USA > Texas > The history and geography of Texas as told in county names > Part 4
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In the organization of his cabinet Houston tendered the first place to Austin, who accepted it, and in October entered upon his duties as Secretary of State. In this position he ac- quitted himself with great credit and displayed consummate ability.
In his instructions to the representatives of the Republic at Washington he outlined what nine years later formed the principal basis of most of the articles of annexation.
While in the midst of his arduous labors he became ill and died Dec. 27, 1836.
On the day of his death the following order was issued :
"War Department, Columbia, December 27, 1836.
"The father of Texas is no more. The first pioneer of the
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wilderness has departed. General Stephen F. Austin, Secre- tary of State, expired this day at halfpast twelve o'clock, at Columbia.
"As a testimony of respect to his high standing, undeviat- ing moral rectitude, and as a mark of the nation's gratitude for his untiring zeal and invaluable services, all officers, civil and military, are requested to wear crape, on the right arm, for the space of thirty days. All officers commanding posts, garrisons or detachments will, as soon as information is re- ceived of this melancholy event, cause twenty-three guns (one for each county in the Republic) to be fired, with an interval of five minutes between each; and also have the garrison and regimental colors hung with black, during the space of mourn- ing for the illustrious deceased.
"By order of the President.
"WILLIAM S. FISHER, Secretary of War."
A similar order to the navy was issued by S. Rhoads Fish- er, Secretary of that department.
His remains were buried in Brazoria County, but were after- wards taken up and reinterred in the State Cemetery of Aus- tin, Texas.
He was never married, but many of his kindred who had shared his fortunes in Texas survived him to become promi- nent and useful in his later history of Texas.
BASTROP.
The name of the old municipality of Mina was changed to Bastrop in honor of Baron de Bastrop, called by Saudedo, Chief of the Department of Texas in 1827, Don Felipe Henry Neri, Baron de Bastrop.
He was born in Prussia in 1770 and served in the army for a short time. Later he offered his services to the King of Spain, who sent him on a special mission to Mexico and Louis- iana. While in Louisiana he secured a contract to colonize over 500,000 acres of land situated between the Mississippi and Red Rivers, but when Spain ceded Louisiana to France and France ceded it to the United States he transferred his claim
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THE HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF TEXAS
to Aaron Burr. He then removed to Mexico and finally to San Antonio, where he was acting as an alcalde when Moses Aus- tin arrived at the place in December, 1820, in the interest of his colonial enterprise.
But for Bastrop's influence with Governor Martinez and his intercession for Moses Austin the concession would prob- ably not have been considered at all. He had known Moses Austin when both were citizens of Louisiana.
In 1823 he was appointed commissioner to issue titles to Austin's colonists, but having to wait for surveys it was not until 1824 that he issued any titles. He was twice elected to the Congress of Coahuila and Texas, and died at Saltillo while serving in that capacity in 1829.
CHAMBERS.
General Thomas Jefferson Chambers, in whose honor this county was named, was born in Orange County, Virginia, April 13, 1802. He was one of a family of twenty children, his father having been mar- ried twice. He received a liberal education in his na- tive state, and at the age of twenty-four became much interested in the ris- ing young Republic of Mex- ico. He visited the City of Mexico and remained there three years, studying the language, laws and insti- tutions of that country. In 1829, he was appointed Surveyor General of Texas, and was made a full citizen of Mexico by Congress.
On Feb. 12, 1830, he with J. A. Padillo, made a contract with the State to introduce eight hundred colonists, but an examination of the situation disclosed that the area to be col- onized was within the United States, in what is now Oklahoma
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and Kansas, so that nothing was done toward the fulfillment of the contract.
He then applied for admission to practice law and was li- censed by a special act of Congress. In April, 1834, he was appointed Judge of the Superior Court of Texas at a salary of $3,000 a year. The Treasury of Coahuila and Texas being proverbially empty, he was induced, a little over a year after he was appointed and when his first year's salary was over due to accept land in lieu of his salary. At that time the Congress of Coahuila and Texas had fixed the price of public domain at 4 cents per acre to citizens of Mexico, and as he was a full-fledged citizen he was authorized to take land, and an agreement was made with him by which he was to receive land at $100 per league, and the amount due him in June, 1835, was thirty leagues, or 132,840 acres. As this transaction has been criticised unfavorably by some of the historians and a number of his contemporaries, it is due to his memory and to his descendants in Texas to give material facts.
His salary of $3,000 at the end of one year being over-due, he received half (or fifteen leagues) of the amount of land due him. For his previous services as Surveyor General he received five leagues.
The condition of the country after his appointment and other circumstances were such as to render it impossible for him to hold any court. The validity of this grant to General Chambers was tested by able counsel, and Justice Roberts in the case of Chambers vs. Fisk, reported in the twenty-second volume of Texas Reports, fully sustained the legality of the grant. Eight of the leagues mentioned embraced the land up- on which the city of Austin is located. Notwithstanding this, successive congresses of the Republic and legislatures of the State have never compensated General Chambers nor his heirs for the land condemned for the capital city, though the sales of lots yielded large sums to the Republic and State.
When Texas was invaded by the Mexican armies in 1835 General Chambers went before the Provisional Council and proposed to that body that he would hypothecate his lands and raise $10,000 to be used in procuring arms and men for the
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defense of Texas. His proposition was accepted, and he was commissioned Major General for the purpose. He made a report of his commission to the Texas Congress in 1837, stat- ing that he had sent to Texas 1,916 men, had sold $9,035 of bonds and expended $23,621. His report was approved and the treasury directed to settle with him accordingly.
Some of the arms sent in by him were used as late as the Civil War, and two of the cannons are now mounted at the steps of the Capitol Building at Austin. He took an active interest in public affairs afterwards, though he held no polit- ical office.
In 1861, he was elected a member of the secession conven- tion, and in 1863 was a candidate for Governor, but was de- feated by Pendleton Murrah. He then retired to private life at his home in Anahuac and was assassinated there by some unknown person, March 13, 1865. His body was interred in the cemetery of the Episcopal church at Galveston.
DEWITT.
Green DeWitt was born in Kentucky on the 16th day of September, 1797. He removed to Missouri in 1819, first settling in St. Louis County, and later moved to Ralls County, where he was elected sheriff.
He went to the City of Mexico and later to Saltillo, the capital of Coahuila and Texas, and on the 15th day of April, 1825, obtained a contract to introduce four hundred families within the following boundaries :
"On the north, the old San Antonio road, on the east the Lavaca River, and from its head a line extended in the same direction as the general course of that river up to the old San Antonio road; on the west a line commencing on said road two leagues west of the Guadalupe River and running toward the coast at a distance of two leagues west of said river."
This area embraces in a general way the counties of De- Witt, Gonzales, Guadalupe, Caldwell, and parts of Comal, La- vaca, Fayette, and Victoria Counties.
After obtaining his contract, he employed James Kerr to
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select the site for a town, to survey the lands, and manage the establishment of a colony. Kerr selected a beautiful site on the Guadalupe River for the town and named it Gon- zales for Rafael Gonzales who was at that time Governor of Coahuila-Texas.
In July, 1826, the little settlement was raided by the savages, who killed several of the settlers and the place was abandon- ed. Kerr then moved to the west bank of the Lavaca and es- tablished his permanent home there.
Early in 1828 DeWitt, who had been absent most of the time, returned to Gonzales, which had remained unoccupied, and brought his family, consisting of his wife, two sons, and four daughters, and settled there with other inhabitants of the place.
While on a visit to Monclova, he died there May 18, 1835.
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EDWARDS.
Named in honor of Hayden Edwards, who was born in Staf- ford County, Virginia, in 1770.
Early in life his parents moved to Kentucky and he was reared there. He was liber- ally educated and was a man of large means. About the year 1815, he moved to Mis- sissippi, took with him his family and slaves and opened up a plantation on Pearl river. In 1823, he visited the City of Mexico and later made appli- cation to introduce eight hun- dred settlers in Texas. On the 18th of April, 1825, this application was granted to colonize within the following boundaries : Beginning at the angle formed by a line twenty leagues from Sabine and ten leagues from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico; thence in a northerly direction, passing by the post of Nacog- doches to a point fifteen leagues above it; thence another line west at right angles with the former, to Navasota Creek; thence with said creek downwards to the upper road leading from Bexar to Nacogdoches; thence with said road east to San Jacinto Creek (river), and down said creek to the point where it is intersected by the boundary line of the ten border leagues, on the coast, which are reserved; from this point on a line east to the place of beginning.
He immediately proceeded to fulfill his contract. As a con- siderable part of the country to be settled had been occupied by Spaniards and Mexicans, friction soon arose which he was unable to allay. The conflicts which arose finally resulted in
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what is known in our history as the "Fredonian War," the an- nulment of Edward's contract and his expulsion from Texas. He had thirteen children who settled in Texas, as did sev- eral brothers who afterwards became prominent and useful citizens of Texas. His son, Hayden H. Edwards, represented Nacogdoches in the Texas Congress, afterwards in the State Legislature and in the Secession Convention in 1861.
Hayden Edwards, the Empresario, died in 1848, leaving many descendants. For a detailed account of the Fredonian War see Foote's Texas and Texans and for family data see Brown's History of Texas, Volume 1, page 137.
GONZALES.
Named for the town of Gonzales, after Rafael Gonzales, Governor of Coahuila and Texas in 1825, when DeWitt's col- ony was first established. Little is known as to his anteced- ants or his career, beyond the fact that his administration was without particular incident, generally satisfying to the people of Texas.
LEON.
This county was named for Martin de Leon, a native of Tamaulipas, Mexico, where he was born in 1765; in 1795 he married in Sota la Marina. In early life he was much en- gaged in the wars against Tamaulipas Indians. He entered Texas in 1805 and established a ranch on the Aransas River. Not being able to get a grant of land there, he moved to the east bank on the Nueces, but the Indians became so trouble- some, that he removed to San Antonio. He was a zealous par- tisan in the revolution against Spain.
In 1816 he moved to Burgos, in Tamaulipas. In 1823, he drove mules from his ranch to New Orleans. He then char- tered and loaded the first seagoing craft to arrive at Mata- moras. In 1823, he made known his purpose to establish a colony on the lower Guadalupe, and received authority to lo-
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cate forty-one families upon any vacant land in that vicinity. His grant was ratified Oct. 6, 1825. In 1829, he obtained a contract to settle one hundred and fifty families within an area of ten leagues from the coast, and complied with that contract, founding the town of Victoria. He died of cholera in 1833. There was some friction between the first settlers and those of DeWitt on account of boundaries.
McMULLEN.
John McMullen for whom this county was named was born in Ireland in 1796 and was well educated, being a graduate of Trinity University, Dublin. In 1828, he came to Texas and obtained a contract to settle a colony within the following lim- its: Beginning on the left bank of the Nueces with the bound- ary line of the ten league coast reserve, thence with said bound- ary to a point ten leagues distant from La Bahia; thence in a straight line to the confluence of the Medina and San Antonio Rivers; thence with the right bank of said river to the old Bexar-Presidio road ; thence with said road to the River Nueces; thence west with said river downward on its left bank to the beginning."
This was known as the Irish colony, the territory upon which the colony settled embraced in a general way the area of the present counties of San Patricio and parts of Bee, Karnes, Wil- son and Atascosa.
Patrick McGloin was his partner in carrying out the con- tract. McMullen took an active part in the Texas revolution representing San Patricio in the consultation of 1835 and con- vention of 1836. In 1849 he removed to California during the gold excitement and settled down there with his family and amassed considerable wealth. He died about the year 1860.
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ROBERTSON.
Sterling C. Robertson was born in Nashville, Tennessee, October 2, 1785, Tennessee at that time being a part of North Carolina. He was the son of Elijah Robertson who accom- panied Gen. James Robert- son to the present site of Nashville and founded that city, Elijah being asso- ciated with him in that en- terprise. Elijah was a member of the General As- sembly of North Carolina in 1789 and represented the political fortunes of that portion of Tennessee up to its admission into the Un- ion as a separate state, be- ing associated with Thom- as Hardeman who was in the same assembly and al- so a member of the Conven- tion of 1788 which met at Hillsboro and the Convention of 1789, which met at Fayette- ville, North Carolina, to deliberate upon a ratification of the United States Constitution.
Sterling C. Robertson was reared in Nashville with all the educational advantages the embryo city afforded. Upon the first call for volunteers he enlisted in the volunteer army of the United States and served against both the Indians and the British, and was finally promoted to the rank of Major and served with that rank on the staff of General Carroll at the battle of New Orleans, in January, 1815.
When Mexico achieved her independence from Spain his eye was turned to Texas and in 1823, made an extensive tour through the province and was charmed with the prospect and upon his return to Nashville, determined to cast his fortunes
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with the country. In furtherance of his plan he interested him- self and others in organizing a company for that purpose. After the Congress of the new Republic of Mexico had given over the matter of colonization to the states, Robert Leftwich was sent to Mexico to procure a contract to introduce 800 families. The territory sought for the settlement of the colony was embrac- ed in the following notes and bounds :
"Beginning on the west bank of the Navasota Creek at the upper crossing of the old San Antonio road; thence westward- ly with said road to the dividing ridge between the Brazos and Colorado Rivers; thence with the ridge of hills northward to strike the old Comanche trace, leading to Nacogdoches; thence with this trace leading to Navasota Creek. Thence down said creek with its meanders to the beginning."
It embraced parts of what is now Brazos and Burleson Coun- ties; all of Williamson, Milam, Falls, McLennan, Bell, Coryell, Limestone, Navarro, a part of Hill and small parts of other contiguous counties.
The date of the concession to Leftwich was April 15, 1825, and was the first contract made to colonize portions of Texas by the State of Coahuila and Texas. For reasons which need not be explained, the contract was made with Leftwich indi- vidually but it was in fact the Nashville Company's contract, and so recognized by Coahuila and Texas, as will be seen in the description of Austin's third or Little Colony, when it is called the "colony of the Nashville Company" in 1827.
Leftwich after securing the concession returned to Nash- ville where his health began to decline and he finally died. Robertson then took charge of the company's affairs, reor- ganized the work, establishing his headquarters for offices of the company at a place on the Brazos River near where the town of Marlin now stands. At the same time he settled fur- ther down the Brazos and established a village which he call- ed "Nashville" on a high bluff on the right bank of the river just above the present crossing of the river by the Interna- tional and Great Northern Railway Company. This was to be the objective point of the settlers who were to be distributed from there to such locations as they chose to settle. It was
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made secure against the Indians and grew to be quite a village. About ten miles below this point and where the old San An- tonio crossed the Brazos was another point called "Tenoch- titlan." A few miles above the village of Nashville a river flowed into the Brazos which had been called by the Span- iards San Andress, but as the Spaniards had abandoned the old missions on the San Gabriel and left that region about seven- ty-five years previously the new settlers found it virtually with- out a name and called it "Little River." The protracted ill- ness of Leftwich and the delays occasioned by the readjust- ment of the business of the Nashville Company, Robertson hav- ing in the meantime to assume full charge, delayed the in- troduction of immigrants so that not until 1829 did any set- tlers come into the colony. The original contract of the com- pany required the fulfillment of the contract within six years from its date; in other words, the contract would expire April 14, 1831. In contemplation of this he secured a renewal of the contract and went actively to work in securing settlers in the colony.
In the meantime a new and most serious complication arose in the decree by the Mexican government forbidding the in- troduction of any more American settlers into Texas. At the time of the decree Robertson was in the east organizing and equipping at his own expense companies of settlers for his colony and in 1830 and after the date of the decree, a long line of immigrants in charge of Alexander Thomson reached the boundary of Texas and there learned for the first time that they were forbidden by the decree to settle in Texas. It was wholly impracticable to return to Tennessee or Kentucky. They had disposed of their homes and all their belongings and they concluded to enter Texas and risk the consequences, many of them finding an asylum in Austin's colony.
As Robertson had a valid contract still in existence permit- ting him to introduce settlers, he took the American view that the government could not destroy his vested rights. Conse- quently he continued the work of his enterprise.
In the meantime the decree of April 6, 1830, was repealed but now arose a new difficulty.
4
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The Congress of Coahuila and Texas having been informed of the disobedience to the decree forbidding the introduction of any more settlers from the United States, the contract of the Nashville Company was cancelled and the region embrac- ed in his contract was given over to Austin and Williams Feb- ruary 25, 1831. It took over three years for Robertson to have this order annulled and the Nashville Company contract restored which was done April 29, 1834. Desiring that set- tlers already in his colony should not be left to themselves and to carry out his contract at all hazards, he continued to in- troduce settlers but on the 18th of May, 1835, it was restored to Austin and Williams and matters were in this situation when the Texas Revolution broke out in October, 1835.
The first clash of arms of the Texas Revolution on the 2nd of October, 1835, was at Gonzales, Texas. Robertson at this date was busily engaged in the east, organizing and equip- ping settlers for his colony in Texas. As soon as the news of a clash of arms reached him he hastened back to Texas and found that an election was soon to take place for delegates to the Convention to meet on the Brazos, and he and his nephew, Geo. C. Childress, were elected delegates to represent the Municipality of Viesca, later known as Milam. He took his seat in that convention participating in all the deliberations, until a day or two before adjournment, when, hearing the news of the fall of the Alamo, he hastened to his colony, had all the important land papers and other evidence of title belonging to his colonists securely packed in a box, placed in a cart drawn by a yoke of oxen, and entrusted the same to his son, then only fourteen years old, with orders to take them beyond the limits of Texas.
He then organized a company and proceeded with all des- patch to join the army of Gen. Houston, then on its way to San Jacinto. Whether he overtook Houston in time to par- ticipate in that battle is not certainly known. His name does not appear in the official list prepared by Gen. Houston's di- rection. On the other hand a donation certificate of six-hun- dred and forty acres of land was issued to him for partici- pation in that battle before the issuance of which, strict proof
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was required by law. When matters had settled down after the battle many left the army by permission to look for their fleeing families who had left their homes upon the approach of Santa Anna's army and Robertson left to find his son, who had been sent with the archives of his colony to a place of safety, and after finding him with the archives he returned. At the election in that year he was chosen Senator in the first Congress of the Republic from the Milam District and served in that body until the expiration of his term in 1839 and re- tired to devote his exclusive attention to his land matters which as we have already seen were in a most complicated condition at the beginning of the Revolution in 1835.
In June, 1837, an act was passed by the Congress of the Republic of Texas authorizing him to institute proceedings in the courts to determine his rights as to the lands as an em- presario.
The case is reported in the second volume of the reports of the Supreme Court of Texas. The case was ably briefed and argued on both sides and Chief Justice Hemphill rendered the decision of the court. Among other things the Court says : "The law of 1834 heretofore referred to, as restoring to him his rights" (after the Nashville Company contract had been cancelled by a decree of the Congress of Coahuila and Texas) "treats the contract as his (Robertson's) own, and recognizes no other agent for carrying out the project of colonization. He commenced action, shortly after the passage of the law as empresario and continued to act as such; the witnesses recog- nized him as empresario and his conduct in that capacity is contrasted with that of other like affairs. His activity, en- ergy and expenditures in encouraging emigration are authen- icated and he appears to have been unaided by the assistance, pecuniary or otherwise, of others in the establishment of the colony.
"After this contract had subsisted for five years with but little progress toward its completion, it was suspended by the Act of 1830 prohibiting the introduction of immigrants from coterminous countries. In February, 1831, one or two months before the expiration of the contract by its own limitation and
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years before the suspensory provision of the decree of the 6th of April, 1830, was repealed, the same territory was ceded to Austin and Williams for the purpose of colonization."
The case was tried before a jury and the court referring to the verdict says: "They find evidence of one hundred fam- ilies introduced previous to the renewal of his contract; two hundred and twenty-nine families agreeably to the titles is- sued; one hundred prior to March, 1836, and one hundred and twenty-one previous to that time but not recorded in conse- quence of the closing of the land office, making in all six hun- dred families." It appears therefore that Robertson intro- duced more settlers into Texas than any other empresario ex- cept Austin. This decision was not rendered until 1847. Hav- ing in the meantime retired to his plantation on the Brazos in Robertson County a few miles above the present crossing of the International Railway, he died in March, 1842.
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