Perry was a sister of Stephen F. Austin.  My parents knew them in Missouri.  She had a young babe and a pretty little daughter named Emily.  

     After crossing the river we had a a disagreeable time crossing the bay.  It had been raining two days and nights.  There was a bayou to cross over which there was no bridge, and the only way to pass was to go three miles through the bay to get around the mouth of the bayou.  There were guide-posts to point out the way but it was very dangerous.  If we got near the mouth of the bayou there was quicksand.  If the wind rose the waves rolled high.  The bayou was infested with alligators.  A few days before our family arrived at the bay a Mr. King was caught by one and carried under water.  He was going east with his family.  He swam his horses across the mouth of the bayou, and then he swam back to the west side and drove the cart into the bay.  His wife and children became frightened, and he turned back and said he would go up the river and wait for the water to subside.  He got his family back on land, and swam the bayou to bring back the horses.  He had gotten nearly across with them, when a large alligator appeared.  Mrs. King first saw it above water and screamed.  The alligator struck her husband with its tail and he went under water.  There were several men present, and they fired their guns at the animal, but it did no good.  It was not in their power to rescue Mr. King.  The men waited several days and then killed a beef, put a quarter on the bank, fastened it with a chain, and then watched it until the alligator came out, when they shot and killed it.  This happened several days before the battle.  

     We passed the bayou without any trouble or accident, except the loss of my sunbonnet.  It blew off as we reached the shore. The current was very swift at the mouth of the bayou.  Father wanted to swim in and get it for me, but mother begged him not to go in the water, so I had the pleasure of seeing it float away.  I don't remember the name of the bayou, but a little town called Wallace was opposite across the bay.  We saw the big dead alligator, and we were glad to leave the Trinity.  Father's horse had strayed, but we wouldn't stop to find it.  He said when we got home he would go back and hunt for it.

April, 1836. - On the San Jacinto Battle Field

     We arrived at Lynchburg in the night.  There we met several families that we knew, and among them was our neighbor, Mrs. M-.  She had travelled with Moses Shipman's family.  

     We crossed the San Jacinto the next morning, and stayed until late in the evening on the battle field.  Both armies were camped near.  General Santa Anna had been captured.  There was great rejoicing at the meeting of friends.  Mr. Leo Roark was in the battle.  He had met his mother's family the evening before.  He came to the ferry just as we landed, and it was like seeing a brother.  He asked mother to go with him to the camp to see General Santa Anna and the Mexican prisoners.  She would not go, because, as she said, she was not dressed for visiting; but she gave sister and me permission to go to the camp.  I had lost my bonnet crossing Trinity Bay and was compelled to wear a table cloth again.  It was six weeks since we had left home, and our clothes were very much dilapidated.  I could not go to see the Mexican prisoners with a table cloth tied on my head for I knew several of the young men.  I was on the battle field of San Jacinto the 26th of April, 1836.  The 28th was the anniversary of my birth.  I was eleven years old.  

     We stayed on the battle field several hours.  Father was helping with the ferry boat.  We visited the graves of the Texans that were killed in the battle, but there were none of them that I knew.  The dead Mexicans were lying around in every direction.  

     Mother was very uneasy about Uncle James Wells, who was missing.  Mr. Roark said uncle had been sent two days before the battle with Messrs. Church Fulcher, and Wash Secrest to watch General Cos.  They had gone to Stafford's Point, and were chased by the Mexicans and separated.  Fulcher and Secrest returned before the battle.  Mr. Roark says the burning of Vince's bridge prevented several of the scouts from getting back.

April, 1836. - Leaving the San Jacinto Battle Ground

     Father worked till the middle of the afternoon helping with the ferry boat, and then he visited the camp.  He did not see General Santa Anna but met some friend he had known in Missouri.  We left the battle field late in the evening.  We had to pass among the dead Mexicans, and father pulled one out of the road, so we could get by without driving over the body, since we could not go around it.  The prairie was very boggy, it was getting dark, and there were now twenty or thirty families with us.  We were glad to leave the battle field, for it was a grewsome sight.  We camped that night on the prairie, and could hear the wolves howl and bark as they devoured the dead.  

     We met Mr. Kuykendall's family from Fort Bend, now Richmond.  Their hardships had been greater than ours.  They had stayed at home and had had no idea that the Mexican army was near.  One day the negro ferryman was called in English, and he carried the boat across.  On the other side he found the Mexicans, who took possession of the boat and embarked as many soldiers as it could carry.  While they were crossing some one said it was Captain Wiley Martin's company.  They knew he was above, near San Felipe, and men, women, and children ran down the river bank expecting to meet their friends; but just as the boat landed the negro ferryman called out, "Mexicans!"  There were three or four families of the Kuykendalls, and they ran for the bottom.  Mrs. Abe Kuykendall had a babe in her arms.  She ran a short distance and then thought about her little girl and went back.  She saw her husband take the child from the nurse, and she afterwards said she was then the happiest woman in the world.  

     One old gentleman ran back to the house, got his money, went through a potato patch and buried it.  The money was silver and was so heavy he could not carry it away.  One young married woman with a babe in her arms ran into a big field and followed the party that was on the outside.  The fence was high, and they had now gotten out of sight of the Mexicans, so the woman's husband came to the fence, and she gave him the child.  He told her to climb over, but she turned and ran in a different direction.  Her husband followed the other families.   They stayed that night in a cane-brake without anything to eat, and the children suffered terribly.  The next day they made their way to Harrisburg and got assistance.  They were at Lynchburg during the battle, and were helped by General Houston, and furnished means to get back home.  

     Mrs. Abe Kuykendall nursed the child that had been left by its mother.  She said they had heard from the mother.  She had gone through the field and got out, and had gone twenty miles down the river to Henry Jones' ferry, where she fell in with some people she knew.  She thought her husband and friends would go there.  She was alone the first day and night, and the next day she got to Henry Jones'.

     Early the next morning we were on the move.  We had to take a roundabout road, for the burning of Vince's bridge prevented us from going directly home.  We could hear nothing but sad news.  San Felipe had been burned, and dear old Harrisburg was in ashes.  There was nothing left of the Stafford plantation but a crib with a thousand bushels of corn.  The Mexicans turned the houses at the Point into a hospital.  They knew that it was a place where political meetings had been held.  

     Leo Roark told father while we were in the camps that he was confident Colonel Almonte, General Santa Anna's aide-de-camp, was the Mexican that had the horses for sale in our neighborhood the fourth of July, '34.  Father could not get to see Colonel Almonte, for he was anxious to get us away from the battle ground before night.  

     Burning the saw mill at Harrisburg and the buildings on Stafford's plantation was a calamity that greatly affected the people.  On the plantation there were a sugar-mill, cotton-gin, blacksmith-shop, grist-mill, a dwelling-house, negro houses, and a stock of farming implements.  The Mexicans saved the corn for bread, and it was a great help to the people of the neighborhood.

April, 1836. - Going Home after the Battle

     We camped that evening on Sims' Bayou.  We met men with Mexicans going to the army, and heard from Brother Granville.  Mr. Adam Stafford had got home with the boys, and they were all well.  We heard that the cotton that the farmers had hauled to the Brazos with the expectation of shipping it to Brazoria on the steamer Yellowstone, then at Washington was safe.  Father said if he got his cotton to market I should have two or three sunbonnets, as he was tired of seeing me wearing a table-cloth around my head.  

     We hear that Uncle James Wells was at Stafford's Point.  He made a narrow escape from being captured by the Mexicans.  When he and Messrs. Secrest and Fulcher were run into the bottom, his horse ran against a tree and fell down, and uncle was badly hurt.  He lost his horse and gun.  He went into the bottom.  He saw the houses burning on the Stafford plantation.  As he was overseer there when he joined the army at the time when Colonel Travis called for assistance, it was like his home.  General Cos marched on the next day, but left a strong guard at the Point.  

April, 1836. - Camping on Sims' Bayou.  Meeting Deaf Smith

     While mother was talking about Uncle James, he and Deaf Smith rode up to our camp.  It was a happy surprise.  Uncle James's shoulder was very lame.  The night after he lost his horse and gun he crawled inside the Mexican line and captured a horse and saddle.  He then went into the bottom at Mrs. M-.'s house, where he found corn and bacon and a steel mill for grinding the corn.  His arm was so lame he could not grind corn, so he ate fried eggs and bacon.  He had been to our house, and he said everything we left on the place had been destroyed.  He watched on the prairie that night till he saw so many Mexican fugitives wandering about that he knew there had been a battle.  He met Deaf Smith and other men sent by General Houston to carry a dispatch from Santa Anna to Filisola.  Deaf Smith told uncle all about the battle, and said he had captured General Cos the next day six miles south of Stafford's Point.  Cos had a fine china pitcher full of water and one ear of corn.  He carried Cos to the Point, where he got a horse, and then took him back to the San Jacinto battle ground.  He left the fine pitcher at the Point, and he gave it to Uncle James.  Uncle stayed there till Mr. Smith returned from Filisola's camp with an answer to Santa Anna's dispatch.  

     Mr. Smith could speak Spanish.  He said that when he captured General Cos, whom he did not know, he asked him if he had been in the battle.  On being answered in the affirmative, he asked him if he had been prisoner.  General Cos replied that he had not, but that he escaped after dark the evening of the battle, and that he abandoned his horse at the burnt bridge.  Smith then asked him if he had seen General Cos, and he said that he had not.  Smith continued:  "I am Deaf Smith, and I want to find General Cos.  He offered one thousand dollars for my head, and if I can find him I will cut off his head and send it to Mexico." When they arrived at the battle ground he was very much surprised to find his prisoner was General Cos.  He took the horse and saddle back to Uncle James, and gave him the fine pitcher, and when we got home uncle gave the pitcher to mother. 

    Father examined uncle's shoulder, and said there were no bones broken, and that he would be well in three or four weeks.  Mother had some of Uncle James' clothing.  She trimmed his hair, and made him go to the bayou, bathe, and put on clean clothes.  All our soldiers were dirty and ragged.  As Uncle James had fever, mother wanted him to go home with her, but he would not.  He said that he had been absent from the army ten days, and must report to headquarters.  

     Deaf Smith was very anxious to get back to the army.  He was dark and looked like a Mexican.  He was dressed in buckskin and said that he would be ashamed to be seen in a white shirt.  He said that Uncle James would be taken for a tory or a stay-at-home.

     Deaf Smith was the man that helped burn the Vince bridge.  He said if the bridge had not been destroyed, General Filisola would have heard of Santa Anna's defeat and would have marched to his assistance, as he was not more that thirty miles from the battle ground.  General Urrea was also on the west bank of the Brazos river with a division of the Mexican army.  When the first fugitives from the battle field arrived at the headquarters of Filisola, he did not believe their report, but when others came with the horrid tidings, he became convinced.  The Mexican fugitives gave such a dreadful account of Santa Anna's fall that General Filisola, when Deaf Smith arrived, was preparing to cross the river to join General Urrea.  

     Mr. Smith left our camp before daylight.  Uncle James Wells stayed with us until we were ready to start home.  He was sick all night, and father gave him medicine and bound up his arm.  

     General Santa Anna was captured the next day after the battle.  He was seen by Captain Karnes to plunge into the bayou on a fine black horse.  He made his escape from the battle ground on Allen Vince's horse, but not on the fine saddle.  The horse went home carrying a common saddle.  He was taken to headquarters and after a few days was restored to Allen Vince.  James Brown went to General Sherman and pointed out the horse.  General Santa Anna was captured by James A. Silvester, Washington Secrest, and Sion Bostick.  A Mr. Cole was the first man that got to Santa Anna.   He was hid in the grass, was dirty and wet, and was dressed as a common soldier.  He rode to the camps behind Mr. Robinson.  The men had no idea that they had Santa Anna a prisoner till the Mexicans began to say in their own language, "the president."

April 30, 1836. - Going Home.  Mrs. Brown's Family

     We stayed one day on Sims' Bayou.  There were more than one hundred families, and all stopped to rest and let the stock feed.  We met a Mrs. Brown who was living at William Vince's when the Mexican army crossed the bridge.  They took possession of Allen Vince's fine black horse.  Mrs. Brown's son James, a lad aged thirteen, went and mounted the horse and would not give him up.  The Mexicans made the boy a prisoner.  His mother came out and asked for General Santa Anna.  Colonel Almonte came out and asked in English what he could do for her.  She told him she was a subject of the king of England, and demanded protection.  Almonte assured her that she and her children would not be hurt, and ordered her son to be liberated.  Santa Anna's servant put a find saddle on the horse.  It was ornamented with gold, and had solid gold stirrups.  When the captured plunder was sold at auction, the Texas soldiers bid it in and presented it to General Houston.  Mrs. Brown stayed at Mr. William Vince's till after the battle.  We met some English friends from Columbia that were going home.  The Adkinses that lived in our neighborhood were relatives of Mrs. Brown.  We met the pretty English girl, Jenny Adkins.  She was married and was the mother of two children.

April 30, 1836. - Home, Sweet Home

     We camped one day and two nights on Sims' Bayou.  We had traveled since the twenty-first, without resting, half the time in mud and water.  It was only fifteen miles home.  

     Early in the morning we broke camp.  We were alone; the other families lived farther down the country.  The weather was getting warm, and we stopped two hours in the middle of the day at a water hole.  When the sun set were were still five miles from home.  

     We overtook our nearest neighbor, Mrs. M-.  She had left Sims' Bayou that morning with the Shipman family, but had separated from them, saying she could find the way home.  One of her oxen got down , and she could neither get it up nor get the yoke off the other ox.  When we drove up she had her four children on her horse and was going to walk to our house.  She knew that we had started home that morning. If we had not stopped two hours we should have been with her about the middle of the afternoon.  Father unyoked her oxen, and turned loose one of his that was broken down and put the other along with Mrs. M-'s stronger ox to her cart.  It was now dark and we traveled slower.  The oxen were tired and kept feeding all the time.  One of Mrs. M-'s daughters and I rode her horse; it was a great relief to me, for I was tired of riding in the cart.  It was ten o'clock when we got home.  We camped near the house.

Sunday morning, May 1, 1836. - Home

     Father said we could not go in until morning.  Uncle James told mother that the floor had been torn up by the Mexicans in searching for eggs.  He would have put the house in order, but his shoulder and arm were so painful he could not work.  

     As soon as it was light enough for us to see we went to the house, and the first thing we saw was the hogs running out.  Father's bookcase lay on the ground broken open, his books, medicines, and other things scattered on the ground, and the hogs sleeping on them.  When Mrs. M-'s children, sister and I got to the door there was one big hog that would not go out till father shot at him.  Then we children began picking up the books.  We could not find those that Colonel Travis gave us, but did find broken toys that belonged to our dear little sister that died.  Through the joy and excitement since the battle of San Jacinto, we had forgotten our sad bereavement.  

     The first thing that father did after breakfast was to go to the corn field.  He had planted corn the first of March, and it needed plowing.  He did not wait for Monday, or to put the house in order, but began plowing at once.  His field was in the bottom, and he had hidden his plow.  

     Mother said I should ride Mrs. M-'s horse, and go to Stafford's Point and bring Brother Granville home.  I did not want to go.  Sister said that I could wear her bonnet.  My dress was very much the worse for wear.  It was pinned up the back, my shoes were down at the heels, and my stockings dirty. I was greatly embarrassed, for I knew all the boys were at the Point.  I did all the primping that the circumstances would permit, plaiting my hair, etc.  I had had my face wrapped in a table cloth till it was thoroughly blanched.  When I go to the Point there were more than one hundred people there, men, women, children, negroes, and Mexicans.  Many of the Mexicans were sick and wounded; I had never seen such a dirty and ragged crowd.  The boys were without shoes and hats, and their hair was down to their shoulders.  After I had met them I did not feel ashamed of my appearance.  Brother got his horse, and we went home.  

     I was not near the burnt buildings; the plantation was in the bottom, on Oyster Creek.  The Stafford family used the house at the Point for a summer residence; and, as they brought their negroes out of the bottom in the summer, there were a good many houses at the Point.  

     When brother and I got home we found mother and Mrs. M-at the wash tub.  I was shocked, for mother had always kept the Sabbath.  At noon father and brother put down the floor, Mrs. M-'s girls and I scoured it, and we moved in.  

     Mrs. M- took a bucket and went back to give water to her sick oxen, but found the ox dead.  Brother Granville helped her to move home that evening.  

     Mother was very despondent, but father was hopeful.  He said Texas would gain her independence and become a great nation.  

     Uncle James Wells came home with two Mexicans for servants, and put them to work in the corn field.  There was now a scarcity of bread.  The people came back in crowds, stopping at Harrisburg and in our neighborhood.  A colony of Irish that had left San Patricio in February stopped at Stafford's Point.

     Father had hid some of our things in the bottom, among them a big chest.  Mother had packed it with bedding clothes, and other things we could not take when we left home.  After a few days, Uncle and brother hauled it to the house, and that old blue chest proved a treasure.  When we left home we wore our best clothes.  Now our best clothes were in the chest, among them my old sunbonnet.  I was prouder of that old bonnet than in after years of a new white lace one that my husband gave me.  

     By the middle of May our neighbors that we had parted from came home.  They had got to the Sabine River before they heard of the battle of San Jacinto.  

     Father and the men that had cotton on the banks of the Brazos went to the river to build a flat boat to ship their cotton to Brazoria.  Mother said that it would be best for them to wait a few days, but they would not stop.  They said that as they had been camping for two months it would make them sick to sleep in a house.  Uncle James stayed with us.  He had several bales of cotton, but was not able to work.  He looked after our Mexicans and helped the women in the neighborhood to get their corn worked.  They all got Mexicans, but it required an overseer to make them work.  

     There was no prospect of a cotton crop in our neighborhood.  The people had been very short of provisions, and there would have been suffering among them if the citizens of New Orleans had not sent a schooner load to Harrisburg.  The provisions were distributed without cost.  

     There was considerable talk of a new town's being started on Buffalo Bayou about ten miles above Harrisburg by the Allen brothers.  They wanted to buy out the Harris claim at Harrisburg, but the Harris brothers would not sell.

June, 1836. - Shipping.  Cotton on a Flatboat

     The first of June the men sent word that they had the cotton on a boat ready to start, and that Uncle Ned should be sent with the Stafford's wagon to bring home family supplies.  It was more that fifty miles by land, but a long and dangerous route by water.  

     The new town laid out by the Allens' was named Houston, in honor of General Houston.  There were circulars and drawings sent out, which represented a large city, showing churches, a courthouse, a market house and a square of ground set aside to use for a building for Congress, if the seat of government should be located there.

Citation:

Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 4, July 1900-April, 1901, George P. Garrison, editor, Journal/Magazine/Newsletter, 1901; digital images, (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101018/ : accessed June 01, 2014), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association, Denton, Texas.

John C. Gallion (1805-1877), Gone To Texas

Mexican Land Grant 

John C. Gallion, my third great grandfather, and the first of my ancestors to settle in Texas, received a land grant from the Mexican government on June 19, 1835 for a league of land which consisted of 4428.4 acres.  In his petition to the empresario, Lorenzo de Zavala, he stated:

     "I, John Gallion - a native of the United States of America, with all due respect present myself before you and state: That attracted by the generous provisions of the laws of colonization of this state I have come, with my wife and five children, to settle in it and to determine if, in view of the attached certification, you may see fit to admit me as a colonist in the above-mentioned land grant, granting to me the amount of land that is due me in the uncultivated portion of the same, taking into consideration that I am a farmer and cattle rancher.
     Therefore, I beg of you to grant my petition, by which I shall be justly favored."

                                                                     Nacogdoches, April 21, 1835
                                                                     (signed) J. C. Gallion

This is the report of the commissioner and special agent for the land grant of Lorenzo de Zavala:

     "I certify that the interested party is one of the colonists who has been admitted by my constituent in fulfillment of the contract he has made with the Supreme Government of the State under date of March 12, 1829.  Therefore, you can issue an order for the surveying of the land he is seeking."

                                                                     Nacogdoches, April 21, 1835
                                                                     (signed) Lorenzo de Zavala
                                                                     by his Proxy (or Attorney)
                                                                     Arthur Henrie

John Gallion's Petition for Land Grant (Spanish)

John Gallion's Petition for Land Grant (English)

Texas Resident and Conditions of Colonization

This indicates that John Gallion had resided in Texas since 1829 but he did not petition for land until 1835.  The colonization law of March 24, 1825 states that in exchange for a small fee, heads of families could obtain as much as a league or sitio (4428.4 acres) of grazing land and a labor (177.1 acres) of cropland.  Under the provisions of the decree foreigners had to take an oath promising to obey the federal and state constitutions, practice Christianity (meaning Catholicism), and prove their morality and good habits.  After agreeing to these conditions and establishing residence, foreigners became Mexican citizens.  The Law of April 6, 1830 by the Mexican government was initiated primarily to prohibit or limit immigration from the United States by suspending existing empresario contracts.   In addition, a commissioner of colonization was appointed to supervise the empresario contracts to make sure they were in conformity with the colonization laws.  This law and its requirements also lead me to believe that John Gallion was in Texas by 1829 since the commissioner mentioned his fulfillment of the contract and immigration was banned the following year.

Texas, 1836-1845
(partial, showing Zavala's Grant in East Texas next to Louisiana border and proximity to Natchitoches, Louisiana)

Character Certificates

Character certificates were issued by local authorities in Nacogdoches to settlers who intended to petition for land grants in that area.  I believe this is the "attached certification" John Gallion is referring to in his petition.  These certificates may give place of origin, year of immigration, marital status, and size of the settler's family.  These certificates provided proof of good character which was required to become eligible to receive land.  Character Certificate from Texas General Land Office with the remarks: native of Kentucky, family of 6 persons.

Character Certificate for John Gallion

Early Life and Family

John C. Gallion was born in Kentucky about 1805 and was the youngest child of Elijah and Eleanor Jenkins Gallion.  He married Sarah Roberta Rhodes about 1825, probably in Kentucky since that is where the first of six daughters, Sena Roberta Gallion was born on March 2, 1826.  By 1830, they had moved to Sullivan County, Indiana according to the 1830 census.  They had three more daughters born in Indiana; Ellen born in 1830, Lucy born in 1831, and Phoebe born in 1833.  Sometime after 1833 the growing family migrated to Texas and were listed in the 1835 Sabine District, Texas census with a fifth daughter, Dalphia, age two months, and are of the Catholic faith (one of the requirements of Mexican citizenship).  Dalphia is later referred to as Dollhean or Dollie for short.

John Gallion must have been on the road most of the time to have been in Nacogdoches, Texas by 1829 and still managed to have three daughters that were born in Indiana during the next four years. His parents had also moved from Kentucky to Sullivan County, Indiana and were neighbors to John and his family on the census so Sarah was not alone and had help when her husband was gone.  John also had two older brothers, James Hawkins Gallion and William A. Gallion, who migrated to Louisiana around 1828 and settled in Natchitoches county.

Eleanor Jenkins Gallion's Request for Land Grant Certificate

According to an article submitted by Sarah Roberta (Rhodes) Gallion, in the book Trinity County Beginnings, Volume I,  "Eleanor Gallion, widow, mother of John Gallion, appeared in the courthouse of St. [sic] Augustine County before the St. Augustine Land Commission on June 30, 1838.  She stated that she was a widow, came to Texas in 1834, applied for land grant of 1 league and 1 labor. Headright certificate for 1 league and 1 labor was granted by the General Land Office, but was never located and surveyed."

On June 1, 1872, the Board of Land Commissioners of San Augustine County, Texas issued a duplicate certificate to Eleanor Gallion for one league and one labor of land.   A league of land and an additional 2352 acres was surveyed in Runnels and Coke counties - Patent No. 371, Vol. 21, dated November 29, 1875 was complete.

Duplicate Certificate of Land Grant for Eleanor Gallion

Protest Filed by Heirs of Eleanor Gallion

However, a protest was filed at the General Land Office in Austin on January 13, 1876, by Henry V. McCall, protesting the delivery of the patent to any person, stating that he represented the heirs of Eleanor Gallion.  There was a response to the protest by J. W. Lawrence on May 30, 1877, stating that he represents the heirs of Eleanor Gallion, had located and patented the land.  And lastly, Mrs. M. F. Rodgers appeared before a Justice of the Peace in Erath county on February 4, 1898 stating that she is the sole legal heir of Eleanor Gallion, deceased, and as such heir is entitled to the possession of Patent No. 371, Vol. 21 issued to said Eleanor Gallion for 1 league and 1 labor of land in Coke and Runnels counties.  That is the final document found regarding this certificate.

Gallion Family in Texas

John Gallion was listed on the following lists in Texas:  1836 tax list for Sabine District, 1840 tax list for Nacogdoches County, 1846 tax list for Houston County, and the 1846 Republic of Texas Poll lists for 1846.  John C. Gallion and family was on the 1850 census in Houston County, Texas in the household of his sister, Nancy Gallion James, her spouse Jesse James, and their son John James.  John and Sarah Gallion's family now included their sixth daughter, Eliza N., age 14, and born in Louisiana.  The first recorded permanent white settler in this area was Jesse James, who settled on Alabama Creek in 1844, near a large Indian settlement.  In 1845 John Gallion moved into the settlement and purchased the Indians' livestock and improvements.  The Indians moved away and it is unknown as to where but it seems they may have moved to the Indian Territory.  On February 11, 1850, the Texas legislature established Trinity County.  John Gallion, Jesse James, and five other men, were appointed to a commission to locate the center of the county and to select the two most desirable sites within five miles of the center suitable for the site of the county seat and to hold an election to determine which would receive the most votes.  In 1854 Sumpter, a primitive village, was declared the county seat.  In September of 1855, John Gallion purchased two land certificates, one from John Conklin for 320 acres, and the other, also for 320 acres, from Thomas L. Trevathan, his son-in-law.  Both tracts of land were located in Trinity County near the Trevat community.  The land was developed into a cattle ranch and farm where John lived out the remainder of his life.  I have found no other record of John Gallion after the purchase of the land in 1855. His wife, Sarah, is on the 1860 census living with her daughter, Phoebe Rogers, in Caldwell, Burleson, Texas but no record of John.  Sarah Gallion is a widow, age 75, on the 1880 census for Trinity County, Texas and living with daughter Lucy Pope who is also a widow, and four of her children.   In article mentioned above in Trinity County Beginnings, Volume I, Sarah Roberta (Rhodes) Gallion also stated that " The probate court decree for settlement of estate of John Gallion, deceased, is on file in the County Clerk's office, Groveton, Trinity County, Texas."  I have been unable to find his probate record but there have been a couple of courthouse fires in Trinity County in the late 1800s and it's possible this record was lost in a fire. Other genealogists have John Gallion's date of death as 1877 but I have found no proof or documentation to support this date.

News of the fall of the Alamo reaches Gonzales and Gen. Houston,
spurring retreat of the settlers eastward.
(www.sanjacinto-museum.org)

Runaway Scrape

There was an incident known as the Runaway Scrape which occurred in early 1836 during the Texas Revolution when settlers were advised by General Sam Houston to evacuate their homes as Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna began his conquest of Texas and moved eastward after the fall of the Alamo. It's probable that John Gallion took his pregnant wife and daughters and fled to Natchitoches, Louisiana to stay with one of his two brothers who lived there and this would explain why Eliza was born in Louisiana instead of Texas.  John Gallion was also in the Texas Militia from January 12, 1836 to December 1, 1836 according to the Index to Military Rolls of the Republic of Texas.  John was 31 years old during this period and many of the younger, more able-bodied men stayed behind to protect their homes and fight, if necessary.  Their families traveled in oxen carts and on foot with neighbors.  They returned after the news of the victory in the battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836.  There are many journals and recorded memories passed down by the settlers who endured this frightening experience of running from their homes and the ruthless Santa Anna.

Texas land was wild, beautiful and plentiful but it took a great deal of courage and true grit to be an early Texas settler.


Sources:

The Portal to Texas History, (http://texashistory.unt.edu)

Bowles, Flora Gatlin, 1881-. A History of Trinity County Texas, 1827-1928. Groveton, Tx: Groveton Independent School District, Publisher, 1966.

Hensley, Patricia B. and Joseph W., editors. Trinity County Beginnings. Edited for the Trinity County Book Committee, 1986.

Texas General Land Office, established 1836. (www.glo.texas.gov).

Texas State Historical Association, A Digital Gateway to Texas History, (www.tshaonline.org).

Categories of Land Grants in Texas

Land grants in Texas were issued under various governments, the Crown of Spain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, and the State of Texas.  The laws varied regarding the distribution of the public domain and understanding the land grant process is confusing.  As a genealogist and sixth generation Texan, it has been a challenge in the research of my ancestors and their land.  These explanations which I found at http://www.glo.texas.gov/what-we-do/history-and-archives/_documents/categories-of-land-grants.pdf helped me to understand the documents better and determine the dates in which some of my ancestors emigrated to Texas.

Definitions

Certificate:  A document issued by the government of the Republic and State of Texas, usually by a County or District Board of Land Commissioners, the General Land Office, the Texas Court of Claims, the Adjutant General, or the Secretary of War, entitling a grantee to a certain number of acres of land in the unallocated public domain.  Not specific parcel of land was connected to this document - it was the responsibility of the grantee to find their own land and have it lawfully surveyed.  These certificates could be sold or transferred.  The right to locate, survey, and patent the land passed to the assignee, although for the purposes of reference the name of the original certificate holder is retained as a means of identifying the surveyed tract.  For some types of grants two certificates were issued - a conditional and an unconditional.  A conditional certificate was issued in order to give the grantee the right to occupy a portion of the public domain, while the unconditional certificate was issued only after the completion of certain requirements (i.e. the land had to be lived on for three years, a portion of the land had to be cultivated).

Title:  Document by which land was conveyed from the public domain into private ownership.  Titles were issued by the governments of Spain and Mexico.

Patent:  A form of land title by which land was transferred from the government to the private sector. Patents were issued by the Republic of Texas and continue to be issued by the State government.

Empresario:  An individual who contracted with either the state of Coahuila y Tejas (Mexico) or the Republic of Texas to introduce colonists.

Texas Land Measures

The basic unit of measure for surveying in Texas is the vara, which is equal to 33 1/3 inches; 

36 varas = 100 feet

League:  4428.4 acres

Labor:  177.1 acres

Section:  640 acres or 1 square mile (U. S. land surveying under the Public Land Survey System)

Spanish and Mexican Land Records, 1720-1836

The Spanish Collection of the General Land Office contains the land titles issued by Spain (1720-1821) and Mexico (1821-1836) in Texas, along with associated documents such as character certificates, registers of families, and field notes.  See http://www.glo.texas.gov/what-we-do/history-and-archives/_documents/spanish-and-mexican-records.pdf for a description of these records.

Headrights, Republic of Texas, 1836-1845

In order to build a tax base and encourage settlement in the new Republic of Texas, immigrants were granted land by the government.  The amount of acreage issued was based on the time period in which an immigrant arrived in Texas.

First-class headrights:  Issued to those who arrived before the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2, 1836.  Heads of families were eligible for one league and one labor of land (4605.5 acres) and single men were eligible for 1/3 of a league (1476.1 acres).

Second-class headrights:  Issued to those who arrived between March 2, 1836 and October 1, 1837. Heads of families were eligible for 1280 acres and single men were eligible for 640 acres.

Third-class headrights:  Issued to those who arrived between October 1, 1837 and January 1, 1840. Heads of families were eligible for 640 acres and single men were eligible for 320 acres.

Fourth-class headrights:  Issued to those who arrived between January 1, 1840 and January 1, 1842.  The amounts issued were the same as for a third class headright with the added requirement that ten acres be cultivated.

Colonization Laws of the Republic of Texas

Four empresario colonies were established under contracts with the Republic of Texas: Peters' Colony (1841), Fisher and Miller's Colony (1842), Mercer's Colony (1844), and Castro's Colony (1842).  Heads of families were eligible for 640 acres of land, while single men were eligible for 320 acres.  The land had to be located within the confines of the colony and settlers were required to cultivate at least 15 acres in order to receive a patent.

Preemption Grants, Republic and State of Texas

From 1845 to 1854, individuals could claim 320 acres of land from the unappropriated public domain.  The amount was reduced to 160 acres in 1854 and the grant program was cancelled in 1856.  Preemption grants of 160 acres were reinstituted in 1866 and continued until 1898.  To qualify for a preemption grant settlers were required to live on the land for three years and make improvements.

Military Land Grants, Republic and State of Texas

The Republic and State of Texas both issued land grants as additional compensation for those who served Texas in the military.  The government of Texas, for most of the 19th century, had very little cash with which to pay soldiers, so our most abundant resource - land - was used to supplement the meager military pay.

Bounty grants:  Issued for military service by the Republic of Texas to soldiers who served in the Texas Revolution and to those who enlisted in the army before October 1, 1837.  The amount of land granted varied depending on length of service.  Each three months of service provided 320 acres, up to a maximum of 1280 acres.  Often the heirs of a soldier who died in battle would be granted the full 1280 acres on the assumption that the fallen soldier would have served for the duration of the war.  Under a separate law, the Republic of Texas extended bounty grants from 1838 to 1842 to soldiers guarding the frontier.

Donation grants:  Issued by the Republic of Texas for participation in specific battles of the Texas Revolution.  Soldiers who fought in the Siege of Bexar and the Battle of San Jacinto, including the baggage detail at Harrisburg, received certificates for their service.  The heirs of those who fell at the Alamo and Goliad also received certificates.  It must be noted that the Congress of the Republic continually changed the acreage allotted under these grants, so there were Donation grants for differing acreages, although most certificates were issued for 640 acres.  In addition, donation grants were also provided by the State of Texas, under an act of the legislature passed in 1879, to surviving veterans of the Texas Revolution and signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence.  To qualify for this type of donation grant a veteran must either have received a bounty grant or been eligible for one.  The donation law of 1879 provided 640 acres of land and rehired proof of indigence.  This law was amended in 1881 and increased the donation amount to 1280 acres and dropped the indigence requirement.  This donation program was repealed in 1887.

Military headrights:  Issued to those volunteer soldiers who arrived in Texas after March 2, 1836 and before August 1, 1836 and who received an honorable discharge from service.  This program insured that those who arrived and served during this time period received the same amount of land as the original Texas colonists - that is, the same amount of land as allotted by a first-class headright.  Military headrights are also issued to the heirs of those who fell with Fannin, Travis, Grant, and Johnson.  The confusing nature of the law, passed in 1838, seems to have limited the number of such headrights actually issued.

Confederate scrip certificates:  Provided by the State of Texas to Confederate veterans from Texas who were permanently disabled, or to their widows.  These grants were in the amount of 1280 acres of land.  The law providing for this land grant program was passed in 1881 and repealed in 1883.

Loan and Sales Scrip, Republic and State of Texas

Loan scrip was a land certificate issued to provide for or repay loans made to the government of Texas.  Sales scrip programs were a means of selling off the public domain to generate revenue.  Most of the scrip issued was done in order to cover the costs associated with the Texas Revolution and as a way to pay off the debts incurred by the Republic of Texas.

Internal Improvement Scrip, Republic and State of Texas

Internal Improvement Scrip was issued as a means of paying for infrastructural development in Texas.  Land was granted in lieu of payment in cash to contractors and investors.  All legislation authorizing internal improvement scrip was repealed in 1882.

School Land, State of Texas

Sale of lands to fund the school system of Texas began in 1874.  Until 1905 the amount of land that could be purchased as well as the price, method of purchase, and eligibility requirements varied a great deal.  Legislation in 1905 required that the school lands be sold through competitive bidding.  Purchasers could buy a maximum of four sections with residence required in most counties, or eight sections with no residence required in other designated (western) counties.

The End of the Unappropriated Public Domain in Texas

In Hogue v. Baker (1898) the Texas Supreme Court declared that there was no more vacant and unappropriated land in Texas.  In 1900 an act was passed "to define the permanent school fund of the State of Texas, to partition the public lands between said fund and the State, and to adjust the account between said fund and said state; to set apart and appropriate to said school fund, the residue of the public domain..."  Thus all of the remaining unappropriated land was set aside by the legislature for the benefit of public schools.

Runaway Scrape

The term Runaway Scrape was the name Texans applied to the flight from their homes when Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna began his attempted conquest of Texas in February 1836.  The first communities to be affected were those in the south central portions of Texas around San Patricio, Refugio, and San Antonio.  The people began to leave that area as early as January 14, 1836, when the Mexicans were reported gathering on the Rio Grande.  When Sam Houston arrived in Gonzales on March 11 and was informed of the fall of the Alamo, he decided upon retreat to the Colorado River and ordered all inhabitants to accompany him.  Couriers were dispatched from Gonzales to carry the news of the fall of the Alamo, and when they received that news people all over Texas began to leave everything and make their way to safety.  Houston's retreat marked the beginning of the Runaway Scrape on a really large scale.  Washington-on-the-Brazos was deserted by March 17, and about April 1 Richmond was evacuated, as were the settlements on both sides of the Brazos River.  The further retreat of Houston toward the Sabine left all of the settlements between the Colorado and Brazos unprotected, and the settlers in that area at once began making their way toward Louisiana or Galveston Island.  The section of East Texas around Nacogdoches and San Augustine was abandoned a little prior to April 13.  The flight was marked by lack of preparation and by panic caused by fear both of the Mexican Army and of the Indians.  The people used any means of transportation or none at all.  Added to the discomforts of travel were all kinds of diseases, intensified by cold, rain, and hunger.  Many persons died and were buried where they fell.  The flight continued until news came of the victory in the battle of San Jacinto.  At first no credence was put in this news because so many false rumors had been circulated, but gradually the refugees began to reverse their steps and turn back toward home, many toward homes that no longer existed.


BIBLIOGRAPHY:  Hubert Howe Bancroft, History of the North Mexican States and Texas (2 vols., San Francisco: History Company, 1886, 1889).  John Henry Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas (Austin: Daniell, 1880; reprod., Easley, South Carolina: Southern Historical Press, 1978).
Carolyn Callaway, The Runaway Scrape: An Episode of the Texas Revolution (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1942).

Citation
Carolyn Callaway Covington, "RUNAWAY SCRAPE," Handbook of Texas Online
(http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/pfr01), accessed March 10, 2012.

Is My Husband Also My Cousin?

This will be a short story but I thought it was too funny not to tell.

My grandfather had a most unusual first name for a boy, especially since he was the only boy with ten sisters.  His name was Bloomer Edward Martin and for reasons I think anyone can understand he was called "Jack".  He was the third child so maybe it helped a little that he wasn't also the baby.  I was researching to find how he got such an unusual name when I found that he had a second cousin by the name of Holland Bloomer Tunnell.  They were both born in 1902 in Van Zandt County, Texas but my grandfather was the oldest by six months, so it appears that Holland Bloomer may have been named after Bloomer Edward.  Why would anyone give this name to their son unless it was a family surname?  I still don't know how he got his name because I have been unable to find the name anywhere else in the family.

Bloomer Edward and Holland Bloomer both married in 1922, just four months apart.  Holland Bloomer Tunnell married Rubye Higby in 1922 in Smith County, Texas.  Rubye's parents were Charles H. Higby and Mary "Mollie" Killingsworth.  Mollie Killingsworth was born in Gregg County, Texas and her grandfather was John Sweet Killingsworth, born in Bibb County, Alabama.  He was married to Emmeline Abney, also from Bibb County, Alabama.   I immediately recognized the Killingsworth and Abney surnames because I had researched them for my husband's ancestry!  Needless to say, I couldn't wait to make the connection between these two East Texas families.

Emmeline Abney was the sister of my husband's 3rd great grandmother.  The Abney and Killingsworth families migrated together, with a couple of other families, by wagon to East Texas around 1850.  As it turns out Holland Bloomer Tunnell, my 2nd cousin, 2 times removed married my husband's 3rd cousin, 2 times removed.  So....nothing to worry about as this makes us pretty far removed from each other.

I thought of the article "I Think I am My Own Cousin", by Lorine McGinnis Schulze on The Olive Tree Genealogy blog when I made this discovery.  It's surprising how many times one finds in their research that two brothers from a family would marry two sisters in another and other unusual situations where a woman might marry her husband's brother after becoming widowed.  It was a much smaller world way back when, and East Texas still is a small world.  My mother once told me that there was a boy she wanted to date when she was in high school but my grandfather wouldn't allow it.  Mama couldn't understand why her father wouldn't let her and argued that he was a very nice gentleman and from a good family.  After a while and a bit of frustration, Granddaddy finally ended it by saying, "Because I'm afraid we might be related!"

The Murder of John Franklin Cobb (1859-1915)

My father told me that both of his grandfathers were murdered and he never knew either of them. His paternal grandfather,  James Augusta Trevathan, was killed in a shoot-out in 1899 at the young age of 37 years.  His maternal grandfather, John Franklin Cobb, was stabbed to death in 1915 at the age of 56 and this is his story.

John F. Cobb (left) with his brother Charles Lewis "Dixie" Cobb

Early Life in Mississippi

John Franklin Cobb was born in Franklin County, Mississippi on September 25, 1859, to Jesse Washington Cobb (1825-1897) and Sarah Ann McCaa (1828-1895).  Jesse and Sarah Cobb moved their family to Nacogdoches County, Texas in the years between 1870 and 1880. Like so many during the 19th century, Jesse was a farmer, until the lumber industry brought many sawmills and employment to the heavily wooded areas of East Texas.  By June of 1880, Jesse and Sarah were living in the Linn Flat community of Nacogdoches County, Texas with one daughter and six sons.  In the 1880 census, John Cobb was 20 years old, single, living with his parents, and working on their farm.  

John married Susan Jane McCullough, in Cherokee County, Texas on December 5, 1893.  She was from Neshoba County, Mississippi and her family migrated to Cherokee County, Texas sometime after 1880. In the 1910 census, the Cobbs lived in the logging community of Wildhurst in Cherokee County, Texas where John worked as a laborer in the lumber mill. 

Family Tragedy

John and Susan moved to Durant, a small sawmill community in Angelina County, Texas sometime before 1914 because their youngest child was born in Angelina County in 1914.  My grandmother, Laura Velma Cobb Trevathan, told the story of her father's untimely death to my father, Curtis Trevathan, and apparently didn't try to cover up the events which lead to his demise.  My father related to me that John Cobb was killed on the road as he was riding his horse home after "messing around" with another man's wife!  Apparently, Susan Cobb was not aware of her husband's transgressions with the other woman because she sent her daughter, Velma, to go out and find her father.  She found him on the side of the road, stabbed and dying.  The newspapers state that George Waldrip, the man who killed John, was a neighbor and surrendered to the police officers and was taken to jail. 

John Cobb's death was tragic and caused great hardship for his wife Susan who was 39 years old and had seven children at home.  Their oldest child, Velma, was 21 years old at the time of his death and the youngest child was their son, Alvie, who was only a year old.  She had her hands full and depended on the oldest children to help work the farm and care for the younger ones.  The two oldest boys were 14 and 13 years old and not yet old enough to work outside of the home.  In the 1920 census, five years after their father's death, all of the children were still living at home.  The three oldest were her daughters, Velma, age 25, Annie, age 23, and Jessie, age 21, and the next four were her sons, John, age 19, Acie, age 17, Earnest, age 9, and Alvie, age 5.  It was unusual for girls in their twenties to still be single and living at home in the early 1900s.  Velma, and her sister, Annie, stayed at home to help keep the house and work on the farm while the other daughter, Jessie, worked as a nurse.  The two youngest boys attended school and both of the older boys worked for the lumber mill so it seems that the family was taken care of financially.

The Lufkin News, December 23, 1915, page 4

Dallas Morning News

   

Galveston Daily News

John Cobb's funeral expenses were $53.25 according to the funeral records of Gipson Funeral Home; $45.00 for the casket, $7.50 for the burial robe, and $0.75 for the death notice in the newspaper.  It listed his cause of death as a gunshot wound but the newspaper articles about the incident said he was killed with a knife and the family corroborates same.

 

Murder Trial

On January 4, 1916, the grand jury for the Angelina County District Court returned an indictment charging George Waldrip with murder in the first degree.  The case against Mr. Waldrip went to trial on Thursday, January 13, 1916.  The Lufkin Daily News reported that on Saturday the courtroom was crowded until standing room was at a premium.  On Wednesday, January 19th, the newspaper reported that there was a hung jury in the Waldrip case and the jurors had been discharged on Tuesday.  One newspaper article indicated that many of the jurors or maybe all of them were in favor of conviction but the term of years could not be decided.  The trial would begin again on February 8th.  I was unable to find any other online newspaper articles regarding the second trial.  

However, there was a second trial and it probably began later than February because he wasn't sentenced until May.  The penalty for the murder was 5-18 years in the state penitentiary.  I was able to find the criminal court record which shows that on May 20, 1916, George Waldrip was found guilty and sentenced to 18 years in the penitentiary which would mean his sentence would not expire until 1934.   

The State of Texas vs. George Waldrip, No. 3289

Fortune favored George Waldrip because Gov. William P. Hobby gave him a full pardon on June 2, 1920, after serving only 4 years in prison. 

Descendants

Together, the family stayed strong and survived.  All of the children eventually married and had children.  Unfortunately, another tragedy occurred with the death of their daughter, Annie Cobb Carson to a brief illness in 1925 at the age of 29.  She left behind a husband and two children, a daughter, age three, and a one-year-old son.  

Susan Cobb never remarried and sometime around 1935, after her last child left home, she moved to Tyler, Texas to live with her daughter Velma and her family.  I was fortunate to know my great-grandmother very well.  The funny and sweet little woman we called Mama Cobb was 88 years old when she died in 1965. 

Susan McCullough Cobb (sitting) with her daughters 
Jessie, Annie, and Velma, c. 1912

Susan Cobb with her three youngest sons,
 Acie, Ernest, and Alvie