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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 02289 9170
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PROMINENT
WOMEN OF TEXAS
BY ELIZABETH BROOKS
MANUFACTURED BY THE WERNER COMPANY, AKRON, OHIO
COPYRIGHT, 1896, BY ELIZABETH BROOKS.
PREFACE.
HE women of Texas, like the women of every geograph- ical division of the globe, and in every age of the world, have played their part in the drama of human progress. Like their co- workers of the other sex, only the comparatively few have filled niches in the pantheon of greatness, but these few, of both sexes, had added to the light of the world's illumination some of its purest rays, and have given to history some of its lessons of great- est value.
By way of proem to the story of female achievement in Texas, it may not be unprofitable to recall a few of the women, who, in their day, and by their mental prowess, contributed to human advance- ment. In the dawn of history, and among the most favored of the race, though subordinated to her lord by civil and religious law, woman began her intellectual work. In the person of Deborah we find one of the thirteen judges who successively ruled in Israel, and one whose wise administration vindicated her claim to the office. When Jeremiah, the prophet, and Hilkiah, the high-priest, and Shaphan, the scribe, all faltered in their interpretation of the Divine will, only Huldah, the prophetess, could reveal to them the mean- ing of the book of the law. In the Golden Age of Athenian learn- ing, a woman, as preceptress, unfolded the philosophy of Socrates, and formed the rhetoric of Pericles. Sappho entranced cultured Greece with the charm of her lyric verse. Hypatia was famed for her knowledge in astronomy, and for the profoundness of her phi- losophy. In more modern times, the Marchioness of Pescara and
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Margeritte Clothilde de Surville eclipsed all other lights in the field of poetry and belles-lettres; while Elizabeth, Lady Jane Grey, and Signora Joan of Arragon, made themselves famous as scholars and linguists. In theology and eloquence Isabella de Kesara dis- played powers that electrified her cotemporaries; and Elena Lucre- zia Piscopia, as linguist and mathematician, rose above all the men of her time. Even as rulers of great nations, women have held with firm and skillful hand the reins of government, and the throne has been exalted by their wisdom. From Artemesia and Semiramis and Zenobia to Elizabeth and Victoria, the crown lost none of its splendor while adorning the brow of a woman. In art, as in science, she has excelled. When Rosa Bonheur with her brush made the canvas to glow with the consciousness of its charm ; when Prosper- sia Rossi with her chisel startled the formless rock into life ; when the female Herschel with her lens brought down to our sphere the secrets of the stellar hosts, the world applauded and confessed that painting and sculpture and astronomy found expression in woman's genius equal to that displayed by her gifted brother. As his help- meet she has also given signal proof of collaborative effort. Grote, the historian, Carlyle, the essayist, John Stuart Mill, the political economist, and Agassiz, the scientist, only wrote in part the works that made them famous ; their wives were the partners of their toil, and they helped to build the pedestals on which these great men stand.
These examples of feminine achievement are proof of potential force, of inherent aspirations; they reveal in female nature the qual- ities of strong patience, trustful energy and tenacious purpose. They give woman place in the palestra of intellectual contest, for there she has asserted her readiness to struggle for the prize, and has even shown her proud scorn for the palma sine pulvere-the crown of victory without the dust of contention. The very obstacles that nature and social laws have placed in her way have proved incen- tives to her effort. Themistocles, in his exile, said that his ruin had
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made his fortune; woman, clothed in the disabilities of her sex, may well claim that her fetters have given her liberty and honor.
The women of Texas, like their sisters in other climes, have an experience and a renown of their own. The scene of their lives is laid in a land that was pressed by the adventurous foot of the white man a hundred years before the Pilgrims touched the Plymouth shore-a hundred years in the van of the Mayflower did the battered bark of Cabeça de Vaca cast forth the wanderers who were first to spy out this land of our Canaan. From that time till now, with scarce a day of interruption in her story, has Texas been the scene of adventure sprung from avarice, or born of the spirit of conquest and discovery. In all her epochs she has attracted the immigrant and home-seeker, and, whether, as Province, Republic or State, her visi- tors have come in family groups in which the women have borne no small share of the labors and dangers of the new life. Beginning thus in the generation of the pioneers, these women displayed in- trepidity begotten of the perils in which they lived-perils that made martyrs of some, heroines of all; pursuing still their wonted vigor and high resolve, their successors of to-day have culminated in a generation whose powers and culture place them in the front ranks of modern progress.
The bibliography of Texas is bright with female names. Whether in the domain of history, travels, romance, adventure, poetry, or other learning, women have equally shared the laurels with the other sex. Mrs. Holly's "Texas," Mrs. Helm's "Scraps of Texas History," Corine Montgomery's "Texas and Her Presidents," and Melinda Perkins' "Texas in 1850," are all reliable and entertaining narratives of the country. Mrs. Houstouns' four volumes of "Trav- els and History," Cora Montgomery's "Life on the Border," and Mrs. Eastman's "Romance of Indian Life," are all charming contri- butions to Texas literature. Mollie E. Moore's poems, and Au- gusta J. Evans' "Tale of the Alamo," have become famous among readers everywhere. Mrs. Fairchild's adventures of herself, and
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Mrs. Kelly's "Experience" contain the thrilling recitals of their sufferings while in captivity among the Indians. Mrs. Young's " Flora of Texas" is the repository of much valuable knowledge from the natural history of the State. Mrs. Viele's "Following the Drum" is the delightful production of a Texas author. These are among the female writers who have adorned our literature ; others are in the field; and still others are equipping themselves by col- legiate training for the fascinating pursuit.
In introducing THE WOMEN OF TEXAS to our readers, it is appro- priate to state that many distinguished in their several spheres have been necessarily omitted, and among these the annals of Texas do not furnish a brighter story of heroism in the cause of human liberty than that of Mrs. Jane Herbert Long, the " Mother of Texas," and champion of her freedom. Her husband, the illustrious Gen. James Long, was the first to proclaim the independence of Texas. This he did at the town of Nacogdoches in the memorable year of 1819, and forthwith began the work of organizing a provisional govern- ment. Forced by superior numbers of Spanish regulars to retreat, he fortified himself on Bolivar Point opposite Galveston, being aided by the famous Ben Milam and Capt. John Austin. Here he placed his wife, proceeded westward, captured Goliad, and marched to San Antonio where he made a treaty whereby he was constituted provisional Governor of Texas under the new government of Mexico. He was soon after arrested and carried to the City of Mexico, where he was assassinated. Meantime the General's soldier wife remained at the fort on Bolivar Point, and this she held though the garrison deserted their post. She resisted all threats and entreaties to com- pass her surrender, occasionally firing a gun to deter the Indians from assault; and in all this peril she was alone with her infant child and one servant. Not until she was convinced of her husband's death could she be persuaded to abandon the post he had committed to her keeping; then she retired, and finally became a member of Austin's colony. This ardent patriot made her final home in Rich-
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mond, Fort Bend County, where she died in 1880, thus living for many years to enjoy the discomfiture of her enemy, and the freedom and progress of her beloved land.
The women of Texas have given their share of representatives to the Congress of the distinguished women of the world, and the fol- lowing pages will be their commission to accept the tribute and the homage that, in every enlightened land, is paid to culture, energy and good works.
PROMINENT WOMEN OF TEXAS.
CHAPTER I.
WIVES OF TEXAS PRESIDENTS.
MRS. SAM HOUSTON-MRS. ANSON JONES.
MRS. SAM HOUSTON .- Sam Houston and Texas are as indissolubly linked in the chain of history as Philip and Macedon, Cæsar and Rome, the Norman Conqueror and Eng- land; and the splendid achievement at San Jacinto crowned its hero with bays as imperishable as those that fame has placed upon the brow of the victors of Cheronæa, Pharsalia, and Hastings.
Sam Houston was of Celtic origin, and was born in Vir- ginia in 1793. When a youth he moved with his widowed mother to Tennessee, in which State he grew up and earned both military and civil distinction-commanding its militia as Major-General, representing one of its districts in the Fed- eral Congress, and filling the gubernatorial office at its capi- tal. For reasons that he never divulged, he resigned the executive office and silently left the State to live among the Cherokees in the Indian Territory. From there, in 1832, he went to Texas, then a Mexican province and a constituent part of the Mexican State of "Coahuila and Texas." Arriv- ing in Nacogdoches, he found it the center of a popular move- ment to compel the parent government to divorce Texas from her uncongenial partner and clothe her with the functions of independent Statehood. In pursuance of this object, a con- vention was called at San Felipe in 1833, of which General Houston was a member. The usurpation of the Mexican
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government by Santa Anna had, in the meantime, changed the purposes of the people. They now clamored for inde- pendence, and to that end convened the General Consultation at San Felipe in 1835, for the object of forming a provisional government. General Houston was a conspicuous member of that body, and when hostilities with the mother country resulted from its acts, he was placed in command of the Texan forces in the field. He was also a delegate to the con- vention of 1836 that assembled at Washington, and, on the 2nd of March of that year, promulgated its famous Declara- tion of Independence. Two days later he was elected Com- mander-in-Chief, and marched to the front with a small force to meet the invading army of Santa Anna. The Fabian strategy that resulted led the enemy to his fate on the plains of San Jacinto, where the independence of the country was brilliantly won. On the permanent organization of the Re- public, General Houston was elected its first President, and, at the end of his term, was chosen to a seat in the Con- gress. It was during this term of Congress that he visited Mobile, Alabama, and there first met Miss Margaret Moffette Lea at the home of her brother, Col. M. A. Lea. One year later, May 9, 1840, he was married to her at the town of Marion in that State, the home of her parents and the place of her birth. At the third general election General Houston was chosen President a second time by an almost unanimous vote of the people. Two years after the conclusion of this service he was elected to the convention that annexed Texas to the United States, and, in 1846, he was elected by the first State legislature one of the two United States Senators, to which high post he was reelected the following year and again in 1851. The national importance he acquired is part of the political history of the country. Two years after retiring from the Senate, he was elected Governor of Texas, the first year of his term being the stormy period that immediately preceded the Civil War. Entertaining convictions opposed to those held by the majority in power on the question of secession, and refusing to subscribe the oath of allegiance to the Confederate States, he was deposed from his office in
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March, 1861. Saddened by the events that foreboded the disruption of the Union, to which he was zealously attached, he withdrew from the scenes of his public life to find solace in the quiet of his home at Huntsville. He died there, July 26, 1863. Such, briefly told, was the eventful life of one of the most famous men of America; General, President, Governor of two States, Senator, and Representative in the United States Congress, soldier, orator and statesman. At the age of forty-seven, and a widower, he married Miss Lea, who though twenty-six years his junior, scarcely realized the dis- parity in the abundance of her practical wisdom and in the earnestness of her zeal for the public good.
Mrs. Houston was born April 11, 1819, and is descended from one of the cultured families of Alabama. She remained under her father's careful instruction until old enough to enter Pleasant Valley Seminary, where her school education was completed, and where she developed the marked literary talent for which she was distinguished in after life. She early evinced the religious tendencies that became more pronounced as she advanced in years, and, at an age when most girls give least thought to the serious side of life, she joined the Baptist Church, of which she was ever a consistent member. Her marriage with General Houston excited in her mind less the pride of honorable alliance than senti- ments of responsibility and obligation attaching to the grave trust of her high position. Her example, she felt, should be the incense of her daily offering at the shrine of social progress, and her wifely devotion the precious oil of gladness to lighten the toils of her husband. Pursuing these generous impulses, her household became the nursery of every domestic virtue, and her husband's public cares were daily sweetened by her sympathy and her smiles. She was his constant companion, except during the years of his senatorial service, when she remained at home, preferring the tender charge of her little children to the pleasures of society at the nation's capital. During these years, as well as before and after them, her home was the almost contin- uous scene of genial and unassuming hospitality. While
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residing at Austin, her health visibly failed, and, in conse- quence, the public enjoyed fewer of her pleasant offices. Her removal to her home at Huntsville, following the retiracy of her husband from public office, would, it was hoped, bring relief with the promised repose. The hope was fallacious, and the gloomiest event of her life, two years later-the death of General Houston-added to her pain the burden of desolation. After this bereavement Mrs. Houston returned to a former home in Independence, with a view to educating her children at Baylor University, then located at that place. Four years later Mrs. Houston felt herself summoned to new fields of labor. The Yellow Fever, in epidemic form, entered Texas, and to the relief of its victims she devoted herself, with tireless energy and with undaunted and heroic courage. She lived and labored through the fearful scourge, though prostrated by excessive vigils, toils and anxieties. She survived her work only a few weeks, and died December 3, 1867, a true martyr in the cause of humanity. A beautiful life thus came to a fitting end ; its morning and meridian gilded by bright skies, its sunset made glorious by the splendor of its own sacrifice.
Mrs. Houston's body lies buried at Independence; that of her husband lies in the cemetery at Huntsville. The dust of the dead, whom love united in the past and hope reunites in the future, ought, in the present, to be gathered in the same urn and be reverenced by a common memory.
The children born of this union are eight in number, four sons and four daughters, here named in the order of their birth: Sam, a physician, married Lucy Anderson, of Wil- liamson County; Nannie E., married J. C. Morrow, of Wil- liamson County ; Margaret Lea, married W. L. Williamson, of Washington County; Mary W., married J. S. Morrow, of Chambers County; Nettie Powers, married Prof. W. L. Bringhurst, of Bryan; Andrew Jackson, married Carrie G. Purnell, of Austin, after whose death he married Elizabeth Good, of Dallas; William Roger and Temple.
In her maternal relation, Mrs. Houston displayed qual- ities of surpassing power and tenderness, through which she
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inspired in her children sentiments of profound reverence and affection. They never felt the power, they knew only the love that guided them. Like Achilles among the maid- ens, wearing their garments, she moved among her children, clothed in their simplicity, veiling from them the subtle force by which they were led into paths of virtue, honor, and uprightness. All through life her children counseled with her as with a friend, and, above all, they never failed to seek in her sympathy the consolation that, in the words of Isaiah, made them feel "as one whom his mother com- forteth." The gentle tribute to her memory by Mrs. Bring- hurst, her gifted daughter, reveals the sweet influence of a mother's holy life and its undying power, even in death. Other scenes may fade and other lessons be forgotten, sing's the heart of this daughter :
"But the words of my mother still lingered Like the echo when songs die away."
MRS. ANSON JONES .- The wife of the last President of the Republic of Texas was Mary Smith, born July 24, 1819, in Arkansas, then a Territory. Her father was a Virginian, and she the eldest of his five children. When in her fifteenth year, she emigrated to Brazoria County, Texas, with her mother, who had become a widow, and who there entered in second nuptials with John Woodruff, and there died in 1845. Mary was thus left in charge of the young family, and, upon the death of her stepfather two years later, was further en- trusted with their sole support and education. The rugged discipline to which she had been subjected in the twelve years of Texas life preceding the loss of her parents, prepared her for the duties she was to assume. The country had been in an almost uninterrupted state of revolution; hostile invasions of Indians and Mexicans had frequently left in their track the cruel work of fire and sword and scalp- ing-knife; the men and even the boys were bearing arms in distant fields, and the women and children were often left alone to defend the home that sheltered them. It was in
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1836, after the fall of the Alamo and the massacre of Fan- nin and his men at Goliad, that consternation fell upon every household in the route of the invaders and drove the helpless to places of greater safety. Among these was the family of John Woodruff, which fled eastward and remained in their refuge till their enemy, ".The Napoleon of the West," had found his Waterloo in the field of San Jacinto. About the close of this year the family resolved to leave the dangerous highway on which they lived and moved to the new town of Houston, then in the infancy of its municipal life. There, in July of the following year, Mary Smith was married to Hugh McCrory, a soldier, who had but recently come with General Felix Huston in the gallant band of volunteers from Mississippi. In less than two months the young husband died, and the bride was a widow at eighteen. Two years after this she removed with her parents to Austin, the new seat of government, where she met Dr. Anson Jones, and to whom she was married in May, 1840.
Dr. Anson Jones was a native of Great Barrington, Mas- sachusetts, and was born in 1798. He was a physician, began his medical career in Philadelphia, and from there went to South America where for two years he practiced in Venezuela. From there, in 1833, he went to Brazoria, Texas, and engaged in the active duties of his profession. From this business he was early diverted by the pervading spirit of the revolutionary times, and he finally abandoned it for the more congenial pursuits of military and political life. He enlisted as a private in the Texan army, and, after brief service, was commissioned surgeon of Burleson's regiment. In 1837 he was elected Representative in the House of Con- gress ; the following year he was appointed minister from the Republic of Texas to that of the United States, and while absent on this mission he was elected to a seat in the Senate by which body he was chosen its presiding officer in the absence of the Vice President. He was Secretary of State during Sam Houston's second presidential term, and at its close was elected President of the Republic. He qualified and took his office in December, 1844, and the constitu-
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tional term of his service was three years, but, owing to the annexation of Texas to the United States, he served less than half his term, and, on the 19th of February, 1846, sur- rendered the government to James Pinkney Henderson, first Governor of the State. Retiring to his plantation in Washington County, which he called "Barrington," in honor of his birthplace, he there lived in close seclusion from public life until he sold the place in 1857. In that year he entered the lists as a candidate for the United States Senate and was defeated. This disappointment, superadded to the popular neglect he suffered while in his retreat at Barring- ton, so preyed upon his mind as to render it morbidly averse from every social pleasure, from every hopeful view of life. In this state of gloom, existence to him became a burden-as it had been to the philosophic Aristotle, the virtuous Cato, the powerful Clive-incurable melancholy seized him, and, on the 7th of January, 1858, he fell its victim by his own deliberate act.
Mrs. Jones thus, in the eighteenth year of her marriage and the thirty-ninth of her age, became a widow the second time. With her four children she moved to Galveston, and thence, the same year, to a farm in Harris County which she managed with skill, industry and success. There she super- vised the education of her children, and gave to them the training that distinguishes a practical, sensible, and pious mother. Her two eldest sons, Samuel E. and Charles, volun- teered in the Confederate army; the latter fell at Shiloh, and the former, after meritorious service, returned home, studied dentistry, and is now in the enjoyment of a successful practice. The youngest son, Cromwell Anson Jones, became a lawyer, and, after winning distinction at the Houston bar, was elected Judge of the County Court of Harris County, in which office he dispensed justice with gentleness, ability and uprightness. He died in 1888, leaving his stricken mother crushed under the burden of this added sorrow. Her only daughter, Sallie, married R. G. Ashe, and to this daughter and her children, and to her remaining son, Mrs. Jones now looks for the only earthly joys that can bring solace to her
W. of T .- 2
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broken life. Her faith in the promises of her Christian belief is to her the fountain of perennial consolation in her dis- tress, and through this faith she has learned to regard her sea of sorrows as the sacred pool in whose troubled waters her wounded spirit is made whole. Her religious fervor, her strong character, and her unconquerable will, rescue her from the despondency under which so many shattered hearts have sunk. As far as the infirmities of age permit, she gives active help to those around her, and in her daily conversa- tion she exhibits the patriotic sentiment she has ever felt for the State she dearly loves. In her office of president of the "Daughters of the Republic of Texas" she zealously fosters the purposes of the order, and lovingly infuses her ardor into the hearts of its members. The evening of her life is hallowed by the memories of its youth, and in her lat- ter days are reflected the warm glow of a life chastened by affliction and softened by the grace of abounding charity.
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CHAPTER II.
WIVES OF MILITARY HEROES.
MRS. RUSK-MRS. LAMAR-MRS. FANNIN-MRS. SHERMAN AND MRS. WHARTON.
MRS. THOMAS J. RUSK .- Biographical literature has, in all ages, been occasionally enlivened by the contradictions and paradoxes of human experience. Calamities have, not infrequently, been harbingers of triumph; losses have been productive of gain; sorrows have been messengers of peace; storms have stranded their victims on golden shores. The common soldier Artaxerxes, banished from the ranks of the last king of the Parthians, sought asylum in hostile Persia, and found a throne. At the court of this same empire, the exiled hero of Salamis found favor and fortune, where he pleaded only for refuge; and it was there he said: "I should have been undone had it not been for my undoing." Thomas
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