USA > Texas > The history and geography of Texas as told in county names > Part 16
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In 1825 he was elected Mayor of Philadelphia and in 1829 was elected District Attorney. He was elected to the United States Senate in 1831 and re-elected in 1837, when he was appointed Minister to Russia. In 1844, being a leading advocate of the annexation of Texas, he was elected Vice President of the United States. He was appointed Minister to Great Britain in 1857 and served during the entire term of President Buchanan. In May, 1861, he returned to the United States and died in Philadelphia, December 31, 1864.
GILLESPIE.
This county was named for Richard Addison Gillespie, a native of Kentucky, who came to Texas in 1837, and began the business of merchandising. He was in the war of the Republic
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of the Rio Grande in 1839; in 1840, in the battle of Plum Creek; and in 1841, a Lieutenant in Tom Green's company of rangers ; was in Somervell campaign in 1842; was seriously wounded in an Indian fight in 1844, and in 1846 he was elected a Captain in Hay's Regiment. He greatly distinguished himself at Mont- erey, where he led a charge in which ten Mexican guns were captured. A few days later he was mortally wounded while leading a charge on the Bishop's Palace, September 22, 1846.
HAYS.
This county was named for John Coffee Hays, familiarly and affectionately known to old Texans as "Jack" Hays. This re- markable man was born on the 23rd day of February, 1817, on a farm in Wilson County, Tennessee, about twelve miles east of the "Her- mitage," the home of Andrew Jackson. He was reared in his native county with such educational opportunities as were then afforded, and at the age of fifteen he went to Mississippi and se- cured employment with surveyors and learned and adopted that profession. At the age of twenty he left Mississippi and came to Texas, and while waiting for the opening of the Land Office and the resumption of surveying lands, he joined the rangers, enlisted as a private, where his splendid qualities as a scout and a daring fighter soon attracted pub- lic attention to him. At intervals, he did some surveying, but upon the organization of a larger force of rangers in 1840, he was offered and accepted the captaincy of one of the com- panies. He was assigned to duty in Southwest Texas and pa- troled the basin of the Nueces from Corpus Christi to its head- waters. One of his first exploits was the pursuit of about two hundred Comanche horse thieves. With only twenty men he drove the Indians off and recovered the stolen horses. His defeat of the Mexicans at Laredo in 1841 and the services per-
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formed during the Vasquez and Woll raids in 1842 are too familiar to the reader of Texas history to warrant special notice here. Upon the outbreak of the Mexican War in 1846, Hays was commissioned as Colonel of the first regiment of Texas' mounted troops and attached to General Taylor's army. He did conspicu- ous service at the capture of Monterey. In his report of the storming of the fort on Independence Hill, General Worth said: "The General feels assured that every individual in the command unites with him in admiration of the distinguished gallantry of Col. Hays and his noble followers. Hereafter they and we are brothers, and we can desire no better guaranty of success than by their association." His command being only six-month vol- unteers, he returned to Texas in the spring of 1847 and organ- ized another regiment. When the time came for assigning the regiment, it was divided; six companies under Lieut. Col. P. H. Bell were assigned to service on the Rio Grande; the other five were assigned to General Scott's army, and in the cam- paign against the City of Mexico won national fame. Hays' command was the last to leave the City of Mexico. He return- ed to Texas in 1848 and was mustered out of service. Later he received an important commission to New Mexico to deal with some of the delicate situations there, arising by reason of the opposing claims of the United States and Texas to that territory. He was again in New Mexico in 1849, and when the great gold excitement seized the people of Texas, he joined and was placed in charge of a large caravan to California. His fame preceded him there, and he was made sheriff of San Francisco shortly after his arrival. The distorted condition of affairs in that embryo city required the services of just such a leader. He served four years in that capacity, and in 1853 was appointed by President Pierce, Surveyor General of California. In the interim, he, with several others, pur- chased from Vicente Peralto a large Spanish grant on the opposite shore of the bay. After his appointment as Surveyor General, he moved to the land, laid out a city and named it "Oakland." After the expiration of his term as Surveyor General, his growing young city and his business interests required all his attention, and he retired from public life. He
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amassed considerable wealth; was president of one bank and the largest stockholder of another, and built one of the most palatial homes in Alameda County. Besides these, he owned considerable real estate in Oakland. His last public service in politics was as a delegate to the National Democratic convention which nominated Samuel J. Tilden to the Presidency in 1876. He died April 25, 1883. His funeral was conducted under the auspices of the veterans of the Mexican War in San Francisco and Alameda County, the pioneer associations, and other mil- itary and civic organizations.
POLK.
James Knox Polk was born in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina, November 2, 1795. His parents moved to Tennes- see in 1806, where he was reared and educated. In 1814 he entered the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and grad- uated from that institution in 1818. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1820 and in 1823 was elected to the Legis- lature of Tennessee. In 1825 he was elected to the United States Congress and was a member of that body for fourteen years and for two years was Speaker of the lower house.
On the expiration of his Con- gressional term he became the candidate of the Democratic party for Governor of Tennessee and was elected by twenty-five hundred majority, made two efforts for re-election but was defeated both times, and in May, 1844, was nominated for President at the convention held at Baltimore and was elected. His administration was a successful one. The annexation of Texas and the Mexican War soon followed, resulting in a treaty of peace extending the area of the United States to the Pacific Ocean. He declined
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a renomination, after his term of four years, and retired to his home in Nashville, Tenn. He died and was buried there June 15, 1849.
TYLER.
John Tyler was born at Greenway, near Charles City Court- house, Virginia, on the 29th day of March, 1790. He entered the grammar school of William and Mary College in 1803 and in 1804 entered William and Mary College, from which he graduated in 1807, and upon reaching his majority he was elected to the Legislature of Vir- ginia and served in that capacity five years. In 1816 he was elected a member of the United States Congress and served two terms. In 1823 he was again elected to the state legislature and in 1825 was elected Gover- nor. In 1827 he was elected a Senator of the United States and re-elected in 1833. In 1835 he was again elected to the state legislature and in 1840 was elected Vice President on the ticket with William Henry Harrison. By the death of President Harrison he became President of the United States and qual- ified as such April 6, 1841. The party which elected him was composed of all the elements hostile to Van Buren. His ad- ministration was a stormy one, but its climax was the signing the resolution for admitting Texas into the union of states. At the close of his term he retired to his estate near Williams- burg, Va. In February, 1861, he was called from retirement, selected a delegate to the peace congress, of which he was pres- ident, at Washington, was afterward elected delegate to the Virginia convention, which passed the ordinance of secession in April, 1861, and was then elected a member of the Confed- erate Senate. He died Jan. 17, 1862.
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UPSHUR.
Abel Packer Upshur was born in Northampton County, Vir- ginia, June 17, 1790. He was educated in the common schools and at William and Mary College and later at Princeton Col- lege. He studied law in the office of William Wirt and was admitted to the bar in 1812. He first settled in Richmond, Va., and practiced his profession there, but with a view to obtaining a seat in congress, he moved to Northampton, his na- tive county, on the eastern shore of Virginia. Failing in the election, he was afterward elected to the state legislature and there became highly distinguished as a debater and orator. He was a member of the state convention of 1829-30, to amend the Virginia constitution. His review of Judge Story's theory of constitutional law fixed his fame. He was judge of the court of appeals of Virginia for twelve years. In 1841 he became a member of Mr. Tyler's Cabinet as Secretary of State and in 1843 began negotiations for the annexation of Texas. He was killed by the explosion of a gun on the steamer Princeton, February 28, 1844. Wise in his "Seven Decades of the Union," says of him: "He was a finer rhetorician and orator than Webster and a closer logician, his style purer and his power of expression clearer."
WALKER.
Robert John Walker, in whose honor this county was named April 6, 1846, was born in Northumberland County, Pennsyl- vania, July 23, 1801.
He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1819, studied law, and began the practice of his profession in 1822 in Pittsburg, and remained there until 1826, when he moved to Mississippi, and located at Madisonville where he became eminent at the bar.
He was elected as a Democrat to the United States Senate in 1836, and was re-elected in 1842. He resigned his position in that body March 5, 1845, to accept the position of Secretary
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of the Treasury in the Cabinet of President Polk. He declin- ed the mission to China, tendered by President Pierce in 1853; was appointed Governor of Kansas April 10, 1857, but resign- ed in 1858; was financial agent of the United States in Europe in 1863, and 1864, where he negotiated a loan of $250,000,000, returned to the United States and acted in an advisory capacity to the government in financial matters, and died in Washing- ton, D. C., November 11, 1869.
One of his first acts in the Senate was the introduction of a resolution acknowledging the independence of the Republic of Texas. He championed the resolution with great zeal and abil- ity, and it was finally adopted by a vote of 23 to 22, and ap- proved by President Jackson March 2, 1837, the first anniver- sary of Texas Independence.
Messrs. Wharton and Hunt, in a letter to him, expressed on behalf of the people of Texas, their profound thanks for his great work and Hunt proposed to him that he would have a bust made for him and placed in the Capitol of Texas.
In his reply, after modestly declining the offer, he wrote: "I marked with many a rising hope and ebbing fear, your trembl- ing solicitude and I beheld the overflowing joy, with which your bosoms throbbed when you saw our country inscribe the name of Texas on the scroll of independent nations. Your star is now beaming with all of the brightness of new born liberty.
"The history of your struggle is a history of a series of ac- tions of commingled valor and clemency, worthy of your glor- ious parentage, unrivaled in moral sublimity which exalt and dignify the character of man. You are a child of our free institutions, the first born of that race, which carries onward and onward, our language, laws, and liberty throughout our old America.
"Go on patriotic Americans; go on my countrymen, for such I call you ; go on noble and generous people, and may the great dispenser of the destiny of nations so order the course of events, that the single luminary, which now shines from your country's standards, be one of a great constellation of lights, beaming and burning, with our own red stars in perpetual brightness from the banner of the American Union."
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From that time until nine years later, when the resolution to annex Texas to the Union was passed, he was instant in season and out of season in behalf of that consummation. No man in all of the Union was more exultant, when he read the elegant address of Anson Jones, the last President of the Republic of Texas, which, among other things, said, were the following:
"The Lone Star of Texas, which, ten years since arose amid clouds, over fields of carnage, and obscurely seen for awhile has culminated, and following an inscrutable destiny has pass- ed on, and become fixed forever, in that glorious constellation, which all free men and lovers of freedom in the world must revere and adore, the American Union. Blending its rays with its sister states, long may it continue to shine, and may generous heaven smile upon the consummation of the wishes of the two republics now joined in one. May the Union be perpetual, and may it be the means of conferring benefits and blessings upon the people of all the states, is my ardent prayer.
"The first act in the great drama is now performed. The Republic of Texas is no more." The Legislature of Texas adopt- ed the following joint resolution December 10, 1863.
"Whereas it is the opinion of several persons in and out of the County of Walker, in this State, that said county was named in honor of Robert J. Walker, then a distinguished citizen of Mississippi, and who had rendered himself popular with the people of Texas by his warm advocacy of the annexation of Texas to the United States.
"And whereas the said Robert J. Walker ungrateful to the people who honored him and nurtured him in political distinc- tion, had deserted that people, and leagued with Abraham Lincoln in his vain efforts to subjugate the Southern States, now struggling for their liberties and independence, thereby rendering his name odious to the people of Texas and to the Confederate States of America; Therefore:
"(1) Be it resolved by the State of Texas, that the County of Walker in this State be and the same is hereby named Walker County in honor of Captain Samuel H. Walker, the distinguished ranger, who fell in Mexico, while gallantly fight- ing for the rights of Texas, and that no honor shall attach to
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the name of Robert J. Walker, in consequence of a County in the State bearing the name of Walker.
"(2) That this joint resolution take effect and be in force from and after its passage, approved December 10, 1863." When the Mexican War was imminent he devised a tariff sys- tem, which proved to be, probably, the most successful and pop- ular the United States have had before or since. It is widely known in the history of tariff legislation as the "Walker Tar- iff." Its main features contemplated a tariff for revenue only. With it the Mexican War was tided over without the issuance of a single bond. It brought large revenue and in ten years enabled the government to pay off four-fifths of the expenses of the Mexican War debt and almost paid the entire current expenses of administering the government.
In 1857 he accepted the delicate responsibility involved in the office of Governor of Kansas. His official course met with a violent opposition from his party in the South, where he was denounced in various legislatures. This and the aid rendered the United States in negotiating a loan in Europe and after- wards acting in an advisory capacity in financial matters for the government of the United States during the Civil War were the occasion for the action of the Legislature of Texas above mentioned.
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WISE.
Henry A. Wise was born at Drummondtown on the eastern shore of Virginia on the third day of December, 1806. He was educated at Washington College, from which he graduated in 1826. After serving a term in the state legislature, he was elected to the United States con- gress and served eleven years, consecutively. He was in the midst of the storm of the Jack- son administration and was the leader of the Whig minority dur- ing Tyler's administration. He was a zealous advocate of the an- nexation of Texas, championing the cause and defending the peo- ple of Texas from the fierce onslaughts of her enemies in con- gress. He was appointed minister to France in 1842, but the Whig majority of the senate refused to confirm his appoint- ment. He was appointed minister to Brazil in 1844 and the appointment was confirmed. In 1855 he was nominated for Governor of Virginia and in the canvass achieved a national fame in his speeches against Know-Nothingism. He was elect- ed governor and was such when John Brown was captured, imprisoned, tried and hung for murder. He was a member of the peace congress in February, 1861, and when all hope for peace was at an end he was elected delegate to the con- vention which passed the ordinance of secession in April, 1861. He then joined the Confederate army, and was made brigadier general. After the war he located in Richmond, Virginia, and died there, September 12, 1876.
He was a forcible debator and orator, and many of his epi- gramatic sentences have come down to us. He was the author of "Seven Decades of the Union," and a "Memoir of John Tyler," two most entertaining works, which deserve to be read for the light they give on the periods of which they treat.
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THE HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF TEXAS
CHAPTER XIII.
After the termination of the Mexican War and the signing of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, the United States station- ed troops in Texas and built a cordon of forts along the fron- tier. Settlements grew up around them in many places and towns sprang up which have taken their names, i. e., Fort Worth, Fort Davis, etc., but no county name commemorates that fea- ture of our history except Mason.
MASON.
Fort Mason was established July 6, 1851, by Companies A. and B. of the Second Dragoons, under the command of Cap- tain Hamilton H. Merrill. The fort was named Mason after Richard B. Mason, who was born in Fairfax County, Virginia, January 16, 1791. He was a grandson of the Revolutionary statesman, George Mason. He entered the army as second lieutenant of the infantry, September 2, 1817, was immediate- ly advanced to the rank of First Lieutenant, and on the 31st of July 1818 advanced to the rank of Captain. On March 4, 1833, he was appointed Major of the First Dragoons, and on the 4th of July, 1836, made Lieutenant Colonel, and then Colonel, June 30, 1846. He reached the rank of Brigadier General May 30, 1846. He took part in the Black Hawk War, and during the war with Mexico was stationed in California, where he acted as civil and military governor until superseded by General J. W. Reilly. He died in St. Louis, Mo., June 26, 1850.
The village and settlement grew up around Fort Mason, and when the fort was abandoned and the county organized, it re- tained the name, and the county was given the same name.
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CHAPTER XIV.
Statesmen, jurists, journalists, historians, ministers, and others who are commemorated on our county map :
1. Brooks
7. Jim Wells 12. Runnels
2. Coke 8. Kendall 13. Schleicher
3. Crane 9. Morris 14. Terrell
4. Culberson 10. Reagan 15. Willacy
5. Foard 11. Real 16. Yoakum
6. Jim Hogg
BROOKS.
Hon. J. S. Brooks was born on a farm near Paris, Kentucky, November 30, 1855, and received a common school education. He came to Texas in January, 1877, was employed as a cow- boy in the spring of that year and went up the trail to the northeast with cattle. In 1880 he located in San Antonio, en- listed as a ranger in 1882 and continued in that service until 1906, rising to the rank of Captain. In 1906 he resigned and located at Falfurrias and engaged in farming and stock rais- ing. In 1911, when a new county was created, he was elected to the Thirty-First and Thirty-Second Legislature. He still (1912) lives in the county that bears his name.
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THE HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF TEXAS
COKE.
Richard Coke was born in Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1829. He was educated at William and Mary College, graduated in 1849, and studied law. He came to Texas in 1850 and located in Waco, a town at that time less than one year old, and continued to practice law there up to 1861, when he joined the Confederate Army. He was appointed District Judge in 1865, and in 1866 one of the Associate Justices of the Su- preme Court. In 1873 he was elected Governor and re-elected in 1875. In 1877 he was elected to the United States Senate and was successfully re-elected, and held the office up to his death in 1896.
CRANE.
William Cary Crane was born in Richmond, Va., March 17, 1816, and was a lineal descendant of Robert Treat, Governor of Connecticutt. In early boyhood he was sent to a boarding school in King William County, Virginia, six miles from Han- over Court House. At the age of fifteen he was sent to Mount Pleasant Academy in Massachusetts. He joined the Baptist Church and was baptized at Richmond, Virginia, July 27, 1832, and afterward attended the Richmond College and Columbia College in Washington and was also a student at Hamilton College, now Colgate University. He then went to Talbotton, Georgia, where he taught school and was pastor of the church there. On June 18, 1838, he was married, ordained to the full work of the ministry in Baltimore and engaged as pastor of the church in Montgomery, Alabama. He lost his voice in 1839 and in 1842 returned to Virginia and traveled for the Ameri- can Tract Society ; for a short time he was employed as editor
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of the Baptist Recorder at Nashville, Tenn. In July, 1844, he was called to the Baptist Church at Columbus, Miss., where he remained three years. From there he removed to Vicksburg, and from there was called to the presidency of the Mississippi Female College at Hornado, serving from 1857 to 1860. Later he became president of Simple Broadway College at Jackson, where he also edited a Baptist paper. From there he was call- ed to the presidency of the college in Louisiana, and in 1863 was called to the Presidency of Baylor University at Independ- ence, Texas. He died at Independence, Texas, February 26, 1885. He was a voluminous writer, his last and principal work being "The Life and Literary Remains of General Sam Houston."
CULBERSON.
David B. Culberson was born in Troupe County, Georgia, September 29, 1830. He was educated at La Grange, Georgia; removed to Alabama and studied law under Chief Justice Chil- ton, and removed to Texas in 1856, locating at Jefferson. He was elected a member of the Leg- islature in 1859. He entered the Confederate Army as a private and rose to the rank of Colonel of the Eighteenth Texas Infantry. He was appointed Adjutant Gen- eral of Texas November 17, 1863, and served one year, when he was elected to the Legislature and was a member of that body when the war closed in 1865. After the war he resumed the practice of law at Jefferson and in 1873 was elected State Senator. In 1878 he was elected Representative in Congress from the Fourth District of Texas and by successive re-elections served as a member of Con- gress until 1902, when he retired and died at Jefferson in 1903. He was chairman of the Judiciary Committee of the lower house
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for several terms and achieved a nation wide fame as a constitu- tional lawyer. At the time of his death he was one of the Commis- sioners to revise the United States Criminal Code, under appoint- ment of President Mckinley.
FOARD.
Robert J. Foard was born in Cecil County, Maryland, in 1827. He was a nephew of Senator Bayard of Deleware. He graduated at Princeton College and thereafter came to Texas. He located at Columbus, in Colorado County, and immediately took a leading position at the bar. At the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 he enlisted and rose to the rank of Major. At the conclusion of the war he resumed his profession and continued in the practice up to his death in 1898. He was a law- yer of great ability and one of the kindest, most charitable, modest, and reserved men of his generation. This county was named in his honor by his junior partner while a member of the Senate, in recognition of his great qualities, professional and social, and entirely without solicitation or suggestion from Major Foard.
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JIM HOGG.
This county was named in honor of James Stephen Hogg, who was born in Cherokee County, Texas, March 24, 1851. He was a son of General James Lewis Hogg, a Brigadier General of the Confederate Army, who died at Corinth, Mississippi, in 1864. General Hogg had been a conspicuous figure in the politics of Texas since the days of the Republic. He came to Texas in 1839, and in 1843 represented his district in the Congress of the Republic. He was a member of the Consti- tutional Convention of 1845 and State Senator in 1846. He en- tered the Volunteer Army of the United States and served in the Mexican War. Upon his return to Texas he was again elected to the Legislature and in 1861 was a member of the Secession Convention. After his death his son, James Stephen Hogg, en- tered a printing office at Tyler, and later established a news- paper at Longview, which he removed to Quitman, in Wood County and there established the Quitman News. He served as Justice of Peace from 1873 to 1876, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1875, and in 1878 was elected County Attorney. Two years later he was elected District Attorney of the Seventh Judicial District composed of the counties of Gregg, Rains, Smith, Upshur and Wood, and while acting in that capacity moved to Tyler, Texas, and at the expiration of his term began the practice of law. In 1886 he was nominated by the Democrats of the State for the office of Attorney General. He held this office for two terms and in 1890 was nominated and elected Governor of Texas. He served two terms as Gov-
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