USA > Texas > Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. 2 > Part 35
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As senior officer of three small volunteer com- ponies, in 1855 he parsued a party of Lipan and Kickapoo Indians across the Rio Grande to their chief encampment bear San Fernando, twenty- seven miles inside of Mexico and there had a bloody fight. He was soon confronted hy over- whelming odds, including large numbers of Mexi- can outlaws, and was compelled to retreat, but in
doing so displayed such admirable tact and courage as to not only preserve the utmost coolness among his followers, but to repulse the frequent attacks of his porsuers. His wounded, including little B. Eustace Benton, whose brains were oozing through a ballet-hole in his eye, were successfully brought away. This heroic youth, now of Pine Bluff, Ark., was carried for that long distance by Capt. Wm. A. Pitts, of Austin, who placed the wounded and unconscious boy in his saddie and rode behind him on the same horse, tenderly holding his little friend in his arms. This scene with bullets whiz- zing from a relentless foc, and the father ( Col. Nat. Benton) wrought almost into frenzy by what he considered the death wound of his only child, involuntarily recalls the legend of Damon and Pythias. Another youth, Willis, the son of the Hon. William E. Jones, was left dead on the field.
The enemy expected to greatly cripple Callahan's foree while recrossing the Rio Gramle at Eagle Pass, but in this they were disappointed by the
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timely action of the United States commander, of humanity, as did his second in command, Capt. Capt. Burbank, of Fort Duncan, on the Texas John G. Walker, afterwards a Confederate Major- General. bank, who turned his guns so as to rake the west- ern bank and by this ocular demonstration said to the pursuers: " If you attack my countrymen while they are crossing the river, I shall pour shot and shell into your ranks." The admonition bad the desired effect and unquestionably saved many lives. It won the heart of Texas to that gallant officer, who hazarded his commission in the cause
Capt. Callahan about this time settled on the Rio Blanco, in Hays County, and soon afterwards fell a victim to assassination, regretted by all who knew his worth and his services to the country. It was the privilege of the writer, joyfully exercised in the Legislature of 1857-8, to name the county of Callahan as a tribute to his memory.
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MRS. ANGELINA BELLE EBERLY,
To dwell on the characters of the carly pioneers and portray their courage and virtue has ever been a sad pleasure to the anthor, the more so because of the oft-repeated and unpardonable falsehood that Texas was originally settled by refugees from jus- tice, and outlaws from the United States - a more infamous slander than which never fell from human lips or pen. In the plenitude of Ilis mercy the God of our fathers and our God never allotted to the wilderness of any country, as its pioneers, a grander or purer-hearted people than those who first settled the colonies of Austin, De Witt, Robert- son, De Leon, Powers and Hewitson and M.cMullen and MeGloin in Texas. They were neither outlaws nor refugees from justice, but fathers and mothers who came here, under the enticing colonial laws of Mexico, in search of lands so munificently tendered that they lioped to be able to give to each son and daughter, as he or she married, a landed home of his or her own, rather than to have them become tenants to some rich landholders, as in the older States and in all old countries. To even do this required a courage, morally and physically, worthy of the highest commendation, for this country was then a vast wilderness in the possession of roving bands of treacherous, bloodthirsty and hostile soy- ages. There was no field for robbers, for there was nothing to rob. There was no field for murderers, for love and mutual affection and dependence per- vated every household. There were no drunken rows, for whisky was unknown in the great bulk of the country. Peace, harmony, mutual dependence and mutual regard pervaded every cabin from the Trin- ity to the San Antonio. The only murder over
committed for robbery in colonial Texas, from 1821 to the Republic in 1839, was by one stranger upon another - by the son of an ex-Governor of Ken- tucky. The murderer was arrested, tried, and sentenced to be hung, but died in prison before the day of execution. Can the world surpass such facts in the settlement of any wilderness country ? But in the comparison, remember that Texas was a foreign and a wilderness country, settled by for- eigners, born to the use of the pistol and rifle, and then the comparison more distinctly stands forth in vindication of the early pioneers of Texas. No man who has lived fifty or sixty years in Texas can make the comparison to-day of the " then " and the " now " without a sense of pain. I speak for my fellow-men and women, as one who has seen, has been a part of and lived through both eras of our civilization.
It is a solemn and indisputable fact that among the earliest pioneers of Texas there was an extraor- dinary per cent of the purest, most refined and lov- able women, and in this and succeeding chapters I desire to speak of a few of them as fair representa- tives of the class to which they belonged.
The first to be mentioned was AAngelina Belle Peyton, born in Tennessee, the daughter of an early Virginia surveyor located in that then new State, and a sister of the long-noted Bailie Peyton. She married her cousin, Jonathan C. Peyton, and as a young bride landed at the mouth of the Colorado. on Matagorda Bay. in one of the first schooner- loads of immigrants (both arriving at the same time ) in February, 1822.
This young couple, in due time, settled at the
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new town of San Felipe, on the Brazos. Two chil- dren were born to them - Alexander G. Peyton and Mag, who became a pet child of Travis, Bowie, the Wharton brothers, the Jack brothers, Lesas- sure, Stephen F. Austin, R. M. Williamson, and all the prominent men of that day. She was a beanti- ful child. Mr. Peyton died before the revolution, leaving these two little children. Mrs. Peyton, with a few household servants, thrown upon her own resources, opened a hotel in San Felipe, which became the headquarters of the most distinguished men of Texas. When the revolution broke out in 1835, and San Felipe was the virtual capital of the country, she was thus occupied, and was known throughout Texas, not only as a devoted patriot, but as one of the handsomest and most queenly women ever born in the valley of the Mississippi. In his celebrated and only speech before the coun- cil, in Deeember, 1835 (of which an account has been elsewhere given), Col. James Bowie, while appealing for active service and justice, said :-
" My attendants are encamped under a tree, my horses are shivering on the prairie as the sleet falls, and I am a guest on the bounty of that grandest of American women in this country, Mrs. Angelina B. Peyton."
At the close of the revolution Mrs. Peyton mar- ried Capt. Jacob Eberly, who was in the ranging service, and when Austin was founded in the autumn of 1839, she built, opened and kept the Eberly house in that place. In the dismal periods of 1843, connected with what is historically known
as the Archive war, her son, Alexander G. Peyton, was murdered in the streets of Austin. Capt. Eberly died not far from the same time and this early pioneer mother found herself again alone, with only little Maz, the early pet of San Felipe, left to her. The virtual desolation of Austin from 1842 to 1844 swept away her available property values. So about 1848, with her only remaining tie to earth, little Mag, she removed to Matagorda Bay - first to Lavaca and then to Indianola. Mag married a noble young lawyer and ex-soldier in Ben McCulloch's company in the Mexiean War, named James T. Lytle. In October, 1850, she gave birth to a son, Peyton Bell Lytle, and died, leaving the little innocent but a few days old. This child's history would furnish material for a thrill- ing novel, in which the name of the Hon. Fletcher S. Stockdale (his secondary father) would be hon- ored among the pure and just. But I cannot dwell upon those delicate and heart-stirring facts. Time passed. Mrs. Eberly visited Lexington, Ky., and was clasped by the hand of Henry Clay, as one of the historie and lovable women of the Southwest, and the sister of his life-long friends, Bailie, Holmes and William R. Peyton.
A little later this queenly daughter of Tennessee and Texas died. Despite her sorrows, she left a handsome and landed estate, and her memory was revered by Houston, Burnet, Lamar, Jones, Burle- son, Bec, Sherman and all the then prominent. survivors of the Texas revolutionary and ante- revolutionary days of Texas.
RANDALL JONES.
Among the very earliest defenders of Texas was Capt. Randall Jones, who was born in Columbus, Ga., on the 19th of August, 1786. Iu 1810 he removed to Wilkinson County, Miss. In 1812 he became a Captain of United States Volunteers and on the 12th of November, 1813, commanded in the celebrated " Canoe Fight," on the Alabama river, in which nine Creek war- riors were killed. Pickett's history of Alabama omits mention of Capt. Jones in this affair, award- ing the credit to Jere Austill, Samuel Dale, Mr. Smith and others. Many yearslater Dale waslionized
as the hero of the occasion, the real commander having soon left that country and, having " no friend at court," to guard his laurels -- a fate that has befallen numerous early heroes of Texas, whose merits, after their death, have been overlooked and sometimes awarded to others. In the instance re- ferred to Capt. Jones, in command of sixty volun- teers, marched from Fort Madison for the Alabama river, on the Ilth of November, 1813, and on the 12th fell in with and defeated two parties of Creeks, the second being the canoe party. The facts written in the detachment itself, from the east bank of the
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Alabama, on the 25th of November, were published in the Washington ( Mississippi) Republican, on the 23d of December, 1813. The writer said : " Capt. Jones and his party deserve the greatest praise and honor for the handsome manner in which the enterprise was conducted."
In the fall of 1814, Capt. Jones visited the Sabine river. In 1815 again he entered Texas with goods and traded with the Indians. In 1816 he opened a store at Nacogdoches and visited Lafitte ou Galves- ton Island to buy negroes, but whether he succeeded or not cannot be stated. He was hospitably enter- tained, however, and found in the famous buccaneer a man of external polish and winning address. He temporarily allied himself with the first scheme of Long, in 1819, and in command of a small party .near where Washington is on the Brazos, he was driven, along with all of Long's followers, from the country, by Spanish troops from Mexico.
Early in 1822 he permanently settled, as an Amer- iean colonist, on the Brazos, in Fort Bend County, and theneeforward, till age asserted its supremacy, was all that patriotism and good citizenship imply, his courage and experience in Indian warfare ren- dering him doubly useful. In September, 1824, he commanded in a severe but unsuccessful engagement with the Caraneahua Indians on a creek in Brazoria County, from which the stream has ever since been known as "Jones' creek." In this fight fifteen Indians were killed, and three white men, viz. : Spencer, Singer and Bailey.
Capt. Jones reared a highly respectable family, served in the Consultation, the first revolutionary convention, in November, 1835, and continued to reside on his original Brazos home till a short time before his death. Losing his eyesight he removed to Houston, where he died in June, 1873.
JOHN AUSTIN.
The early death of the sterling patriot, Capt. John Austin-dying before the revolution began in 1835-has been the cause (as is true of a number of other gallant and conspicuous men in the earliest trials of Texas, who died prior to the same period), of his name not being familiar to the people of the present time. Yet he is justly entitled to be ranked among the foremost and most valuable men of the colonial period of our history and, as will be seen, somewhat before that period was inaugurated.
John Austin was born and reared in Connecticut, but was not of the family of Moses Austin, a native of the same State, who, in 1821, received the first permission ever granted under the authorities of Spain to form an American settlement in Texas. When quite young Jolin Austin drifted to the Southwest, in various ways developing nerve, intel- ligence, love of adventure and capacity to lead. In 1819 he left New Orleans under the auspices of Capt. Long's second expedition into Texas, then announced as in aid of the patriot cause in the Mexican revolution against Spain. ( Long's first expedition, a few months before, avowed the pur- pose and actually inaugurated at Nacogdoches. ou paper, the form of an independent Republic, but
his divided force of about three hundred men was speedily driven from the country by Spanishtroops. ) This second expedition avowed a different purpose and was joined by a number of exiled Mexican patriots, the chief of whom was Don Felix de Tres- palacios. The expedition rendezvoused on the barren island of Galveston and Bolivar Point on the mainland. Trespalacios, accompanied by the in- trepid Kentuckian, Col. Ben. R. Milam, Col. Christy, of New Orleans, and others, sailed down the coast and effected a landing somewhere north of Vera Cruz and formed a junction with patriots in the country. Long, with only Gfty-two men, by an understanding with Trespalacios, sailed down the coast into Matagorda Bay, thence into the bay of Espiritu Santa and up the Guadalupe river a few miles, where he landed ant marched upon La Bahia, now known as Goliad. John Austin was one of his chief lieutenants. La Bahia was sur- prised and easily captured. A few days later a Spanish force from San Antonio appeared and hos- tilities began, lasting two or three days, when Long was sedneed by Spanish cunning into a capitula- tion, under the absurd pretense that his assailants were also patriots and had been fighting under a
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misapprehension, and a promise that their arms should be restored as soon as the alarm of the cit- izeus subsided, and that they should be treated as brother patriots. As soon as disarmed, however, they were harshly treated as prisoners and sent to San Antonio and next to Monterey. Omitting de- tails, it so happened that about this time news spread all over Northern Mexico that the revolution had triumphed and a new order of things had been . inaugurated in the capitol. Then Long and his men were released and considered as brethren. Long, with John Austin and Maj. Byrne, was al- lowed to proceed to the eity of Mexico, where they were hailed as friends and co-workers in the great cause of Mexican independence. Time hur- ries. Trespalacios, Milam and Christy had also reached the capitol. Trespalacios was announeed as prospective Governor of Texas. Long was basely assassinated. His countrymen there be- lieved Trespalacios, through jealousy or some other cause, instigated the murder. They (Milam, Aus- tin and Christy ) hastened back to their fifty friends in Monterey and arranged a plan to wreak vengeance ou Trespalacios on his way to Texas. They were betrayed by two of their own number and sent to the capitol as prisoners, where they remained some months, till late in 1822, when, through the inter- eession of Joel R. Poinsett, Commissioner from the United States, they were released and through him sent from Tampico to the United States on the sloop-of-war, "John Adams." John Austin and others were landed at Norfolk, Va., and a few pro- ceeded from Havana to New Orleans.
In the meantime, under the inspiration of the then deceased Moses Austin, but under the leader- ship of his son, Stephen F., American settlements were beginning in Texas. Ere long John Austin cast his lot with them, and theneeforward was a pillar of strength to the settlements on the lower Brazos. A man of sound mind, conservative and courageous, he was a safe counselor and a reeog- nized leader. Yet, for several years, nothing oe- curred to distinguish bim from other intelligent and conscientious moen. Ife married and lived happily. When all of Austin's colony constituted one mu- nicipality, entitled to a first and second Alcalde, the year 1882 marked the era - Horatio Chriesman being first and John Austin second Alcalde, cover- ing what now constitutes about twelve important counties. Chriesman lived in what is now Wash- ington County and Austin in Brazoria, San Felipe being the seat of justice.
In the early part of 1832 began the first hostile troubles between the Americans in Texas and the Mexican government, inaugurated by a decree of
April 6, 1830, promulgated by that rare combina- tion of demagoguery, politieal ignorance, tyranny and stupidity, Anastasio Bustamente, self-constitu- ted President of the Republic. That arbitrary de- cree - the keynote to tho downfall of Mexican power in Texas - forbade the further immigration of Americans into Texas. Its direct effect, if tol- erated, was to sever hundreds of husbands, then in Texas erecting homes, from their families in the United States, expecting soon to follow them. More remotely it burst into atoms the plans and prospective intentions of vast numbers of kindred and neighbors in the United States, represented in their several special plans by some trusted friend or agent already in Texas. It was a barbarous and senseless decree, issued in utter ignorance of the Anglo-Saxon character. But in co-ordination with this exercise of power came the establishment of eustom hrouses and military garrisons, utterly un- necessary to the enforcement of the revenue laws and designed only to "harass the people and eat up their substanee." Without going into detail, it is enough to say that the commander at Anahuac (mouth of the Trinity), who, we blush to say, was a Kentuckian by birth, but in nothing else, so out- raged the people by his brutal and despotic acts, that the country rose almost en masse, resolved to drive the Mexican soldiery from the country. John Austin stood forth as a leader in that erisis. The events belong to our general history and cannot be detailed here. The matters at Anahuae were over- come without serious bloodshed. But at Velasco, at the mouth of the Brazos, a bloody battle was fought on the 26th of June, 1832. John Austin was the commander, supported by a company under Capt. Henry S. Brown, eo-operating with him on the shore and an armed schooner in the river. under Capt. William J. Russell. This foree --- forty-seven each under Austin and Brown and cigbteen under Russell -- fought 130 Mexicans, in a strong carthen fort, for nine hours and compelled them to surrender after two-thirds of their number had been killed or wounded - the Texians losing seven in killed and twenty-seven wounded. It was the first battle between the colonists of Texas and the Mexican soldiery -- a soldiery not of the Re- publican but of the Reactionary party in Mexico. It was a victory heroically won under the leader- ship of John Austin, and entitles his memory to a warm place in the heart of every child of Texas, now and hereafter.
Almost at the same instant in Mexico, Santa Anna, as the champion of liberty, rose up and drove the tyrant from power. Texas rejoiced and hailed hình as a deliverer. Still, grave questions needed
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adjustment and the people of Texas earnestly de- sired to explain their grievances to the new govern- ment of Mexico and to ask simply to be let alone and live in peace. To accomplish this purpose Horatio Chriesman and John Austin, first and see- ond Alealdes, called a convention of chosen dele- gates from all the districts in Texas, to meet at San Felipe on the 1st of October, 1832. Fifty-eight duly elected delegates assembled. John Austin was himself a member, and for himself and assoei- ate' Alcalde called the convention to order and in a most lueid and concise manner explained both the reason for calling and the material objects of the convention. Stephen F. Austin was elected presi- dent, and Francis W. Johnson, secretary. Among the members were William II. Wharton, Luke Lesassier, James Kerr, Henry S. Brown, Nestor Clay, Charles S. Taylor, Patrick C. Jack and William R. Hensley.
The convention sat six days and formulated a series of measures which, being followed up by the convention of April 1, 1833, of which William H. Wharton was president, finally led to the revolution of 1835 and the independence of Texas. Even at that carly date the sense of the convention was taken for and against asking that Texas be erected into a State distinct from Coahuila. Thirty-six votes were cast in favor of, and twelve against, the meas- ure. This convention, so strangely overlooked by historians, caused infinitely more agitation among the Mexican officials than did that of 1833, so often mentioned, and which sent Stepben F. Austin to Mexico to ask for the admission of Texas as a State of the Mexican union, resulting in his dastardly
imprisonment in that country. The result was that by the ignorant, jealousy-inspired conduct of the then rulers of Mexico, instead of becoming a happy, prosperous and contented State of Mexico and a bulwark to her people against hostile savages, Texas, within less than three years, threw off the Mexican yoke and became an independent Republic. Full many high-spirited youth, in this land of ours, have been virtually driven from home by similar parental tyranny, some to ruin, as illustrated in the Central American States, others to happiness and prosperity, as in Texas, and, in a qualified sense, Chili and Venezuela.
In all these years John Austin was a true and wise citizen, with promise of increasing usefulness, but a few months after this convention, in the sum- mer of 1833, the grim messenger, stalking under the insignia of Asiatie cholera, paused sufficiently long in Brazoria to strike down not only him, but D. W. Anthony, a pioneer editor, and other valued citizens. He left a widow, but no children. The city of Houston stands on land granted to him. Neither county, town nor street perpetuates his name, because appropriated to one more conspicu- ously identified with colonial affairs. Yet, while this is so, it seems meet and eminently just that, in some way, the distinctive names of both Moses and Jolin Austin should be engraved on the map of Texas.
William T. Austin, a younger brother of John, came to Texas in 1830, served in the armies of 1835-6, and died in Galveston in 1874. A third brother, named Willis Austin, never in Texas, in 1870 resided in Norwich, Conn.
J. E. MOORE,
TEMPLE.
Jonathan Ewing Moore, one of the founders of Temple, has been a resident of Bell County since 1859, and of the Lone Star State for more than four decades. He was born in Marion County, Ala., in 1840, and is a son of Jesse W. and Dezina (Fitzgerald) Moore, natives of South Carolina and Alabama respectively. Jesse W. Moore removed to Texas in 1851, arriving in Bastrop County on the first day of that year. He purchased land on which he made his home until 1859, and then moved to Bell County and settled on Elm creek. There he
opened up a large tract of land with his brother, James W. His death occurred in 1864, and that of his wife iu 1853. Both were worthy members of the Baptist Church. After the death of his first wife, Mr. Moore married a second time, and his widow now resides on the old homestead in Bell County.
J. K. Moore acquired an education in the com- mon schools of Bastrop County. He came to Bell County with his father, and engaged in farming and stock-raising. In 1871 he bought a tract of 350
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acres of land, to which lie added other tracts, lying on the wild prairie, and opened a fine farm. Ten years later the Santa Fe Railroad was built through the section and the company bought 200 acres of Mr. Moore's farm for a town site. The place was named Temple in honor of B. M. Temple, Chief Engineer of the Santa Fe Road. Mr. Moore at once laid out a portion of his remaining land in. town lots, and entered into the real estate business. He made six individual additions to the place, called Moore's Addition, Moore's Park Addition, Moore's Railroad Addition, Moore's Knight Addi- tion, Moore's Hargrove Addition and Moore's Crawford Addition. He, also, in copartnership with others laid out the Jones & Moore and Moore & Cole Additions. He is also a director of Free- man Ileights Addition. Besides attending to liis large real estate interests, he lias assisted in form- ing some of the most important corporations doing business in the town. Hc sided in the organization
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