More Loose Ends at San Jacinto and Elsewhere in Texas

 

David G. Burnet, the Interim President of Texas from March until October of 1836.  He was very articulate but made a series of  disastrous mistakes.  He hung around Texas politics for thirty more years, mostly taking up space and proving that a complete idiot who talks a good game can survive in politics.

      History changes depending on who is telling the story.  Honest historians tell an imperfect story because they don’t know any better.  They spend years researching a subject, then publish their findings as historical fact and are to be commended for their efforts, even if some of their “facts” are a bit skewed.  Further research and new information always reveals flaws in their work and history is re-written to fit a new set of “facts.”

      Less-than-honest historians, for reasons of their own, slant a story to fit their personal agenda, whether or not it is factual.  News commentators have also been known to do this.  Dan Rather comes to mind.

       It would be nice if mankind was always motivated to take the moral high ground, but experience tells us this is not the case.  It would be nice if Democrats and Republicans were always on the side of honor, truth and justice, but don't hold your breath. Evil people exist.  Humans have needs, and some people are programmed to service their own needs without regard for others.

      That’s about as far down that road as I wish to go, so let me get to the point.  I found several discrepancies in the works I used for research in my studies on the Texas Revolution.  They are mostly variations in detail, and don’t present any great problem, but I want to clear the air and expose some contradictions.

     I found Houston’s friend, Chief Bowles of the Cherokees, listed as Chief Bowles, Chief Bowl, Chief Boles, and in one reference, simply as The Bowl.  I prefer “The Bowl” and wonder if it was not the proper translation of his Indian name.  Historian are tempted to “correct” a name like that.

     Weeks before the battle at San Jacinto, Houston put Sidney Sherman and all his men under the command of Burleson’s First Volunteers. When the army grew, Sherman was promoted and put in charge of an entirely new regiment, the Second Volunteers.  He kept his cavalry until the day before the battle when Houston stripped him of that and assigned it to Lamar.  As for "discrepancies," I noticed several references to Sherman and his “Kentuckians,” who were listed on the far left end of Houston’s skirmish line.  Sherman’s Kentuckians were centered in the line with Burleson and Sherman was on the far left, leading a new group of volunteers.

     In more than one account, Sidney Sherman is credited with initiating the cries, “Remember the Alamo,” and “Remember Goliad!”  According to a reliable source,  Secretary of War Thomas Rusk, “Remember Goliad” was not a battle cry at San Jacinto, because, at the time, Goliad was known as La Bahia.  Houston's troops yelled, "Remember the Alamo," and "Remember, La Bahia."

      The glove that Private James A. Sylvester attached to the shaft of the Miss Liberty Flag was described as red in some accounts and white in others.  All described a long glove that was presented to Sylvester by the daughter of the host of a going-off-to-war dance in Cincinnati, but they disagreed as to the color.  (For what its worth, I choose to believe the glove was red.  White would be a natural assumption, and I feel that some researcher along the way made that assumption.)

The story of the glove was more important than its color.  I wondered if the young beauty gave the glove to James, and if so, under what circumstances.  Young women sometimes bestoy precious gifts on departing soldiers.  Then again, perhaps she lost the glove and he found it and made up the story. Soldiers do that.  Imagination does wonderful things for a lonely young man.

     James Sylvester was a well-respected soldier, so he may have told the truth.  I found him listed as Second Sergeant for Captain William Wood’s “A” Company, in Burleson’s First Volunteer Infantry, so he gained several promotions after leaving Kentucky as a private.  He was, a bit surprisingly because of his rank, listed as “flag-bearer.”  I suppose he retained that position  because he wanted to keep the glove near and sniff it every now and then.

     The complete rout of the Mexicans can be inferred from the fact that Sylvester was not wounded in the battle.  Flag bearers were favored targets, and he would have been front and center with the Miss Liberty flag.  Further evidence that he was a good soldier is provided.  He was listed as one of the patrol which captured Santa Anna on the day after the battle.  I find no other reference to him, so, for me at least, he is lost to history.

     Conflicting stories abound as to the appearance of Miss Liberty on the flag.  Some had her bare to the waist and others said she was completely covered.  Some covered her with transparent fabric. These riddles were answered when the flag was put on display in 1933, and the lady had one lovely breast exposed. (My bias is showing—that’s the story I wanted to believe.)

A replica of the Dodson Flag, which most likely flew over the Alamo.  Santa Anna  took the Alamo flag back to Mexico and put it in a museum, where it remains despite all efforts to have it returned to Texas.

     Historians place other flags at San Jacinto—T. R. Fehrenbach, in his consummate history of Texas, Lone Star, described the Troutman Flag as being carried there.   Houston did send Miss Troutman a place setting—an oversized fork and spoon--from Santa Anna’s silver chest as a thank-you gift for her flag, but all evidence shows that flag was destroyed at Goliad.  
    
      Captain Hugh McLeod, who brought the Troutman Flag to Texas, supposedly fought at San Jacinto, but I could not find him listed on any roster.  I have since discovered that he was delayed on his trip to Texas and stayed at Nacogdoches helping prepare for the defense of the city until after the battle at San Jacinto, when  he immediately joined Burnet and Lamar in Galveston.  Lamar took McLeod under his wing and they became close friends and dedicated enemies of Sam Houston.  

     The Miss Liberty flag was returned to Mrs. Sidney Sherman and the ladies of Newport four months after the battle.  In an attached note, Alexander Somerville testifies that the flag flew over the fight at San Jacinto.  This note is proof enough that the Miss Liberty Flag was the dominate flag of the Texians at the battle.  It is likely other flags were carried that day—most military units carry colors of some sort—and there is no evidence that only one flag was present. 

     Speaking of Alexander Somerville, I found him called “Somervall,” “Somervell,” and “Somervill.”  I used “Somerville” because that’s the way he spelled his name in the note to Mrs. Sherman.  At the time of that letter, in August 1836, David G. Burnet was still interim president of Texas.  He served just over seven months and negotiated both Treaties of Velasco with Santa Anna.  He otherwise busied himself writing thank-you notes, rewarding friends with political appointments, and plotting against Sam Houston. 

     Robert Potter, a friend that Burnet appointed Secretary of the Texas Navy, is listed in some journals as having fought at San Jacinto, but he remained at Galveston, along with Burnet and DeZavala, during the battle.  The three immediately left Galveston and went to San Jacinto after the victory.  They were furious to find Houston had used funds from Santa Anna’s captured war chest to pay his troops, instead of turning the money over to them and the provisional government as Burnet had ordered.

     Over the next thirty years, David G. Burnet took up space in the Rebublic and the State of Texas, but contributed little to the overall good.   His greatest contribution to Texas came from his brother  Isaac, who was mayor of Cincinnati when that city voted to donate the Twin Sisters to the Texas cause.

Loose Ends at the Battle of San Jacinto--A Family Affair

The red-headed fire eater, Mirabeau Bonaparte Lamar

     When General Houston decided to fight at San Jacinto, he was on the verge of losing his command to mutiny.  Several of his officers were actively speaking out, questioning his leadership.  Sidney Sherman, Alexander Somerville, Mirabeau B. Lamar, and John Wharton were all critical of Houston.  Wiley Martin and Mosely Baker had decided to follow him only if he fought.  Officers loyal to Houston included Henry Millard, Edward Burleson, and Thomas J. Rusk, the Secretary of War for the Republic.  Houston kept his his plans to himself and only shared his thoughts with Secretary Rusk.

     Around noontime on the 21^st, Houston, fed up with second-guessing subordinates, told Wharton, “Fight and be damned.” Houston knew his poorly trained troops were ill-prepared for battle, but he also knew their best opportunity for victory was immediate action.  The rank and file were lusting for a fight, the enemy was just across a pasture, and Houston had seen an eagle drifting above when he awoke that morning.  The eagle--Houston's Indian Totem--was a good omen and its message was not lost on Houston--it was time to fight.

      Houston prepared his men for battle.  Starting on the left and facing the enemy, Sidney Sherman’s infantry from the Second Volunteer Regiment was spread out next to the swamp.  Mosely Baker and his men were next in line, then the steadfast Edward Burleson’s First Volunteer Regiment which contained Sherman’s original Newport volunteers. The “Twin Sisters” from Cincinnati stood in the center of the line.  Col. Henry Millard’s A and B Regiments of Volunteers completed the line to the right with Mirabeau B. Lamar’s cavalry on the far right, to protect that flank and prevent the enemy from escaping across the open prairie.

      Whether or not it was intentional, this arrangement separated Houston’s adversaries and grouped his friends at his back, in the center of the file.  Lamar’s Cavalry protected the far right flank and cut off enemy escape.  Sherman’s infantry filled in on the far left and the swamp protected that flank.  Separation of these two dissenters may have been coincidental, or it may have been keen insight on the part of Sam Houston. 

      At three-thirty that afternoon, Houston drew his sword, the drummer and fifer struck up Come to the Bower, the flag-bearer (Second Sergeant James A. Sylvester) moved Miss Liberty forward, and the unwieldy line stepped off toward the Mexican fortifications.

      Among the soldiers in that skirmish line were two young men named McLaughlin.  Private Robert McLaughlin lined up with the First Regular Texian Volunteer Infantry, commanded by Col. Edward Burleson.  Robert was in Company F, under Captain Heard, and near the center of the line, immediately behind one of the Twin Sisters.  His company was near General Houston and the Miss Liberty Flag.  On the far right, at the end of the line, First Sergeant Stephen McLaughlin took his place, riding with Lamar’s Calvary. 

      No documentation shows the relationship of these two men, but it is probable that they were related and that they came to Texas with Sidney Sherman.  Sherman’s original Newport Volunteers were put under the command of Colonel Edward Burleson, but the Cavalry stayed under Sherman’s command until the day before the battle, when Houston replaced him with Mirabeau B. Lamar.  

     During a clash with the enemy on the morning of April 20th, Lamar exhibited coolness under fire, extreme bravery, and superb horsemanship while saving the life of acting Secretary of War Rusk.   Col. Sidney Sherman demonstrated lack of experience and a tendency for rash judgment in the same engagement.  Houston immediately promoted Private Lamar to Lt. Colonel and put him in charge of the Cavalry.

     Eight miles away, two other young McLaughlin men were camped across the bayou from Harrisburg.  For greater mobility, Houston left his sick and wounded in a makeshift hospital there, under the command and protection of Major Robert McNutt.  James McLaughlin and William Henry McLaughlin were listed in Logan's Platoon under “Camp Guards, Special Detail, or Sick.”  I know these men were brothers because James was my great-great grandfather.  Family lore says Henry was sick and James asked to remain with him as part of the guard detail. 
 
     It is likely all these McLaughlins were related.  America had few McLaughlins at the time, and, although they might not have known each other, it is possible they were cousins.
 



The flag as it was originally done.  It was reversed, under glass, for display in the Texas House of Represenatives, which toned the colors to more pastel hues.  Other versions have the entire bust area covered, which makes for a pretty boring Miss Liberty.  The artist must have sensed these troops needed something to stir their souls, for it is obvious he spent a lot more time detailing the breast than he did on the face.

      Four months after the battle, in August of 1836, the Provisional Texas Government returned the Miss Liberty Flag to Mrs. Sidney Sherman with the following note:

     “Velasco, August 5, 1836, War Department.  This stand of colors, presented by the ladies of Newport, Kentucky, to Captain Sidney Sherman, is the same which triumphantly waved on the memorable field of San Jacinto, and is by the government presented to the lady of Colonel Sidney Sherman as a testimonial of his gallant conduct on that occasion.  A. Somerville (signed) Secretary of War.  Approved: David G. Burnet”

      The probability that Sherman and Burnet were friends in Cincinnati may have contributed to this "testimonial of his gallant conduct."  Nothing in his conduct during the battle warrents this praise.  He was competent, but not outstanding.

     The Sherman Family kept the flag for many years.  In 1933 a ceremony was held in the Texas House of Representatives, and the flag was given over to the custody of the Daughters of the Texas Revolution.  It was displayed, back side out under glass, behind the Speaker’s platform in the Texas House.

     Houston’s Fife and Drum Corps chose to play Come to the Bower as they moved across the prairie to attack the Mexican Army.

                                       Will you come to the bower I have shaded for you?

                                       Our bed shall be roses all spangled with dew.

                                      There under the bower on roses you’ll lie

                                     With a blush on your cheek but a smile in your eye!

     These words are certainly not that risqué in today’s world, but consider the circumstances.  Houston’s troops knew full well that they might die during this battle.  They were prepared for it.  Who can blame them if they chose to imagine their sweethearts in a brush arbor, lying nude on a pallet covered with rose-petals?  They were dreaming about different ways to put “a blush on her cheek and a smile in her eye.”  Young soldiers dream those same dreams today.

Loose Ends at the Battle of San Jacinto--A Series--The Texian Flag

                

Col. Sidney Sherman, Soldier and Statesman of early Texas.  The first steam locomotive in Texas was named "General Sherman," after this man, not after the yankee general, as many assumed.

      One of the company commanders at San Jacinto, Colonel Sidney Sherman, was born in Massachusetts in 1805, orphaned at age twelve, worked his way to New York City, then on to Cincinnati, and finally across the Ohio River to Newport, Kentucky.  He built a prosperous business there and married a twenty-year-old Southern Belle, Catherine Isabel Cox, in April, 1835.  

      Sherman, along with other Cincinnati friends and acquaintenances, suffered from "Texas Fever."  Cincinnati was a hotbed of Texas sympathisers, filled with men who saw possibilities for untold wealth in the Mexican territory.

      A rally for the Texas Revolution was held there in November, 1835.  Sherman attended and pledged his support for the young, would-be republic.  The citizens of Cincinnati, at the urging of Mayor Isaac Burnet, voted to donate the “Twin Sisters,” two small cannon, to the Texians.  Sidney Sherman asked for volunteers to join him for an expedition to help the Texas patriots secure their freedom.

     Such volunteer groups sprang up all over the South, stirred by the letters of William Barret Travis, Sam Houston, and others commissioned by the Texas government to enlist volunteers.   The Texas rebellion became “the” war for this generation of young Southerners.  Too young for the Revolutionary War or the War of 1812, these young men longed for the romance of a conflict to prove their merit.  The Texas Revolution, viewed as a righteous fight of American patriots against Mexican despots, was made to order for their needs.     

      Sherman's new bride must have approved of his marching off to Texas, for he sold his business and used the money to arm and outfit fifty-two young adventurers, known variously as the “Newport Volunteers,” “ Kentucky Riflemen,” or “Sherman’s Newport Volunteers.” 

     In late December, 1835, at a going-away party for his troops, Sherman’s new bride presented him with a battle flag made by the “Ladies of Newport” for the Volunteers.  This flag depicted Miss Liberty, with her perfectly shaped left breast exposed, holding a sword with the banner, “Liberty or Death.”  Private James A. Sylvester added a lady’s long glove to the flagstaff as a talisman.  The glove had been presented to him by a lovely Southern Belle at the off-to-war dance in Cincinnati.  The flag, with the lady’s glove, was proudly carried to Texas by the Newport Volunteers.

     The Alabama Red Rovers, the Mobile Grays, and several groups from New Orleans were already on the road to Texas. Sherman’s group hurried to get there while there were still enough Mexicans to go around.

      Sherman's Newport Volunteers went directly to San Felipe, planning to move on to San Antonio and join Travis at the Alamo.  The acting governor, Henry Smith, saved their lives when he directed them instead to Gonzales to report to General Houston for orders.  Though disappointed and spoiling for a fight, they obeyed the governor.

      Sherman and his troops joined the Texian army at Gonzales in late February, 1836,  to await the arrival of General Houston.  Houston merged them with the First Volunteer Regiment, under the command of Col. Edward Burleson, and placed Lt. Col. Sherman second in Command.  By the time they reached San Jacinto, the army had grown so large that a Second Volunteer Regiment was formed.  Despite his lack of military experience, Sherman was made a full colonel and put in charge of the new regiment.

     Sam Houston knew the importance of symbolism to the morale of an army, and especially to his ragged little group.   As he prepared for the most important battle of his life, he searched desperately for any symbol to rally his troops.  TheTexian army had no flag, no marching band, nothing to signify and maintain unity. 

     Sherman’s original fifty-two troops had the only real uniforms, so Houston put them near the center of his skirmish line, along with the rest of Burleson’s First Volunteer Regiment.  He noticed the Newport Volunteer's flag and insisted it be moved to the center.  Lady Liberty, with her perky breast displayed prominently, and the lovely Cincinnati Belle’s long glove hanging from the shaft, took front and center, between the Twin Sisters. 

Miss Liberty as carried by the Heros of San Jacinto and sewn by the Ladies of Newport, Kentucky.  This is the reverse side of the flag as it is displayed behind the Speaker's platform in the Texas House of Representatives.




 

      Houston’s call for music was answered by a free black man with a drum and a German boy who played a fife.  Two others joined them with unknown instruments, perhaps a fiddle or something homemade, and to Houston's delight, they played the only song all four of them knew—a ribald saloon ditty considered risqué at the time—Come to the Bower. 

     With nine hundred men lined up in a skirmish line 1,000 yards long, a flag in the center and a makeshift band to keep time, Houston's troops were ready for battle.  At three-thirty in the afternoon, Houston mounted his great white horse Saracen, drew his sword and started his troops across a mile of pastureland for an eighteen-minute battle that would change the history of the world.

To Be Continued….

Big Mike Brown at the World Championship Barbeque Cookoff

One of Jim Goode's Barbeque Pits on the way to the Houston Cookoff, back in the day.

                          

     I passed another milestone yesterday.  On September 15, 2013, I became seventy-seven years old.  I don’t really celebrate birthdays anymore, but I do notice them.  One of the good things about having a lot of birthdays is that a long life gives you time enough to meet and get to know a lot of interesting people.  I have many friends because I have lived a long time and I like people and I like to hear what they have to say and laugh with them about this funny world we live in.  My only rule about friends is “Please don’t bore me.”

     “Stormin’ Norman” Hanks, “Big Mike” Brown, and Bob “Booger” Poland were among the friends I used to work the Barbeque circuits with.  We talked and we laughed and we cooked Barbeque together.  None of these guys could ever get near being boring.  When you’re seventy-seven, you think back and remember.  This is one of my memories:

      The Houston Livestock Show committeeman came by to enforce the rule prohibiting private vehicles at the team locations for the World Championship Barbeque Cookoff.   Mike Brown explained what appeared to be a pickup parked next to our area, was actually not a pickup, but a UFO.

     “Well now, I admit, in this light, it does sort of look like a white GMC pick-up.  But when it came down and landed, it was shaped like one of them discuses they throw in the Olympics.  Silver colored.  You shoulda seen it.  We watched them three olive drab fellas get out of it without opening the door.  Just stepped right out on the pavement through the side of the machine, like they wasn’t nothing even there.  Then one turned around and pointed at it and it quit being a silver discus-looking thing and started looking like a white pickup truck.”

     “Tell him what them green varmits did to ole Smokey Rawlings, Mike.  Tell him what happened to ole Smokey.”  Stormin’ Norman enjoyed adding reinforcement to Mike’s tales, even though Mike didn’t need any help.

     “You know Smokey, don’t you?  He was our committeeman.”  Mike drawled.  “Well, ole Smokey come up on them guys and told them to move that truck.  Like you, he thought it was a pickup, parked in the pedestrian zone.  One of them green dudes pointed at Smokey and lighting flashed out the end of his finger and ole Smokey went ‘pop’ and disappeared.  All is left is that oily spot on the pavement over there.  See the light shining off it, right there next to our front gate?”

     “Now wait a minute, Mike. He didn’t go ‘pop’.  It was more of a ‘poof.’  Smokey went ‘poof’ ‘fore he disappeared.”  Norman corrected.

      “You trying to tell me a little green man went ‘poof’ and Smokey disappeared?  What you all been drinking?  Smokey must weight two-eighty-five.  He’da left a bigger spot.  Which finger that fella use to do all that pointin’ with, anyway?” The committeeman was getting into Mike’s story.  He didn’t believe it, but was curious.  He wondered where it might go.  Mike was playing him like a trophy bass on a light-weight fly rod.

     “Why, he used his long finger.  Only had two on each hand, and one was a foot long.  His thumbs were short, though.  All of Smokey didn’t settle down on the street in that one spot, neither.  Most of him went up in smoke and drifted over there towards the supper tent.  People smelled it.  You could tell.  They’d get a whiff and look over here.  Pretty soon everybody was looking over here. I really liked Smokey—gonna miss him.” Mike’s story was taking on a life of its own. 

      Mike Brown prided himself on his ability to create Prime B.S. out of thin air.  He had decided that he was not going to move his truck.  The truck came in handy in a lot of ways, and all he had to do to keep it was B. S. a couple of committeemen into overlooking a silly rule.  That was no step for a stepper.  Mike was a salesman—he made a good living passing out Grade A B.S. 

      As the evening progressed, the team-members started to place bets on the action.  Odds were running eight to five Mike would succeed and leave his truck parked there for the duration of the cookoff.  Only ones that bet against Big Mike didn’t know him.

     “Ah’ll tell you what Ah’m gonna do.  Ah’ll take a turn around the grounds and be back here in about a hour.  Ah hope that truck is gone when Ah gets back.  Ah’d hate to have it towed.”  The official walked through our entry and out onto the street.  He carefully stepped around the oily spot.

      Mike fired a parting shot as the committeeman left. “O.K., sir, but I’m afraid to touch that UFO.  Ain’t no telling what might happen if them green dudes rigged it someway.  They can do anything—they made it look just like a pickup.  I wouldn’t get too close if I was you.” 

     The official passed near the truck and lifted his hand to pat the hood, hesitated, then stuffed his hand in his pocket and hurriedly strolled away.  No sense tempting fate.

      About two hours and several beers later, the committeeman strolled triumphantly back into our assigned space, with Smokey Rawlings in tow.  “Looka here who Ah found.  Now, let’s hear that bunch of crap again.  Start over at the part where Smokey went “poof.”

     “Oh My God, it’s a miracle!  A miracle!  Are you OK, Smokey?  You look good, considering.  Where’d them alien bastards send you?  Did separating all your molecules hurt?”  Mike was genuinely concerned.

     “They ain’t nobody done nothing with me.  I ain’t been nowhere, ‘cept here and over yonder, doing my job.”  Smokey’s porch light was on, but it was pretty dim.

     “Norman, get over here—it’s worse than we thought.  They hit him with a Amnesia Ray.  He don’t remember nothing.”  Brown was talking fast, constantly ad-libbing, letting his instincts guide.

      Norm, wide-eyed, said,  ”You don’t remember telling that chartreuse fellow to move that truck and him giggling and zapping you with that long finger?”

     “Nothing like that never happened—I’d remember getting zapped by a green dude.”  Smokey’s porch light flickered.

     Brown moved in for the kill.  “Not if they hit you with a Amnesia Ray.  I bet you don’t even remember how you turned on Miss Lake Jackson so much, she French-kissed you in the ear?  Do you remember that?  If you don’t, it was the A-Ray for sure.”

     “Miss Lake Jackson sure is purty, but she didn’t kiss me in the ear.  I know I’d remember that.  You sure that happened?” Smokey was glowing, remembering Miss Lake Jackson and hoping she had kissed him.  He rubbed his ear.

     “She told me she was just overcome with emotion while you was looking down the front of her dress, and she couldn’t help herself.  She just hauled off and planted her tongue in your left ear.  Who knows what it takes to turn on a woman like that?  Smokey dang sure found the way to her heart.  Look at that lipstick on his ear.  He needs a memory jolt.”  Big Mike was rolling.

     “Miss Lake Jackson says for you to go hang around the committee tent and she’ll be over later, when she can control herself.  She don’t know why, but when you stare at her with those little close-together eyes, she just has all these chemical reactions happening inside.  She said she’ll be by around midnight, if that’s all right with you?”

     The next morning, Mike Brown drove the truck into Houston, picked up 300 pounds of crushed ice and four dozen Shipley’s donuts, and waved at the security guard as he drove back in.  He parked in the same spot, right next to our space.  A truck comes in real handy at a barbeque cookoff.

Lubbock Has a History----Part Two

Springtime moves across the Tech Campus in Lubbock.

     Lubbock County was formed as an unorganized county on August 21, 1876.  Forty-seven other Panhandle and South Plains counties were formed by the state legislature that day and Lubbock was attached, for administrative purposes, to Young, then Baylor, and finally to Crosby Counties.

     By 1880, the census of Lubbock County showed twenty-five residents, most of them sheep-herders in Yellow House Canyon.  Ten years later, in 1890, the population had grown to thirty-three full time residents, but a boom was coming later that year. Texas was offering very liberal terms to homesteaders and many had discovered that farming was possible and profitable in Lubbock County.  By late in that year, a heated race was developing for County Seat.

        County Seat was big stuff back then and two factions in Lubbock County worked toward getting their town selected.   The competition was fierce and the rewards were great.  Lots in the County Seat enjoyed large appreciation in value and small fortunes were made overnight, with the potential for more speculative profits for years to come.  One of the towns, “Old” Lubbock, rested north of the Yellow House Canyon in the vicinity of the current Lubbock Country Club.  That town contained about thirty seven buildings and around fifty people.  The other contender, Monterey, was platted south of the canyon and contained about thirty two buildings and about forty people.  A third settlement, Estacado, was located near the eastern edge of the proposed county, where Paris Cox had settled.  It was a small, not very aggressive community, and had no ambition to be the County Seat, but its citizens could vote to help select the winner.

      As the competition heated up, the developers got “high behind” and gave away lots to any settlers willing to build.  Construction continued in both towns, with lumber and other materials brought in by railroad to Amarillo or Colorado City, then shipped by wagon to Lubbock County.  Neither of the warring factions could afford to lose and the odds were too close to call.  They took a tack unheard of in that time. 

     The developers sat down together and worked out a deal.  They would pool their resources, select a third site, acquire it, and move all the buildings to the new township.  After the site was selected, acquired and surveyed, the lots would be parceled out fairly, in a checkerboard fashion, to each party who participated in the agreement.  The existing buildings in each town would be moved to the new location within thirty days, and an election to formally organize the county and name the County Seat would be scheduled as soon as practical after that.  As to travelers and other visitors not being able to find the new town, that was no problem.  It was less than ten miles from either location.  On the High Plains, you could look over there and see it.

     These folks came up with an agreement in December of 1890, and a site very near the center of the county, south of the canyon, was chosen.  The site was acquired for less than $2000.00, surveyed, parceled out, and the buildings were moved.  On March 10^th, 1891, barely three months later, the election was held and the “new” Lubbock was named County Seat.

      This incident speaks volumes about the competence and energy of those pioneers.  It also may speak a page or two about the size and complexity of their early buildings.  If my math is right, they moved sixty eight buildings and about a hundred people in just a few weeks.  They made special provisions for the only two story building—the Nicolette Hotel—to be moved within two months.  All the rest of the buildings were moved within thirty days. 

      The enlightened self-interest and the willingness to compromise as demonstrated in this early agreement permeated the actions of Lubbock’s civic leaders from that day forward.  The ability to act intelligently and decisively has defined the character of the Texan in literature and folklore for as long as there has been a Texas.  These High Plains Texans possess all the characteristic traits of the legendary Texan of folklore in a more concentrated form.  They are truly “Super Texans”.

      By the 1900 census, 293 people resided in Lubbock County.  The City of Lubbock was incorporated in 1909.  Cotton began to replace grain sorghum as the principal crop, railroads came and Lubbock County started to out-grow the neighboring counties.   Texas Technological College opened in 1925.  Meat and dairy processing plants opened.   Hospitals and hotels built high-rise buildings.   Lubbock became “The Hub of the Plains.”   

The Lubbock High School building was built for $650,000.00.  The contractoe ran out of money and finished the project out of his own pocket, in time to open for classes in the fall of 1931.

   

      The unlikely combination of city government, banking institutions and local churches all cooperated for “the good of the city”.  This spirit was established early on in the city and was passed down through the years as the best way to maintain order and insure stability.  The churches wielded a tremendous influence on the affairs of the city, perhaps more so than any other like-sized city in the country.   

       From the very first, the city of Lubbock was bone dry—no liquor stores, no beer joints, no honky-tonks, no saloons, no cocktail lounges.  If you wanted a drink, you dealt with a bootlegger or you drove about a hundred miles in any direction to a “wet” town.  Lubbock’s churches were full every Sunday and most Wednesday nights.  The churches were strong, both morally and financially. Pastors of the larger congregations were as well known and influential as any city politician, and better known than most bankers.  Every protestant belief was represented, along with Catholic and a congregation of Jews.  There was not a lot of animosity or competition between the various congregations; there were plenty of sinners to go around.  They worked together with each other and the city for what was considered the greater good.

       When I came of age, in the mid fifties, the city of Lubbock was only about sixty years old, and was already approaching a population of one hundred thousand people.  It had been among the fastest growing cities in the nation for at least thirty years.  Lubbock had been voted “Cleanest City in Texas” so often that it dropped out of the contest.  Some few failures were offset by one success after another.  The agrarian mindset; hard work, frugality, “make do with what you’ve got” mentality, combined with self reliance and optimism made anything possible.  Progressive attitudes, willingness to take risks and “outside the box” thinking all combined to make progress not only possible but inevitable. 

Modern-day Lubbock at night.  Lake in foreground most likly photoshopped.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lubbock has a History----Part One

       

Blanco Canyon, east of Lubbock.  In 1871, Quannah Parker held plains warfare classes for Ranald Mackenzie here.

       The country around Lubbock is not exactly what would be called a scenic wonderland, but it has been prized as a place to live for many centuries.    In fact, the Lubbock Lakes Monument, just off the old Clovis Road and Loop 289 shows evidence of continuous human habitation for over twelve thousand years, the only place in North America with such evidence.  Early Amerinds killed and butchered wooly mammoths and giant prehistoric bison in the valley next to the lake.  During the reign of the Comanche, Yellow House Canyon was a favorite campsite.  The only route to New Mexico across the Llano Estacado with frequent and reliable water passes through the canyon.  The Comanche used this route for centuries before white men discovered it.   The Comanche kept settlers off the High Plains for four hundred years.  San Antonio and Santa Fe were bustling cities, but the Comanche owned everything in between. 

      From the mid 1850’s until late in the 1870’s,  Comanche took hostages—usually young children captured during a raid—to the mouth of Yellow House Canyon in southeast Lubbock County, where they traded the hostages for ransom.  Some were traded to other tribes, some to Comancheros, a few went to brokers hired to find children and some actually were ransomed by relatives.  The area became known as Ransom Canyon and is still called that today.

     During the 1870’s, the area around Lubbock saw bloodshed and violence as the Comanche fought to keep their hunting ground and the white man moved in to take it.  The decade beginning in 1870 spelled doom for the Indians and their way of life.  Before that, no white man lived on the Llano Estacado, and after that, buffalo hunters, with the encouragement of the government, set about to exterminate the buffalo.  After 1880, the Indian “problem” was solved.  Those left were systematically starved on reservations set up by the white man in areas deemed unfit for other uses.

      Texas was a state for over thirty years when the first settlers came to Lubbock County.  To put this in perspective, the golden spike completing the transcontinental railroad was driven in May, 1869, outside Ogden, Utah, and the Comanche still ruled the high plains of Texas.  The U.S. Army built forts across Texas, but no self-respecting Comanche ever attacked a fort.  If the army sent out two hundred troops, they saw nothing.   If the army sent out ten men, they found them roasted over an open fire.  Any settler within a hundred miles of the frontier was in danger.  “Frontier” in this case is defined as the line between safe, settled homestead land and unsafe Indian Territory.  The frontier in Texas actually moved back to the east during the Civil War.

     In the fall of 1871, thirty-one year-old Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie was ordered by General William T. Sherman to attack the Comanche in their foreboding homeland, the Llano Estacado.  No one had ever done that, but Mackenzie was well-suited for the job.  First in his class at West Point, almost brutal in the discipline of his troops, efficient and tenacious, he was called by U.S. Grant, “One of the most promising young officers in the army.”  Mackenzie set about to find and eliminate the Comanche.  In so doing, he became the greatest Indian fighter in American history.  Custer gained fame by getting killed.  Mackenzie remained anonymous by effectively killing Indians.

     Tonkawa scouts led the soldiers to a canyon east of present day Lubbock, where the young war chief, Quanah Parker, was camped with his band of Quahadi Comanche.  The twenty-three year old Comanche out-maneuvered the soldiers at every turn.  When the dust cleared,  one soldier was dead, seventy army horses, including Mackenzie’s favorite mount, were stolen, and the Indians disappeared in the vast and open plains.  Mackenzie tenaciously tracked the band across the plains, but eventually discontinued the search when a vicious “blue norther” struck.  Mackenzie felt this was a failed mission, but it was the first incursion, by anyone, into the heart of Comancheria, and it marked the beginning of the end for the Comanche.

     Three years later, in 1874, a better-educated Mackenzie followed a band of Comanche from the vicinity of Lubbock to Palo Duro Canyon.  Most of the warriors were away hunting, but the soldiers attacked the camp and killed all who resisted, mainly women and old men.  A large portion of the Indians escaped, but left behind all their possessions; teepees, blankets, food for the winter, everything.  Mackenzie’s troops also captured over fourteen hundred Indian ponies.  All the provisions, tents, and supplies were stacked and burned and the horses were driven to Tule Canyon.  The soldiers and scouts picked out the best horses for themselves, then Mackenzie had the remainder, over one thousand, shot.   In that one battle “Bad Hand,” as Mackenzie was called by the Indians, robbed the Indians of all their food, clothing and shelter for the winter, and put them afoot.  All during the winter, small bands of Quahadis walked, starving, into the reservation in Oklahoma.  Many others chose to simply starve or freeze to death on their beloved Llano Estacado, where they had lived and hunted their whole lives.

     The bones of a thousand horses were left to bleach in the sun, just below the caprock in Tule canyon.  Curious visitors drove out to see them well into the 1900’s, and an entrepreneur sold the remains for fertilizer.

     The last battle with Indians in Lubbock County took place in March of 1877, and was fought by a group of buffalo hunters and Comanche from the reservation in Oklahoma.  Black Horse, a Comanche Chief, had permission from the Indian Agent at Fort Sill to hunt Buffalo on the Llano Estacado.  He took over two hundred braves, mostly Comanche with some Apache, but instead of killing buffalo, the Indians killed and mutilated a buffalo hunter near present-day Post.  The hunter, Marshall Sewell, was double scalped, mutilated, and left skewered on his rifle tripod.  Friends found and buried the body, and forty-six hunters, bent on revenge, went in search of the Indians.

      The Indians were camped in Yellow House Canyon, near Buffalo Springs Lake.   The battle took place over a two day period and was fought along the length of Yellow House Canyon, from Buffalo Springs Lake, through what became Mackenzie State Park (named after Col.  Mackenzie) to the Lubbock Lake site, northwest of town.  Twelve of the hunters were killed and they killed 21 Indians.  The Indians escaped to the north and were eventually escorted back to the reservation by U.S. Army soldiers from Ft. Griffin.

     Barely two years later, the first white settlers in Lubbock County came in wagons from Indiana.  In 1879, four Quaker families, led by a fellow named Paris Cox, settled in what is now northeastern Lubbock County, near the Crosby County line.  Cox and his sons built a “half dugout” for his family and the other three families chose to live in tents.  After the group suffered through the bitter winter, in March a violent sandstorm leveled the tents.  That was the last straw-- three families loaded up and went back to Indiana.  Cox and his wife stayed and their daughter, Bertha, became the first white child born in Lubbock County. 

      George Singer established a store in Yellow House Canyon sometime before 1884.  His store was located at the end of a spring-fed lake near the Lubbock Lakes archaeological site.  That is significant to me because I was born across the Clovis Highway from that site at a place then called Broadview Gin.  My parents left Henrietta, Texas, headed for California in 1934, and ran out of money in Lubbock.  That says something about their optimism and their financial condition, but not so much about their foresight.  They decided to work in Lubbock County until they saved up enough to continue their journey.  I have always been grateful that they didn’t go on.  I would have missed one of the great blessings of my life-- growing up in Lubbock.  What kind of guy would I have been if I’d grown up in California—Los Angeles or Pasadena or maybe Bakersfield?



 Ransom Canyon, at the mouth of Yellow House Canyon, southeast or Lubbock.  Look at that sky!  Always the same, always different, always magnificient!

To be continued.....

Coffee Cups

The Vanessa Mug, surrounded by other memories.

                                                   

     When Charlotte and I were wealthy and travelled a lot, we always bought some piece of art as a memento of each trip.  On our first trip to Maui we picked up a large piece of scrimshaw, with the image of a clipper ship etched into an antique ivory walrus tusk.  Once, in New York City, we bought a framed watercolor in a little gallery off the lobby of the Plaza Hotel.  We have ceramic “Day of the Dead” bride and groom statuettes from San Miguel de Allende, and a wedding cup signed by Maria Many-Goats from the Jemez Pueblo.  All this stuff is nice and we keep it together in a bookshelf and dust it.  Sometimes.

     I involuntarily quit being wealthy some time ago, but I haven’t ceased to travel.  Now, instead of art, I collect coffee mugs.   They are much less expensive, offer infinite variety, and are colorful and useful.  Two entire shelves in my kitchen cabinet are devoted to assorted coffee mugs. I drink out of a different one each day, and it rewards me with pleasant memories.

     Every morning I reach into the cabinet and blindly pick a mug for my coffee.  Sometimes I reach way back on the top shelf and sometimes I pick one in front on the bottom shelf.  It is important that I not repeat yesterday’s mug, because I don’t want to repeat that memory.  Memories are like old friends—they’re better when you stumble onto them and they come back into your life, fresh, vivid, and unrehearsed.

     Here is a mug from the gift shop at Crater Lake.  A little blond cutie with dimples and tight britches sold it to me when Wayne and I visited there.   Did you know that it snows over forty-four feet per year up there?  Not inches, feet.  Snow plows run year round.
    
     Mike Brown took his family up there once and it snowed--whiteout blizzard conditions--the entire time they were there.  Three days and they never caught a glimpse of the lake.  His son, the lawyer, stills calls it the "alleged" Crater Lake. 
    
     The white mug over here is from Scarlett O’Hardy’s Gone with the Wind Museum in Jefferson, Texas.  In back there is a black mug with gold lettering from the restored Georgian Hotel, on the beach in Santa Monica.  We got that at Rachel’s wedding—what a great week.

     My grandsons picked out the Route Sixty-Six mug in Clines Corners when my friends Collins and McMullen invited us up to Gunnison for fly fishing.  The boys will never forget that trip, nor will I.  Ben still gets a faraway look when he remembers all the bacon Mullens stir-fried one morning, and none of us will ever forget the fresh-caught, pan-fried trout James cooked over the campfire.

     This morning, I’m having my Columbian coffee in a “Vanessa” mug with the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame logo on one side.  The regular Ranger logo mugs were priced at $12.95, plus tax, but they had three leftover “named” mugs--Jonathon, Vanessa, and Susanna--on clearance at $1.95 each.  When I was single, a sweet girl in Houston named Vanessa used to do nice things for me, so I saved eleven dollars and got two sets of fine memories for the price of one.

     Involuntarily getting un-wealthy is not the end of the world.   I have a lifetime of memories…..and a cabinet full of reminders.