USA > Texas > Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. 2 > Part 48
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They were the parents of a large number of children, only six of whom, however, five daughters and one son, became grown. The son, William H., died at about the age of twenty-one in the Confed- erate army. The daughters were married. Four are still living. Of these, Mary E. married Thomas L. Scott, is a widow, and resides at Inde- pendence ; Eliza M. was married to Andrew B. Shelburne, and resides with her husband at Bryan : Victoria C. married Moses B. Hairston, and resides with her husband at Bartlett, Williamson County ; and Medora L. is the widow of John A. McCrock- lin, and lives at Independence. Still another daughter, Maria L., the first female white ehild born west of the Brazos, was married to W. W. Hill, and died shortly after her father, in January. 1847, in Burleson County.
This pioneer of Texas, John P. Cole, has but few descendants now living.
GEORGE W. WOODMAN,
LAREDO.
George W. Woodman, deceased, a well-remem- bered Texas pioncer, came to the State at about seventeen years of age.
He was a native of New Orleans, La., where he was born December 31st, 1832. He was the sec- ond son of a successful building contractor of that city, who died, leaving an estate valued at about $60,000.00, which was equally divided between these two sons, his only children.
George W., the subject of this sketch, upon coming to Texas, located at Indianola, where, though yet a very young man, he entered exten- sively into the wholesaling and retailing of wines,
liquors and groceries at the upper, or earliest, settlement of that historical old point. Partially owing to inexperience and a combination of un- forescen circumstances, the venture was unsuccess. ful. He subsequently served, by appointment, as Deputy District Clerk, of Calhoun County. and later by election he filled the same office for a period in all of about twelve years. He there mar- ried, April 2, 1856, Miss Ella C., daughter of Col. Henry White, a Texas pioneer.
Mr. and Mrs. Woodman lived at Indianola from 1856 to 1872, and then moved to Corpus Christi, where he worked as an accountant for leading busi-
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ness honses until 1880, when they moved to Laredo, where the older son had embarked in business. In Laredo Mr. Woodman found employment as an accountant, and died there in November, 1890. Two sons, George C. and Albert V. (who now compose the well-known hardware firm of George C. Woodman & Brother, at Laredo) and Mrs. Woodman still survive.
Mrs. Woodman's father, Col. White, came to Texas as early as 1842 from Louisville, Ky., bring- ing with him his family and a large amount of money, made in the wholesale and retail dry goods business in that city, where he owned at one time three establishments.
He was a native of London, England, was reared to the mercantile business, and came to America when about twenty-two years of age and located in New York City, where he engaged in business as a broker and speculator, and there met and married Miss Eliza Lackman, a native of Buttermilk Falls, Westchester County, N. Y.
Owing to poor health, Col. White came West, as before stated, and for similar reasons left Louis- ville, where he had accumulated a fortune, and
where his children were born, and came to Gal- veston, Texas.
He soon purchased land and at a large expense developed a country home near Morgan's Point in Galveston County, on Galveston Bay. Unused to country life and rural pursuits he sold his property at Morgan's Point and located with his family in Galveston, and there engaged for a time in the merchandise brokerage and auction business.
Upon the discovery of gold in 1849, he was one of the first to go to California, taking with him a stock of goods. He engaged in merchandising at Sacramento for a period of about six years, and then returned to his family at Galveston, and took them to St. Louis, Mo., where he followed the dry goods business until the war broke out.
His three sous joined the Confederate army, and he served the Southern Confederacy as a clerk in the Quartermaster's department during the con- flict. He died while on a trip to New Orleans, in 1865, and his widow a short time later, the same year, at the home of her daughter, in Indianola, Texas. Mrs. Woodman and an older sister, Mrs. Harriett Merriman, are the only surviving members of the family of seven children.
EPHRIAM M. DAGGETT,
FORT WORTH.
No one among the pioneers of Tarrant County made a deeper impress or left behind him a mem- ory that will longer endure in the respect and affec- tion of the people than the late Capt. Ephriam M. Daggett. As one of his eulogists has said of him : "He was born great in stature, mind and soul," and his extraordinary individuality made him easily a leader in every company in which he found him- self. He was born in Canada, eight miles from Niagara Falls, June 3, 1810. Ilis father, who was a Vermonter by birth, espoused the American cause in the War of 1812, and after the war the gov- ernment, in recognition of his services, made him a grant of land in Indiana, where the city of Terre Haute now stands. There the Daggett family, in- cluding the subject of this sketch, who was then ten years old, removed in 1820. He grew up on a farm, and in 1833 went to Chicago, where he was engaged for several years trading with the Indians. About this time his father was seized with the Texas
fever, and the whole family, including Ephriam, came South, landing at Shreveport, La., and from there went to Shelby County, in Eastern Texas, where they located. This was in April, 1840, and there the Daggetts remained, engaged in cultivating the soil. What is known as the Shelby War soon broke out, and the community was divided into two factions, one known as the Regulators and the other as the Moderators. It seems to have been a conflict between the law-abiding and the lawless classes, and Ephriam Daggett, with his father and brothers, did yeoman service with the former. When the Mexican War broke out in 1846, Shelby County raised two companies of troops, and in one of these E. M. Daggett and his brother Charles en- listed. Hewent in as a Lieutenant, and was soon pro- moted to a Captaincy in the celebrated regiment of Texas rangers commanded by Col. Jack Hays. His career during the war was one of splendid courage and daring achievements, and he was con-
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spicuous for personal gallantry in many emergen- cies. After the war he returned to Shelby County, and the fact that he twice represented the county in the Legislature is sufficient evidence of his recog- nized leadership among those people. He made his first trip to Western Texas in 1849, the same year that his brother Henry located there, but he did not finally move his family West until 1854. His first marriage occurred in Indiana in 1834, and his wife bore him one son - Ephriam B. Daggett - who still survived. His second marriage took place in Shelby County, in 1841, and his wife was Mrs. Caroline Adams, from South Carolina. She and his only son, Ephriam, went with him to Fort Worth in 1854, and she died there in 1869. When Capt. Daggett reached Fort Worth, his brother Charles and sister Helen came with the family, his brother Henry being already a resident there. Capt. Daggett at once went into the general mer- cantile business, as a member of the firm of Turner & Daggett, and began the accumulation of a for- tune. He was soon a man of commanding influence and his personal efforts were largely instrumental in getting the county seat removed from Birdville and permanently located at Fort Worth. He did not go into field service during the Civil War, being past the age fixed by law, and after the war con- tinued in the mercantile business at Fort Worth. He had meanwhile acquired large landed interests in and around Fort Worth and was also heavily . Fort Worth.
interested in cattle. In 1872 he was one of the leading men to welcome the Texas and Pacific Rail- road magnates to Fort Worth, and as an induce- ment for the company to build its line there, donated nearly one hundred acres of land, and upon part of it the Union Depot stands to-day." He retired from merchandising and at once
launched into a career of enterprise and speculation which made him a veritable giant in the great work of building a city. His name is indissolubly asso- ciated with those times, and his fellow citizens pointed with pride to the stalwart old man as an example of the class that was compassing big enter- prises and carrying Fort Worth to metropolitan greatness. He was a keen, broad, original thinker, bold in execution, scrupulously honest and just, and very charitable to the deserving poor. In relig- ion he was more nearly allied to the Universalist faith than any other, and in politics he acted with the Democrats until 1878, when he espoused the Greenback cause and was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress on that ticket. He died in Fort Worth, April 19th, 1883, and his death carried sor- row to every home in the city as though it were a personal bereavement. All classes and colors mourned his loss and a vast concourse attended his funeral.
He left a large estate and only one child, Ephriam B. Daggett, long a prominent citizen of
JOHN H. WOOD,
ST. MARYS.
John II. Wood was born September 6, 1816, at the family home, situated between Poughkeepsie and Hyde Park, in the State of New York, and for a brief time during boyhood attended local schools. Ilis parents were Humphrey and Maria Wood. His mother, who died when he was eleven years of age. was a daughter of Richard DeCantillon and nearly related to the Stoughtenburgs and Tallors, repre- sentatives of the fine old patroon families whose spacious manors in New York rivaled in extent and the elegancies of social life the domains of their progenitors in the Old World. Humphrey Wood was of excellent Puritan stock. His ancestors were sea-faring men, and in early life he became one of the " toilers of the deep " and soon rose to the rank
of Captain of a vessel. Later he abandoned the sea, engaged in farming, and established a pleasant home upon the banks of the Hudson, between Poughkeepsie and Hyde Park. He lived to the advanced age of 103 years, dying at Genoa, N. Y., in 1873.
After the death of his mother the subject of this sketch, Maj. John H. Wood, went to the city of New York, where he spent a year or more with an aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Stoughtenburg. At the expiration of that time he returned to the fam- ily homestead, attended school for a short time, and then returned to New York City, where during the succeeding three years he clerked first in a dry goods establishment and then in a grocery store.
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His experience in the grocery store, which was
November 25, 1835, slipped out of New York har- owned and conducted by a man of mean and over- . bor. Arriving off Sandy Hook the vessel encoun- tered a terrific storm, and for a time it seemed certain that she would go to the bottom.
bearing spirit, thoroughly disgusted him. He determined to never again stand behind a counter as an employe, and, aeting upon this resolution, resigned his position, bound himself as an appren- tice and began to learn the painter's trade.
The unjust treatment of her Anglo- American eol- onists by Mexico and the spirited action of the Texans at Velasco, Anahuac, and other places, excited the attention and aroused the sympathy of people living in all parts of the United States. The expulsion of Bradburn from bis stronghold, the entire evacuation of Texas by Mexican forces, the overthrow of the despotism of Bustamante, and Santa Anna's pledges to be governed by and enforce in its true spirit the Mexican constitution of 1824, seemed to mark a happy ending of existing diffi- culties, and popular excitement in the United States was in a measure allayed. It was but the lull, how- ever, before the storm. Santa Anna soon gave unmistakable evidences of his intention to reduce the people of Texas to a condition little better than slavery, depriving them of nearly all their rights and subjecting them to absolute dependence upon his will. The colonists were not slow in organiz- ing for resistance.
Freemen with arms in their hands were apt to be hard to deal with and in pursuance of the plans of the central executive authority Ugartechea pro- ceeded with a Mexican force to Gonzales to demand a cannon in the possession of the people of that place and convey it to San Antonio. A small Texian force was quickly assembled, his demand was answered with defiance, a sharp skirmish ensued and the first volley of the Texian revolution (as fateful as that which greeted the British regulars at Lexington) whistled through the air. Ugartechea was defeated and driven back to Bexar and war formally inangurated.
News of this event spread rapidly, and was answered in the States by a patriotic thrill in the hearts of hundreds of young men who longed to draw their swords in the cause of liberty. Texian agents met with little difficulty in procuring volun- teers. Stanley and Morehouse, acting as emis- saries of the provisional government of Texas, were in New York recruiting for the service.
John II. Wood, having procured permission from the painter to whom he had apprenticed himself, called upon Stanley and Morehouse and enrolled his named. One hundred and eighty-four men (whom the agents represented as emigrants ) having been secured, Stanley and Morehouse chartered a vessel, the Matawomkeg, and in the night of
This night, which marked the commencement of a new epoch in the life of Maj. Wood, was also made memorable by the great fire that reduced Wall street and contiguous parts of New York City to ashes.
The ship safely weathered the storm, resumed the voyage, drifted somewhat out of ber course and, after a rough passage, reached the Island of Eleuthera, one of the Bahama group, and anchored off the coast for a number of days. Members of the crew and many of the passengers went ashore. A number of the volunteers were roughs from such unsavory purlieus of New York City as the " Five Points," and through force of habit, perhaps, com- mitted petty thefts and were guilty of outrageous conduct that soon earned for them unenviable repu- tations. The Captain, having taken aboard water and ship supplies, compelled these men to return all stolen articles, where that was possible, made ample compensation for other losses, bestowed liberal presents upon all injured persons who had preferred complaints, and set sail for the Balize. A fisher- man named Knowles, a man of low character, who lived on that part of the coast of Eleuthera where the vessel had anchored, hurried to Nassau, in the Island of New Providence, and notified the British authorities that a pirate was hovering in those seas and had already ravished women and been guilty of pillage. He represented himself as one of the victims who had suffered most from the incursion, his object being to put in a claim for heavy damages.
According to his reckoning the Matawomkeg would have time to get well out of the Bahamas before pursuit could be attempted. His calculation was at fault. The British brig-of-war Serpent and another vessel loaded with marines at once gave chase and soon overhauled and captured the ship and conveyed her to Nassau, where all aboard were imprisoned and detained in the barracks for sixty days. While thus contined the Americans resorted to various expedients to relieve the tedlium of prison life. Canvas was stretehed on a large arch in the center of the room and on this they painted a representation of the battle of New Orleans, and offered their production for exhibition Jannary Sth, the anniversary of that engagement, The younger British officers and their wives visited the barracks and examined aud passed good-humored criticisms on the picture. The old colonel of the regiment. however, had participated in the battle of New
-
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Orleans, and no doubt received his share of the drubbing administered to the redcoats by Gen. Jackson on that occasion, and he was much incensed and afterward proved one of the most determined enemies of the embryo Texian patriots. They cared little for him or his opinions, however, and passed the time as satisfactorily to themselves as circumstances would permit.
The Babamas were inhabited mainly by negroes who had been but recently manumitted by the English Government. The troops stationed at Nassau consisted of negro soldiers. For these sable sons of Mars the prisoners manifested the utmost contempt. There were no sentry boxes about the barracks, and one tempestuous night the guards en- tered the building to seck protection from the storm. They were promptly and indignantly driven out and compelled to pace their rounds amid the wind and rain. To amuse themselves the prisoners would occasionally gather up handfuls of the pebbles with which the courtyard was thickly strewn and throw them on the roof of the barrack, greatly terrifying the soldiers, who thought this rattle of missiles & signal for an uprising of the bold and hardy Americans.
At last the grand jury assembled and Knowles was called before them. Having examined bim, that body was satisfied that the charge of piracy was unfounded, and ordered the release of all the Americans, except a few against whom indictments were preferred for theft. These men were promptly tried, and the evidence showing that payment had been made by the captain for all articles taken, they were acquitted. While under arrest the Amer- icans had been insulted by sailors from an English ship lying in the harbor. These sailors had boasted of what they would have done had they been a part of the crew of the Serpent or aboard the transport when the Matawomkeg was captured, and said that they would have cleaned out the Yankees in short order. The Americans determined not to leave the port until they had settled their score with these braggadocio tars, and shortly before embarking an opportunity offered itself. A collision took place. The native inhabitants of the place did not like the. English, and a number of mulatto and negro shop keepers and others joined sides with the Americans in the melee and the English seamen were soon ingloriously routed and driven from the streets.
No lives were lost in the riot and the Americans were allowed to go aboard their ship without suffer- ing further molestation. After narrowly escaping being wrecked on the coast of the Cuba, the Mata- womkeg put into Matanzas, a port on that island, and from that point proceeded to the mouth of the
Mississippi, where she waited sometime for supplies. During this period of delay the better class of men among the volunteers determined to rid themselves of the company of the roughis who had accompanied them thus far on the voyage. The quondam deni- zens of the " Five Points " and Bowery heroes had been carrying matters with a high hand, brow-beat- ing and fist-beating those of their comrades who would submit to such treatment. Their conduct, long obnoxious, had now become unbearable and the gentlemen of the party banded themselves to- gether and soundiy thrashed the roughs and drove them from the vessel with orders not to return. The commander of the Texian man-of-war, Brutus (anchored near at hand), cleared her decks as if for action, sent an armed force aboard and demanded that the expelled men be allowed to return to the Matawomkeg. Acquiescence was stoutly refused. The remaining volunteers stated that not having been mustered into the service they were not as yet Texian soldiers and the commander of the Brutus had no right to interfere with their affairs. The Texian commander upon investigation acknowledged the justness of their position, the propriety of the course they had pursued with reference to the expulsion of the rough characters who had been a source of so much trouble and annoyance, and in duc time the two vessels proceeded to Pass Caballo, where the volunteers disembarked March 1, 1836, acknowl- edged the leadership of Morehouse and marched to Matagorda. William Loring, a distingushed gen- eral in the Confederate army during the war between the States and later a general iu the Egyptian army ; Charles DeMorse, for many years editor of the Clarksville Standard and a journalist of more than State-wide reputation ; Lewis P. Cook, after- ward Secretary ot State of the Republic of Texas ; Captain William Gillam, afterward one of the most efficient officers of the regular army of the Repub- lic ; the late Charles Ogsbury, of Cuero, and other men of brilliant talents and high ability were inembers of this party.
At Matagorda the volunteers were formally mus- tered into service.
At this time the Alamo had fallen, the horrible massacre of Fannin and his command at Goliad had taken place, and Santa Anna was sweeping castward with his victorious columns. Morehouse and his companions pushed forward, intending to join General Houston's retreating army, but at Casey's Ferry, on the Colorado, he was met by a courier, who delivered orders from headquarters, commanding him to gather together and protect the families west of the Brazos river, and assist them in their efforts to leave the country. The labor
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assigned was efficiently performed, many of the families being placed aboard a steamer at Colum- bus, and sent to Galveston, and a few days before the battle of San Jacinto, Morehouse and his men, about 175 in number, including citizens and sol- diers, found themselves eneamped near Bingham's plantation, situated at the head of Oyster Creek, on the east side of the Brazos river. They pre- pared to march up the river to Stafford's Point, on the road from Houston to Richmond, and attack Cos, who had encamped there with 600 or 700 men. Cos had pitched his camp in an open place with a bayou on one side and so environed by timber as to offer every opportunity for a successful surprise. The night preceding the morning of the proposed assault, however, he left a few men to keep up the sentry fires and marched away with his force to join Santa Anna. The Texian force halted at a designated point and sent forward scouts to recon- noitre. It was agreed that they should await the return of this small advance body, resume the march, take position in the timber and as soon as it was light enough to see the sights of their guns open the engagement. Shortly after day- light the scouts returned with the unwelcome news that the enemy had folded his tents like the Arab and silently stolen away.
After the decisive battle of San Jacinto, Major Wood served as one of the soldiers in the mounted foree that, under the leadership of General Rusk, followed as far as Goliad the retreating army of General Filisola as it marched toward the Rio Grande to evacuate Texas according to the terms of the agreement entered into between General Houston and Santa Anna.
At Goliad, Major Wood assisted in the burial of the charred remains of Fannin's men, and listened to the eloquent oration pronounced by General Rusk at the edge of the pit in which they were interred. The remains consisted of skulls, bits of bone and blackened viscera. Long after the performance of these affecting funeral rites, he found in the thickets near by the seene of the holo- caust a number of skeletons supposed to be those of members of Fannin's command, who attempted on the day of the butchery to make their escape and were overtaken and ent down by the Mexican soldiery.
After the war he went to Victoria and took charge of the horses in the quartermaster's depart- ment and held the position for about six months. According to a law enacted by the Texas Congress the horses and cattle of all Mexicans who had adhered to the cause of the enemy, and abandoned the country during the war, were declared govern-
ment property and under this act it was the duty of the quartermaster to collect and corral such stock. Major Wood, as pay for his services, was given by the quartermaster, Colonel Caldwell, an order for cattle and began stock raising near Victoria. Later he established himself on the Lavaca river, in Lavaca County, near where the town of Edna now stands. In the fall of 1845 he went to Corpus Christi and had a conference with General Zachary Taylor ( then preparing to occupy the Rio Grande frontier ), in which he said that it was his desire to move his eattle to the Nueces river, in what is now San Patricio County, if General Taylor would promise to furnish, as far as might be in his power, protection from raiding Indians and Mexicans. The promise was readily given, and early in the year 1840 Major Wood located on the Nueces. In August, 1849, he moved to Refugio County and established a home at St. Marys, on Copano bay, where he has since continuously iesided.
At that early day Southwest Texas was infested with bands of hostile Indians. He witnessed many of their shocking atrocities, and on several ocea- sions was a member of pursuing parties that sought to wreak vengeance upon the treacherous and blood-thirsty savages, who, at short intervals, swept through the country, committing murder and other crimes too horrible to mention, pillaging hamlets and driving off stock.
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