Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I, Part 56

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel]
Number of Pages: 922

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Sutton, Caledonia County, where they resided until their respective deaths. They left eight children.

The subject of this memoir attended local schools for three months in the year during a number of years and acquired a fair common-school education

JUDGE BENNETT BLAKE.

---

MRS. BLAKE.

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and, when twenty-five years of age, went to Bos- ton, Mass., where he remained until March 16, 1833, and then, determining to try his fortune in Texas, took passage on a sailing vessel bound for New Orleans. Very rough weather was encountered on the voyage and it took the ship forty-two days to reach its destination. From New Orleans he proceeded up Red river to Natchitoches, La., and from thence overland to Nacogdoches, at which place he arrived May 3, 1835, with $20.00 in his pockets, aud shortly thereafter employed a guide, and with three companions, started out afoot to look at the country. The guide proved to be in- competent and got the party lost in the woods. After wandering about for over four days without food they succeeded in making their way back to Nacogdoches. Here Judge Blake obtained employ- ment as a clerk in the land-office, under George W. Smith, who was commissioned to put old settlers in possession of lands north of the San Antonio road. In September of that year (1835) two surveyors, whose compasses were at Natchitoches, La., one hundred and ten miles distant, offered $150.00 to anyone who would bring the instruments to Nacogdoches withiu four days. Judge Blake undertook the journey, accomplished it in three days and a half and was paid the sum promised.

Of a beld and resolute spirit he was among the foremost in every expedition designed for the pro- tection of the country.

Davy Crockett, when on his way to take part in the Texas revolution, stopped in Nacogdoches for several days. During the time he took his famous oath in the old stone fort to support the cause of the Texians, not for the restoration of their rights under the constitution of 1824, as was then being sought, but until their absolute independence should be achieved. While in the town he delivered a speech to which Mr. Blake had the pleasure of Bstening. He reports "Old Davy" as having closed his speech as follows: " We'll go to the City of Mexico and shake Santa Anna as a coon dog would a possum."

The fall of the Alamo, the massacre at Goliad, and the butchery of Johnson's and Grant's men on and beyond the Nucces and the continucd retreat of Houston before the Mexican army, sweeping victoriously eastward in three divisions, cast a gloom over the country and the arrival of the merciless invaders in the eastern part of the province was daily expected. The roads about and beyond Nacogdoches were lined with women and children fleeing to Louisiana for safety. Noue were afterwards seen in any part of that country until the God of Battles smiled upon the Texian

arms at San Jacinto. The Indians taking advan- tage of the unsettled condition of the country were committing numerous murders and depredations. Mr. Blake and two companious at this time were appointed to protect the retreat of the fugitives and watch the Indians, whom it was feared would rise and attempt an indiscriminate massaere. He and his comrades discharged the trust with vigilanee and courage. Judge Blake served under Gen. Rusk, in 1839, in his expedition against the noted Cherokee Chief Bowles who had organized a formidable In- dian insurrection. On one occasion during the cam- paign Gen. Rusk offered a furlough of ten days to any of his soldiers who would earry a dispatch from where he was stationed, north of the Sabine, to Nacogdoches, seventy-five miles distant, and de- liver it upon the day of starting. The purport of the message was a warning to volunteers not to leave Nacogdoches for his camp except in parties fifteen or twenty strong, as there were many In- dians upon the road. It was a perilous mission to undertake, but Judge Blake volunteered to per- form the service. He was mounted on a fine horse and made the trip in the time appointed. He saw but one Indian on the road and gave him a lively chase, but says that he felt no exaggerated longing to overtake him and was rather gratified that the distance widened rather than diminished between them, and the Indian fiually lost to view. On arriving at Nacogdoches he found Mrs. James S. Mayfield standing guard, with a belt of six-shooters arouud her waist and a shot-gun on her shoulder. The young men had all taken the field against the Indians and left the old men and women to protect the settlement. Many of the women of those days were good shots and of undoubted courage. At his request Judge Blake was permitted to relieve her and stood guard for the rest of the night, but says that he was very tired and is inclined to the belief that he put in the greater part of the time that intervened to day- dawn sitting on the ground with his back against a tree. Mr. Blake remained in Nacogdoches about four days, and finding it very louesome, returned to his companions. Shortly thereafter he partici- pated in the two days' battle that resulted in a signal victory for the whites and so completely crushed the spirit of the Indians that no general uprising ever after occurred. On the second day when the Cherokees and their allies had retreated, Bowles, while heroically trying to rally them, re- ceived two or three gun-shot wounds and fell from his horse. A moment later the Texians, firing right aud left as they rode, charged directly over his body. Bob Smith and Judge Blake were side by

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side and Smith, seeing around the fallen chief's waist a red belt holding a sword that Gen. Houston had given him ( Bowles) in former days, stooped over to jerk it off. As they tugged at the belt Bowles rose and Smith shot him through the head and the noted Indian warrior tumbled forward upon his face and expired without a groan. In the two days' fight one hundred and eight Indians were reported killed. Two of the whites were killed and twenty-eight wounded.

In February, 1841, the Indians made a raid through the Nacogdoches country and murdered a man named Jordan. A party of settlers, fifty-two in number, Judge Blake among them, bastily assembled and started in pursuit. They had a severe experience, having to walk a greater part of the time, as the roads were so boggy they could not use their horses. They were three days with- out food and at the end of that time had only suc- ceeded in traversing a distance of seventy-five miles. The expedition proved fruitless. This was the last expedition against the Indians in which Judge Blake participated. The only change in use in the country from 1835 to 1838 was made by cutting a Mexican dollar into quarters. These circulated as twenty-five cent pieces. Judge Blake says that it is just to state that the Mexicans never to his knowl- edge cut a dollar into more than four pieces, while Americans in many instances would make five and put them into circulation as twenty- five cent pieces. He recounts an amusing in- cident that marked his acquaintanceship with Gen. Houston.

In 1835 the cholera epidemic that then prevailed made its way to Nacogdoches and several citizens fell victims to the scourge. Everybody, who could, left town and Judge Blake with eight companions, among the number Gen. Houston, went to Niel Martin's, eight miles from town, where they secured board and lodging and comfortably established themselves. The entire party slept in the same room. The first night, and a number of nights thereafter, Gen. Houston sat up and read until midnight and then went to bed and called his negro Esau, to pick ticks off him. These performances, however agreeable to the General and improving to Esau, were not at all edifying to the General's room-mates and they decided to try the effects of a practical joke. Accordingly they gathered all the ticks they could find and put them in a box and while Houston was eating his supper scattered them in his bed. The General had not long retired before he called loudly for Esau, who literally had his hands full until some time near daylight. Houston never disturbed the rest of his companions

again and the stay at Martin's proved delightful to all concerned.

Judge Blake was honored by his fellow-citizens with office almost continuously from 1837 to 1876. . serving as justice of the peace, member of the Con- federate Legislature in 1863-4, county judge, and . member of the constitutional convention of 1875. Confederate money was worth very little when he was in Austin as a member of the Legislature and he paid $100.00 per day for board and lodging for the sixty-five days of the session. During his terms of service as justice of the peace and county judge, he tried seven thousand civil suits and five hundred criminal cases. A great many appeals were taken from his decisions but not one was ever reversed. Judge Blake for many years has refused to be a candidate for any office.

He has been married three times: first in New Hampshire in 1833, to Miss Mary Lewis, who died a short time after their union; next, in Montgom- ery County, Texas, in 1849, to widow Harrison, who died in 1852, and in 1853 in Nacogdoches to Miss Ella Harris, who died in 1886. Three children were born of the latter union; Bennett Blake, a prominent farmer in Nacogdoches County ; Myrtle, wife of Judge James 1. Perkins of Rusk, and Addie Louisa, widow of Mr. W. E. Bowler of Nacog- doches. Miss Ella Harris, who became the wife of Mr. Blake and mother of his children, a noble Christian lady, was born in Georgia in 1832. Her father was Dr. Eldridge G. Harris, and mother Mrs. Mary (Hamilton) Harris. She was brought to Nacogdoches, Texas, in 1836, by her mother, who was joined at that place by Dr. Harris, who had preceded them. Dr. Harris was a surgeon in the Texas revolutionary army and a pioneer greatly beloved by his fellow-soldiers and neighbors. He died in 1838 and his wife in 1872, at the home of Judge Blake in Nacogdoches.

Judge Blake has seventeen living grandchildren. He is a member of the Democratic party and Royal Arch degree of the Masonic fraternity.

Judge Blake has been successful in a financial way, having accumulated a considerable fortune. He has passed through many stirring and thrilling scenes, scenes that can have no counterpart in the after history of the country, and always bore him- self as an npright, manly man. Privation and misfortune only nerved him to stronger exertions and danger but caused his blood to run swifter and his nerves to steady themselves as he encountered and overcame it - not his the spirit to become dejected, nor the heart, to quail. His virtues, abilities and services to the country entitle him to the place accorded him upon the pages of its history.

J. R. FENN.

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

301

JOHN RUTHERFORD FENN,

HOUSTON.

J. R. Fenn, one of the leading citizens of Ilous- ton, a Texas veteran and a patriot whose fidelity to the principles of liberty has often been evinced upon Texas soil during the past half century, is a native of Mississippi, born in Lawrence County, that State, October 11th, 1824. He is of Seoteh- Irish deseent, a strain so eloquently eulogized by S. S. ( " Sunset " ) Cox, in his " Three Decades of Federal Legislation," as having furnished to this country some of its most successful generals, purest statesmen, eminent lawyers and useful and distinguished eitizens,

His parents, Eli Fenn and Sarah Catherine (Fitzgerald) Fenn eame to Texas in 1833 with their children, and in June of that year opened a farm on the Brazos river, three miles below the site of the present town of Richmond. Mr. Eli Fenn served in the Creek War, participating, among other engagements, in the battle of the Horse Shoe, and in the war of 1833-6 fought in the Texian army as a member of Capt. Wiley Martin's Company. He died at his home in Fort Bend County, Texas, in 1840. His wife was a daughter of David Fitz- gerald, a Georgia planter who came to Texas in 1822, settled in Fort Bend County, and shortly prior to his death in 1832, took part in the battle of Ana- huac, a brilliant affair that was a fit preeursor of the more decisive struggle against Mexiean tyranny that was to follow a few years later. She died in 1860, and sleeps beside the beloved husband with whom she braved the terrors of the wilderness. Two children were born of the union, John R. (the subject of this memoir) and Jesse T. Fenn, the latter of whom died in Fort Bend County in 1873. Mr. J. R. Fenn was not quite twelve years of age when the battle of San Jacinto was fought, but pre- serves a vivid recollection of the stirring scenes of those times. His mother and others who had pre- pared to eross the river and retreat before the advancing Mexiean army mistook a body of troops under Col. Almonte for a part of Gen. Houston's army, narrowly escaped into the woods from the house in which they were and came near being captured. His father, a member of Martin's spy company which was near, and seeing the approach of a portion of Santa Anna's army, and knowing the danger his wife and other ladies were in, swam s «wollen creek with his gun on his back and arrived on the scene at the moment his wife and others

were fleeing aeross the field, raising his gun to his shoulder shot a Mexiean dead. This attraeted the attention of the pursuers to him and enabled his family and others to make good their escape. J. R. Fenn, subjeet of this meinoir, and a negro boy who had gone out in the morning to drive horses, returned to the deserted house about eight o'eloek in the morning and rode into the Mexican lines and were made prisoners. Late in the afternoon young Fenn made a break for liberty and, although he was shot at by a score or more of Mexicans and the leaves cut from the trees by their musket balls fell thiek about him, he kept going and was soon safe in the depths of the forest. He passed his home and went ten or fifteen miles further where he found several white families. An hour later they were joined by Joe Kuykendall. The party traveled all night, at daylight arrived at Harrisburg, and during the day reached Lynchburg. Here young Fenn found his mother and some of the other ladies who had fled with her. They had walked for miles through mud and water, a keen norther blowing, some of them (men, women and children) without shoes and half elad. The entire company continued east, crossed the San Jacinto river and hurried forward as rapidly as their exhausted condition would permit. Coming to one of the bayous that empty into the bay, and having no rafts to effect a erossing; they attempted and at last succeeded in wading across on the bar at the mouth of the stream. Although a big wave would eome rolling in ever and anon and knock them over they would scramble to their feet and start again.

Despite such difficulties the party finally reached the Ncebes river in safety. Here Mr. Eli Fenn joined the party. Gen. Gaines commanding United States troops near San Augustine had given the Indians a scare and they had all left that part of the country, and Capt. Martin, whose duty it was to keep between the Indians on the north and the white families that were flecing from the Mexican invader, seeing no further need of his men in that section, gave them permission to go in search of their families. Mr. Fenn took his wife and son to Louisiana and returned to the army, where he served until October, 1836. Ile then proenred a discharge and went after his family, which he brought back to the old homestead on the Brazos.

The subject of this notice acquired a fair com-

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mon school education in such schools as the country afforded, to which varied experience and extensive reading and observation have since largely added.

He marched to San Antonio in the spring of 1842, and again in the autumn of that year with Gen. Somervell as sergeant in Capt. William Ryan's company, to oppose Gen. Adrian Woll, who attempted another Mexican invasion. Mr. Fenn served throughout the campaign.

In 1846, when war was declared between Mexico and the United States he went with Gen. Albert Sydney Johnston to the seat of war and served with Capt. Jack Hays' company.

During the war between the States, he enlisted under the flag of the Confederate States and did good service as Second Lieutenant in Strobel's Company.

Mr. Fenn was united in marriage to Miss Rebecca Matilda Williams, of Fort Bend County, Texas, April 13th, 1853, and has four children : Francis Marion Oatis, who married Miss Lottie Benson, of Charlottesville, Va. ; May, wife of Mr. Jas. Mckeever, Jr., of Houston ; Ann Belle, and Jos. Johnston Fenn, the latter of whom married Miss Mollie Walker, of Houston.

Mrs. Fenn was born in Woodville, Miss., in 1835. Her parents were Mr. Daniel Williams and Mrs. Ann Fitz Randolph (Ayers) Williams. She is a great granddaughter of Gen. Nathaniel Ran- dolph, a Lieutenant and Aide de Camp on the staff of Gen. Lafayette during the war of the Revolution, and also a great granddaughter of Ezekiel Ayers, who also served with distinction in the Continental army. Her grandfather, Isaac Williams, was one of the pioneers of the Province of Mississippi, of which he served for some time as Colonial Governor. An uncle, Governor Henry Johnson, was Governor of Louisiana and a member of the United States Senate, retiring from that body in 1860 when eighty years of age. Her parents came to Texas in 1845, and settled on Oyster creek, in Fort Bend County, bringing with them four children : Joseph Smith, who died in the Federal prison at Fort . Butler, in Illinois, during the war between the States ; Jolinson Coddington, who also died in that

prison ; Edwin J., now living on Oyster creek ; and Annie Williams, who died in Houston, February 17th, 1893. Johnson Coddington Williams, who was a member of Terry's Rangers when first enlisted, but at the time of his death at Fort Butter was a member of W. H. Wilke's Regiment, Carter's Brigade.

Mrs. Fenn's first year in Texas was spent in the old homestead of Moses Shipman, one of the original " Austin 300." The logs and boards of the house were all made by hand and joined to- gether with wooden pins, there being no iron bolts or nails in the country. Here she and the family were obliged to drink water from creeks and pouds and suffered all the inconveniences and hardships incident to life in a new and entirely undeveloped country.

Mrs. Fenn is a member of the Presbyterian Church, president of San Jacinto Chapter, Daugh-, ters of the Republic of Texas, and since 1877 has been a member of the Texas Veterans' Association. She is a lady of rare culture and intellectual attainments.

Mr. Fenn has been a member of the Texas Veterans' Association since 1876. He is a member of the Democratic party, with the highest sense of every duty, and well merits the confidence and esteem in which he is held by those who know him best within the social and business world. He has met with a reasonable measure of success in a financial way, having $100,000 judiciousły in- vested. He has lived in Houston since 1872. Mr. and Mrs. Fenn have a delightful home in that city. Here they are quietly and happily passing their declining years. They have witnessed villages, towns and cities rise where the red Indian pitched his wigwam ; there are now waving fields of golden grain on sun-kissed prairies over which once wandered the buffalo and coyote ; they have be- held the coming of the railroad and the telegraph, and not only the dawning but wondrous growth and expansion of a refined and elegant civilization for which they helped clear the way. They and others like them are entitled to lasting gratitude and remembrance.

MRS. FENN AND DAUGHTERS.

JAMES R. MASTERSON.

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INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

JAMES ROANE MASTERSON,

HOUSTON.

James Roane Masterson, though reared in Texas, is not a native of the State. He was born in Lebanon, Wilson County, Tenn., April 15, 1838.

His paternal grandmother was a Miss Washington, nieee of President George Washington. His father, a lawyer of Brazoria County, Texas, was a native of Tennessee, but removed with his family to Texas in 1839, and was elected County Clerk of Brazoria County. His mother, Christiana J. Roane, born in Nashville, Tenn., January 10, 1818, is the daughter of James Roane, son of Governor Archi- bald Roane, of Tennessee, in whose honor a county of that State is named ; a grandniece of Governor Spencer Roane, of Virginia, who was at one time United States senator from that State, and of David Roane, who was appointed by President Jefferson, United States District Judge for the State of Ken- tucky, and a cousin of Governor John Roane, of Arkansas. The maternal grandmother of James R. Masterson was a Miss Irby, of Virginia, a rela- tive of President. John Tyler. One of her sisters is the mother of John Morgan, United States Senator from Alabama. Two of her nieces married Thomas Chilton of the Supreme Court of Alabama, one of whom was mother of Mrs. Abercrombie, of Hunts- ville. Another of lier sisters, Mrs. Mary Hooker, of New Orleans, formerly Mrs. Noble, was the mother of John I. Noble, of New Orleans.

Ilis paternal uncle, William Masterson, married the eldest daughter of the celebrated Felix Grundy, of Tennessee. Ilis brothers, William, Washington (now dead), Archibald, and Branch T. Masterson, were all in the Confederate army and. were gallant soldiers, William and Washington serving as officers. Harris was a small boy when the war began.

James R. Masterson's opportunities for obtaining a thorough education were very limited. When he was a youth there were no good schools in Texas, and what education he received is due to his mother. His early predilections were for the law, and he began the study of that seience at the age of seventeen. In 1856 he entered the law office of Gen. John A. Wharton and Clinton Terry, at Brazoria. He had for four years been an assistant to his father in the County Clerk's office, and there gained much information in regard to forms and practice, knowledge that greatly facilitated his advancement. He was admitted to the bar in

1858, having been declared of age for that purpose by the Legislature of Texas. As soon as admitted to the practice, he located in Houston and there applied himself to his profession with great dili- gence and assiduity. He was studious, careful and attentive to business. The industry and caution he displayed in the preparation of his cases gave him a standing at the har at once, and secured for him a large and luerative practice. By the unani- mous request of the Houston bar, he was, in 1870, appointed by Governor E. J. Davis, Judge of the Nineteenth Judicial District of Texas, composed of Harris and Montgomery counties. He entered upon the duties of that office with the same energy and industry that he had exhibited as a practi- tioner. His predecessors in office, prior to the war between the States, were men of acknowledged ability and were eminently qualified for the station ; and from the time of his appointment, he exhibited a laudable ambition to worthily emulate their vir- tues. His executive ability in the disposition of judicial business is rarely equaled, and in applying the law to the facts of the case, few men are more careful and accurate, and none more conscientious.

Judge Masterson served under the appointment of the Governor until the adoption of the present constitution, in 1876. By that instrument his office was made elective by the people, and he was the first judge of his district elected under it. He was nominated by the Democrats and chosen Judge of the Twenty-first (old Nineteenth) District,

His personal character and official course have been so eminently satisfactory to the people that no man in the district could have been elected in his stead. He has but a very brief military record. He enlisted in the army to go to Virginia with IFood's seouts, but was transferred to Elmore's Reg- iment, Twenty-first Texas, commanded by Lieut .- Col. L. A. Abercrombie, and served one year, and was honorably discharged. Politically, Judge Masterson has always been a Demoerat, and in the days of secession was a follower of Sam Houston and favored co-operation rather than seeession. IIe did not endorse the constitutionality or the expediency of secession, but advocated the co-oper- ation of Texas with the northern tier of Southern States. He belongs to the State's Rights school of politics, but does not believe that secession is a constitutional remedy.

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Judge Masterson is a Knight Templar and Past Master of Holland Lodge No. 1, Ancient Order of Free and Accepted Masons (Ilouston), of which Presidents Sam Houston and Anson Jones had been masters. He has been Captain-General and Gene- ralissimo of Ruthven Commandery No. 2, chair- man of the committee of Foreign Correspondence of the Grand Commandery, and is a member of the committee of Grievances and Appeals of the Grand Lodge of Texas and of the Knights of Honor and German Turn Verein. He was baptized and reared in the Episcopal Church, of which Mrs. Mas- terson was also a member. Judge Masterson was married in Galveston, Texas, January 17, 1865, to Miss Sallie Wood, a native of Galveston, daughter of E. S. Wood, the noted hardware merchant of that city. She graduated at Miss Cobb's Seminary in her native city. Mrs. Masterson died in 1890. Four children were born of this union, all at Galves- ton: James Roane, Annie Wood, Lawrence Wash- ington (died in 1891), and Mary Heard Master- son.

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Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I, Part 56

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895 Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel] Number of Pages: 922

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel]
Number of Pages: 922