Part 4

Part 4, Note 24

H. A. Graves, comp., Reminiscences and Events in the Ministerial Life of Rev. John Wesley DeVilbiss (Galveston: W. A. Shaw & Co., 1886), pp. 33-34 which reproduces part of a reminiscence attributed to DeVilbiss. That the ministers arrived on February 3 must be deduced from allusions in several sources. First, one must realize that Palmer and DeVilbiss were appointed to the Egypt circuit for 1843 (see Macum Phelan, A History of Early Methodism in Texas 1817-1866 (Nashville: Cokesbury Press, 1924), pp. 207, 212). DeVilbiss says that they arrived on a Friday (see Graves, Reminiscences and Events in the Ministerial Life of Rev. John Wesley DeVilbiss, p. 33). DeWitt Clinton Baker reports that the Colorado River flooded in February 1843 (see Baker, comp., A Texas Scrap-Book (New York: A. S. Barnes and Co., 1875) p. 327). Jean Marie Odin confirms that the flood was in the first week of February, by writing, on February 7, that he had heard of it (see Letter of Jean Marie Odin, February 7, 1843, Episcopal Collection, Papers of Jean Marie Odin, Catholic Archives of Texas, Austin). The only Friday in February before February 7 in 1843 was February 3. Similar detective work must be performed to fully identify the man from whom the ministers acquired the logs. DeVilbiss gives only Beeson's last name. It can be deduced that he was Leander Beeson rather than his brother Abel, for it was Leander who inherited the land that his father, Benjamin, had owned on the east side of the river, and who certainly lived on that land in December 1844, when the final division of the estate was made (see Colorado County Probate Records, Final Record Book B, pp. 428-431).