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Columbus, Texas

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Consider the Lily:
The Ungilded History of Colorado County, Texas

By Bill Stein

(Copyright, Nesbitt Memorial Library and Bill Stein)

Notes to Part 1

1 Some individuals, who provided or promised to provide special services to the colony, were granted even larger tracts of land. Several later laws modified the amounts of land that were granted to new settlers, and the conditions under which the land was granted. Generally, the size of the land grants decreased over time. However, the constitution adopted by the Republic of Texas on March 17, 1836 allotted one square league and one labor (one twenty-fifth of a sitio, or about 177 acres) to married men and one-third of a square league (about 1476 acres) to single men, provided that they had lived in Texas on the day that independence was declared, March 2, 1836.

2 James Hampton Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 7, no. 1, July 1903, p. 29. Robert Kuykendall was not only Joseph's brother, but, according to an apparently well-researched family history which cites records in Arkansas, he also was related to Gilleland by virtue of being married to his sister. Gilleland's brother, James, would shortly come to Austin's colony, as would his mother and her second husband, Nancy and Thomas Williams (see Patricia Gilleland Young and L. Richard Scoggins, The Tree and the Vine (Caldwell, Texas: The Gilleland Endowment, 1993).

3 William Bluford Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas (Louisville: Morton & Griswold, 1852. Reprint. Waco: Texian Press, 1968), pp. 29-30; Mary Crownover Rabb, Travels and Adventures in Texas in the 1820's (Waco: W. M. Morrison, 1962), p. 2; Eugene Campbell Barker, ed., The Austin Papers, 3 vols. (vols. 1 and 2, Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1924 and vol. 3, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1926) vol. 1, pp. 686-687. Rabb was unaware of or disdained conventions of spelling and punctuation. Readers might find her text more palatable in the form in which it appeared (edited and punctuated and, unfortunately, slightly abridged) in Jo Ella Powell Exley, ed., Texas Tears and Texas Sunshine (College Station: Texas A & M University Press, 1985).

4 Atascosito, which was very near the present city of Liberty, appears for the first time on a map drawn by Bernardo de Miranda in 1757. According to Herbert Eugene Bolton's apparently well-researched book, Texas in the Middle Eighteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1915. Reprint. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1970), the Spanish made vague plans to establish a mission and a colony at the place they called El Atascosito in 1758, but did not. Mattie Austin Hatcher, in The Opening of Texas to Foreign Settlement 1801-1821 (Austin: University of Texas, 1927. Reprint. Philadelphia: Porcupine Press, 1976), states that a small garrison was stationed at Atascosito in 1804 to prevent smuggling, and, shortly afterward, families from Louisiana began settling at the place. They were soon removed from the site. Whether they were the first civilians to live there is unclear, but others soon would follow. Jean Louis Berlandier visited the area in 1828, and described Atascosito as one of two "villages of colonists . . . which have achieved some growth" (Berlandier, Journey to Mexico During the Years 1826 to 1834, Sheila M. Ohlendorf, Josette M. Bieglow, and Mary M. Standifer, trans., 2 vols., Austin: The Texas State Historical Association, 1980, vol. 2, p. 328). Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, in his 1835 "Statistical Report on Texas," (Carlos E. Casteñeda, trans., Southwestern Historical Quarterly, vol 28, no. 3, January 1925, pp. 177-222) fails to name Atascosito as one of the communities in Texas. He does name Liberty, however, suggesting that it had already superseded Atascosito.

5 Various sources vaguely equate Montezuma with the present site of Columbus. However, David H. Burr's 1833 map of Texas places Montezuma at the point where the Atascosito Road crosses the river, and José Enrique de la Peña, in his "diary" published in Carmen Perry's English translation as With Santa Anna in Texas (College Station: Texas A & M Press, 1975), described the campsite of the Mexican army on May 5, 1836 as "on the Colorado River at the Moctezuma Pass, also known as that of Atascosito" (see p. 166). Interestingly, the place at which the Bexar Road crossed the Colorado, well upriver from Montezuma, though it too apparently had no population, also bore a name: Mina (see Noah Smithwick, The Evolution of a State, or Recollections of Old Texas Days (Austin: Gammel Book Company, 1900), p. 199). Later, the town of Bastrop would be established on the site of Mina. The site of Montezuma, however, would never develop into any sort of community

6 Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 7, no. 1, July 1903, p. 47.

7 Ernest William Winkler, ed., Manuscript Letters and Documents of Early Texians 1821-1845 (Austin: The Steck Company, 1937), pp. 18-22. On January 4, 1823, the Mexican national government enacted legislation which prevented the sale or purchase of slaves within the empire, and declared that children of slaves who were thereafter born in the empire would be freed at age fourteen. The government which enacted that law, however, was shortly afterward overthrown, and the law was subsequently annulled (see Randolph B. Campbell, An Empire for Slavery (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), pp. 15-16). Still, the fact that the law had been passed may explain why no slaves were listed as such on the March 4, 1823 census.

8 The Reminiscences of T. J. Williams, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin. Colorado County Deed Records, Book J, pp. 626-629 contains a deed dated December 19, 1833 that refers to an "old school-house" that was in the Elizabeth Tumlinson Survey at a site that seems to be very near the original southern boundary of Columbus. This probably was the school that Williams remembered. The teacher's name is given in the Williams manuscript as "Nick Gillard." The manuscript, however, is typewritten, and is certainly a transcription of an earlier, now apparently lost, handwritten copy. That the transcriber had difficulty with the handwriting is borne out by the number of times that he or she inserted the word "illegible" in the manuscript. While no "Nick Gillard" has been found in Austin's colony, Nicholas Dillard was one of the Old Three Hundred. He is referred to in two documents as "Captain Dillard," a title often accorded school teachers in the nineteenth century (see The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 1598, 1635). He can be associated with the area in which the school stood by a debt he owed to Elizabeth Tumlinson, which he settled by trading a horse to the holder of the note, Stephen F. Austin, in 1829 (see Winkler, ed., Manuscript Letters and Documents of Early Texians, 1821-1845, p. 92). If one were so inclined, one might speculate that the debt was in some way associated with the construction of the school, which was on land that eventually would be granted to Tumlinson.

9 The Reminiscences of T. J. Williams, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin; "Reminiscences of Capt. Jesse Burnam" The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 5, no. 1, July 1901, pp. 14-15. Williams' reminiscences report that Thomas Williams died on July 4, 1824. This is certainly an error, possibly, since the only known copy of these reminiscences is typewritten, a transcription error. Thomas Johnson Williams, who seemingly wrote the reminiscences, was the son of Thomas Williams, and ought to have known when his father died. The elder Williams was still alive when the 1825 census of the settlers on the Colorado was taken (see The Austin Papers, vol. 1, p. 1244).

10 See Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 6, no. 3, January 1903, pp. 236-237, 247; The Austin Papers, vol. 1, p. 476. Jenning's Camp had been established by Jacob Jennings, who had been a passenger on the Lively when it made its first voyage to Texas in late 1821, together with John Hanna, Israel Massey, Phillip Dimmitt, and perhaps others. Within a year, however, Jennings, and another man at the camp, Thomas Harrison, had died; and Hanna, Massey, and everyone else who might have been present in the camp had abandoned it. Hanna and Massey had gotten involved in a horse and mule business with Littleberry Hawkins. The two men, financed by Hawkins, were to get a herd of horses and mules to the United States where they could be sold for a profit. The deal quickly soured, however; and apparently no one made any money. Hanna hired Freeman Pettus to drive the herd from near James Cummins' house to the house of his brother, William Pettus, nearer Louisiana, where he intended to pick them up. But Pettus lost control of the herd, and many or all of the animals were lost. Further complicating things, Hanna and Massey had earlier agreed to trade some of the now-lost horses to a third party for coffee, sugar, and rice, all of which they had already sold (see The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 632, 699-700, 917-922, Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, p. 31).

11 See The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 532-533, which contains a letter dated July 23, 1822 that was sent to Austin via the captain of the Only Son; Edward N. Clopper, An American Family (Cincinnati: Standard Printing and Publishing, 1950), pp. 109-110, 298; Province of Texas v. Stephen R. Wilson, Minutes, March 8, 1823, Bexar Archives, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin, which identifies the camp from which the goods were stolen as that of Nicholas Clopper and Seth Ingram; Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, pp. 30-32; Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 6, no. 3, January 1903, pp. 236-237, 247.

12 Baron de Bastrop to José Félix Trespalacios, December 11, 1822, Spanish Collection, Box 126, Folder 6, Archives and Records Division, Texas General Land Office, Austin; Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans" The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 6, no. 3, January 1903, p. 248.

13 John Tumlinson to Commandant General of Texas, January 7, 1823; Affidavit of James Nelson, January 3, 1823; Affidavit of Hannah Prewitt, January 3, 1823; Affidavit of James M. Coons and Richard Keable, January 4, 1823; Affidavit of Stephen Ruddell Wilson, January 7, 1823; Letter of José Félix Trespalacios, January 31, 1823; John Tumlinson and Robert Kuykendall to Trespalacios, March 5, 1823; all in Bexar Archives, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin; Winkler, ed., Manuscript Letters and Documents of Early Texians 1821-1845, pp. 24-25, wherein the March 5, 1823 letter cited above is reproduced. Though the letter was dated March 5, as will be demonstrated later, Morrison and Nelson did not leave the settlement until March 9.

14 John Tumlinson to Commandant General of Texas, January 7, 1823, Bexar Archives, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin; Colorado County Deed Records, Book B, p. 428; The Austin Papers, vol. 1, p. 1244.

15 John Tumlinson and Robert Kuykendall to the Commandant General of Texas, January 7, 1823; Province of Texas v. Stephen R. Wilson, Minutes, March 8, 1823; Verdict, District of Colorado, March 8, 1823; Affidavit of Robert Kuykendall, Thomas Williams, John Petty, Seth Ingram, William B. Dewees, Micajah Reader, John Frazer, Moses Morrison, Jesse Burnam, Pumphrey Burnett, Charles Garrett, Nicholas Clopper, James Cummins, and Zadock Woods, March 9, 1823; Decree of the Court, San Fernando de Bexar, April 8, 1823; and John Tumlinson to José Félix Trespalacios, March 9, 1823, all in Bexar Archives, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin; Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, pp. 31-36; Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 6, no. 3, January 1903, p. 237. The incidents on the coast were not well reported in contemporaneous documents, and were confounded in the memories of those who wrote recollections of them. It is commonly accepted that the Lively made two voyages to Texas, and that the John Motley, with the refugees from the wreck of the Lively, arrived at the mouth of the Colorado in early June 1822. The Only Son's voyages are less well known. Gregg Cantrell, in a footnote in his thoroughly researched article, "The Partnership of Stephen F. Austin and Joseph H. Hawkins," citing the arrival records of the port of New Orleans, states that the Only Son made three voyages between New Orleans and Texas in 1822, returning to New Orleans on May 7, July 11, and September 18 (see Southwestern Historical Quarterly, vol. 99, no. 1, July 1995, p. 8). The Only Son's first voyage took some three months, as it searched, finally successfully, for the mouth of the Colorado. It had deposited its passengers there before April 24. It was back on the Texas coast early in June, arriving at the mouth of the Colorado almost concurrently with the John Motley, and dropping off, among others, the man who had owned it when it made its first voyage, William Kincheloe. Then it returned to New Orleans to pick up provisions and more settlers, arriving on July 11 and departing on or about July 23. By this time, it had apparently been purchased by Joseph Hawkins. It was back on the Texas coast in August or early September, when it deposited the cargo that was to be plundered (see Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 6, no. 3, January 1903, pp. 236-237, The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 476, 502, 521, 648. That it was in New Orleans as late as July 23, 1822 is confirmed by the letter that is transcribed on pages 532-533 of volume 1 of The Austin Papers. That letter, which mentions Musquiz, was sent to Texas via the Only Son). Kuykendall remembered that the guards were murdered and the vessel looted shortly after the landings in June 1822 (see Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 6, no. 3, January 1903, pp. 237, 247). His memory was apparently wrong. The Dewees book stated that the cargo that the murdered men were guarding had been left by "the second vessel that had landed at the mouth of the Colorado" (see Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, p. 31). This may have been his attempt to differentiate it from that which arrived in June 1822. The Cloppers, apparently by oral tradition, believed that the theft and murder occurred in October 1822. Because the bodies were never recovered, for a time Clopper's family held out hope that he and his friend White had been captured (see Clopper, An American Family, p. 109). Dewees does not mention Clopper or White by name, and remembered that only one man had been left to guard the ship, but he does say that the body was not found. He accounted for the missing body by concluding that the Indians, who, since they had already acquired a reputation as cannibals, must have been Karankawas, had eaten it (see Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, p. 32). The papers generated by the court in the trial of Stephen R. Wilson associate the Cloppers with the camp at the mouth of the Colorado where the guards were killed, specifically stating that it was the camp of Seth Ingram and Nicholas Clopper (meaning, apparently, Nicholas Clopper, Sr.) (see Province of Texas v. Stephen R. Wilson, Minutes, March 8, 1823; and Decree of the Court, San Fernando de Bexar, April 8, 1823, Bexar Archives, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin. The older Clopper was certainly alive in 1823, for he testified at Wilson's trial). The Clopper family story and particularly the October 1822 date is lent further credibility because Trespalacios did not mention the incident until November 13, 1822 (see Letter of José Félix Trespalacios, November 13, 1822, Bexar Archives, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin) and by the fact that Tumlinson's report on the investigation of the incident was written on January 7, 1823 (see John Tumlinson and Robert H. Kuykendall to the Commandant General of Texas, Bexar Archives, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin). It is most likely, of course, that the investigation occurred shortly after the incident rather than months later.
    Further evidence that the Only Son made at least two voyages is provided by the business dealings of Littleberry Hawkins. On October 7, 1824, Hawkins wrote a long letter to Austin regarding his dealings in Texas. Among his complaints was that he had lost provisions that had been landed at the mouth of the Colorado but subsequently had been "taken from the encampment by those Americans," meaning presumably Wilson, Moss, and Park (see The Austin Papers, vol. 1, p. 918). The provisions that the Only Son carried on its second voyage had been obtained in New Orleans by Victor Blanco, Francisco Madero, and Ramon Musquiz. Madero, however, could not pay for his share of the provisions, so he borrowed money from Hawkins. Hawkins, and later his representative, Phillip Dimmitt, were unable to collect the debt, and Hawkins thereby acquired a share of the provisions themselves (see The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 532-533, 648-649, 917-922).

16 Province of Texas v. Stephen R. Wilson, Minutes, March 8, 1823; Verdict, District of Colorado, March 8, 1823; Affidavit of Robert Kuykendall, Thomas Williams, John Petty, Seth Ingram, William B. Dewees, Micajah Reader, John Frazer, Moses Morrison, Jesse Burnam, Pumphrey Burnett, Charles Garrett, Nicholas Clopper, James Cummins, and Zadock Woods, March 9, 1823; Letter of Josiah H. Bell, May 4, 1823; all in Bexar Archives, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin; Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 7, no. 1, July 1903, pp. 32-34; The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 636-637. Kuykendall remembered that James Nelson was one of the five men who accompanied him on his pursuit of the thieves. Nelson, it will be remembered, was the principal witness against the men accused of the murder of Thomas Rogers. As such, Nelson also accompanied Morrison and Dewees when they escorted Wilson to San Antonio. Dewees reports that after delivering Wilson to jail, they remained in San Antonio for "about a week," no doubt while Nelson testified (Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, p. 34), then returned to the Colorado, where they heard of Wilson's sentence (which he erroneously remembered as an "escape" (p. 36)). Afterward, they returned to "the officers of the court," meaning, presumably, the court in San Antonio, to seek compensation, but were given none (p. 36). It was from this second trip that Morrison and Dewees must have been returning when they met Gibson Kuykendall escorting the horse thieves to San Antonio. Morrison, no doubt, was as furious about the refusal of the court to compensate him as he was about what he regarded as Wilson's light sentence, and in that frame of mind dissuaded Kuykendall from proceeding to San Antonio. If Nelson was among the men who went with Kuykendall in pursuit of the horse thieves, he almost certainly could not have returned to San Antonio with Morrison and Dewees. He may not have done so because, on the first trip, he was sent there as a witness rather than as a guard, and therefore had already received compensation or was due none.

17 Report of Juan de Canarredar, June 11, 1823; Letters of Julian Carrasco, June 22, 1823, June 27, 1823, all in Bexar Archives, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin; Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, pp. 53-54; Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 7, no. 1, July 1903, p. 34. Canarredar reported that the man whose horses were stolen was Salvador Carrasco, a man who apparently had extensive dealings in Texas from 1811 through 1829 (see Adán Benavides, comp. and ed., The Béxar Archives (1717-1836) A Name Guide (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1989) and The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 537, 561). However, the June 22 and June 27, 1823 documents cited above are clearly signed with the name "Julian Carrasco." Dewees implies that the incident occurred in 1824 and that Carrasco, whom he calls "Corasco," had been murdered, and Kuykendall states that the incident occurred in the summer of 1822. Both men's memories were faulty in those particulars.

18 Winkler, ed., Manuscript Letters and Documents of Early Texians 1821-1845, pp. 16-17, 23-25; "Reminiscences of Capt. Jesse Burnam" The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 5, no. 1, July 1901, pp. 15-16; Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 6, no. 3, January 1903, pp. 247-248, vol. 7, no. 1, July 1903, pp. 30-31, 47-48; Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, pp. 37-40; The Reminiscences of T. J. Williams, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin. Dan Kilgore, in his excellent little book, A Ranger Legacy (Austin: Madrona Press, 1973), contended that Brotherton was on his way to the settlement from San Antonio with the rifle that had been taken from the suspects in the Thomas Rogers murder case when confronted by the Indians, and concluded that it was Rogers' rifle that he turned over to the Indians. Certainly the timing is correct, for Brotherton did bring the rifle to the settlement some time between January 31 and March 5, 1823. However, to get to the mouth of Skull Creek, where the conflict with the Indians occurred, Brotherton would have had to go several miles past where the settlements on the Colorado are presumed to have been. Secondly, it is quite clear that the Indians had taken the rifle from Brotherton when he first encountered them. If the rifle was indeed Rogers', then it was state's evidence in a murder case, and the fact that the Indians had seized it would have been some justification for the attack that retrieved it. Yet none of the accounts of the battle mention the rifle.

19 Winkler, ed., Manuscript Letters and Documents of Early Texians 1821-1845, pp. 23, 26-27; John Tumlinson and Robert Kuykendall to the Commandant General of Texas, January 7, 1823; Return from Monthly Inspection, June 5, 1823, both in Bexar Archives, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin. Eight of the nine men under Morrison's command, William Kingston, Pumphry Burnett, Aaron Linville, Samuel Sims, John Frazer, John Smith, Jesse Robinson, and Caleb R. Bostwick, were identified on the muster rolls as privates. The ninth, John McCrosky, had achieved the rank of corporal and was, presumably, second in command. Nine of the men had rifles, and the tenth, Frazer, a musket. This company has become celebrated, with little justification, as the predecessor of the modern-day Texas Rangers.

20 Winkler, ed., Manuscript Letters and Documents of Early Texians 1821-1845, p. 28; The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 675, 844-845; Mary Rabb to Julia Lee Sinks, August 15, 1878, Rabb Family Papers, vol. 2, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin. Apparently because this incident occurred one day after Morrison noted that he had dispatched two men to San Antonio for gunpowder, Kilgore, in A Ranger Legacy, asserted that Tumlinson and Newman were the two men and that therefore Tumlinson had died in the service of the incipient Texas Rangers (see pp. 26 and 33). It might be more reasonable to conclude, however, that Morrison had dispatched two of the men under his command rather than two other men, one of whom was the highest civil authority in the district.
    Newman's first name is not given in any account of the incident, but Mary Rabb, in her letter to Julia Lee Sinks, identifies him as the father of the Miss Newman who married Jesse Robinson. That woman was Sarah Newman, the daughter of Joseph Newman.

21 Winkler, ed., Manuscript Letters and Documents of Early Texians, 1821-1845, pp. 28-29; The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 710-711, 844-845.

22 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 676, 686-687; Letter of Robert Kuykendall, July 13, 1823, Bexar Archives, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin.

23 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 679-685, 689, 695. Austin intended to pay his rangers fifteen dollars a month "in property," meaning presumably, in land, which they would have to locate themselves. In asking for the priest, Austin stated that babies had been born and people had died in his colony without benefit of clergy, and that marriages had not been "contracted" because there was no priest. He believed that Maynes was needed to help maintain a good moral climate and to instruct the children in the dogmas of religion. The government, or Maynes himself, apparently did not agree, for he was never assigned to the colony.

24 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 689-690; Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, p. 42; Telegraph & Texas Register, June 8, 1837. Dewees was apparently with Austin when he visited the site, and in an advertisement in the newspaper cited above, equated that site with the site of Columbus, which he had recently established.

25 Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, pp. 43-45, 248; The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 682, 688-689, 701-702, 727, 731-732.

26 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 715-716; Colorado County District Court Records, Civil Cause File No. 658: George C. Hatch v. Elizabeth Cass, et al.

27 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, p. 755; Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, pp. 45-49; The Reminiscences of T. J. Williams, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin; Mary Rabb to Julia Lee Sinks, July 5, 1878, Rabb Family Papers, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin.

28 Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 6, no. 3, January 1903, p. 250; The Austin Papers, vol. 1, p. 768.

29 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 783-784, 794, 806-807, 1342. Burnam got seventeen votes and Rawson Alley three for captain; Hadden got fourteen votes and William B. Dewees six for lieutenant. The voters were Alley, Burnam, Dewees, Hadden, Abraham Alley, John Demoss, Thomas M. Duke, Thomas Gray, Jose Maria Liga, Jacinto Martinez, James McNair, E. Ratliffe, Jesse Robinson, John Tovar, Andrew Tumlinson, James Tumlinson, James Tumlinson, Jr., John Tumlinson, Littleton Tumlinson, and Nathaniel Whiting. Cummins and Thomas Williams were also present but did not vote.

30 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, p. 775; W. A. Glass and Eltea Armstrong, Colorado County [Land Grant Map] (Austin: General Land Office, 1946). It is not clear exactly where the settlers lived before they received titles to their lands. As we have already seen, just before the titles were issued, the approximate geographic center of the settlement was Eagle Lake, and the previous summer, Austin had considered that his colonists were too widely dispersed along the river to properly defend themselves from Indians. Apparently, at first, most of the colonists on the Colorado settled between the crossings of the La Bahia and the Atascosito Roads. Within months, probably because of Indian incursions, many of them moved downriver. The son of Thomas Williams remembered that his father and, apparently, Caleb Bostwick, Thomas Jamison, and Moses Morrison, moved south in June 1823, and that two more families, which he identified as those of a Mr. Harrison and John Bell, moved south that fall. Certainly others either joined them or were already there, among them Thomas Tone, who, Williams reports, taught a school in the vicinity (see The Reminiscences of T. J. Williams, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin). Jesse Burnam stated that, initially, colonists had settled upriver from his home; but they shortly moved to escape the Indians, leaving his home, which was just northwest of the present Colorado-Fayette County line, as the farthest upriver (see "Reminiscences of Capt. Jesse Burnam" The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 5, no. 1, July 1901, p. 13). Whatever the settlement pattern earlier, the law under which the colonists were granted their land required them to settle on it or forfeit it; therefore, one can be reasonably sure about their residences after the land titles were issued.
    It should be pointed out that many other colonists whose names are important in early county history received land grants that summer in areas that are now in counties immediately adjacent to Colorado County. Among them were Thomas J. Rabb, Andrew Rabb, Joseph Newman, John C. Clark, and Robert Kuykendall, all of whom, that summer, got land on the east side of the river in what is now Wharton County. Jesse Burnam and, well upriver, William Rabb and Sylvanus Castleman got land on the river in what is now Fayette County.

31 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 830-832, 883; "Reminiscences of Capt. Jesse Burnam" The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 5, no. 1, July 1901, pp. 17-18; Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, pp. 41-42, 50-52; The Reminiscences of T. J. Williams, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin. Dewees' account of these incidents is somewhat muddled. He places the incident involving Rawls in 1823, and reports substantially different details. According to him, Jackson and Clark encountered the Indians, exchanged gunfire, then returned to the settlement to get help. With Clark as their guide, the militia, of which Dewees was a member, arrived at the site to find only the dead body of the man that Clark had killed. As they returned, they noticed, Dewees said, seventy-five or a hundred arrows sticking in a bluff under which they had passed. Dewees' readers must wonder why such poor marksmen would have been considered such deadly adversaries.

32 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 879, 883, 885-887, 1639; Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 7, no. 1, July 1903, pp. 35-36; Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, pp. 54-55. Kuykendall remembered that Austin had about ninety men, thirty of whom were armed and mounted slaves owned by, and in this expedition commanded by, Jared E. Groce. Austin's count of sixty-two may not have included the slaves, or Kuykendall may have exaggerated the number. Though he provides only sketchy details, Dewees reports that the Indians had been routed in a huge battle before suing for peace. His account is not corroborated by any other evidence.

33 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 825-828; Campbell, An Empire for Slavery, pp. 16-17. Though the petition declared that the slaves were not Africans, they certainly were black; that is, they were the descendants of Africans. The phrase was included to distinguish slaves who had been born in the Americas from those more recently arrived slaves who had been born and captured in Africa.

34 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, p. 1244. The first five people listed by the unidentified census taker were farmers. He wrote out the occupation of the first, but used ditto marks for the other four. The next man's occupation was given as blacksmith, the next as farmer, and the next as tanner, all of which he wrote out. The occupations of the next thirteen individuals are indicated by ditto marks. It is not unreasonable to conclude that these people were actually farmers, rather than tanners, especially since one man, Nathan Osborn, is apparently listed twice, once as one of the "dittoed" tanners (where his name is given as Nathan Osburn) and once as a farmer.

35 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 1014, 1086. The thirteen men who voted for Cummins as alcalde were Beeson, Brotherton, Dewees, Ross, James Cook, Ignatio Cortines, George Duty, Daniel Holloway, Andrew W. McLain, James McNair, Nathan Osborn, Vincent Rodrigues, and John Tumlinson, the son of the dead alcalde. Two of the voters, Cortines and Rodrigues, would not be listed on the census taken that year.

36 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 795, 1123-1124, 1131-1134.

37 Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 7, no. 1, July 1903, p. 48; Dilue Rose Harris, "The Reminiscences of Dilue Rose Harris," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 4, no. 2, October 1900, pp. 118-119; The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 1208-1211. Sarah Dyer's father was William Stafford. Clement Clinton Dyer would eventually become chief justice of Fort Bend County. Harris relates that the incident which caused their departure from the Colorado occurred in 1825, and that the Indians who came to the house professed their friendship, supporting the otherwise unwarranted conclusion that the Indians were the same group that stole the horses from the Alleys.

38 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, p. 1258, 1319-1321, 1341-1342. The militia officer who refused to lead the expedition to the Indian camp is not identified in any report. He is described by Austin as "a very young man." He was, presumably, the lieutenant of the lower Colorado River settlement's detachment of militia. The Tonkawas were brought to San Felipe by a man named James Roe. Roe had been sent to get the Indians by a Colorado District militia officer. After haggling over the price for doing so, Roe, on May 5, asked that the money he was owed be paid to Joshua Parker. Austin gave Parker $25 on May 10. A few weeks later, Austin reported that Roe had left the Colorado to take munitions to and encourage hostility in the Tonkawas. Austin urged that he be arrested and confined in jail for a year or two. He was certainly arrested, but his fate beyond that is unknown (see The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 1322, 1352, and 1377).

39 This version of the battle is taken from a report by Ross that is reproduced in The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 1304-1305. Another version appears in Kuykendall's "Reminiscences of Early Texans" (The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 7, no. 1, July 1903, pp. 48-49). That version states that the attack occurred in the fall of 1826, and that Ross led the frontal attack and Alley directed the fusillade. See also The Austin Papers, vol. 1, p. 1309, wherein Austin reports that thirteen Indians were killed, and p. 1315.

40 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 1315-1316.

41 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 1321, 1332-1333, 1338-1340.

42 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 1317-1319, 1323-1325, 1331-1333, 1338-1340, 1343, 1358-1360, and Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 7, no. 1, July 1903, pp. 35, 37-38, 48. In one place (page 37) Kuykendall states that Alley drowned in 1826 and in another (page 48), in 1824. The other evidence indicates that the later date is correct.

43 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 1209, 1343, 1359-1360, 1390-1392; and Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 7, no. 1, July 1903, pp. 35. Kuykendall says, apparently incorrectly, that the settlers gathered in the fort in 1824. William Physick Zuber described one of the blockhouses built by the settlers as "a log cabin with the ground for the first floor, and built as other log cabins to a height of eight feet. A round of strong logs jutted out on each side and end, and probably twenty inches beyond the wall below. On these were placed two rounds of logs, one immediately above the wall below, the other six or eight inches farther out, making an opening through which a man could shoot down upon an enemy approaching the wall. The inner-side logs served as sills, or plates, upon which to place joists, and a puncheon floor extended about three feet inward from the side, all around the house. This served as a platform upon which a defender could stand or walk from point to point, as occasion might demand. Then a second story was built upon the outer round of logs and finished as other log cabins. At the proper height in the upper story, portholes were made in the walls, through which a defender could shoot at an enemy before he could advance to the wall. I have never heard that Indians attacked a blockhouse, but, besides being a good defense, it was an excellent scarecrow to frighten them away" (see Zuber, My Eighty Years in Texas (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1971), pp. 51-52).

44 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 1423-1424, 1440-1443.

45 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 1639-1641.