USA > Texas > Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I > Part 38
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Dr. Westfall is a zealous Mason, having been
made a member of the order more than forty years ago. He belongs to Ben Hur Shrine and Colorado Commandery, both of Austin.
A wife and widowed daughter constitute his family. Not the least of the many creditable things that can be truthfully said of him is that he makes grateful acknowledgment for what he is and what he has to the good wife, who, joining her for- tunes with his more than forty years ago, has shared in all his triumphs and reverses, counseling with him, applauding and encouraging his efforts, and rejoicing more than any one else in . his success.
THE COLE FAMILY.
BRYAN.
The permanent settlement of the late ven- erable Ransom Cole in Texas dates back to the year 1850, when he established himself in Cass County, in the eastern part of the State. He had lived, however, a short time during 1849, just over the State line in Western Louisiana. He was a native of South Carolina and was born in Elgefield district, that State, June 11, 1800. The family history, so far as traceable, seems to be one of pioneer record.
Daniel Cole, the father of Ransom Cole, was among the early settlers of Virginia and as that country became settled pushed on to the frontier of South Carolina, and later advanced with the progress of settlement into Georgia and later into Alabama. Thus it was that Ransom Cole, born and reared in a then new country, became imbued with the genuine pioneer instinct and preferred and during his active years lead a typical pioneer life. He had Texas in his mind long years before his final location in Cass County in 1850. Fifteen years prior to that date (1835) he explored the Brazos valley as far north as Waco springs and there selected lands which he purchased.
Complications arose, however, touching land titles in that vicinity, covering the tract he had selected. The trouble very likely occurred with the Indians, as the Wacos were still at that time in almost absolute possession of the upper Brazos valley and held sway for several years later and relinquished their final hold not without contest and even bloodshed.
Mr. Cole finally perfected his title to the land, but never lived thereon, preferring to remain at his Cass county home.
Daniel Cole, a younger brother of Ransom, also came to Texas and located in Cass County in 1853. He there pursued farming and lived until his death, leaving a family, some of whom still reside there.
Ransom Cole early suffered the loss of his wife, Agatha (nee Bostwick) Cole, December 1, 1854, in her forty-eiglith year. She was born in 1806. She was the mother of nine children and of these three sons settled at Bryan in the infancy of the thrifty county seat of Brazos County, and as merchants and esteemed citizens have become conspicuous in the business development and growth of the city, standing as they do at the head of its mercantile interests. The firm name of the house, Cole Brothers, has become a household word throughout the Brazos valley region. Ransom Cole remained on his Cass County estate until, advanced in years, he relinquished the cares of business to spend the declining years of his life with bis children at Bryan and vicinity and there died in the year 1887, at eighty-seven years of age. He wasfavorably known as a man of quiet and unpretentious manners and a kind, warm heart.
In view of the foregoing facts, space cannot be more becomingly utilized than to recite the follow- ing brief biographical facts touching the Bryan mem- bers of this pioneer family, all of whom have seen and taken an aggressive part in the growth of the richest and most promising valley country in Texas.
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Mason D). Cole, the oldest of the family of nine children, was born in Pike County, Alabama, on his father's farm. February 24, 1831. His boyhood was for the most part spent in Macon County, Ala- bama, and he there carly engaged in agriculture until the removal of the family to Louisiana and soon after to Texas in 1849. He remained in Cass County, this State, until he became identified with the commissary department of the Confederate government, in which he served during 1864 and 1863. He, in common with his fellow-countrymen, " suffered severe losses in consequence of the war ; but, gathering up the remnants of his estate, he em- barked in merchandising at Douglassville, Texas, from 1865 to 1860, and in a measure repaired his fortunes. His two brothers preceded him to Bryan in 1867 and engaged in merchandising under the firm name of Cole, Dansby & Co. Mr. Cole came on, purchased Mr. Dansby's interest, and, with his brothers, established the firm of Cole Brothers, which dates its existence from 1869.
Mr. Cole married, in 1872, his present and third wife, Mrs. Mollie A. Covy, a widow lady, native of Georgia. Of the children born of this union, two sons survive, viz. : Houston and Jeff Cole. By a former marriage, Mr. Cole has a son, J. R. Cole, and a daughter, now Mrs. Simm Cooper, both resi- dents of Bryan.
Mr. Cole devotes his time chiefly to the exten- sive dry goods interests of his firm. He has served fifteen years as trustee of the public schools and in the city council and was one of the original promoters of Bryan's public free school system.
Jasper N. Cole, general manager of the business of the firm, was born in Macon County, Alabama, January 14, 1837, and, like his elder brother, lived on his father's farm until about fifteen years of age. Upon the opening of the war between the States in 1861, he promptly enlisted as a private soldier in the Third Texas Cavalry, in Greer's Regiment, but served for the most part under the regimental command of Col. Walter P. Lane.
The record of the gallant Third Texas Cavalry, under the leadership at various times of such in- trepid and relentless fighters as Gens. Ben McCul-
loch, Price, Bragg, and Joseph E. Johnston, is a part of the history of the great war waged in the interest of the Southern eause. Mr. Cole fought in the battles of Wilson Creek, Missouri ; Elk Horn, or Pea Ridge, Arkansas; Corinth, Mississippi ; and those incident to all the great campaigns down to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and on down into Georgia. He returned to his home in Cass County after the war and in 1867 went to Bryan and embarked in merchandising in company with a younger brother, Noah B. Cole, present junior member of the firm.
Mr. Cole married, October 21, 1869, in Brazos County, Miss Nonnie Walker, daughter of James Walker, a pioneer of Brazos County. Nine chil- dren born of this marriage are living, viz. : Mattie, wife of Lemuel B. Hall, a well-known drug mer- chant of Bryan ; May, unmarried; Ella, wife, W. S. Adams; Carl, Arrie, Alma, Nellie, Jasper, and Ransom. Two, Claud and Earl, are deceased.
Mr. Cole is known in the financial circles of Texas as the president of the Merchants and Planters Bank of Bryan since 1889. He is also president of the Bryan Cotton Seed Oil Mill.
Noah B. Cole, the director of the hardware store of the firm, was born in Alabama, August 19, 1847, the youngest of nine children, and lived on his father's farm until 1864, when, at seventeen years of age, he joined Lane's Regiment, so well known in the history of the late war as the First Texas Partisan Rangers, the services of which were con- fined chiefly to the Trans-Mississippi Department. He went through a lively Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri campaign of about eighteen months and at the break-up returned home in August, 1865, un- scathed. He came with his elder brother, Jasper N. Cole, to Bryan, in 1867, and engaged in business, the outcome of which is three flourishing stores at that place.
He has been twice married, first in 1879, to Miss Mollie Rawles, who died December 5th, 1888, leav- ing one son, Robert E. Cole. Mr. Cole married, November 14, 1890, his second and present wife, Miss Lula Davies, s daughter of Dr. Wm. Davies, of Burleson County. Two children have been born to them, viz. : Noah D., and Walter R. Cole.
INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.
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E. M. PEASE,
AUSTIN.
We have selected for the subject of this memoir Ilon. Elisha Marshall Pease, a man who, in his day and generation, moved as a colossal figure upon the stage of action in Texas.
« . His career covered the most momentous epochs in the history of the State, the Texas revolution, the days of the Republic, annexation, the war between the States, and the era of reconstruction.
A sufficient period of time has now elapsed since the happening of those events for the formation of a true estimate of his character and services, and to enable the historian, by a dispassionate con- sideration of the eireumstances that surrounded him, to obtain an insight into the motives that prompted his publie acts.
He was born at Enfield, Conn., January 3, 1812, and enjoyed such educational advantages as were afforded by the schools of his native town and a short attendance at, an academy at Westfield, Mass. His parents were Lorain Thompson, and Sarah (Marshall), Pease.
At the age of fourteen he was placed in a coun- try store where he remained three years. From that time until 1834, he was a clerk at the post offiee at Hartford.
The greater part of the year 1834 was spent in traveling in the Northwestern States, and in the fall he went to New Orleans. In that city he met many persons from Texas, and, allured by the glow- ing accounts which they gave of the character and prospects of the country beyond the Sabine, de- termined to seek a home and fortune within its confines. Accordingly, in the month of January, 1835, he took passage on a sailing vessel, landed at the port of Velasco, and from thence made his way to the frontier settlements on the Colorado, and located at Mina, now the town of Bastrop, where he began the study of law in the office of Col. D. C. Barrett, who had but recently entered upon the practice of the profession.
The times were not such, however, that a high- spirited and mettlesome young man eould sit quietly in an office and pore over the musty pages of the law and, while he applied himself with such Assiduity as was possible under the circumstances, his studies were interrupted and he made little progress therein until later and less stormy days. The people of Texas were smarting under a long train of injustices and oppressions inflieted upon
them by the Mexican government and were threat- ened with the entire overthrow of their liberties. The affairs at Anahuac and Velasco, in 1832, which had resulted in the expulsion of Bradburn from the country, were fresh in memory and the capture of Anahuac by Travis and a few fearless followers was near at hand, conventions had been held at San Felipe in 1832 and 1833, asking for reforms in many directions and the reforms had been denied and the complaints of the petitioners treated with haughty and indignant contempt. The remnant of the once powerful Liberal party in Mexico, that in time past had responded to the clarion calls of Hidalgo and Morelos, had made its last stand for the constitution and been irretrievably defeated upon the blood-soaked plains of Guadalupe and Zacatecas by the minions of Santa Anna, whose baleful star was then rising towards its zenith. A strong central despotism, inimical to the Anglo-American settlers of Texas, was no longer a danger threatened by the future, but an accomplished fact. To the dullest ear was distinctly audible the rum- blings of the approaching revolution. A crisis was upon the country. It was a time to try the stoutest hearts - for patriots to stand firm, coun- sel resistance, and prepare for the impending struggle, and for the timid to talk in bated whispers and prate of compromise and peace, when there could be no compromise and peace with- out the dishonor of virtual slavery. On the one hand was arrayed the powerful Mexican nation, numbering several millions of inhabitants and possessing an army and navy, well equipped and well officered ; on the other a small band of pio- neers, possessed of no resourees and widely scat- tered over a vast expanse of hill and valley, plain and forest, and with no facilities for bringing about speedy concentration and eoneert of action. Such was the prospect that confronted the people of Texas. It was gloomy indeed. But there were those among the pioneers (and not a few ) who had inbibed with their mother's milk detestation of in- justice and tyranny in all its forms and that love of liberty and those manly sentiments that in all ages have taught the brave to count danger and death as nothing when their rights, liberties or honor were invaded and could only be maintained by a resort to the sword. Descended from a race whose sons were among the first to respond
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to their country's call in 1776 and strike for the independence of the American Colonies, young Pease was among the most outspoken of those who precipitated the Texas revolution, and in a few months was elected secretary of the Committee of Safety, formed by the people of Mina, the first of its kind organized in Texas. In the following September, when couriers from Gon- zales brought an appeal for armed assistance, he hurried to that place as a volunteer in the company commanded by Capt. R. M. Coleman, and had the honor to fire a shot in the first battle and to help win the first victory of the revolution. In a few weeks he was granted a furlough on account of sickness and in the latter part of November went to San Felipe, where he was elected one of the two secretaries of the first provisional government of Texas, in which position he remained until the government ad interim was organized, under Presi- dent Burnet, March 18, 1836.
While he was not a delegate to the convention that issued the declaration of Texas independence, he was present at its sessions, was chosen and served as one of its secretaries and helped to frame the special ordinance that created the government ad interim and the constitution for the republic adopted by it. The latter was formulated subjeet to ratification or rejection by the people as soon as an election could be held for that purpose,
During the summer he served as chief clerk, first in the navy and then in the treasury department, and for a short time acted as Secretary of the Treas- ury upon the death of Secretary Hardeman.
In November, when Gen. Sam Houston was President, he was appointed clerk of the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, and while in that position drew up most of the laws organizing the conrts, creating county offices and defining the duties of county officers; also the fee- bill and criminal code.
Upon the adjournment of Congress in Decem- ber he was tendered the office of Postmaster General by President Houston, but declined it and entered the office of Col. John A. Wharton at Bra. zoria, where he diligently applied himself to the study of law. He was admitted to the bar at the town of Washington, in April, 1837, but in June following was tendered by President Houston and accepted the office of Comptroller of Public Ae- counts, which he filled until December and then returned to Brazoria, where he formed a copart- nership with Col. Wharton and entered actively upon the practice of his profession. In 1838, John W. Harris became associated with them and after the death of Col. Wharton, which occurred a few
months later, the firm of Harris & Pease continued for many years and became one of the most dis- tinguished in the State. During this period Mr. Pease served as District Attorney for a short time, and, after annexation in 1846, was elected from Brazoria County to the House of Representatives of the First State Legislature and was re-elected in 1847 to the Second Legislature.
These were exceedingly important sessions, as the building of the framework for a State govern- ment had to be done from the ground up and the future prosperity of the commonwealth and hap- piness of its people largely depended upon the wisdom or unwisdom displayed in the enactment of statutes and the formulation of lines of public policy for later administrations to follow or reject. Both branches of the legislature contained many men of commanding talents (Texas' brightest and best, among whom Mr. Pease moved as a recog- nized leader) and accomplished the arduous duties that devolved upon it in a manner creditable to the members and satisfactory to the people.
During his terms of service in the House he drew up very nearly all the laws defining the jurisdiction of courts, and, as chairman of the Judiciary Com- mittee in the Second Legislature, originated and pushed to enactment the probate laws of 1848.
In 1849 he was elected to the Senate of the Third Legislature from the district composed of the counties of Brazoria and Galveston, and at the regular session of 1850 added to the laurels he had already won and still further endeared himself to a people not insensible to the merits of those who had not only shown themselves true patriots and devoted to the common cause in the darkest hours of the country's history, but capable in time of peace of guiding the ship of State. Being absent from Texas when Governor Bell called an extra ses- sion of the Legislature at a later period in 1850, he resigned and terminated his services as a lawmaker. Thereafter until 1853 he devoted himself to his law practice, but continued a prominent figure and potent factor in public life and indentified himself with all principal movements that gave promise of promoting the best interests of the country.
With other leading men he early saw the neces- sity of railroads as a means of developing the vast territory of the State, deprived as it was of interior navigation except in neighborhoods not far remote from the coast and at Jefferson on the extreme Northeast, and advocated the construction of a transcontinental railway to the Pacific ocean. With Thomas J. Rusk, Gen. Sam Houston and others, he earnestly favored the building of what is now the Texas & Pacific Railroad, destined, after
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passing through many changes and many doubtful stages, and by the blending of many charters, to ultimate construction and completion in 1881.
Mr. Pease was not long suffered to remain in retirement. In 1853 he was elected Governor of Texas, as the successor of Governor Bell, and re-elected in 1855, Hardin R. Runnels being elected Lieutenant-Governor. That he was one of the ablest and purest Governors Texas has ever had, is the unanimous opinion of all who are eonversant with the facts. His messages to the Legislature are model State papers, not only on account of the knowledge of the condition and needs of the country and the principles of civil government that they display, but for the wisdom of the recommendations that they contain and thic elegance and perspicuity of their diction. During the four years that he filled the gubernatorial chair, alternate seetions of land were set aside to promote the construction of railroads, and much of our earliest railroad legislation was enacted, lands were set apart for free school purposes, a nucleus for the present munificent school fund was formed, and a handsome appropriation was made for the establish- ment of a State university, for no man felt a deeper interest in popular edueation or more fully realized that the hope of constitutional freedom must ever rest upon the intelligence of the citizen ; a new State capitol and other public buildings were erected, and institutions for the insane, deaf and dumb, and blind were founded, and liberal appropriations made for their support. When his official life as Gov- enor began, the State tax was twenty cents on the one hundred dollars, and when his second term expired it was fifteen cents and the State was entirely free from debt.
In 1854, there was introduced into Texas a secret, oath-bound, political organization, which became known as the Know-Nothing or American party. It transacted its business with closed doors and in the latter year put forth a full ticket for State offices. The principles of the new party were designed to place restrictions upon foreign immi- grants acquiring American citizenship, and to impose restraints and civil disabilities upon those professing the Catholic religion. Its methods, tenets and purposes were assailed by Governor Pease. A sturdy republican, he entertained an unconquer- able hostility to secret political organizations, believing that, while some excuse might be offered for their formation under the despotisms of the old world, none could be advanced for their existence here. He considered them, per se, inimical and a menace to our free institutions. As to debarring worthy foreigners from the blessings and advan-
tages attendant upon American citizenship, the idea to him was utterly repugnant. He remembered that our ancestors themselves were emigrees from Europe, that many men of foreign birth had fought in the Continental army and afterwards adorned the walks both of publie and private life in the early days of the republic, that many such men emigrated from their distant homes to settle in the wilderness of Texas and that not a few had honorably borne arms in the struggle that won for Texas her inde- pendence, and he knew that men who would leave the land of their birth to escape tyranny and, in search of liberty, eross the stormy deep in the hope of bettering their conditions amid alien scenes and among a people to whose very language they were strangers, were made of stuff that fitted them for the patriotic discharge of the duties ineident to self-government. His was not the spirit of the glutton, who, careless of the welfare of others, wishes all for himself, but that nobler spirit that led the fathers of 1776 to boast that they had estab- lished an asylum to which the oppressed of every land might turn with the assurance of safety and protection. As to religion, he believed that to be a matter of conscience that should rest between each man and his God and that should in no way be interfered with by private individuals or the State. He believed the action the Know-Nothing party contemplated taking against Catholics and foreign immigrants to be contrary to the history and tradi- tions of our government and the genius of our insti- tutions. So believing, he entered the eampaign as the standard-bearer of the opposition, known as the Democratic party, but containing men of widely divergent views, and, after a spirited and exciting eontest, was elected at the polls and entered upon his second term.
The ticket put in the field by the Know-Nothing party contained the first nominations made by a political party in Texas. In fact, prior to 1855 there were no party organizations, properly so called, in the State.
Before the elose of Governor Pease's second term, the whole country was stirred from center to circumference over questions that aroused the bitterest sectional feeling. Under the terms of the Missouri Compromise of 1820 and 1821, the terri- tories of Kansas and Nebraska when admitted would necessarily enter the Union as free States. In 1854, Senator Douglass, of Illinois, introduced in Congress what was known as the Kansas and Nebraska Bill (which became a law), in which it was declared that the Missouri Compromise - " Being inconsistent with the principles of non- intervention by Congress with slavery in the States
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and Territories, as recognized by the legislation of 1850, commonly called the Compromise Measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void, it being the true intent and meaning of this act, not to leg- Islate slavery into any Territory or State, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people there- of perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the constitution of the United States."
Mr. Douglass' measure of course carried with it the right of slave-owners to settle in Kansas and Nebraska with their slaves. The Eastern portion of Kansas was regarded by many as a desirable region in which to employ slave labor and many Southern people located in it. The conflicts and bloodshed that followed are familiar matters of history. The passage of the act only served to in- tensify sectional hatred. Gen. Houston, Senator from .Texas, voted against it for reasons which he elaborated and which met with the sanction of Gov- ernor Pease and others, who were firmly convinced that any attempt to establish slavery in that section would prove futile and only serve to widen the breach that separated the Southern and Northern States, which, if not hesled, threatened armed con- flict and, probable dissolution of the Union. They were for pouring oil upon the troubled waters and not for still further agitating them. Gen. Houston offered himself as a candidate for the Governor- ship in opposition to Hardin R. Runnels, the sec- ond nomince of the Democratic organization, and, although he made a fine canvass, was supported by Governor Pease (the first nominee of that party and then occupying the Governor's chair ) and had many devoted admirers and supporters, publie sentiment was such that he was defeated, Runnels receiving a majority of over ten thousand votes. Such was the condition of affairs on the 21st of December, 1857, when a change of administration took place. Two years later, Gen. Houston was elected to suc- ceed Runnels, but a great erisis was at hand. Threats were openly made that, if Mr. Lincoln was elected, the Southern States would withdraw from the Union and form a Confederacy of their own, threats that were afterwards carried into execution. Governor Pease opposed secession, and, finding that his opposition was in vain, retired to private life.
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