USA > Texas > The history and geography of Texas as told in county names > Part 6
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Coryell Johnson Parker Titus
Denton Kerr
Parmer Wilbarger
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THE HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF TEXAS
ARMSTRONG.
This county was named for "The Armstrong family." There is nothing in the act creating the county, or in the journals of the Legislature to indicate what particular Armstrong family was meant. There are six different families by the name, some of which held important public positions. James and Cavitt Armstrong were members of the convention that framed the Constitution of 1845, and James R. Armstrong, a member of the Secession Convention, in 1861, and James Armstrong was again a member of the convention that framed the Constitu- tion of 1867. Frank C. Armstrong arose to the rank of Brig- adier General in the Confederate Army. It would be obviously impracticable to give a sketch of all these.
BORDEN.
This county was named in honor of Gail Borden, Jr. He was the son of Gail Borden, Sr., and Philadelphia (Wheeler) Bor- den, and was born at Norwich, New York, November 6, 1801, and received nearly all his educa- tional training in the schools of that place.
In 1814 the family moved to Ken- tucky to a place opposite Cincinnati, and Gail, Jr., with his younger broth- er, cultivated a farm on the site which is now occupied by the city of Covington.
From there the family moved to Indiana in 1816, locating on the banks of the Ohio River, ten miles below the town of Madison, where young Gail remained until he was twenty-one years old. His health having become seri- ously impaired, he concluded to go south, and to that end loaded a flat boat and went with it to New Orleans. After disposing of his cargo he went over into the piney woods of Mississippi
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and there engaged in teaching school and surveying land, and was married there.
In 1829 he went to Texas, whither the family of his father had previously removed, and engaged in farming and stock raising, and in 1833 was sent as a delegate to the convention of that year. He was then employed by Stephen F. Austin to supervise the official surveys in his colonies and had charge of the Land Office of the colony under the direction of Samuel M. Williams, the Colonial Secretary of Austin.
In October, 1835, in connection with his younger brother, Thomas H. Borden, and Joseph Baker, he established a news- paper at San Felipe called the "Telegraph and Texas Register," and continued its publication there until March 24, 1836, when, on account of the approach of Santa Anna's army, he moved it to Harrisburg, on Buffalo Bayou. The Mexican army under Santa Anna reached Harrisburg on the 14th of April, just as the paper was ready to go to press. It was seized by order of Santa Anna, the type pied, and presses and all thrown into the bayou.
After the battle of San Jacinto he purchased a new press and new type and re-established the paper at Columbia, where the First Congress of the Republic assembled, and it was pub- lished there until April, 1837, when it was removed to Hous- ton, the temporary capital of the Republic.
President Houston appointed him to the position of Collect- or of Customs at Galveston in 1837. He gave up this position in 1839 and accepted the agency of the Galveston City Com- pany, which he held for about twelve years. The leisure af- forded him while in this position gave him opportunities for bringing into play his genius for invention. His first achieve- ment along this line was the invention of the meat biscuit, which was exhibited at the World's Fair in London in 1852, and won for him the Great Council Medal and an honorary membership in London Society of Arts. The pemmican made by him was used by Dr. Kane on his Arctic expedition.
Depending largely with this convenient form of army ration, upon the patronage of the government for the army and navy, he invested all his means in its manufacture, but army con-
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THE HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY OF TEXAS
tractors thwarted his plans, and he became bankrupt. Emerg- ing from this, penniless, he began life anew when over fifty years old, and turned his attention to condensing milk, and in 1853 applied for a patent on his invention. After meeting with many difficulties he finally obtained a patent, in 1856, after having sacrificed about two-thirds of his interest in it. Pro- gress was slow at first, but when the Civil War began in 1861 the demand for the product greatly exceeded the supply. From that time on business grew by leaps and bounds, until now (1913) there are over one hundred and thirty plants scattered over eleven states, supplied by twelve thousand farmers, with milk from over two hundred and fifty thousand cows, and turn- ing out more than three hundred million cans of condensed milk annually. With condensed milk other dairy products are manufactured, the plant at Elgin, Illinois, being one of the largest manufactories of butter in the world.
In the meantime Borden had turned his attention to condensing the juices of meat. At first this extract was made at Elgin, Illinois, but competitors who purchased cheap beef from South America caused him to establish a plant in Colorado County, Texas, where good and cheap beef could be ob- tained, and while engaged in the business there died January 11, 1874. His body was taken to New York and buried in Woodlawn Cemetery. He had also succeeded in condensing tea, coffee, and cocoa and fruit juices, reducing the last to one- seventh of its original bulk.
It is interesting to compare his method for convenient army rations to the methods used by the Japanese in their war with Russia. In the prosecution of his enterprise he amassed a great fortune and dispensed it with a beneficent hand in vari- ous ways. He was a man of earnest Christian character, lib- eral in all his dealings and loyally attached to Texas. His younger brother, James P. Borden, was a participant in the battle of San Jacinto, serving as First Lieutenant in Baker's company of Burleson's regiment, and was later appointed first Commissioner of the General Land Office of Texas.
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BROWN.
Henry S. Brown, the father of John Henry Brown, the Texas historian, was born in Mason County, Kentucky, March 8, 1783. His father's family removed to St. Charles County, Mo., about 1810. The Indians were very troublesome in that region and he volunteered in a military company just then organized to drive them from the country and had his first war experience at the battle of Fort Clark (Peoria). He was married in 1814, and began trading between St. Louis and New Orleans. In 1819 he moved to Pike County, Mo. He was a friend of Moses Austin, and visited Texas about 1823, and in 1824 returned with a stock of goods for the Indian and Mexican trade. In 1825 he organized a company of men to go in search of his brother, who had been captured by Indians, and after a fruit- less search, going over three hundred miles into the interior, he returned to the Brazos. In July, 1826, his brother returned from captivity. He engaged in merchandising, trading with the settlers at San Antonio and on the Brazos. From time to time he commanded organized bodies in pursuit of Indians. In one of these expeditions he pursued the savages as far as the county which bears his name. When trouble arose in 1832 with Mexican authorities he organized a company and was in command at the battle of Velasco. He was an active member of the con- vention of 1832. He died of cholera during an epidemic of that disease at Columbia, Texas, July 26, 1834.
CALDWELL.
Mathew Caldwell ("Old Paint") was born in Kentucky, in 1798. His father's family removed to Missouri in 1818. From Missouri he came to Texas in 1833 and settled in what is now Sabine County. He represented that municipality in the con- vention of 1836, and was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence. He later removed to Gonzales and partici- pated in a number of engagements with Indians, being in com- mand of a company of Rangers in 1838 and 1839. In 1840 he
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was one of the commanders in the battle against the Com- anches at Plum Creek, near the present town of Lockhart. In 1841 he commanded a company in the Santa Fe Expedition, was captured and carried to prison in Mexico and released in July, 1842. In September, 1842, he was chosen commander of a force of two hundred men to meet the invading force of the Mexican General Woll. The historian, Brown, says, "At sun- set on the 17th (September) they marched for the balance of the night over the country without any road, and about mid- night took position on the east bank of a creek a little below where New Braunfels is now situated, and camped there until the 18th, just one week after Woll had taken San Antonio. Woll's force consisted of 400 cavalry, 1050 infantry, and two pieces of artillery. Caldwell dispatched Hays and his scouts to challenge the Mexicans to attack them, thinking that 202 Texans could whip 1450 Mexicans in this position. In a few moments they were charged by 400 Mexicans. About one o'clock Woll arrived with 800 men and two pieces of artillery. After a des- perate struggle of twenty minutes the Mexicans fell back and at sunset retired to San Antonio, and the next day began their retreat to the Rio Grande." After the pursuit of Woll, Cald- well returned to Gonzales and died there December 28, 1842.
COLEMAN.
Robert M. Coleman, in whose memory this county was named, was born in Kentucky in 1799 and came to Texas in 1832.
His experience in Indian warfare in Kentucky prompted his appointment as captain of the first ranging company of Texas doing service on the extreme frontier of Bastrop County and the region north of what is now Williamson, Burnet, and other re- gions exposed to the Indians, as far east as the headwaters of the Navasota River. When trouble began with Mexico, in 1835, he resigned his position to accept a place as a member of the Consultation, and again was elected a member of the convention of 1836 from Bastrop. He served in that body, and became one of the signers of the Declaration of Independ- ence. When the convention adjourned he hastened to join the
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army, becoming a volunteer aide on the staff of General Hous- ton, and served as such in the battle of San Jacinto.
He was drowned in the Brazos at Velasco in 1838. One year later his widow and son were killed by Indians at their home in Bastrop County.
COLLIN.
Collin Mckinney, in whose honor this county was named, was born April 17, 1776, in New Jersey. In 1780 he removed with his father's family to "Crab Orchard," in what is now Kentucky. Here he became accustomed to Indian war- fare. In the winter of 1823- 24 he left Kentucky and lo- cated near where the City of Texarkana is situated, and from there, in 1831, removed to Hickman's Prairie, in what is now Bowie County, and while residing there was elected a member of the Con- stitutional Convention in 1836, and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In 1840 he removed to what is now Collin County, which was named in his honor and the county seat was named Mckinney. He represented this county two terms in the Legislature and then retired from public life. He died at his home in Collin County September 8, 1861, and his body was buried near Van Alstyne.
CORYELL.
James Coryell, in whose honor Coryell County was named, was born in Tennessee in 1796. When quite a young man he went to Illinois, and from there came to Texas about the year 1828, traveling down the Mississippi River to New Orleans, and from there to Velasco and on to San Antonio. In 1831 he joined a company made up by the brothers James and Rezin
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P. Bowie, for the purpose of finding the old San Saba silver mines. He survived the famous Indian fight which took place while on their way and returned to San Antonio. Later on he came over to the Brazos, near where Marlin is now situated, making his home with the family of Arnold Cavitt.
In 1835 Coryell went with Cavitt to survey and locate land on what is now called Coryell Creek, in Coryell County. Early in 1836 he joined a company for defense against the Indians. While stationed at Viesca, near the falls of the Brazos, Coryell, with some companions, had gone about half a mile on the road to Perry's Springs, when they found a bee tree which they cut down, and were sitting around eating the honey and talking. In a short time they heard a noise as of sticks breaking. They looked up and saw twelve Indians. Coryell had told the party that he had been sick and was unable to run. Coryell rose to his feet. One of the guns in the party was empty, one failed to fire and Coryell's was the only one left. Those who had no guns ran, and Coryell and the Indians fired at each other at the same time. Coryell fell, grasping some bushes. They then came up and scalped him. Berry, one of the party whose gun had failed to fire, tried it again, but it failed again and he made his escape. There were six men in the party, but Cor- yell was the only one killed, May 27, 1837.
He was an experienced frontiersman, an excellent back- woodsman and a brave soldier.
DENTON.
John B. Denton, the son of a Methodist minister, was born in Tennessee in September, 1806. In early life his parents moved to Indiana, where his father soon died. He was then apprenticed to a blacksmith, who took him to Arkansas about 1822. At the age of 17 he left the blacksmith and during the few next years was licensed to preach, and married.
As an orator he soon became famous. On December 10, 1836, by appointment of the Methodist Episcopal conference of Missouri, he came over into Texas and settled near Clarks- ville, in Red River County. Receiving an insufficient support
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from the missionary society of the church, he studied law, and in six months was licensed to practice and was engaged in the practice, supporting himself and family while he kept up his missionary work.
In May, 1841, General Tarrant made a campaign in the west against the Indians and had Denton as his aide. Moving out as far as Village Creek, in what is now Tarrant County, they encountered the savages and defeated them in a desperate bat- tle. There were a number of Indian villages at several places on the creek and the object of the campaign was to drive them off and destroy their villages. The place where this fight took place was on the creek in sight of the present crossing of the Interurban Railway between Fort Worth and Dallas.
After the fight Denton was sent out with ten men to scout the country, and going east his men were attacked from am- bush just as they were entering one of the forks of the Trin- ity, and Denton was killed. When shot his men took his body from his saddle, and after wrapping it with a blanket, carried it to the prairie on the south side of the creek and buried it. The settlers and old frontiersmen, in 1860, exhumed the remains and buried them on Chisholm's Ranch, and in 1901 the Old Settlers' Association of Denton County again exhumed the re- mains and reburied them in the courthouse square in Denton, amid imposing ceremonies, and erected a suitably inscribed monument to his memory. His oldest son, Dr. A. N. Denton, was a member of the Thirteenth Legislature, and from 1885 to 1888 was Superintendent of the State Lunatic Asylum at Austin, Texas.
GAINES.
James Gaines was born in Culpepper County, Virginia, in 1779. He was a brother of Gen. Edward Pendleton Gaines. He accompanied his brother, then a Lieutenant in the United States Army, to Nashville, Tenn., in 1803, and aided him in making a survey of the waterway extending from Nashville down the Cumberland River to the Ohio and from there to New Orleans.
He went with the United States troops to Nachitoches and
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vicinity in 1805 and established a mercantile business and a ferry across the Sabine River near the northeast corner of what is now Shelby County, where the old road leading from San Antonio to Nachitoches crossed that river.
He remained here in business until 1812, when, being in hearty sympathy with the revolution of Mexico against Spain, he joined the Republican Army of the North under Gutierres and Magee, but with many other Americans resigned from the army after the defeat of Elisondo at San Antonio and returned to Gaines' Ferry and resumed business.
In 1836 he was elected as a delegate from Sabine to the Con- stitutional Convention and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. In 1839 he represented the county of Sabine in the Congress of the Republic of Texas and later moved to Bastrop County, where he was residing when the gold excite- ment of 1849 lured him to California. He made that state his permanent home and died there a few years later.
HALL.
Warren D. C. Hall was born in Gullford County, N. C., in 1788, studied law and went to Louisiana, locating at Nachi- toches. He joined the Republican Army of the North, under Gutierres and Magee, and was made Captain of a company in that expedition. Gutierres had escaped the bloody vengeance which Hidalgo, his leader in the revolution of Mexico against Spain, had suffered, and great sympathy was felt in the south- west for the cause of liberty in Mexico. Hall was a warm sup- porter of the cause and shared in all the engagements against the Royalists in this expedition, but when, under an order from Gutierres, some of the prisoners captured at Alazan Heights were cruelly butchered, he resigned his command and returned to Louisiana. In 1817 he again joined a similar ex- pedition under Aury, but this expedition, after reaching Sota La Marina, returned to Louisiana. He finally removed to Texas in 1835, locating in Brazoria County, and for a time was Adjutant General under President Burnet. He then re- tired to private life and died on Galveston Island in 1868.
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HARRIS.
John R. Harris, in whose honor Harris County was named, was born at East Cayuga, N. Y., in October, 1790, and was reared and educated there. He joined the United States army and served in the War of 1812, commanding a company in the regiment of which his father was Colonel. Both were honor- ably mentioned by General Scott. He was married to Jane Birdsall in 1816, removed to Missouri, locating near St. Gen- evieve, where he made the ac- quaintance of Moses Austin, and became interested in his scheme of colonizing Texas. De- termining to come to Texas in 1821, he carried his family back to New York, there to remain until he could settle. Having made a contract to complete a public building in Vincennes, Ind., he first went there, and a little over a year later came to Texas. He obtained title to a league of land from the Mexican Government in July, 1824, which he located at the junction of Bray's Bayou and Buffalo Bayou. In 1826 he laid out a town which he called Harris- burg, and a year later brought out machinery for a grist mill, sawmill, and a blacksmith, and carpenter shop, and erected a store, thus forming the nucleus of a town. He also became interested in one of the boats plying between Buffalo Bayou and New Orleans, and in a schooner called the "Rights of Man" which, under command of one of his brothers, ran between Harrisburg and New Orleans, and the Mexican ports. He was appointed Alcalde, and held his court under a magnolia tree, where the cotton compress of Wald and Nevil is now located. While in New Orleans on business, he was taken ill with yel- low fever and died there August 18, 1829, leaving a widow and
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four children. The municipality, afterward established, took its name from the town and when counties were created in 1837 the name Harris was substituted for Harrisburg. The old town is now a suburb of the city of Houston.
HARRISON.
This county was named in honor of Jonas Harrison. Al- though he has many descendants in Texas, few facts as to his career are available. In a document on file in the General Land Office to which is appended his original signature, he stated that he was a native of New Jersey and with his wife and sev- en children came to Texas in 1821. This was the year of Long's last expedition. With his wife and children he settled con- veniently near the Louisiana line in what is now Shelby Coun- ty and lived there the remainder of his days. He was a man of superior intelligence, popular address and public spirited, was a lawyer by profession but living as he did, so many years before there was any organized government or courts, he sus- tained himself and family on his farm. In 1832 and 1833, he represented his section (Tenaha) in the convention for separ- ate statehood, which appears to have been his last public ser- vice. He died in 1837, and his remains were buried on his farm.
HILL.
Dr. George W. Hill was born on Hill Creek in Warren Coun- ty, Tennessee, April 22, 1914. After attending the common schools of that vicinity he took a college course in Wilson Coun- ty, Tennessee, and from there went to Transylvania Univers- ity, where he completed a course in medicine. At the age of twenty-three he came to Texas and located in "Old Franklin" in Robertson County, and began the practice of his profession, and was there married to Matilda Slaughter. At the solicita- tion of President Houston he accepted the office of Indian Agent and in 1840 or 1841 moved out to Spring Hill, now in Navarro County. He was elected to the Texas Congress and served for the years 1839, 1840, 1841 and 1842 and in 1843
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was appointed Secretary of War by President Houston and re- appointed by President Jones in 1844 and served until the An- nexation. He afterward served in the Texas Legislature. Dur- ing all these years he practiced his profession when duty and opportunity called, exposing himself at all times to the many dangers from savages and frontier life and in this way greatly endeared himself to the people. He died at Spring Hill, Na- varro County, and his body was buried there, May 29, 1860.
HOPKINS.
This county was named for the pioneer family Hopkins of which David Hopkins was the patriarch.
David Hopkins was born in Indiana in 1825 and came to Texas with his parents in 1840 and settled in Lamar, then a. part of Red River County, where his parents died. David re- moved into what is now Hopkins County in the winter of 1843-4 and married Annie Hargrave in 1846. There were sev- eral children of the marriage. Shortly after moving down there several members of the family of his father came, among them A. J. Hopkins, who was elected the first County Clerk of the county after its organization in 1848, and died in the same year. When the Hopkins family moved into that region, the settle- ments were few and much scattered and for several years they were, like most other people on the extreme frontier, greatly harassed by the Indians.
JOHNSON.
Middleton T. Johnson was born in South Carolina in 1815, came to Texas in 1839 and located in Shelby County. He repre- sented that county in the last Congress of the Republic of Tex- as in 1845. At the commencement of the United States-Mex- ican War he volunteered as a soldier in the United States army and served throughout the war. In 1848 he was elected Lieu- tenant Colonel of Bell's Regiment of Texas Rangers, and put in command of the district of Red River, which extended far out on the northwestern frontier. He served alternately in
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the Ranger service and in the Legislature up to 1860. In that year Governor Houston commissioned him to raise a regiment for the ranger service, and he was engaged in that service when elected a delegate to the Secession Convention in 1861. He was then commissioned as a Colonel of a regiment in the Confeder- ate Army and served throughout the Civil War. He returned to Texas in 1865 and was elected a member of the State con- vention which assembled in February, 1866, and died while a member of that body in March, 1866.
KERR.
James Kerr was born near Danville, Ky., September 21, 1790. He was the son of a Baptist minister, and removed with his father's family to St. Charles County, Mo., in 1808, and in 1812 volunteered in the United States Army and was promoted to the rank of Lieutenant. He studied law but never practiced. He was married in 1819 to the daughter of General James Caldwell, Speaker of the House of Representatives, at St. Gen- evieve, Mo. He served several terms as Sheriff of St. Charles County, and then removed to St. Genevieve and was twice elected a member of the Legis- lature from that county, and in 1824 was elected to the State Senate, which position he re- signed in 1825 to become gen- eral manager of DeWitt's Col- ony. In the same year he ar-
rived in Texas with his family.
Leaving his family on the Brazos, he proceeded to DeWitt's Colony on the Guadalupe. In company with Erastus (Deaf) Smith, he reached the Guadalupe in June and began work.
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