USA > Texas > Cherokee County > A history of Cherokee county (Texas) > Part 3
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Another early settler was Peter Ellis Bean, also known as Ellis P. Bean. Many a Cherokee boy, thrilled by Bean's adventures
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A HISTORY OF CHEROKEE COUNTY
during long years of Mexican imprisonment, is unaware that his hero once lived in Cherokee County. Making his dramatic entrance into Texas in 1801, as a member of the ill-fated Philip Nolan expedition to hunt for wild horses, the young Tennessee soldier of fortune was captured and sent to Mexico. Daring escapes, al- ways followed by recapture, marked more than a decade of being shifted from prison to prison. Finally released on promise to aid the royalists against the revolutionists, he soon deserted to the enemy whose cause was more to his liking. Sent to the United States to plead the cause of the Republic, he rendered valiant service at the battle of New Orleans before rejoining his Mexican comrades. When Morelos, the gallant leader of the revolution, was defeated and killed in 1815, Colonel Bean-promotion had come-escaped to his native country.
Having left behind him, as he thought forever, all things Mex- ican, including the beautiful Mexican lady who had become his wife,3 Bean returned to his Tennessee home a miserable man. A kindly aunt, knowing nothing of the Mexican wedding which he had never mentioned, finally suggested marriage to a wealthy neighbor girl, Candace Midkiff. Her advice was taken, the Beans later moving to Arkansas.4 After the success of the Mexican revolution made living in Mexican territory safe, they came to Texas, as colonists. In 1825 the Republic of Mexico rewarded Bean's early service in the revolutionary army by restoring his commission5 and appointing him Indian agent, in which ca- pacity he rendered valuable service by detaching the Cherokees from the Fredonian alliance.
Here the domestic plot thickens. Despite his second marriage and the lapse of years, the Colonel still loved the Mexican lady who had saved his life. With official business frequently taking him to Mexico, visits to his Mexican wife were easily managed. For some years he apparently lived a Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde existence. Finally, in 1843, he left Texas to stay. Tradition has it
3Refusing to be left behind, his wife had started with him on his horseback flight from Mexico. When their Spanish pursuers were almost upon them, Bean's horse gave out. Believing the soldiers would not harm his wife, although capture would mean death for himself, he yielded to her entreaties, exchanged horses with her and escaped.
4Conversation with Mrs. Sophie Peevey of Nacogdoches. The platter used at the Beans' infare dinner became an heirloom in Mrs. Peevey's family.
5 Although afterward in sympathy with the Texas revolutionists, the desire to retain the income from this commission, together with the toll exacted by his fifty years of strenuous living, kept the fighting colonel out of the struggle for Texas independence. When the war began he asked General Thomas J. Rusk for a parole.
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that two slaves who did the work at Bean's ranch camp came home one week-end with the report that the master had gone out to round up the cattle and had failed to return. Mrs. Bean sent out an alarm, a hunt ensued, but no trace of the missing man was found. His family concluded he had been killed.
Some three years later, as the story has been handed down by descendants, Isaac T. Bean, a son of Peter Ellis Bean, stopped by the roadside, near the present Alto, to eat his lunch. A traveler who joined him commented upon his resemblance to a man whom he knew in Mexico, by the name of Peter Ellis Bean. Although long believing that his father was dead, Isaac was finally con- vinced by the stranger's reference to the gold-tipped walking cane, the saddle and silver-mounted bridle, which had been gifts from James Bowie to Colonel Bean, that he was alive. Hurrying home with the news, he immediately started to Mexico, only to miss his father by three weeks. Death had ended Peter Ellis Bean's turbulent career at the hacienda of his Mexican wife at Jalapa, October 10, 1846.
Such is the long-accepted final chapter in the life of the doughty colonel. The following letter just lately discovered in a bundle of old receipts among a collection of her grandfather's papers pre- served by Miss Jessie Boone of Rusk, throws new light upon the story :
"Republick of Mexico Jalapa April 9th, 1844 Mr. William Roark Esq.
My old friend
Recivd your leter by Dr. Bean and see that Sam Bean is a Raskel But one nows not who to trust he is a Rogue and a lyar But let him gow my fingers is yet stiff and I cant wright good But I am giting well fast Dr. Bean can stait to you all Remember me to your Lady if when the weather Become cool you will see me
Remaning your old friend
Peter E Bean"
Doctor Bean was Jesse E. Bean, a cousin of Peter Ellis Bean. According to John H. Reagan, he had gone to see Colonel Bean because of trouble arising in connection with the Bean estate. William Roark, a neighbor to the Peter Ellis Beans, had been one of the witnesses to the will made before Colonel Bean's dis- appearance. Had he and Doctor Bean kept the whereabouts of
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A HISTORY OF CHEROKEE COUNTY
the missing man a secret? Who knows? Despite the intentions expressed in the letter, the colonel never returned to Texas. Per- haps he never had the physical strength for the trip.
The Bean will, recorded in the Nacogdoches County clerk's office but, according to the Probate Court records in Cherokee County, not discovered until 1850, is an interesting sidelight on the Bean story.
"In the name of God Amen.
"I, Peter Ellis Bean of the county of Nacogdoches in the Re- public of Texas, owing to the great uncertainty of this mortal life and the advancement of age and laboring under a lingering bodily disease, also being on the eve of starting to the Warm Springs of Arkansas, or elsewhere, for the preservation of life and the great uncertainty of the effect it may have in regard to my disease have thought proper to make the following distribution as my last will and testament. I own and acknowledge three children : Isaac Thomas Bean, Louisa Jane and Ellis M. Bean, two sons and one daughter. First I give and bequeath to my oldest son, Isaac T., a negro girl, Louisa, also the individual half of my headright of a league and a labor located on, or near, the Trinity river; next I give and bequeath to my daughter, Louisa Jane Lacy, a negro girl, Matilda, which she now holds in possession. I also give and bequeath to my son, Ellis M. Bean, the two old negroes, Dory and Vina, his wife; also the remainder of their children, three girls and one boy, Emmaline, Harriet, Sarah and Pendleton, together with the tract of land on which my dwelling and plantation are situated, containing one thousand acres, and all the stock of cattle, hogs and horses, including my fine stud horse, Bolton; also my household and kitchen furniture; one wagon; all my oxen, farming utensils and all other things per- taining to the farm. I hereby nominate, ordain, authorize and appoint Samuel K. Bean and Jesse E. Bean executors to this my last will and distribution; also guardian for my minor son, Ellis M. Bean, until he becomes of age, giving them, my executors, full power and authority in all and everything or things necessary to carry out the full intent and meaning of this instrument. Given under my hand and seal this the 6th day of February, 1843. Signed P. E. Bean. In the presence of William Roark and David Muckleroy."
Whatever the motive which led Colonel Bean to disown one of his children and then, with seeming irony, make him one of the executors of the estate, a lawsuit, which in 1910 recovered part of the Peter Ellis Bean land for Samuel Bean's heirs, proved that
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EARLY COLONIZATION
Samuel Bean was his oldest son. Even the irony, if such were intended, missed its point for Samuel died before the will was discovered.
While the Beans may have lived at Mound Prairie, west of the present Alto, where they owned land in 1828, the chief Cherokee County Bean residence was at Bean's Prairie, four miles east of Alto, on a thousand-acre tract of land purchased from Colonel John Durst. The family is known to have been living on it from 1837 until it was sold in December, 1846. No doubt they had lived on it prior to Colonel Bean's removal to Nacogdoches as commandant after the expulsion of Colonel Piedras in 1832. Here he had much personal property at the time of his death. Today it is a part of the L. F. Hill estate.
Candace Bean, then Candace Hicks through a second marriage, died in 1848. Tradition long had it that, according to her own wish, she was buried between two trees which she had planted near the old San Antonio road; that Time obliterated all trace of the grave so that, when straightening of the road made it necessary to cut down the trees and dynamite the stumps, no one realized it had been there and consequently the King's Highway now passes over it. As a matter of fact, however, her grave may still be seen in the old Roark family cemetery.
Another early Cherokee County settlement was on what is now known as Box's Creek. In 1826, as a colonist under the David G. Burnet contract, John M. Box of Alabama petitioned the Mexican government for a league of land in what is now Hous- ton County. The title was finally issued, June 11, 1835. Thus one of the most distinguished of the present Cherokee County families settled in Texas. Their trail soon crossed the Neches River. On September 12, 1835, Roland W. Box, one of the five sons of John M. Box, purchased one-third of a league which had just been granted to Stephen Burnham, a Tennessee bachelor who had previously had no land on which "to practice agriculture and the raising of stock." Here, on an elevation west of the creek, which now bears the Box name, and about half a mile from the southeast corner of the present Zaccheus Gibbs survey, was built a log fort, afterwards known as Box's Fort, which became the center of a settlement, including the father and brothers of Roland Box. While no soldiers were regularly stationed in it, the building afforded protection to the neighborhood when Indians were on the warpath. Some twenty-five years ago fire destroyed the last
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A HISTORY OF CHEROKEE COUNTY
remnants of the structure, which had long been used as a dwelling.
In October, 1835, William S. Box, one of the five brothers, was granted a league of Cherokee land some seven miles north- west of Box's Fort. Samuel C. and James E. Box, and possibly some of the other brothers, served in the Texas revolutionary army. Some time prior to 1845, John A. Box moved to what is now the Mrs. H. M. A. Hassell farm, on the Peter Lovejoy survey. His log house was the post office and voting box for Box's Creek. In later years it was confused with the old fort. Two years ago it was torn down to give place to a modern residence and some of the logs used in a barn. Samuel and William Box were members of the commission appointed to locate the county seat. John and Samuel Box are recalled by many of the oldest citizens as two of the most faithful of the pioneer ministers. Roland and James Box later moved to Anderson County, the latter being one of the commission to locate the Anderson County seat. His grandson, the Honorable John C. Box of Jacksonville, is one of the most widely known Cherokee citizens of today, having for twelve years served his district as congressman.6
In addition to Helena Kimble, two other women, Sarah Ann Duncan and Barbara C. Lewis, were included in the fifty-six grants made prior to 1839. Each received one league in 1835, the year in which the majority of the grants were made to members of the David G. Burnet and the Joseph Vehlein colonies .?
The following documents, recorded in the Cherokee County clerk's office in connection with the Zaccheus Gibbs survey, picture the manner in which a colonist obtained his title.
"Mr. Special Commissioner of the enterprise of Citizen David G. Burnet-I, Zaccheus Gibbs, a native of the United States of
"John Calvin Box was born near Crockett, Houston County, March 28, 1871; attended Alexander Institute at Kilgore; was admitted to the bar in 1893 and began practice at Lufkin; moved to Jacksonville in 1897; county judge, 1898- 1901; mayor of Jacksonville, 1902-5; member State Democratic Committee, 1908-10; member of Congress, 1919-31; leader in the prohibition campaigns.
7In December, 1826, David G. Burnet, formerly of New Jersey, and Joseph Vehlein, a German merchant in Mexico City, were each authorized to establish three hundred families within designated territory which included Cherokee County. In March, 1829, Lorenzo de Zavala, a prominent Mexican citizen, con- tracted for five hundred families in territory adjacent to the Vehlein contract. Lack of capital and reports of revolution in Mexican territory hampered the fulfillment of these contracts. After futile efforts to secure the necessary colonists, the three empresarios transferred their contracts to the Galveston Bay and Texas Land Company, October 16, 1830, which immediately staged a sen- sational campaign, directed from its New York office, for "selling Texas" to immigrants. The Mexican Government, however, refused to recognize the new company and actual settlement was delayed until governmental restrictions were removed in 1834.
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the North, with due respect present myself before you and say that, attracted by the generous offers of the colonization laws of this state, I have come with my family, consisting of one child, to settle myself in the same if you should deem it proper in view of the accompanying certificate to admit me as a colonist, granting me one league in the vacant lands of the aforesaid enterprise. Therefore I pray you to be pleased to grant the favor I implore, to whom I shall ever live grateful. (Signed) Z. Gibbs, Nacogdoches, December 1, 1834."
"Decree: The party interested will pass with the accompany- ing certificate to the Empresario to whom it corresponds in order that he may report relative to the foregoing petition. (Signed) George Antonio Nixon, Land Commissioner. Nacogdoches, December 2, 1834."
"Report Mr. Commissioner : I certify that the party interested is one of the colonists whom I have introduced in fulfillment of the contract I have celebrated with the Supreme Government of the State, December 22, 1826. Therefore you may issue the order of survey of the lands he solicits. (Signed) A. Hotchkiss, Attor- ney for David G. Burnet. Nacogdoches, December 3, 1834."
Land Commissioner Nixon then ordered Surveyor Citizen Arthur Henrie to survey the league which Gibbs indicated, pro- vided it was vacant. Surveyor Henrie reported his work com- pleted, January 21, 1835, and a title of possession was given.
"Citizen George Antonio Nixon, Special Commissioner for the Supreme government of the State for the partition and giving possession of lands and the issuing of titles to colonists in the enterprise of Citizen David G. Burnet-Whereas Z. Gibbs has been admitted as a colonist in the colonizing enterprise contracted by Empresario Citizen David G. Burnet with the Supreme Gov- ernment of the State December 22, 1826, and the aforementioned Z. Gibbs having fully proven that he is a widower, his family consisting of two persons, and being found to possess the requi- sites prescribed by the law of Colonization, March 24, 1825 . I put him in possession, real and personal, of one league of land ... February 2, 1835. (Signed) Antonio Nixon."
Unfortunately Gibbs' enjoyment of his new home was brief. A band of raiding Indians, who had slipped across the Neches River, caught him alone in his field and scalped him, about 1842. For some time his daughter, Phoebe, made her home at Cook's Fort.
No list of early colonists can now be made complete. In addi- tion to the settlers already mentioned, the following families are
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A HISTORY OF CHEROKEE COUNTY
known to have lived within the present county boundaries prior to the expulsion of the Indians.
Martin Lacy, the Indian agent who carried President Mirabeau B. Lamar's decree of banishment to Chief Bowles, lived at Lacy's Fort,8 located on a commanding elevation on the old San Antonio road two miles west of the present Alto. During the Cordova Rebellion in 1838 Captain Augustin's troops, sent to reconnoiter between the Neches and the Angelina rivers, spent two days at the fort. Soldiers, however, were not regularly stationed at this point, although it was more than once the object of an Indian attack. Prior to the establishment of Cherokee County, it was a voting precinct in Nacogdoches County. William Y. Lacy, one of Martin Lacy's sons, married Louisa Jane Bean, the only daughter of the noted Peter Ellis Bean. In 1849 William Shaw, great-grandfather of Mrs. E. R. Gregg of Rusk, purchased part of the Lacy league, including the fort site. Mrs. Gregg's grand- mother was married in one of the fort buildings in 1856.
James Bradshaw lived on the San Antonio road some two and one-half miles east of the Neches River, on land purchased from Peter Ellis Bean in 1829. In 1835 he was made a member of the Committee on Public Safety appointed by the convention held at Nacogdoches. A year later General Sam Houston ordered him to organize the militia in the Nacogdoches District into well- armed companies, ready to move should threatened Indian hostili- ties materialize. For a number of years he was a deputy surveyor for Nacogdoches County. Death prevented his having a part in the organization of Cherokee County.
Another prominent colonist of this early period was William Roark. Armed with two letters of recommendation, one from the Tennessee surveyor under whom he had served for seven years, the other signed by his home county sheriff and twenty-eight fellow-citizens, and their church letter, the Roarks started for the province of Texas in the fall of 1834. Settling on the John Durst grant, Roark was soon appointed surveyor for the colonies of David G. Burnet, Lorenzo de Zavala and Joseph Vehlein. After the organization of Nacogdoches County, which first included Cherokee County, he served in various official capacities. For some years he was a partner in the Mt. Sterling firm of Durst, Mitchell & Company. As a member of the commission to locate the county seat, as one of the first county commissioners and as a surveyor he continued to play an important rôle in Cherokee
8This is not to be confused with Lacy's Fort west of the Neches River.
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County affairs until his death in 1862. Margaret Roark, his wife, was the daughter of the famous pioneer Baptist minister, Isaac Reed. Their descendants include the Selmans, Boones, Mc- Cuistions and Crosbys.
Daniel Rawls, another planter on the Durst survey in 1837, continued to live in the county until his death in 1853. He was a partner of Ira R. Lewis of Matagorda County to whom Colonel Durst made the first sale of the division of his vast grant. In 1835 Brooks Williams, a soldier under Colonel Peter Ellis Bean in the Fredonian rebellion, was granted a league near the Neches on which to settle his wife and seven children. Later he received a second league. According to local tradition, he was killed by an Indian. The Musicks were neighbors of the Bradshaws and Lacys. As an old man, William Musick delighted to recount his experi- ences hunting and fishing with the sons of Chief Bowles.
In 1834, Absalom Gibson, who subsequently surveyed much of Cherokee County, was granted a league in Burnet's colony in the northwest part of the present county. Here he lived until 1838. According to family tradition, he moved away shortly before the Killough massacre because he believed the threats of the old chief who daily warned him, "Me dirt. Me dirt. Get away. Get away. Not mad now. Get mad by and by. Fight a heap." The Killoughs (Isaac, Sr., Isaac, Jr., Samuel, Allen and Nathaniel), Barakias and Owen Williams and George Wood lived in the same section, some five miles west of the present Mt. Selman. The tragic fate of this settlement has already been recorded.
William Hicks, J. W. Adkinson and Daniel Meredith settled four miles east of Rusk in the '30s. The Adkinsons were rela- tives of Sam Houston. When he spoke in Rusk in later years he stayed with Jane Adkinson, then Mrs. Daniel Meredith, mother of Mrs. Vie Pryor. In 1835 Levi Jordan was living on his league on Box's Creek, land on which the noted 1934 discovery oil well is located. John Jordan had a house on his league some five miles from the Neches Saline. Later he became the pioneer East Texas salt manufacturer. William F. Williams and George May were located on Striker Creek.
Joseph T. Cook, an emigrant from North Carolina who had settled in the San Augustine country in the early '30s and later moved to Nacogdoches, employed a military company under the command of a certain Captain Black to build a fort on the Joseph T. Cook league three miles southeast of Rusk, known as Cook's
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A HISTORY OF CHEROKEE COUNTY
Fort.º Here lived the sons of Joseph T. Cook, William, Joseph T. Jr., James, David, Samuel ; his sons-in-law, Jesse and Absalom Gibson; and a friend, Elias Nelson. Despite the many printed statements to the contrary, Cook's Fort was never the object of an Indian attack.
After the stockade was torn down homesteads were established on adjacent land. At the point where these joined James Cook built a store and a blacksmith shop which proved the nucleus of the village of Cook's Fort, said to have attained a population of two hundred and fifty, including slaves. In 1846 the locating commission considered it as a site for the new county seat. Family tradition pictures James Cook opposed to its being chosen because of interference with his extensive slave farming interests. After the establishment of Rusk most of Cook's Fort inhabitants moved to the new town. Today the site of the village is a field, owned by J. L. Beall.
Part of the original grant, including the site of the fort, is still owned by Cook descendants. Until her death in 1934, Miss Belle Cook, granddaughter of Joseph T. Cook and third owner of the grant, lived on the fort site, maintaining its traditional hospitality and keeping open house for the numerous visitors continually stopping for a view of the historic spot. A monument of native stone, built by Rusk Boy Scouts, marks the site of this landmark.
If all the colonizing contracts were actually fulfilled, the fol- lowing names should be added to the list of American immi- grants prior to 1839; Elihu C. Allison, Larkin Baker, William Bartee, Crawford Burnet, James Cobb, John Engledow, Alston and Warwick Ferguson, William Gates, Edson Gee, James Ham- ilton, John Harrison, Edward W. Hackett, Jesse T. Jones, Isaac Kendrick, John Malone, John McGregor, Uriah Moore, Henry Myers, Kinchin Odom, Beverly Pool, Isaac Reed, George Ruddle, Thomas Timmons, John Vaughn and John Walker. How many were fulfilled has not been ascertained. How many actual settlers purchased land from the original holders of grants is another puzzling question.
In addition to Cook's Fort three other villages or towns ante-
9 Many printed statements have erroneously placed the date of the building of this fort in the early '30s. According to the late Miss Belle Cook, it was built in 1838. The Probate Court Minutes contain a statement made in 1848 by William James, a member of the company employed to do the work, that it was built about the first of January, 1840. The fact that it had a stockade, together with many stories, apparently authentic, of the presence of friendly Cherokee Indians, would seem to indicate that it was built before the expulsion of the Cherokees in 1839.
MONUMENT-COOK'S FORT Built by Rusk Boy Scouts
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EARLY COLONIZATION
date the county organization-Striker Town, Lockranzie and Lin- wood. Detailed information concerning them is not available.
A deed dated June 8, 1835, calls for land on the waters of the Angelina about six miles west of Striker Village, including improvements made by William F. Williams and George May the preceding November at the forks of a path leading from the Saline on the Neches to Striker Village. A second deed, April 3, 1849, shows the same W. F. Williams purchasing six hundred and forty acres near Striker Town. In November of the same year the commissioners court ordered the review of a road from Striker Town to the Saline. On December 16, 1850, Hundley Wiggins bequeathed his son all the land on Striker Creek known as the Striker Town survey, beginning in the southwest corner of the Jose I. Sanchez survey. With this scanty outline the author is compelled to leave the reconstruction of Striker Town to the reader's imagination.
Were it not for the deed records and the memories of a very few Cherokee citizens of today, the town bearing the picturesque name of Lockranzie might be called a myth. The majority of even the oldest Cherokeeans never heard of it and none can tell its origin.
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