USA > Texas > The evolution of a state, or, Recollections of old Texas days > Part 6
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His widow, in compliance with his request, had a deep hole dug like a well, into which the coffin was lowered, feet first, facing the setting sun.
Isaac McGeary was among the early settlers. He was a genial fellow with a passion for practical jokes in which he sometimes found a boomerang. While I was working down at Colonel Bell's, McGeary and a stranger one day rode up, their feet encased in moccasins and their heads covered with rude caps made of a green dcerskin. The caps and moccasins so at variance with the balance of their attire, especially that of the stranger, whose name was Dickerson, at once suggested a misadventure. Inquiry elicited the remarkable story that they had camped out on the prairie the night before and the coyotes had stolen their hats and shoes. I saw by the twinkle in Mc's eye that there was a sequel to the story and as soon as he got a chance he unbosomed it to me. Dickerson was as ver- dant as a meadow in May and on their ride down from San Felipe, Mc amused himself by imposing on his credulity ; telling him among other things of the penchant of coy- otes for hats and shoes, cautioning him on retiring to put those parts of his apparel under his head, himself setting the example. After Dickerson fell asleep, Mc softly arose and stealing the hat and shoes from under his companion's head he carried them, together with his own, a little way aside and hid them in the high grass. Great was Dicker- son's consternation when he awoke in the morning and felt for his hat and shoes. Mc felt for his and they too were gone. He commenced looking around, and when he liad carried the joke far enough, he sauntered out to the place where he had deposited them intending to explain their disappearance, but behold they were not there; the coyotes had gotten them. The hats they found torn to fragments, but the shoes were gone. McGeary dared not
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cheap then, so they went across to Captain Martin's on the river where they were fitted out in the manner above de- scribed. Dickerson often told that story as he understood it to illustrate the stealth of the coyote. McGeary played a worse joke on me, and that I should have liked to lick him for had I been physically able. Old Martin Varner had a lot of wild hogs running in the bottom and when he wanted pork, went out and shot one. Having occasion to replenish his larder, Varner invited McGeary and myself to go out with him. We all went out on foot accompanied by several dogs. The first game we flushed was a boar with tusks three or four inches long. The dogs caught him and Varner, seeing that he was not marked, took the oppor- tunity of establishing his claim, an operation that some- what riled his porcine lordship's feelings. McGeary and I held the struggling beast while his ears were being muti- lated, and when I released my hold, McGeary, who had him by the hind feet, deftly slued him around with his head toward ma, and shouting, "Look out, here he comes," turned him loose. With gnashing teeth and bristling hair the enraged beast sprang to his feet and made for me. I was considered fast on foot, and there seeming to be no other alternative, I took to my heels, the boar after me and the dogs after him. For about sixty yards I led them till, catching my foot on a stub, I fell flat. My pursuer was being too hotly pursued by the dogs to assault me. When the chase passed I rose to my feet; there was McGeary fairly rolling with merriment. I was mad for a few mo- ments, and as before stated would have licked him had I been able. McGeary swore it was the fastest foot race he ever saw, and would want nothing better than to "travel" with me if I could run like that on a bet.
Old Vicente Padilla was running a monte game in San Felipe. Money was too scarce to bet more than a quarter
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at a time, and quarters-dos reales-were not plenty, so in order to provide enough such change, they cut a dollar in four pieces. When Mexico established her independ- ence, one of her first acts was to change the stamp of her coin, the eagle dollar taking the place of the Spanish milled dollar. The latter being defaced by hammering was then worth only seventy-five cents. These hammered dol- lars were often cut into five pieces by a little extra ham- mering and made to pass as quarters. Old Vicente was getting the best of the game of course and nobody had any scruples about beating him in any way. One of the "buckers" was in my shop one day and seeing a lot of little triangular bits of iron lying around was struck with an idea. Gathering up the bits, he polished them up till they bore quite a resemblance to the quarters cut from the hammered dollars. He departed with his prize and after dark repaired to the monte bank where the dim light of the tallow candles enabled him to pass off liis iron chips on the dealer without detection.
Nacogdoches was the gambler's heaven; that being the first town the newcomer struck after crossing the Sabine. Here there was a regular organization for roping in the greenhorn and relieving him of his cash. Several of its members afterward took an active part in the revolution, one at least being a signer of the Declaration of Independ- ence. This brave patriot having spotted a stranger who seemed to have deep pockets, steered him into a game and went out to look for another sucker. When he returned the game was over and the clique dividing the spoils. The steerer demanded his share. "Why you wasn't in the game," they contended. "The h-1 I wasn't; didn't I find him first?" and backing his claim with a pistol he se- cured his share. So unscrupulous were they that they didn't even wait till the victim was out of the room to di-
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vide. Taking in the situation, a fellow that had been thus robbed, said to them, "I think it's a d-d outrage for the government to send old John H. Murrill to the state's prison and let such fellows as you go free."
Charles Falenash, one of the earliest settlers in Austin's colony, located on the river above San Felipe in territory now included in Burleson County. The family were well calculated for pioneers, fear having been left out of their makeup ; its place being given over to cool, level-headed, self-possession, a quality invaluable on the frontier. This family trait came out conspicuously in an exploit per- formed by John, one of the little boys. The children were playing about a pond, into which a little chap incautiously waded. Hearing the child in the water scream, John was horrified to see that an alligator had him by the leg. The boy knew there was not a moment to lose as the alligator would make for deep water, so he wasted no time in try- ing to summon aid, but drew his knife and rushed to the rescue. Knowing, also, that the eyes were the only vu'ner- able points in an alligator's head, he directed his blows accordingly, getting in his work on both the creature's optics before it released its hold. Then, seizing his brother by the arm, John broke for the bank, which they reached in safety.
Old John Cummings, one of the Three Hundred, made his usefulness in the colony manifest by building the first mill in the state on a little creek to which he gave name, a few miles above San Felipe. There was a sawmill, with corn cracker attached, all run by water. The saw was getting along in years and therefore a slow feeder. The old man, who was not in favor of wasting time, started the saw into a log and went home to dinner, and did up other little chores while it was eating its slow way through. He one day sat down on the farther end of a log to cast up
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his accounts, and becoming absorbed in the work, forgot the saw, stealthily creeping toward him with tortoise-like gait, till it seized him by the sleeve, and finding flesh easier to masticate than wood, proceeded to chew him up. Fortunately his assistant had the sense to stop the saw before it did more than lacerate his arm and head.
Down on the river below San Felipe, dwelt another of the original Three Hundred, old Joe Kuykendall. The old man was rather inclined to take life easy, a disposition which the superabundant energy of his thrifty helpmate, Annie, together with his implicit reliance on her ability to manage the affairs of the house of Kuykendall, gave him ample opportunity to indulge.
Colonel Knight, getting down sick and having no family, Kuykendall took him home to take care of him. During the time one of Annie's milk cows came home, evidently having left a young calf hidden out. Annie put on her bonnet and followed the cow to find the calf. She was gone so long that Knight said he began to entertain fears for her safety, and suggested to Joe that he had better go and look for her, as she might have got lost.
"Annie get lost," exclaimed Joe, as if such a proposition were incredible. "O no! If it don't get cloudy, and a snake don't bite her, I'll be - if Annie don't come home." His confidence in her was fully justified when along toward sundown Annie came in driving the cow and calf.
Bob Matthews, a tinner, had a shop in San Felipe, the first enterprise of the kind in Texas, and probably the first on Mexican territory as the Mexicans had not pro- gressed beyond the gourd and pottery. Bob had led a roving life, having been on a long trip to the Rocky Mountains before coming to Texas. He must have passed through some sanguinary scenes which left their
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tinge on his mind, one of his favorite adjectives being "bloody," sometimes using it in most incongruous con- nections. I was talking of going home.
"Ah," said he, "if you go home, you won't stay ; they'll be all the time telling you of some bloody thing you won't want to hear. I went back once. I went to visit my sister, whose husband kept a hotel. On Sunday morning I was in the bar-room tossing pennies with the barkeeper when my sister passed the door. Going into her room shortly after, I found her crying over my wickedness. I was so disgusted with the bloody nonsense that I got up and left and never went back."
At another time he said to me: "You talk too much with your mouth. In a place like this it is best to keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut ; and if you see something say nothing." Failure to heed the latter part of the admonition was really the mainspring of the trouble that befell me later.
Bob and I being the two crack shots of the place, where everybody was on the shoot, we often went gunning to see who could bag the most game. Our favorite sport was picking the squirrels from the tall pecan trees in the river bottom.
Colonel J. W. E. Wallace, United States Consul for the colonies, was anxious to pose as a crack marksman. He went squirrel hunting with us, and when we were dividing up the game asked to be allowed to take those that were shot in the head. We let him make his own selection and lad many a sly laugh over his wonderful skill. Colonel Wallace used to go alone into the river bottom to practice, bringing back only proofs of center shots.
The boys used to come to my shop to get up shooting matches ; every fellow putting up his dollar, the one who came nearest the center taking the pot. They came one
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day when I was very busy. I told them to go ahead, and when they had all shot I'd take my turn. When it came to me, I shot and won. Just then old Joe Callahan stag- gered up, rifle in hand.
"See here, boys, can't Uncle Joe have a chance?" Wil- ling to increase my winnings another dollar I replied, "O yes, Uncle Joe, you shall have a chance ; go ahead." He anteed his dollar and raised his gun. He was too drunk to stand still, but after several lurches he made a supreme effort and blazed away. The ball struck the ground some ten feet short of the target and glanced, caught the lower edge of the target board, ploughed its way up through the center, tearing the paper to atoms. Uncle Joe won the money.
It wasn't always the man who hit the bull's eye oftenest that did the most effective shooting in an emergency. There were a couple of men in town, Moore and Mc- Kinstry, who fell out and agreed to settle their differences with pistols. They both came to me to train them. The course of training for dueling was to stretch a tape a man's height on a tree and shoot at the tape. Moore cut the tape oftener than he missed it, while Mckinstry often missed the tree, seeing which, I looked on Mckinstry as virtually a dead man. But when the duel was fought, Moore missed entirely, while Mckinstry's ball struck him just above the ankles, breaking both legs.
Discussing the affair with Jesse Thompson, I expressed surprise at the result. "Ah," said he, "the tree had no pistol pointed at Moore when he was shooting at it."
And speaking of duels reminds me of another duel that took place, without the aid of seconds. There was a cer- tain doctor who, when under the "influence," was always belligerent. He had a falling out with Colonel DeWitt and challenged him. "You can have choice of weapons," said
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the doctor. "All right," said the colonel, "I accept your challenge, and this is my weapon." And with that. he raised his cane and gave the bellicose medico a drubbing that cured him of dueling.
There was a lawyer who had a penchant for dueling, to which men paid no attention. He sent a challenge to a merchant with whom he had trouble. The challenged party made no reply and the challenger proceeded to post him as a coward. A brother of the man who was being thus maligned, ordered him to take down the poster, and upon his refusal he was shot dead.
Nor were these San Felipeans indifferent to the claims of genius. The first public function after my arrival in the town being a demonstration in honor of a local bard, in which the distinguished gentleman, after having been made the recipient of a bran new suit of tar and feathers, was escorted through the whole length of the town seated on a rather lean Pegasus and bidden a long adieu at the further end.
The poetical flight which called forth this popular ex- pression, had for its inspiration the banishment of a woman who, though posing as the wife of a prominent man, had previously sustained the same relation to an old circus manager, whom she deserted without the formality of a divorce when a younger suitor appeared. Her charms being already on the wane, the faithless lover soon wearied of his conquest and, in order to make room for a younger woman, to whom he could establish a legitimate claim, preferred charges against his whilom inamorita, which led to her banishment; an injustice which fired the poet's soul with indignation. The pen being mightier than the sword, the champion of the injured fair, chose the former weapon with which to avenge her wrongs, but unfortunately for him he neglected to put up his shield when entering the arena.
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The verses as a whole, I do not recall, nor would their publication be admissible; the following couplets will be sufficient to establish their character. They were headed "Mrs. W --- s' Lament."
"The United States, as we understand,
Took sick and did vomit the dregs of the land.
Her murderers, bankrupts and rogues you may see, All congregated in San Felipe."
Then followed a long string of names including those of the most prominent men in the place, together with the cause which impelled them to emigrate. There was liter- ally "more truth than poetry" in the argument, the master of ceremonies in the demonstration on the author, having been lighted on his journey thither by the moon's pale beams. As Dr. Rivers expressed it, "people were nearer on an equal footing socially in San Felipe than any place he ever saw; if one said to another, 'you ran away, he could retort, 'so did you.'" Some wag fitted a tune to the doggerel rhyme, and the dare-devil spirit, which tempted the disinterested to sing it, was several times productive of blood-shed.
Many hard things have been said and written of the carly settlers in Texas, much of which is unfortunately only too true. Historians, however, fail to discriminate between the true.colonists-those who went there to make homes, locate land, and, so far as the unfriendly attitude of the Indians permitted, resided on and improved it-and the outlaws and adventurers who flocked into the towns.
To the lasting honor of Stephen F. Austin, be it said, that he conscientiously endeavored to comply with his contract with Mexico to settle none but respectable families on the land allotted to his colony. It being also stipulated that they should be Catholic in religion, Austin probably placed a liberal construction on the word "Catholic," which Web-
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ster defines as "universal," his colonists as a rule being of no particular opinion on religious matters. They were honest and kind hearted, never refusing to lend a helping hand to those in distress, and if that isn't universal religion it is near enough for all practical purposes. And in this connection it may not be amiss to state that though Austin was temporarily invested with discretionary power for the government of his colony, the founding of which was by special contract antedating the promulgation of the general colonization law by four years, his functions ceased with the establishment of a general system of gov- ernment; after which the local conduct of affairs was vested in the ayuntamiento, the members of which were elected from the different sections of the colony. So that, at the period at which we have arrived, Austin had been divested of every semblance of authority ; his colony being under the domination of a ring, the leader of which had skipped his bonds in Alabama to avoid prosecution on a criminal charge, bringing with him all of his personal property and leaving his friends to mourn his departure to the tune of several thousand dollars.
Faulty statutes in the United States sent many a man to Texas. Dueling was still practiced in many of the states, a trivial matter often ending in the death of one party, the other fleeing the country.
Another fruitful source of emigration was debt; and, while some absconding debtors took their portable property along, others gave up all and went to Texas to take a fresh start and grow up with the country. The law of imprison- ment for debt was still in force in some states, and, as the Indian said : "How Injun goin to get deer skin in jail?" If an insolvent debtor really wanted to pay his debts, his only chance was to abscond.
Bob Stewart, a knight of the green cloth, whose capacity
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for contracting debts was only limited by his credit, had an original way of disposing of duns. When a creditor presented a bill, Bob would dismiss him with the rebuke, "Go and pay your own debts and don't come bothering me about mine."
It was the regular thing to ask a stranger what he had done, and if he disclaimed having been guilty of any offense he was regarded with suspicion.
There was one man in Texas-yes, two, though one, being only a slave, didn't count-whose title to honesty was above suspicion-Joseph Mims, who lived down on the San Bernard. The circumstances which gave Mims an opportunity to demonstrate his unimpeachable char- acter, was one in which the Mexican Government would have been the only loser, which latter consideration makes his action all the more remarkable. The pay- master was on his way to Nacogdoches with a large sum of money, and in crossing the San Bernard in a dugout, the boat tipped over and the box of money went over- board and could not be found. Sometime later in a low stage of water, Mims' negro found the money, which he delivered to his master, who promptly notified the Gov- ernment of the find.
I never killed a man, but I came so near it that I never felt the least inclination to repeat it; and can well under- stand how such a deed may poison a man's whole life, even though done under circumstances that entirely justify him in the eyes of the world; haunting him sleeping and waking, driving him to seek oblivion in the wine cup.
There were several men in San Felipe who labored under such a burden. I several times had to defend myself, but fortunately never had a fatal quarrel. The nearest I ever came to it was in the case above referred to. I had em- ployed an old deserter from the United States army to cut
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a lot of wood to burn into charcoal for my shop. He came every morning for a bottle of whisky and then went off to the woods for the day. At length some one told me he wasn't cutting any wood, so I went out to see about it. I found him lying under a tree and very little wood to show for the whisky I had advanced him. The next morn- ing when he came around for his regular bottle, I told him I would give him no more till he cut wood enough to pay for what he had already. Upon that he grasped his ax in both hands and, raising it above his head, came at me. I was working at the anvil with a heavy hammer, and, being quicker than my assailant, planted it between his eyes, felling him senseless to the ground. The blood gushed from his mouth and nose and I thought I had killed lıim, and, notwithstanding it was a clear case of self-defense witnessed by several persons, I began to feel very miser- able over it : but he didn't die, though he was laid up for some time. I paid all his bills and was glad to do it. Yes, I know just how it feels to have killed a man.
But bad as many of the San Felipeans were, I was pre- sumably the worst of the lot, I being banished from the colony in a "Star chamber" proceeding in which I was not allowed to participate; the indictment against me charging me with being "a dangerous person, having treated their authority with contempt." To the latter part of the charge I enter no demurrer, for I certainly felt the contempt, whether I evinced it or not.
The facts in the case were, that having in a difficulty with the alcalde at Gonzales (an overbearing man) killed the alcalde, the homicide, knowing there would be no chance of a fair hearing there, voluntarily came on to San Felipe accompanied by Henry Brown and gave himself up. As the case had to be tried in Saltillo the prisoner asked to be admitted to bail. This was refused and, there being no jail,
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he was put in chains and his trial delayed till the poor man was worn out. I knew there were frequent killings under less provocations for which no one was held accountable ; but killing an alcalde was not an ordinary affair. The prisoner was a friend of mine, and, becoming incensed at the treatment to which he was subjected, I gave him a file to cut his irons off, also providing him with a gun and other essentials with which to leave the country. Instead of getting out of the way, however, he lay around in the hills, stealing in to the house of his brother-in-law at inter- vals to learn if his case had been decided. The minions of the law got wind of his proceedings and, going to the brother-in-law's house, took the latter cut and whipped a confession out of him. They then went to the hiding place of the escaped prisoner and, upon his trying to elude arrest, shot him dead. The gun I had given him was rather a noted weapon, being all of my own make and the first rifled gun made in the colonies; hence the charge against me. But had I heeded the advice of my friend Bob Mathews and kept my mouth shut, I probably would not have been molested.
The first official notice I had of the case against me was when a squad of militia under Captain Abner Kuykendall came to serve the sentence. I told them "they needn't make such a fuss about it, I thought, considering the char- acter of the place, it was about the best thing they had ever done for me." Without allowing me even a day's time in which to wind up my business they put me in charge of a couple of my friends, who undertook to see me across the Sabine. When we were mounted to start, some one ran out with a bottle and glass and proposed that I drink to the health of Old San Felipe. I took the proffered glass, which I drained to the following toast: "If there is an honest man in the place may he be conducted to a place
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of safety, and then may fire and brimstone be rained upon the iniquitous town." That was my last farewell to San Felipe de Austin, my curse having literally been fulfilled before I was through that way again. This was in 1831.
I went on across the Sabine, where the authority of my escort ceased, and the next day recrossed the river, go- ing up into Redlands, as the country between the Sabine and Ayish Bayou was called. Here I sojourned for a short time, after which I drifted down to Alexandria, in Louisiana, where the next four years were mostly passed pleasantly and profitably among the wealthy planters, the most liberal and kind-hearted people in the world; and but for the unhealthy climate, which came near taking me off, I should probably never have re- turned to Texas. I had some rather interesting adven- tures in the Redlands, which I here relate. But first I want it distinctly understood that the disclosures I make are not to be construed as reflecting on the whole popu- lation of the Redlands, who were no more responsible for the evil emanating therefrom than it is that of any other section tyrannized over by a band of ruffians.
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