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Gc 976.4 P13hi v.l 1279751
GENEALOGY
CTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02282 4608
vols
gio- goi
WPaddock
A HISTORY
OF
Central and Western Texas
Compiled from Historical Data Supplied by Commercial Clubs, Individuals, and Other Authentic Sources, Under the Editorial Supervision of
CAPTAIN B. B. PADDOCK
OF FORT WORTH
ILLUSTRATED.
VOL. I
· Sc 976.4 P13hi V.I THE LEWIS PUBLISHING COMPANY CHICAGO NEW YORK 1911
1279751
PREFACE
The work undertaken in this publication is designed as a record of progress of Central and Western Texas up to the close of the first decade of the twentieth century. Introductory to the review of Central and Western Texas as a distinct portion of the state, is a Brief History of Texas, which, while being a complete and new version of narrative his- tory, has been written primarily as a proper setting for the local history. A large amount of material has been published which is chiefly interest- ing as local history. Without burdening the general narrative, care has been taken to preserve as much as possible of the history of towns, com- munities and institutions, the result being a work of general information upon the country described by the title. By means of a copious index, it is believed that all the information is readily available to those using the volumes for reference.
The subject matter has been derived from the most reliable sources available. The historical manuscript has been carefully revised, and in every case the personal data has been submitted to those concerned.
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CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY-LA SALLE'S COLONY
3
CHAPTER II
SPANISH ENTRADAS-ESTABLISHMENT OF MISSIONS.
IO
CHAPTER III
PERMANENT OCCUPATION BY SPAIN
14
CHAPTER IV
FOUNDING OF SAN ANTONIO-MISSIONS AND PRESIDIOS OF THE
SPANISH FRONTIER
....
19
CHAPTER V
TEXAS DURING THE LAST HALF OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.
...
27
CHAPTER VI
AMERICAN AND SPANISH CIVILIZATIONS MEET IN LOUISIANA-FIRST
STAGES OF THE INEVITABLE CONFLICT
32
CHAPTER VII
POSITION OF TEXAS AT THE BEGINNING OF THE NINETEENTH
CENTURY
37
CHAPTER VIII
THE REVOLT AGAINST SPANISH DESPOTISM-THE BURR CONSPIRACY 43
CHAPTER IX
THE FIRST DECADE OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
52
CHAPTER X
REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENTS IN TEXAS, 1810-1820
56
CHAPTER XI
THE REPUBLIC OF MEXICO-AUSTIN'S COLONY.
68
vi
CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER XII
COLONIES UNDER THE EMPRESARIO SYSTEM
78
CHAPTER XIII
RELATIONS WITH MEXICO-THE FREDONIAN WAR.
...
83
CHAPTER XIV
THE TEXAS COLONIES UNDER FEDERAL REGULATION
89
CHAPTER XV
THE CONVENTIONS OF 1832 AND 1833. . 95
CHAPTER XVI
EVENTS LEADING TO THE REVOLUTION
102
CHAPTER XVII
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1835.
112
CHAPTER XVIII
THE GENERAL CONSULTATION AND PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT.
. ..
118
CHAPTER XIX
ALAMO AND GOLIAD
122
.
CHAPTER XX
THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION AND
DECLARATION OF INDE-
PENDENCE
.
129
CHAPTER XXI
THE WINNING OF INDEPENDENCE-SAN JACINTO.
I32
CHAPTER XXII
TEXAS AS A REPUBLIC.
141
CHAPTER XXIII
158
THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE STATE OF TEXAS, 1845 TO 1861
164
CONTENTS vii
CHAPTER XXV
PAGE
THE CIVIL WAR PERIOD 177
CHAPTER XXVI
RECONSTRUCTION
185
CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS. 191-202 THE LIVE STOCK INDUSTRY .203-236
A BRIEF HISTORY OF RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION
237-261
CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS COUNTIES 262-882
BRIEF HISTORY OF TEXAS
CHAPTER I
EXPLORATION AND DISCOVERY -- LA SALLE'S COLONY
The story of Texas begins with the time when the first civilized man beheld its low-lying shores from the waters of the gulf, or in exploration or quest of settlement set foot upon its soil. It is true, for centuries before the caravels of Columbus sailed to the unknown occident, the wild native tribes passed and repassed over what we now know as Texas. They set up their huts on the broad prairies or in the shelter of the woodlands, they sometimes planted and harvested scanty crops of vege- tables and grain, more often they hunted the buffalo with bow and arrow and netted or speared the fish of the rivers, and they marauded and made war. They had their joys and sorrows, their loves and hates; among them were degrees of skill and stupidity; they recognized that some must command and the rest obey; and mingling with the few realities was the thread of the mysterious, the awe and terror of the elements about them, and a certain faith or superstition of their fate after death.
The Indians existed, but the day circumscribed all their acts and purposes. Institutions they had not, the fabric of organized society showed only the most primitive patterns. They were in the various stages of barbarism. At the beginning of the sixteenth century these creatures of the forest and plain had not reached the state of mental and social development which had been attained by races on the far-away plains of Mesopotamia and in the Nile valley three thousand years before.
The places inhabited by these red men were as they had been for ages. Their abodes and their society were swept away in the same hour which noted their own departure-no architecture, no art, no indus- tries, no laws descend from the aborigines of Texas as a heritage of humanity. The Indian in early American history had a status not unlike that of the wild animal-something to be reckoned with by civilized
3
4
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
men as an element of danger or assistance, but not as a fellow being nor vet as a foundation for a stable society and system of institutions Indeed, as will be noticed hereafter, every attempt by the Spanish. or the French to impose the civilization and government of Europe upon the Indian tribes of America found the barbarians unequal to such respon sibilities, and all such Utopias and American empires were from the first doomed to failure. The Indians could not amalgamate with or form a part of new world civilization, and even now after centuries of association and training accommodate themselves imperfectly to citizenship.
Therefore, despite the presence of the Indian tribes, Texas was, from the standpoint of historical narrative, one vast barren at the begin- ning of the sixteenth century. And even after the advent of the first European to the gulf coast, two centuries passed before the region was sought for purpose of occupation and settlement. Knowledge of the Texas country had progressed so little that during the last years of the seventeenth century the impression prevailed among such eminent French- men as La Salle that the Red river was the northern boundary of Mexico, thus entirely eliminating from the geography of the time the vast terri- tory from the Rio Grande to Red river.
In a very vague and general way the land bordering the Gulf of Mexico became known to Europeans in the sixteenth century. By the discoveries of Ponce de Leon and others all this country was claimed by Spain and was known by the name of Florida, comprising all the region westward from the present state of that name to Mexico, and including the portion since called Texas, but which at that time was almost a terra incognita, without name and boundaries.
The first well authenticated visit of Europeans to Texas is that of the Panfilo de Narvaez expedition, which set out to explore the gulf coast from Florida. The enterprise met with disaster. Among those thrown upon the shores was Cabeza de Vaca, who with several com- panions endeavored to find his way overland into Mexico. The route of his wandering journey, as studied from his testimony, probably began at some point on the coast in southern Texas, and continued westerly to the Rio Grande. His narrative of the wanderings are the first written accounts of any portion of the Texas country, and the date of his ad- ventures was about 1535.
About ten years later, Coronado, after his conquest of New Mexico, in a fruitless expedition which led him as far north as Kansas, crossed
5
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
Northwest Texas, and his chronicler describes the buffaloes and the Indian hunters of the Staked Plains. There is some reason to believe that Hernando de Soto, on his ill-fated march from Florida to the Mis- sissippi, also penetrated some portion of North Texas. The fact that Spain was in actual possession of Florida from 1565 and much before that time had conquered and established an empire in Mexico, makes it reasonable to suppose that expeditions between the two seats of settle- ment crossed the intervening country of Texas, though without adding anything to our knowledge of this region.
Until the last years of the seventeenth century Texas is nearly bare of annals. Spanish ambition and conquest were in the meantime pushing north from the central kingdom of Mexico, and the expeditions of priest and soldier added somewhat to the knowledge of the region to the east of the pueblos and mines of New Mexico. Various adventurers, for their personal fame or other designs, invented many stories concerning the wealth, magnific ence and civilization of the country northeast of Mexico. A more truthful chronicler was Alonzo Paredes, who in 1686 rendered a report, honest and fairly accurate, describing the status and geograhpy of the country. He pronounced the wealthy kingdoms to be fiction, but told of tribes of Indians living along the coast who subsisted by agri- culture and were superior to the roaming tribes further west ; also speaks of various rivers, although the many streams flowing toward the gulf make such references in early Texas history confusing. Along certain of these rivers, probably between the Colorado and the Trinity, mention is made of a race of superior Indians, the Tejas.
This is the first occurrence of the name which subsequently was ap- plied to the province, republic and state. Various interpretations of the name and its origin have been assigned. Bancroft says: "Tejas (Tehas) was the name of one of the tribes in the south, as the Spaniards under- stood it from their neighbors, rather than from the people themselves. This word, or another of similar sound, was probably not the aboriginal name of the tribe, or group of tribes, but a descriptive term in their language or that of their neighbors. Indeed, there is some evidence that the word meant 'friends.' The name was retained by the Spanish and applied to the province. It was sometimes written in old-style Span- ish, Teras (Tejas and Texas are both pronounced in Spanish, tay-hass), and this form has been adopted in English with a corresponding change in pronunciation."
6
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
The first definite and important event in the history of Texas is a tragedy. Nearly two centuries passed after the journey of Cabeza de Vaca before the first real occupation of Texan soil was attempted. And as the story of this venture is in itself a drama, likewise is it the last act in the tragic career of one who "without question was one of the most remarkable explorers whose names live in history."
While, as we have seen, during all these years Texas was nominally a possession of Spain, it was reserved for a party of men under the fleur de lis of France to plant the first settlement on its shores.
Robert Cavelier, Sieur de la Salle, known to history as La Salle, had, during the last half of the seventeenth century, by exploration and the planting in the western wilderness of fortified outposts, gained over to France all the vast region bordering the Great Lakes and along the eastern tributaries of the Mississippi, and had journeyed down to the mouth of the Father of Waters itself. By building a fort on an im- pregnable rock in the Illinois river he has given the French a com- manding position as the center of a great Indian confederacy. Thence he prepared to extend New France southward to the gulf. With the French already in possession from the mouth of the St. Lawrence to the headwaters of the Mississippi, it was his ambition to secure control of the Mississippi from source to mouth, thus confining the English colo- nies to the narrow Atlantic coast.
His scheme involved the placing of forts near the mouth of the river, where he had already set up the French flag in 1682 and named the country Louisiane in honor of his king. To get permission to carry out these plans La Salle returned to France. His memorial to Louis XIV described the advantages of possessing this western country, dwelling on the possibilities of an invasion of Mexico with its rich mines of silver and gold. His petition was granted in 1684, and the zealous explorer at once made ready for the enterprise which was to crown all his past efforts in the wilds of America.
The expedition which sailed from France in 1684 consisted of four ships, the Joli, the Belle, the Aimable, and the St. Francis ; some three hundred persons-a hundred soldiers recruited from the dregs of the French populace; some gentlemen volunteers, besides professed me- chanics. laborers, some maidens who embarked with the hope of procur- ing husbands, Recollet friars, and three priests, one of whom was Cavelier, La Salle's brother. Such a motley company, the counterpart of many others sent out from Europe to America during the seventeenth
7
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
century, contained too little of moral character and hardy industry to effect a permanent colony. All the stamina of this expedition was in the leader, who was powerless to carry out his vast plans alone.
Embarrassments beset the enterprise from the first. Beaujeu, com- mander of the fleet, was insubordinate and antagonized La Salle, whose haughtiness and unwillingness to share his command with others finally brought ruin both to himself and his undertaking. The first serious misfortune was the loss of the store-ship St. Francis, which was cap- tured by the Spaniards and gave the viceroy the first information of an expedition to Spanish territory. Then, when the fleet reached San Domingo, La Salle was stricken with fever, and during two months of illness his followers pursued all manner of vice and dissipation on the island. Finally La Salle on the Aimable, followed by the Joli and Belle, headed for the mouth of the Mississippi. He was in uncharted waters, and when land was sighted it lay far to the west of his goal. He coasted the shore for some distance in search of the river, and finally entered Matagorda bay, which he believed to be one of the mouths of the Missis- sippi. Here came another disaster. The Aimable was wrecked in cross- ing the bar, and all her stores and supplies were lost.
La Salle was convinced that he had reached the delta of the Mis- sissippi, and a few weeks later Beaujeu, on the Joli, sailed for France, leaving the bold explorer with one hundred and eighty persons and the ship Belle to hold the outposts of French dominion on the gulf. He was hundreds of miles distant from the Mississippi, with no possibility of communication with the fort on the Illinois, and his colony had none of the hardy pioneers needed for permanent settlement-a germ of civilization destined to blight and decay and final annihilation.
A short distance up the La Vaca river a place was chosen for the seat of settlement; where to the north lay alternate grassy prairies and belts of woodland, and to the south the blue waters of the bay; the ver- dure of a semi-tropical climate surrounded them, and fruit, game and fish abounded. A fort, called St. Louis, was constructed. Even in this work appeared the unsubstantial character of the colony. "Carpenters and other mechanics knew nothing of their pretended trades; slight attempts at agriculture were not successful. The vagabond soldiers and settlers had no idea of discipline; many of them were suffering from deadly and loathsome diseases contracted in San Domingo; and the leading men were divided into hostile cliques, several minor conspiracies being revealed. The leader showed unlimited courage, but became more
8
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
haughty and unjust as difficulties multiplied, and was hated by many in his company."*
La Salle made several expeditions in search of the Mississippi, but each time returned unsuccessful, after having endured incredible hard- ships in fording the swollen streams and marching under the southern sun. The wreck of the Belle removed from the survivors the last means of escaping the country by sea. At the beginning of 1687 hardly fifty persons were alive at the fort, yet the iron heart of the leader was still unsubdued.
The only remaining hope seemed to lie in the possibility of opening communication with Canada or the brave Tonti at the fort of the Illinois. Accordingly, in January, 1688, La Salle, taking about half the men at the fort, bade farewell and set out to the northeast for Canada. The party had reached the banks of the Neches, and in the vicinity of that river, in an obscure spot that history can probably never mark, the first Texas pioneer was struck down by his treacherous companions. The con- spirators had contrived to separate the company and had first murdered La Salle's nephew and two followers. They then lured the leader him- self into an ambuscade and cowardly shot him.
Thus came to his end, on Texas soil, one of the foremost men of early American history. Although his last resting place beside one of the chief rivers cannot be definitely ascertained, his name must always remain as the first on the Texas roll of fame. In the words of Parkman, "he was a hero not of principle nor of faith, but simply of a fixed idea and a determined purpose"; in the end he had "attempted the impossible and had grasped at what was too vast to hold."
Of the party which accompanied La Salle, the conspirators nearly all met violent deaths, while the friends of the commander eventually reached the Mississippi and rejoined their countrymen in Canada.
And lastly the little band at Fort St. Louis on the La Vaca passed into oblivion. The story of their end reached the world through the Indians and the Spaniards. Smallpox scourged the remnant of twenty persons, and toward the end of 1688 the Indians fell upon them and with arrows and knife dispatched all but four or five, who were carried into captivity, and subsequently delivered to the Spaniards. "In ignominy and darkness died the last embers of the doomed colony of La Salle." When
* Parkman.
9
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
the two or three cabins and fortified houses were finally discovered by the soldiers from Mexico, they were deserted and going to decay, with only a few broken guns and torn papers as evidence of the occupation by civilized men.
CHAPTER II
SPANISH ENTRADAS-ESTABLISHMENT OF MISSIONS
In the meantime the capture of the store-ship St. Francis had aroused the Spanish, who were extremely jealous of any invasion of territory embraced in the limits of their world-wide claims. While the French colony was still meagerly existing along the bay of Espiritu Santo the ships of Spain were scouring the coast bent on its destruction. At last, guided by one of La Salle's former followers, Alonzo de Leon of Coahuila marched with a force of one hundred men across the rivers of southern Texas, to which he gave their present names, and in April, 1689, arrived at Fort St. Louis. Here he found a scene of desolation. With this evidence that the French settlement had come to destruction through its own weakness and discord, he returned to Mexico.
The information by which Captain Leon had found Fort St. Louis was supplied through Fray Damian Manzanet, a missionary friar in Coa- huila, who had inquired among the Indian converts at the mission and ascertained that the French were established among the northern Indians along the coast. Friar Manzanet accompanied de Leon on his expedition in 1689, as chaplain, and was diligent in his inquiries concerning the tribes associated under the name Tejas. While the Tejas chief was being entertained at the Spanish camp on the Guadalupe river, Manzanet urged upon him the acceptance of Christianity for himself and people, and, meeting with encouragement, promised to send priests to his villages. Thus was conceived the Tejas mission.
The news about the Texan country, combined with rumors about further attempts at occupation by the French, led the Spanish viceroy of Mexico to send de Leon upon a second expedition. The arguments of de Leon showing the value of occupying the region from a political standpoint were reinforced by the accounts of Manzanet concerning the splendid opportunities for advancing Christianity by establishing a mis- sion among the tribes who had already declared their willingness to accept conversion.
IO
II
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
This second expedition which set out from Coahuila, March 28, 1690, consisted of one hundred and ten soldiers, led by Captain Leon, missionaries headed by Father Manzanet and three Franciscans. The personnel of the company was little suited for the arduous work that confronted them.
Stopping at the Guadalupe as before, a thorough search was made for evidences of renewed activity on the part of the French, and the dismantled fort on the bay of Espiritu Santo was burned to the ground. The company then moved eastward to the country of the Tejas, or Asinai, where they were received with much hospitality. A site for a mission was chosen, and from the trees of the surrounding forest were hewn the logs for the construction of the first church in Texas, it being consecrated June 1, 1690.
The village selected for the first missionary effort of Spain in Texas was situated between the Trinity and Neches rivers, in East Texas. The location has not been accurately determined, but it was south of Nac- ogdoches, and perhaps nearer to Trinity bay. It was hundreds of miles from the nearest Spanish town, so that its isolation could hardly have been more complete. And on the day after the consecration of the rude little church, Captain Leon, leaving only three soldiers to protect the friars, again plunged into the wilderness and marched back to Mexico. The names of the three friars who thus endured the solitude and hardships of the wilderness in their religious zeal deserve to be written ; they are, Miguel Fontecuberta, Francisco de Jesus Maria, and Antonio Bordoy. Father Manzanet returned with de Leon.
Left alone to maintain and spread the influence of the mission San Francisco de los Tejas, the Friars had to contend with the difficulties of their physical situation, with the indifference of the natives to their teaching, with the aboriginal aversion to tribal consolidation and per- manence of residence, and finally with pestilence. This last the Indian medicine men were not slow to attribute to the baleful influence of the new missionaries. During 1690-91 three thousand deaths occurred among the tribes called Tejas. Father Fontecuberta himself fell a victim to disease, and the other two had to bear increasing burdens and expose themselves to increasing personal peril. The friars did all that human effort could do. In June, 1690, a second mission had been built, probably on the Neches river, being named Santisimo Nombre de Maria, and one of the fathers gave his attention to the conversion of the tribes in this vicinity.
12
HISTORY OF CENTRAL AND WESTERN TEXAS.
After the establishment of the mission among the Tejas and the return of the expedition, the royal authorities entered upon a plan for extended occupation and Christianizing of Texas. Don Domingo Teran de los Rios was appointed governor of Coahuila and Texas, and was in- structed to organize an expedition by sea and by land, to explore the region to the north of the Tejas and establish among the native tribes eight missions.
The expedition, consisting of soldiers, friars and numerous attend- ants, with droves of horses, pack animals and cattle, crossed the Rio Grande on its northern march in the early summer of 1691. Teran was military chief of the enterprise, while Father Manzanet was religious head and also held the office of commissary. Their relations were not har- monious, and the effectiveness of the expedition suffered from the dis- cord. The failure of the forces that came by sca to effect a junction with those on land at Espiritu Santo bay was another serious mis- fortune.
When the governor arrived at San Francisco de los Tejas the account given him of the past year was not encouraging. While the first governor of Texas does not appear to have been a man of remarkable ability and resourcefulness, he must also be judged by the almost insuperable diffi- culties in the way of successful accomplishment of his enterprise. From a military standpoint the undertaking was as yet little less than im- possible, and the plans and ideals of the friars were impracticable.
After constituting the Tejas tribes a new province, and providing for the protection and maintenance of missions, Governor Teran returned to Espiritu Santo to meet the sea expedition. By the time this was done and the mission again reached, it was the end of October, and on account of the delays and the cross-purposes of the friars and the military much of the spirit and energy was taken out of the enterprise. However, de- spite the approach of cold weather, the governor determined to carry out instructions for the exploration of the country of the Cadodachos. With increasing hardships each day he continued north to the Red river, which was reached late in November, and from that point, having accom- plished only the most meagre results of exploration and treating with the native tribes, he traced his way to the missions, where the wretched com- pany arrived December 30th. A few days later they set out for Mexico.
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