USA > Texas > Bexar County > San Antonio > San Antonio de Bexar; a guide and history > Part 13
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*For particulars of this terrible encounter see memoirs of Mrs. M. A. Maverick .- W. C., ED.
89
SIDNEY LANIER'S HISTORICAL SKETCH.
The war between Texas and Mexico had now languished for some years. The project of annexation was much discussed in the United States; one great objection to it was that the United States would embroil itself with a nation with which it was at peace-Mexico-by annexing Texas, then at war. The war, however, seemed likely to die away; and to prevent the removal of the obstacle to annexation in that way, Mexico made feeble efforts to keep up such hostilities as might at least give color to the assertion that the war had not ended. Accordingly in the year 1842 a Mexican army again invested San Antonio. After a short parley Colonel Hays withdrew with his small force, and the Mexicans, numbering about seven hundred men under General Vasquez, took possession of the place and formally reor- ganized it as a Mexican town. They remained, however, only two days, and con- ducted themselves, officially, with great propriety, though the citizens are said to have lost a great deal of valuable property by unauthorized depredations of private soldiers and of Mexican citizens who accompanied the army on its departure.
Again on the 11th of September, 1842, a Mexican army of twelve hundred men under Gen. Woll, sent probably by the same policy which had despatched the other, surprised the town of San Antonio, and, after having a few killed and wounded, took possession, the citizens having capitulated. Gen. Woll captured the entire bar of lawyers in attendance on the District Court, then in session, and held them as prisoners of war. He did not escape, however, so easily as Gen. Vasquez. The Texans gathered rapidly, and by the 17th had assembled two hundred and twenty men on the Salado, some six miles from town. Capt. Hays. with fifty men, decoyed Gen. Woll forth, and a battle ensued, from which the enemy withdrew at sunset with a loss of sixty killed and about the same number wounded, the Texans losing one killed and nine wounded. It is easy to believe that the honest citizens of San Antonio got little sleep on that night of the 17th of. September, 1842. Gen. ,Woll was busy making preparations for retreat ; and the Mexican citizens who intended to accompany him were also busy gathering up plunder right and left to take with them. At daylight they all departed. This was the last time that San Antonio de Bexar was ever in Mexican hands.
After annexation, in 1845, the town began to improve. The trade from cer- tain portions of Mexico-Chihuahua and the neighboring States-seems always to have eagerly sought San Antonio as a point of supplies whenever peace gave it the opportunity. Presently, too, the United States Government selected San Antonio as the base for the frontier army below El Paso, and the large quanti- ties of money expended in connection with the supply and transportation of all materiel for so long a line of forts have contributed very materially to the pros- perity of the town. From a population of about 3500 in 1850, it increased to 10,000 in 1856 .*
Abandoning now this meagre historical sketch, and pursuing the order indi- cated in the enumeration of contrast and eccentricities given in the early part of this paper : one finds in San Antonio the queerest juxtaposition of civilisations, white, yellow (Mexican), red (Indian), black (negro), and all possible permuta-
* San Antonio has now an estimated population of 50,000 .- W. C., ED.
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SAN ANTONIO DE BEXAR.
tions of these significant colors. Americans, Germans, and Mexicans; besides these there are probably representatives from all European nationalities .*
Religious services are regularly conducted in four languages, German, Span- ish, English and Polish.
Perhaps the variety of the population cannot be better illustrated than by the following " commodity of good names," occurring in a slip cut from a daily paper of the town a day or two ago :
MATRIMONIAL. - The matrimonial market for a couple of weeks past has been unusually lively, as evidenced by the following list of marriage licenses issued during that time : Cruz de la Cruz and Manuela Sauseda ; Felipe Sallani and Maria del R. Lopez ; G. Isabolo and Rafaela Urvana; Anto. P. Rivas and Maria Quintana ; Garmiel Hernandez and Seferina Rod- riguez ; T. B. Leighton and Franceska E. Schmidt ; Rafael Diaz and Michaela Chavez : Levy Taylor and Anna Simpson, colored ; Ignacio Andrada and Juliana Baltasar ; August Dubiell and Philomena Muschell ; James Callaghan and Mary Grenet ; Albert Anz and Ida Pollock ; Stephen Hoog and Mina Schneider; Wm. King and Sarah Wilson, colored ; Joseph McCoy and Jesse Brown ; Valentine Heck and Clara Hirsch ; John F. Dunn and E. Annie Dunn .*
Much interest has attached, of late years, to the climate of San Antonio, in consequence of its alleged happy influence upon consumption. One of the rec- ognized "institutions" of the town is the consumptives, who are sent liere from remote parts of the United States and from Europe, and who may be seen on fine days, in various stages of decrepitude, strolling about the streets. This present writer has the honor to be one of those strolling individuals ; but he does not in- tend to attempt to describe the climate, for three reasons : first, because it is sim- ply indescribable ; second, if it were not so, his experience has been such as to convince him that the needs of consumptives, in point of climate, depend upon two variable elements, to wit, the stage which the patient has reached, and the peculiar temperament of each individual, and that therefore any general recom- mendation of any particular climate is often erroneous and sometimes fatally de- ceptive ; and third, because he fortunately is able to present some of the facts of the climate, which may be relied upon as scientifically accurate, and from the proper study of which each intelligent consumptive can make up his mind as to the suitableness of the climate to his individual case. For the past five years, Dr. F. v. Pettersén, a Swedish physician and ardent lover of science, resident in
*Sidney Lanier here says of the old bridge which preceded the present one :
"At the Commerce Street bridge over the San Antonio River, stands a post supporting a large sign board, upon which appears the following three legends :
Walk your horse over this bridge, or you will be fined. Schnelles Reiten uber diese Brucke ist verboten. Anda despacio con su caballo, ó teme la ley.
To the the meditative stroller across this bridge-and on a soft day when the Gulf breeze and the sunshine are king and queen, any stranger may be safely defied to cross this bridge without becoming meditative-there is a fine satire in the varying tone of these inscriptions-for they are by no means faithful translations of each other ; a satire all the keener in that it must have been wholly unconscions. For mark : 'Walk your horse, etc., or you will be fined!' This is the American's warning : the alternative is a money consideration, and the appeal is solely to the pocket. But now the German is simply informed that schnelles Reiten over this bridge ist verboten-is forbidden; as who should say: 'So, thon quiet, law-abiding Tenton, enough for thee to know that it is forbidden simply.' And lastly, the Mexican direction takes wholly a different turn from either: Slow there with your horse, Mexicano, 'o teme la ley,'-or 'fear the law!' "
* This refers more appropriately to the date of Sidney Lanier's remarks. Since that day there has been an increasing influx of Americans .- W. C., ED.
1
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SIDNEY LANIER'S HISTORICAL SKETCH.
San Antonio, has conducted a series of meteorological observations with accurate apparatus ; and the results which follow have been compiled from his records :
MEAN THERMOMETER.
Spring.
Summer.
Autumn.
Winter.
Seasons of 1868
74.33
84.33
71.33
54.66
66.43
83.10
67.53
52.93
1870
1871
1872
70.58
83.13
68.96
49.75
MEAN HYGROMETER.
Seasons of 1868
65*
78
64
49
1869
62
77
62
49
1870
1871
.
.
64
73
63
50
66
1872
64
76
61
46
TOTAL RAINFALL.
For the year 1868
46.60 inches.
66
1869
49.03
1870
35.12
66
1871
24.86
66
60
1872
31.62
66
.
.
68.70
83.43
70.66
51.30
71.28
87.45
68.38
54.31
·
60
77
65
46
.
.
.
.
These are averages, but the view which they present of the climate, although strictly accurate as far as it goes, is by no means complete.
San Antonio is at an altitude of 564 feet above the level of the sea, in latitude 29 ° 28', longitude 98° 24'. It is placed just in the edge of a belt of country one hundred and fifty miles wide, reaching to the Rio Grande, and principally de- voted to cattle-raising. . ... Inside, the location of the city is picturesque. Two streams, the San Antonio and San Pedro rivers, run in a direction generally par- allel, though specially as far from parallelism as capricious crookedness can make itself, through the entire town. The San Antonio is about sixty feet wide; its water is usually of a lovely milky-green. The stranger, strolling on a mild sunny day through the streets, often finds himself suddenly on a bridge, and is half start- led with the winding vista of sweet lawns running down to the water, of weeping willows kissing its surface, of summer houses on its banks, and of the swift yet smooth-shining stream meandering this way and that, actually combing the long sea-green locks of a trailing water-grass which sends its waving tresses down the centre of the current for hundreds of feet, and murmuring the while with a palpa- ble Spanish lisping, which floats up among the rude noises of traffic along the street, as it were some dove-voiced Spanish nun out of the convent yonder praying heaven's mitigation of the wild battle of trade. Leaving this bridge, walking down the main (Commerce) street, across the Main plaza, then past the San Fernando Cathedral, then across the Military Plaza, one conie pres- ently to the San Pedro, a small stream ten or fifteen feet in width, up which the
* Fractions omitted.
1869
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SAN ANTONIO DE BEXAR.
gazing stroller finds no romance, but mostly strict use; for there squat the Mexican women on their haunches, by their flat stones, washing the family garments, in a position the very recollection of which gives one simultaneous stitches of lumbago and sciatica, yet which they appear to maintain for hours without detriment. .
Crossing the San Pedro we are among the jacals, . . . . more pretentious dwellings are built of adobes, or sun-dried brick. The majority of the substantial houses of the town are constructed of a whitish limestone, so soft when first quar- ried that it can be cut with a knife, but quickly hardening by exposure into a very durable building material. In the more pretentious two-storied dwellings there are some very good Moorish effects of projecting stone and lattice-work.
A fine architectural example in the town is the San Fernando Cathedral, which presents a broad, varied and imposing facade upon the western side of the Main Plaza .. ... The curious dome, surrounded by a high wall over which its topmost slit-windows just peer-an evident relic of ancient Moorish archi- tecture, which one finds in the rear of most of the old Spanish religious edifices in Texas-has been preserved, and still adjoins the queer priests' dormitories, which constitute the rear end of the cathedral building.
There are other notable religious edifices in town. Going back to Com- merce Street, one can see a fine large church for the German Catholics (San Fernando Cathedral is Mexican Catholic). Crossing a graceful iron bridge, that turns off to the north from Commerce Street, one glances up and down the stream, which here flows between heavy and costly abutments of stone to protect the rear of the large stores whose fronts are on the Main Street, and whose rear doors open almost immediately over the water. Across the bridge in this odd nook of the stream is St. Mary's, the American Catholic Church, its rear adjoining a long three-storied stone convent building, and its yard sloping down to the water. Strolling up the river a quarter of a mile, one comes upon a long white stone building, which has evidently had much trouble to accommodate itself to the site upon which it is built, and whose line is broken into four or five abrupt angles, while its roof is varied with dormer windows and sharp projections and spires and quaint clock-faces, and its rear is mysterious with lattice-covered balconies and half-hidden corners and corridors. This is the Ursuline Convent; and standing as it does on a rocky and steep (steep for Texas plains) bank of the river, whose course its broken line follows, and down to which its long stern-looking wall descends, it is an edifice at once piquant and sombre, and one cannot resist figuring Mr. James' horseman spurring his charger up the white limestone road that winds alongside the wall, in the early twilight, when dreams come whispering down the current among the willow-sprays.
There are notable places about the town which the stranger must visit. He may ride two miles along a level road between market gardens which are vital- ised by a long acequia, or ditch, fed from the river, and come presently upon the quaint gray towers of the old Mission Concepcion .* The old church, with its high- walled dome in the rear, is in a good state of preservation, and traces of the sin- gular many-colored frescoing on its front are still plainly visible. Climbing a very
* The Mission of Our Lady of the Concepcion de Acuna.
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SIDNEY LANIER'S HISTORICAL SKETCH.
shaky ladder, one gets upon the roof of a long stone corridor running off from the church building, and, taking good heed of the sharp-thorned cactus which abounds up there, looks over upon a quaint complication of wall-angles, nooks, and small-windowed rooms. .
Further down the river a couple of miles one comes to the Mission San Jose de Aguayo. This is more elaborate and on a larger scale than the buildings of the first Mission, and is still very beautiful. Religious services are regularly con- ducted here; and one can do worse things than to steal out here from town on some wonderfully calm Sunday morning, and hear a mass, and dream back the century and a half of strange, lonesome, devout, hymn-haunted and Indian- haunted years that have trailed past these walls. Five or six miles further down the river are the ruins of the Mission San Juan in much dilapidation.
Or the visitor may stroll off to the eastward, climb the hill, wander about among the graves of heroes in the large cemetery on the crest of the ridge, and please himself with the noble reaches of country east and west, and with the perfect view of the city, which from here seems "sown," like. Tennyson's, "in a monstrous wrinkle of the" prairie. Or, being in search of lions, one may see the actual animal, by a stroll to the "San Pedro Springs Park," a mile or so to the northward. Here, from under a white-ledged rocky hill, burst forth three crystal- line springs, which quickly unite and form the San Pedro. With spreading water-oaks, rustic pleasure buildings, promenades along smooth shaded avenues between concentric artificial lakes, a race-course, an aviary, a fine Mexican lion, a · bear-pit in which are an emerald-eyed blind cinnamon bear, a large black bear, a wolf and a coyote, and other attractions, this is a very green spot indeed in the prairies. Or one may drive three miles to northward and see the romantic spot where the San Antonio River is forever being born, leaping forth from the moun- tain, complete, totus, even as Minerva from the head of Jove. Or one may take one's stand on the Commerce Street bridge and involve oneself in the life that goes by this way and that. Yonder comes a long train of enormous blue-bodied, can- vas-covered wagons, built high and square in the stern, much like a fleet of Dutch galleons, and lumbering in a ponderous way that suggests cargoes of silver and gold. These are drawn by fourteen mules each, who are harnessed in four tiers, the three front tiers of four mules each, and that next the wagon of two. The " lead " mules are wee fellows, veritable mulekins ; the next tier larger, and so on to the two wheel-mules, who are always as large as can be procured. Yonder fares slowly another train of wagons, drawn by great wide-horned oxen, whose evident tendency to run to hump and fore-shoulder irresistibly persuades one of their cousinship to the buffalo.
Here, now, comes somewhat that shows as if Birnam Wood had been cut into fagots and was advancing with tipsy swagger upon Dunsinane. Presently, one's gazing eye receives a sensation of hair, then of enormous ears, and then the legs appear, of the little roan-gray burros, or asses, upon whose backs that Mexican walking behind has managed to pile a mass of mesquite firewood that is simply astonishing. This mesquite is a species of acacia, whose roots and body form the principal fuel here. It yields, by exudation, a gum which is quite equal to gum arabic, when the tannin in it is extracted. It appears to have spread over this
94
SAN ANTONIO DE BEXAR.
portion of Texas within the last twenty-five years, perhaps less time. The old settlers account for its appearance by the theory that the Indians-and after them the stock-raisers-were formerly in the habit of burning off the prairie-grass annually, and that these great fires rendered it impossible for the mesquite shrub to obtain a foothold ; but that now the departure of the Indians and the transfer of most of the large cattle-raising business to points further westward, have resulted in leaving the soil free for the occupation of the mesquite. It has certainly taken advantage of the opportunity. It covers the prairie thickly, in many directions as far as the eye can reach, growing to a pretty uniform height of four or five feet-though occasionally much larger-and presenting with its tough branches and innumerable formidable thorns, a singular appearance. The wood when dry is exceedingly hard and durable, and of a rich mahogany color. This recent overspread of foliage on the plains is supposed by many persons to be the cause of the quite remarkable increase of moisture in the climate of San Antonio which has been observed of late years. The phenomena-of the coincident increase of moisture and of mesquite-are unquestionable ; but whether they bear the relation of cause and effect, is a question upon which the unscientific lingerers on this bridge may be permitted to hold themselves in reserve. . .
And now as we leave the bridge in the gathering twilight and loiter down the street, we pass all manner of odd personages and "characters." Here hobbles an old Mexican who looks like old Father Time in reduced circumstances, his feet, his body, his head all swathed in rags, his face a blur of wrinkles, his beard gray-grizzled-a picture of eld such as one will rarely find. There goes a little German boy who was captured a year or two ago by Indians within three miles of San Antonio, and has just been retaken and sent home a few days ago .* Do you see that poor Mexican without any hands ? A few months ago a wagon- train was captured by Indians at Howard's Wells; the teamsters, of whom he was one, were tied to the wagons and these set on fire, and this poor fellow was released by the flames burning off his hands, the rest all perishing save two. Here is a great Indian-fighter who will show you what he calls his " vouchers," being scalps of the red braves he has slain ; there a gentleman who blew up his store here in '42 to keep the incoming Mexicans from benefiting by his goods, and who afterwards spent a weary imprisonment in that stern castle of Perote away down in Mexico, where the Mier prisoners (and who ever thinks nowadays of that strange, bloody Mier Expedition ?) were confined ; there a portly, handsome, buccaneer-looking captain who led the Texans against Cortinas in '59; there a small, intelligent-looking gentleman who at twenty was first Secretary of War of the young Texan Republic, and who is said to know the history of everything that has been done in Texas from that time to this, minutely ; and so on through a perfect gauntlet of people who have odd histories, odd natures or odd appear- ances, we reach our hotel. SIDNEY LANIER.
* This was written of 1873 .- W. C., ED.
Interviews and Memoirs of Old Time Texans.
Extracts from the Memoirs of Mrs. M. A. Maverick.
We have been permitted by the kindness of the family to examine this remarkable document,-"This little family history necessarily private," as it is modestly described in the preface.
In reality the Record is a portion of the annals of Texas, and from the early days of trial and difficulty it reads us besides, a latter-day lesson of courage, pati- ence and fortitude.
From the point of view of the historical trifler, the feeling that impresses one, on laying down the manuscript after scanning all its lines, is as though one had stumbled upon the diary of a noble Roman matron of the days of Regulus.
The few extracts and running comments which follow will give an idea of the story-A tale not told in heroics, but which simply worded, never falls short of heroism, and which, in the unaffected courage, and affecting piety of its writer is probably unique.
Samuel Augustus Maverick was born July 23, 1803, at Pendleton, South Car- olina of distinguished revolutionary stock of English and Huguenot extraction. Mrs. Maverick was an Adams-the Massachusetts family transplanted to Virginia and intermarried with a Lewis of that state.
Mrs. Maverick was married August 4th. 1836, near Tuscaloosa, Alabama, her mother's home. The family started for Texas October 14th, 1837; Mr. Sam Mav- erick being then a baby of five months. Mr, Maverick senior, had been in Texas in 1835, and his friends thought him killed in the Alamo fight. As a record of old time travelling, and to illustrate the up-building of the Southwest, their progress to the Lone Star State is of interest in these days of Pullman sleepers; Mrs. Maverick says: "Father accompanied us half a day. .
. We traveled in a carriage, Mr. Maverick driving and nurse Rachel and baby and myself the other occupants. In a wagon with Wiley as driver, was Jinny our future cook and her four children. We reached mother's, (Tuscaloosa, Alabama, from Pendle- ton, South Carolina) about the last of October; and stopped with her about six months making final preparations. December 7th, 1837, we set out
for Texas. Our party was composed of four whites and ten negroes. The negroes were four men Griffin, Granville, Wiley and Uncle Jim-two women Jinny and Rachel, and Jinny's four children. We had a large car- riage, a big Kentucky wagon, three extra saddle horses and one blooded filly. The wagon carried a tent, a supply of provisions and bedding, and the cook and children. . We occasionally stopped several days in a good place to rest and to have washing done, and sometimes to give muddy roads time to dry. We
96
SAN ANTONIO DE BEXAR.
crossed the Mississippi at Rodney, and Red river at Alexandria, and came through bottoms in Louisiana where the high-water marks in the trees stood far above our carriage-top, but the roads were good there when we passed. We crossed the Sabine, a sluggish, muddy, narrow stream, and stood upon the soil of the Republic of Texas about New Year's day 1838.
"January 7th, 1838, we occupied an empty cabin in San Augustine, while the carriage wheel was being repaired. This was a poor little village principally of log cabins, on one street, but the location was high and dry. We laid in a supply of corn and groceries here and pushed on through Nacogdoches, to the place of Colonel Durst, an old acquaintance of Mr. Maverick. There we met General Rusk. We 110w had to travel in occasional rains and much mud, where the country was poor and sparsely settled and provisions for man and beast scarce. We, on advice, selected the longest but the best road, namely, the one leading by the way of Washington, high up on the Brazos. From Washing- ton we went to Columbus on the Colorado, and thence about due south towards the Lavaca River. Now came a dreadful time. About January 26th we entered a bleak, desolate, swampy prairie, cut up by what are called dry bayous, and now almost full of water. This swamp, covered by the "Sandy," Mustang and head branches of the Navidad, was fourteen miles wide. Every step the animals took was in water. We "stalled " in five or six of the gullies and each time the wagon had to be unloaded in wind, water and rain, and all the men and animals had to work together to pull out. The first "norther " struck us here, a terrific, howling north wind with fine rain, blowing and penetrating through clothes and blankets. I never before experienced such cold. We were four days crossing this fourteen miles of dreadful swamp. The first day we made three miles and that night my mattress floated in water. No one suffered from the exposure, and Mr. Maverick kept cheerful all the while. Our provisions were almost gone when, on the 30th, we crossed the Navidad, stopping at Spring Hill, Major Sutherland's place. Mr. Maverick now went on to see if it was safe to take us to San Antonio, and visited other points with a view to settling, especially Matagorda, where he owned land.
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