SONS OF DEWITT COLONY TEXAS
Biographies of DeWitt Colony families for which there is evidence they were residents or landholders in Gonzales Town or spent significant amounts of time in the town in public service or commerce. Biographies of other DeWitt Colonists may be found at 1828 Residents, The Battle of Gonzales-Old 18, Gonzales Alamo Relief Force, Land Grantees & Residents and Citizens-Free State of Lavaca. For More Biography, Search Handbook of Texas Online BAKER. Moses, Isaac, Rachel, John, Margaret. According to Moses Baker (b. 27 Apr 1791) as quoted in The Plum Tree Almanac, Vol 7, No 2, Fall 1989, he with his family of five signed up as a member of the Tennessee-Texas land company's wagon train which brought the family to Gonzales. The wagon train was assembled in HardemanCo, Tennessee and departed from there. According to land records, Moses Baker arrived on 20 Feb 1831 married with a family of five (two daughters and a son) and received a league of land on the west bank of the Guadalupe River between Seguin and New Braunfels in current GuadalupeCo. He also purchased four lots in the west outer town tract of Gonzales in 1834. Probate records verify that Isaac Baker (b. 15 Sep 1814), a Gonzales Ranger and member of the Gonzales Alamo Relief Force who died in the Alamo on 6 Mar 1836, was the son of Moses Baker. Land records indicate that Isaac arrived single in the DeWitt Colony on 13 Aug 1830 where he received title on 14 Jun 1832 to a quarter sitio of land just south of his father's tract on the west bank of the Guadalupe River. It is unclear whether this means that Isaac preceded the family in coming to Texas or there are errors in his land grant records. If his birthdate is correct according to his brother John Baker's journal, he would have been just under 15 years old at the time of arrival. Records indicate that Moses Baker stated that he came originally from Alabama. LawrenceCo Alabama records show a Moses Baker married Elizabeth Starkey on 19 Jun 1825. The signature on the marriage bond appears similar to that of Moses Baker's signature on documents in Gonzales records. If this is DeWitt Colonist Moses Baker, then Elizabeth Starkey would appear to be a second wife and stepmother of the four known children. Except those that concern the estate, there appear to be no records of Moses Baker after the Texas revolution. In some records, Moses Baker is said to have participated in the Battle of San Jacinto, but he may have been confused with Capt. Moseley Baker. His son-in-law Joseph D. Clements was appointed executor of his and Isaac's estate on 29 Jan 1838. Rachel Baker , the oldest daughter of Moses Baker, was born 25 Sep 1813 according to her brother John Baker's journal. She married Joseph D. Clements amid a storm of controversy. Clements, who land records indicate arrived married with a family of 7 on 25 Dec 1829, left a wife and family in Indiana without a divorce. Along with other citizens of Gonzales, Rachel's father was furious and threatened to kill Clements. The alcalde at Gonzales would not marry the couple so they eloped to San Antonio and were married by the priest there. The Clements had five children, Laura Jane (who married Napoleon Conn), Alexander, Isaac B., Augustus, and Joseph before Joseph D. Clements died in March of 1844. Clements will was hotly contested in Gonzales District Court Final Case #468. After Clement's death, Rachel married Rolla M. Davis on 27 Apr 1846. They had one son, Joel Hamilton Davis, and it is speculated that she either died at childbirth, or shortly thereafter since a probate action filed on 27 Jan 1847 showed her as deceased. John Baker (b. 16 Jun 1817), believed to be a son of Moses Baker, purchased 3 outer Gonzales town lots in Nov and Dec of 1834 near those of his father Moses and brother Isaac. John Baker married Elizabeth Dilworth had a son Blackston Dilworth Baker (b. 13 Feb 1847). After the death of Elizabeth, John Baker then married Sarah E. Echols (b. 25 Nov 1837) on 20 Oct 1853. They had children Sarah Malviney Baker (b. 2 Oct 1854) and Mary Jane Baker (b. 12 Dec 1855). John Baker died on 1 Nov 1857 and is buried at Harris Chapel cemetery, six miles north of Belmont to the east 1.5 miles from Hwy 80 in a pasture, near Mary Jane Baker and members of the Eckols family. Descendants of the Echols family of Luling, Texas, have the leather bound journal belonging to John Baker which contained birthdates of family. The journal gave Isaac Baker's birthdate as 15 Sep 1814 noting that he fell in the Alamo fighting in the cause of Texas 6 Mar 1836 at "age 20 years, 6 months and seven days." (If correct, this should have been 21 years, 6 months, 22 days). Margaret (Peggy) Baker was born 6 Jan 1819 in Alabama. She first married Thomas R. Nichols (b. 8 Jan 1815) on 27 Jun 1842. They had one daughter, Louisa Jane Nichols born in 1844. Thomas R. Nichols, brother of diarist James W. Nichols, was a ranger, a participant in the Battle of Plum Creek and the Battle of Salado and was said to have been killed in an Indian battle. After the death of sister Rachel Baker Davis, sister Margaret married widower Rolla Davis. This marriage combined most of the Moses Baker family. At the time of the 1850 census, they were living in Belmont, GonzalesCo, Texas with Louisa Jane Nichols, the four Clements boys, Joel Hamilton Davis, and one daughter, Parazide, of their own. Rolla and Margaret Baker Davis had four more children, Josephine Maria, Nathaniel, Ann and Amanda, the last two being twins. From information contributed by descendant Joseph A. Mitchell. BEDFORD. Jose (Joseph) Ramon Bedford received a quarter sitio of land arriving 20 Sep 1830 on Geronimo Creek west of current Seguin in GuadalupeCo. He was a translator for land commissioner Jose Antonio Navarro, secretary of the Gonzales Ayuntamiento of 1833 and probably a Spanish teacher for the newly arrived English-speaking naturalized citizens of Mexico. He apparently died in 1833 since the Ayuntamiento replaced him with John Francis Buetti at their meeting of 28 May 1833. His name and signature appears on DeWitt Colony documents of the period. BRANCH. Umphries Branch was deeded four lots, two on each side of St. George St. in inner Gonzales town. According to author A.J. Sowell, Humphries and father-in-law John Sowell originally lived in Gonzales, but felt the best land was already taken in the area and sought out their lands near Seguin at the mouth of the Comal River in 1831. Both had labors of land 6 miles below Seguin where Sowells Creek empties into the river. The Branch 24/25 sitio is where the current city of Seguin now stands. Sowell located his league a little south on the bend of the Guadalupe River known as Stuart Bend. According to Sowell nearest neighbors were still Gonzales and no white family lived west of them. The Dickinsons, Bakers, Tomlinsons, Montgomerys and others moved nearby within the year. The Branch family moved onto their league at a spot known as Elm Spring Hill which in 1900 was owned by the Neill family. Branch built the first house in Seguin in 1833 followed by another built by Robert Hall 6 years later. The Branch family left Texas in the Runaway Scrape and apparently never returned. Umphries Branch. Humphries Branch, his wife Rebecca Sowell and her two children were said to be the first pioneer settlers to have lived on the sight of what later became Seguin, Texas. Humphries Branch (also spelled Humphrey and Umphries) married Rachel Rebecca Sowell probably around 1829. Rebecca was the eldest daughter of John Newton and Rachel Carpenter Sowell. Branch was the second husband of Rebecca; she had first married a cousin Newton Sowell Jr. and had two children, a daughter whose name was unknown, born around 1825, and a son William Riley Sowell born December 26,1827 in Boone County, Missouri. The Branch and Sowell families traveled by way of Missouri to DeWitt's Colony and arrived in May, 1830. Humphries Branch was granted a league of land in 1831 by the Mexican government located on the Guadalupe River in what later became Guadalupe County. After living for a short while with the Sowells at the mouth of Sowell's Creek, Humphries Branch moved onto his league and built a house for his family near Walnut Branch (Creek) said at that time to have been "….a rushing torrent fed by a large spring." "Elm Spring Hill," the name Branch gave to his new home, was located near where later Nolte Street met Walnut Branch in the City of Seguin. In 1836 after the fall of the Alamo the Branch and Sowell families fled to the Texas coast. There was testimony in some district court papers by Rebecca's brothers, Asa and Andrew Sowell, that shortly before the battle of San Jacinto, Rebecca with her husband and two children "….boarded the brig Tensaw at Decrow's Point," and never returned to Texas. Rebecca had promised to write when she reached Mobile; however, the Sowells never heard from her again. Around 1850 Asa Sowell received a letter from an uncle who lived in Van Buren County, Arkansas informing the family that Rebecca had died and that her son William R. was living with an uncle in Missouri. Little was known of the Branch family after they left Texas. Some records said they may have settled in Madison County, Illinois. Nothing was known of the daughter. Rebecca's son William R. Sowell later returned to Texas, married and had a family. He died July 20, 1899 at Lynchburg, Texas. Dorcas Baumgartner. (From The History of Gonzales County, Texas. Reprinted by permission of the Gonzales County Historical Commission). BROWN. According to author Judge Paul Boethel of Lavaca County, Barney (Bernard) Brown settled just across the Lavaca River from Mrs. Margaret Hallett in current Hallettsville just after she had moved to her land in the area from Goliad after the death of her husband there in Oct 1836. Author John Henry Brown also referred to him as an early settler of the Lavaca River valley. His residence was 300 yards from that of James Brown. He was on the Lavaca County tax rolls of 1846. Brown was among the first registered voters of Lavaca County formed in 1846. Brown was a devout Catholic who donated 44.5 acres of land to Bishop Odin on 22 Nov 1844 for a parish church and cemetery at St. Marys in memory of their old parish in Missouri of the same name. The same day he donated 305.5 acres to parish priest Clark who turned the property over to the diocese. Brown was deeded two lots in the inner Gonzales town in 1833 although it is unclear is he ever improved or lived on them. He had two sons, James and Anthony. Both James and Anthony Brown were members of Capt. Adam Zumwalt's Lavaca River minuteman and joined in the pursuit of the Comanches at Linnville and possibly Plum Creek as well as participated in the Battle of Salado. BURKET. The complete biography of DeWitt Colonists, David Burket and family, who came to Gonzales with the extended Burket, Kent and Zumwalt families from Missouri in 1829 can be found under David Burket 1798-1845. CALDWELL. Mathew (Old Paint) Caldwell, one of the most active and significant DeWitt Colony militia Captains, was a resident of Gonzales town. Land records indicate that he arrived with a family of 5 on 20 Feb 1831. He received title to a sitio of land on 22 Jun 1831 southwest of current Hallettsville in Lavaca County near the Zumwalt Settlement. In Gonzales he acquired the original James Hinds residence on Water St. across from the Guadalupe River south of the Dickinson and Kimble Hat Factory. Capt. Caldwell's activities are covered in detail under DeWitt Colony Captains, Minutemen and Rangers. CAMPBELL. James Campbell was born in Tennessee circa 1806, the son of Alexander and Isabella Campbell. His brothers and sisters were: Elliott W. (circa 1802); Matilda (circa 1804); Eleanor (1807). James Campbell left Lawrenceburg, Lawrence County, Tennessee circa 1831 for Texas. He served as a first lieutenant in the Texas Rangers under the command of Captain Mathew Caldwell while living in Gonzales in 1839. For war services he was awarded Republic of Texas land grants of 1280 acres of land located in Bell and Coryell Counties, one-third league or 1476 acres in Bastrop County, 1133 acres military land warrant, other land unlocated and another 640 acres unlocated. James was the county judge of Gonzales County in 1839 and was one of the original surveyors of the town of Walnut Springs later to be named Seguin. He was one of the three founders of Seguin and was given three blocks of eighteen lots each within the town. He met an untimely death as recorded in the Texas Sentinel newspaper of Austin, Texas June 27, 1840: "On the 18th inst. James Campbell, of Gonzales, formerly of Tennessee, was killed one mile below San Antonio by Indians. He had twenty-six wounds." The probate was completed in 1871 and the administrators for his estate were Andrew J. Neill, Thomas Jefferson Keese and Thomas J. Pilgrim. However, it was not until twenty years later that the last land distribution located in Liberty County was given to the granddaughter of Eleanor Campbell Keese. Winston Morris The death of James Campbell was described by diarist James Wilson Nichols in Now You Hear My Horn. CHENAULT. Felix Chenault was born in 1803 and educated in Bradstown [Bardstown], Kentucky. He moved to Gallatin, Tennessee where he married Ann Trigg. In 1836 he moved to Mississippi and in 1838 he settled in Gonzales County, Texas which was a wild frontier section. He took part in the wars against the Indians. He was elected Gonzales county clerk in 1846 and held that office continuously until his death in 1872. It was not known when his first wife died. His second wife was Eliza Polk of Gonzales, the daughter of Thomas Polk and Mary Ann Sloan [Thomas Polk served in Capt. Gibson Kuykendall's Company at San Jacinto. The company were part of the rear guard camped near Harrisburg during the battle-WLM]. The children of Felix and Eliza were: Ben, Dora, Letitia, Lucien, James "Timmy", Charles Polk and John Bass Chenault. Ben never married; Dora married Dunn Houston and their children were George and Alice; Letitia married Sam Fore and lived in Floresville with their sons Blake and Sam Jr.; Lucien married Narcissa DeWitt, granddaughter of Empresario DeWitt and his wife Sarah Seely, their children were Clint, Lucien Jr., Cora and Willeford; "Timmy" married Sophie Henson and their children were Jeff, twins Felix and Mabel and Reid, Felix married first a Miss Arnold and had one son Felix Arnold Chenault, later in Gonzales he married Maggie Ratigan and their children were Louise Margaret and Thomas who attended school in Gonzales, Mabel, married Robert "Bob" Kyle and had one daughter Benell, Mabel and Bob were buried in the Gonzales City Cemetery, Reid married Josephine Kane and their daughter Margaret LeSelle married Alvin Shanklin of Gonzales and they had one daughter Jo Reid; John Bass Chenault, the seventh child of Felix and Eliza, married Lilla Harmon and they were the parents of Clarence Frank and Emmary Burrows. Clarence Frank married Lula Burt Hodges and their children were Dora Bernice Howard, Hunelee Harmon, John Blake, Mary Helen Majirus, Lula Joyce Tomlinson, Rayola Proffer and James Allen. Charles Polk, the sixth son of Felix and Eliza, married Eugenia Testard who was born in Brenham, Texas. Their children were: Charles Polk who died as a child and was always referred to as "Little Charley"; Annie Letitia who became a teacher and taught after her marriage to A.W. Caperton; and John Whit who married Lula May Simmons. She, too, was a teacher but left the profession to rear their children, Charles Polk, Eugenia Mozelle and Willie Maurice. They lived on the Chenault ranch on Peach Creek. Mozelle was a teacher also and was buried in the Gonzales City Cemetery. Charles Polk married Carey Fleda Hoskins in 1939 and their sons were Charles Polk III (July 22, 1944) and Thomas Dudley "Tommy" Chenault (May 16,1946). Tommy was killed in 1971 in Vietnam. Maurice "Bill" married Katherine Franks and their sons were Willie Maurice "Billy" and John Whitson. They lived on the ranch near the old home. The old Chenault home in Gonzales was a large two-story house which stood on the southeast corner of St. Louis and St. Paul Streets across from the Baptist Church for many years. The grandfather Chenault worked in the court house for many years. On weekends he would ride the train as far as Maurin where "Miss Lula", his daughter-in-law, and the grandchildren would meet him in the buggy and take him to their home to visit. He died in 1927 and was buried in the Gonzales City Cemetery. Carey Fleda and Charles P. Chenault (From The History of Gonzales County, Texas. Reprinted by permission of the Gonzales County Historical Commission) In the 1850 census of GonzalesCo, Town of Gonzales were the family: Chenault, F., 44, m,, Clerk, $5,000, Ky; Chenault, Elizar, 23, f, Ark; Chenault, Alaman, 21, m, Tenn; Chenault, Steven, 18, m, Tenn; Chenault, James, 4, m, Texas; Chenault, John, 2, m, Texas; Chenault, Charles, 1, m, Texas; Law, Dalton, 24, m, Carpenter, Tenn. CLARE. Abram M. Clare, according to the narrative from "The Recollections of Judge Thomas M. Duke" arrived in the Austin Colony at Matagorda as early as 1822:
In 1830, Clare was appointed syndico procurador along with Fielding Porter was comisario of police to serve as representatives of the District of Gonzales in the San Felipe Ayuntamiento, a period before Gonzales Municipality was sufficiently large to have its own ayuntamiento. His signature appears on numerous documents of the Gonzales Municipality of the period. Abram Clare witnessed Green DeWitt's Power of Attorney assigned to James Kerr at Old Station on the La Baca on 14 Jul 1827. He, along with Green DeWitt and Norman Woods, signed the marriage bond of Harriett Cottle and Andrew Tumlinson at Gonzales on 2 Jul 1829. Clare later married Harriett's first cousin, Sally Turner, daughter of DeWitt Colonist Winslow Turner. DARST. Jacob C. Darst was a member of the Gonzales Old 18 and the Gonzales Alamo Relief Force where he died in Mar 1836. Son David Sterling Hughes Darst was a 15 year old at the time the major events leading to independence began in Gonzales. His memories of Gonzales town and the area at that time were the basis of much detail related in the late 19th and early 20th century including the layout of inner Gonzales town and its structures in 1903. The Darsts owned lots 2 and 3 in block 10 and had a home on the corner of St. Lawrence and St. John Streets, one block northeast of the fort. Jacob Darst also owned lots in outer Gonzales town northwest of the inner town. Jacob Darst was granted a sitio of land in the DeWitt Colony, the league of which was on the east bank of the Guadalupe River just into current GuadalupeCo near the GonzalesCo line. He received a labor which was east of Hallettsville, south of Sweet Home, in LavacaCo adjoining the Silas Morris league.. David Sterling Hughes Darst. David Sterling Hughes Darst was born in Montgomery County, Missouri August 3, 1821, the son of Jacob C. Darst (December 22, 1793 Tennessee). He arrived in Gonzales with his parents January 8, 1831 from Missouri. Darst's father Jacob who married Margaret C. Hughes October 3, 1820 was the son of David Darst. Two of David's nine children, Jacob and Abraham, went to Texas with their parents. Abraham married Tabitha Calloway, granddaughter of Daniel Boone, and settled in Brazoria County. Jacob settled in Gonzales in DeWitt's colony. He was granted in 1831 twenty-four labors of land located on the north side of the Guadalupe River in what was later Guadalupe County and known in 1984 as the Darst Creek oil field [Darst received 23 labors (23/24 sitio) at this location, he was granted an additional labor of farmland to complete the sitio for which he was eligible as a married settler which was in western LavacaCo toward the DeWittCo line--WLM]. When the Gonzales cannon was demanded by the Mexicans in September, 1835 Jacob Darst was one of the company of eighteen men who defended it. D.S.H. Darst was fifteen years of age when he accompanied his father to Goliad previous to the surrender of Colonel Fannin. It was that same spring when Jacob answered the call of the Alamo and was killed March 6, 1836. The young Darst along with his mother witnessed the burning of Gonzales by General Sam Houston and with other families joined the Runaway Scrape and stopped at the Trinity River. Young Darst and his mother returned to Gonzales in 1839 to begin life again. Mrs. Darst died in 1846. In 1840 he participated in the Battle of Plum Creek and was also with the Texas army at San Antonio when that city was captured by the Mexican army in 1842. In 1845 he married Emeline Zumwalt. They had three children: Imogene who married G.W. Betts; John who was killed, in 1888; and James D. Darst. A granddaughter Ornie married George N. Lamkin and lived in the Harwood community. A great-granddaughter Josephine Lamkin Caperton lived in Luling. His only other known descendants were Josephine Caperton's great niece Shirley Ann Hendricks Springs and her two children, Steven Christopher and Jamie Lee Springs, all of Luling. Darst was a member of the Old School Presbyterian Church, serving for years as ruling elder. In June, 1853 he was one of the co-founders of the Gonzales Inquirer. He served as mayor of Gonzales from 1850-1853, as county treasurer for twelve years and as a trustee of the Gonzales College. His name was listed as a trustee in the first catalogue of the college published for the year 1856-1857. He was the first petitioner to be initiated into the Masonic Lodge after it was organized in Gonzales in 1846. The ceremony was held in the "Little Union Church", the only public meeting place in town. He was also a charter member of the Gonzales Royal Arch Chapter Number 51. In 1847 he joined the Commandery in Austin, later becoming a charter member of the Gonzales Commandery. Darst was one of the first merchants in Gonzales and in 1860 he built a brick home in the town. The grounds covered eighteen acres and were said to be some of the finest in the area. During the Civil War he was appointed District Confederate States deputy marshal until the end of the war when the office was dissolved. He suffered financial losses as many of his friends did as an aftermath of the Civil War and the Reconstruction period. In 1874 he built a mill and gin on East Avenue. It was later known as the Vrazel Gin and was located where the Boysen Food Market stood in 1984. Darst was one of the men instrumental in bringing the railroad branch line to Gonzales August 9, 1882, contributing $500 toward that venture. In later years Darst was the person who verified the location where the first shot for Texas Independence was fired on the banks of the Guadalupe River October 2, 1835. The site was marked by a granite monument commemorating the battle and the men who fought there. He died in Gonzales June 14, 1906 and was buried in the Masonic Cemetery with full Masonic ceremonies. Josephine Lamkin Caperton (From The History of Gonzales County, Texas. Reprinted by permission of the Gonzales County Historical Commission). Darst was listed in the 1850 census of GonzalesCo, Town of Gonzales: Darst, David S.H., 29, m, Merchant, $4,300, Mo; Darst, Emaline, 29, f, Mo; Darst, Imogine, 2, f, Texas. DAVIS. At least five individuals with the name George Washington Davis appear in DeWitt Colony records. In addition to the Daniel Davis family described here with a son and two grandsons with the name, G.W. Davis and his son G.W. Davis Jr. of the Cuero Creek area appear frequently in DeWitt Colony records. Therefore it is not clear which one or more are referred to since a G.W. Davis was present in most significant events in the colony prior to independence. It is believed that the G.W. Davis (m. Rebecca Gaston and stepfather of Alamo casualty John Gaston) of Cuero Creek was the major participant with the name in records about the Battle of Gonzales and the G.W. Davis (son of Daniel Davis below) is the participant referred to in records of the Battle of San Jacinto. According to Dixon and Kemp in The Heroes of San Jacinto, the George Washington Davis that served on the field at San Jacinto in Infantry Company D, 1st Regiment of Texan Volunteers under Capt. Moseley Baker was born in Tennessee 20 Mar 1806, was the delegate to the Consultation of 1835 from the municipality of Gonzales, participated in the Battle of Gonzales, was a member of Capt. John M. Bradley's Company at the Siege of Bexar and took part in the battle at Concepcion. Dixon and Kemp contend that a James P. Davis, who was a member of Capt. Karnes Cavalry Company of the 2nd Regiment of Volunteers, was a brother of the above G.W. Davis who came to Texas with him from Tennessee in 1831. According to the authors, James Davis died in BastropCo in 1847 and his heirs were granted bounty land for his service. An article in the Texas Telegraph & Register reported "George W. Davis was named administrator of the estate of James Davis, a deceased soldier, Bastrop Co., Nov. term of Probate Court, 1837." An article from the Houston Post in 1985 based on family legends by descendant Elmo Schwab tells the story of both father Daniel and son George W. Davis who were fiddler's at the Battle of San Jacinto. The article refers to Alamo casualty John Davis as the brother of Daniel Davis and relates that Daniel Davis was with the Mier Expedition at age 60. If the Tennessee origin of G.W. Davis is correct, then Dixon and Kemp are referring to the G.W. Davis from the Daniel Davis family described here since G.W. Davis of Cuero Creek came from Kentucky. Dixon and Kemp's birthdate of 1806 for G.W. Davis is in between the 1797 for G.W. Davis of Cuero Creek and the 1817 below for G.W. Davis, son of Daniel Davis. If the latter is correct, then it is likely that the older G.W. Davis of Cuero Creek was the secretary of election and member of the Texas Consultations from Gonzales. It is equally difficult to sort out which land records and transactions go with which G.W. Davis. The sitio grant in colony records on the Guadalupe River and Cuero Creek was clearly that to G.W. Davis of Cuero indicated by marital status, the size of his family and where he settled longer term. The multiple lots in the inner and outer town of Gonzales are more difficult to sort out although it is apparent that both G.W. Davis's owned lots in the town tract and one or more had businesses there. The activities and fate of John Davis are equally unclear as described in the articles below. A John Davis was present in Capt. Kuykendall's Company in the rear guard of the Texas Republican Army camped at Harrisburg. A James P. Davis in the Daniel Davis family has not been identified. Daniel, Elizabeth, George W. (son of Daniel), George W. (son of Zachariah), John, Zachariah. Daniel and Elizabeth Davidson Davis and a child arrived in the DeWitt Colony 5 Mar 1831 according to land records. It is believed that Daniel and Elizabeth both were born in Tyrrell County, North Carolina. Daniel (circa 1782) was thought to be the son of Enoch and the grandson of immigrant John Davis Sr. from Wales. Elizabeth was said to have been the daughter of Andrew Davidson. The Davis, Davidson and Shinnault families as a group moved from North Carolina into Davidson County, Tennessee in 1795. Davidson County had two tributaries of the Duck River called Sinking and Rock Creek upon which the families settled. Daniel and Elizabeth were married in 1803. They had children: Zachariah (1804 Tennessee-1848 Texas); John (abt 1810 Tennessee-1836-1840 Texas) unmarried; Elizabeth (Eliza) Jane (1815 Tennessee-1880 Texas) married first Oran Guthrie and second John McKinney; George Washington (1817 Tennessee-1880 Texas) married Mary Caroline Pease and Elizabeth Ann McCullough. Son John Davis left his Tennessee home and parents with a group seeking land and new opportunity in Texas. A John Davis arrived in the colony 16 Feb 1830 and received one quarter sitio of land on the Lavaca River between current Hallettsville and Petersburg. John reported all was well and parents Daniel and Elizabeth and brothers George Washington and Zachariah and family left Tennessee for Texas via Mississippi arriving in 1831. They took with them fine-blooded Tennessee horses and later maintained a stud farm as a livelihood in Texas. Daniel Davis and family of 3 received a sitio on Denton Creek and the Guadalupe River on the current Gonzales and DeWitt County line. Daniel later purchased four city lots within two blocks of the Gonzales courthouse square and built three homes for himself and family members. The remainder of Daniel's land was sold in 1850 according to instructions in his will. Sons George Washington and John lived at home with Daniel Davis enabling them to earn a good livelihood. In 1835 Daniel assisted with forging iron shot for the "Come and Take It" cannon during the Battle of Gonzales. Some claim that the Daniel Davis above participated in the Mier Expedition. Daughter Eliza Jane Davis Guthrie McKinney's descendants said he did go to West Texas in 1842 to the Rio Grande with General Alexander Somervell, but the group was turned back under government orders. Daniel would have been about sixty years old at the time. Other family members state that the Daniel Davis that was imprisoned at Mier was from Uvalde, Texas. The date of death of Elizabeth Davidson Davis is unknown, but occurred prior to that of Daniel Davis who died in 1850 in Gonzales. Both were buried in the original Gonzales Cemetery square which in 1984 was the site of the Episcopal Church. A historical marker was located on the site of the original cemetery square and stated that Daniel Davis participated in the Mier expedition and Daniel and Elizabeth Davidson Davis were buried in that cemetery. However, the remains of those buried in cemetery square were exhumed and transferred to a common, but unmarked burial site in the newer Gonzales City Cemetery. Elizabeth Davis. A 1939 sketch of Elizabeth Davis was written by daughter Johnnie Elizabeth McKinney Thornton for the Daughters of the Republic of Texas. George Washington Davis was born in Bedford County, Tennessee August 1, 1817, twenty years after the presidency of George Washington expired. He was the fourth child of Daniel and Elizabeth Davis. With his parents he moved from Bedford to Hardeman County, Tennessee when at the age of 13 he came with his parents via Mississippi to Texas in 1831. Young George Washington was excited about joining his brother John Davis who arrived in Gonzales in May, 1830. Young George Washington was taught the trade of horse-breeding by his family and carried out the trade throughout his life. In 1850 when father Daniel Davis died, his will specified that George Washington was to receive one fine-blooded bay horse among other concessions. According to descendants, George Washington Davis assisted in the Battle of Gonzales in 1835. After the standoff, he joined the volunteers from Gonzales for the siege of Bexar. He returned home to Gonzales and in 1836 joined Sam Houston in Gonzales and fought with him in the Battle of San Jacinto. He returned to Gonzales and along with the other Davis' rebuilt homes and ranches and resumed their horse-breeding trade. On 27 May 1840 George Washington Davis married Mary Caroline Pease, a young widow who was the mother of four children. Early research stated that her maiden name was thought to be "Kelly" and that "she was the widow of the brother of Governor Elisha Pease"; however, her first husband and fourth child, both deceased, were stated to have been named Lyman Pease. Mary Caroline may have been the wife of Lorrain Thompson Pease Jr., but that information was unproven and was not researched. George Washington and Mary Caroline lived in Gonzales, Texas until 1850. They had eight children in eight years, namely: George Washington Jr. (1842-circa 1860)-infant (1843 deceased); Daniel (1844-1878) married Amanda Harper and had Georgia, Bell, Robert Winfield, Daniel Jr. and two others; Zachariah (1845-1925) was a deaf mute and min (1847) married Susie Sparks and had William Gray, Aizora and Benjamin; Ann Elizabeth (1848-1881) married William McCullough and had Jennie, Willie, Ophelia, Dora, Della, Lilly, Joe and Fidelia; James Rhode Davis (1849-1914) married Mary Francis Vick. The Pease children were: Caroline (circa 1836) married William Harper and had Alice, Sue, Minnie, Dora, Marshden, Marlin and Samuel; Samuel Kelly (1837-1894) married first Mary Ann Downs and had George Washington, Ida, Sarah, Mildred, Lyman, James and Robert and married second Susan Laster and had Wright, Sue A., Naomi, John, Edward, Wiley, Henry, Leslie and Samuel Kelly Jr.; Mary Ann (1838-1919) married first William R. Light and had Daniel, Nancy, Caroline, William and five others and married second W.D.W. Peck and had Ellen. In 1850, following the death of his parents and the sale of their land and property as specified in Daniel's will, George Washington received one-third of the estate. He purchased the ranch home and 1000 acres of land from the widow Rosanna of his brother, Zachariah Davis. George Washington and his family moved onto the Daniel Davis league on the Gonzales-DeWitt County line. The property was so near the Gonzales County line between Hochheim and Cheapside that mail service was routed from Gonzales. Mary Caroline died some time between the birth of her last child December 23, 1849 and September 12, 1854, the date of George Washington's marriage to his second wife Elizabeth Ann McCullough, a widow and mother of two sons: William McCullough who married Ann Elizabeth, the only daughter of George Washington and Mary Caroline, and David McCullough. No issue occurred during George's second marriage. In 1855 George Washington Davis deeded and recorded in DeWitt County one-half acre of land on his homestead for the Davis Cemetery, he died November 15, 1880 and was buried in the Davis Cemetery. A the foot of his grave was an olive branch granite marker; the inscription read, "Citizen Soldier who served Texas in its struggle for independence, 1835-1836." Davis, McCullough and Kuykendall descendants continued to be buried in the Davis Cemetery. The San Jacinto Monument has the name of George Washington Davis inscribed on its base and there is a large picture in the museum of an elderly George Washington Davis. Descendants of Daniel and George Washington Davis continued to live on parts of their land through several generations. They included George Washington's son James Rhode, his son James Robert, his daughter Loma Means and her daughter Mrs. Marvin (Ethel Lena) Yaws. They also maintained the Davis Cemetery through the years. Ruth Johnson Stuckey (In large part adapted from The History of Gonzales County, Texas by permission of the Gonzales County Historical Commission). An additional George Washington Davis arrived in Gonzales County February 20, 1831 with his parents Zachariah and Rosanna Shinault Davis and his grandparents Daniel and Elizabeth Davidson Davis. He descended through several American-born generations of early Welch immigrants who had settled in Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. George Washington Davis was born in Hardeman County, Tennessee February 14, 1826. George Washington was a young boy when the war for Texas independence took place. On May 6, 1848 he married Amanda Jones, daughter of William Patrick and Zilphia Jane Dalton Jones. They lived in the Rancho community near Nixon. When the Civil War began, he joined the Confederate forces and was away from home the entire four years of the war except for a period of a few weeks when he went home on sick leave. Amanda died soon after his return August 1, 1865. He then married Sarah Humphries who died one year later. In 1870 he married Mary Milsap. She died January 24, 1897. There were no children from either of the last two marriages. He died December 21, 1907. It was said that he was a tall, slim, proud man with a white beard and white hair. He was buried in Asher Cemetery in southeast Gonzales County. Amanda was buried in Sandies Chapel Cemetery. Children of G.W. and Amanda Davis were: Lemuel (February 21, 1852); Jane (January 12, 1854); Rosanna (August 1, 1856); Zachariah (October 7, 1858); Nancy (1860); and George Washington (February 28, 1864). Lemuel Claude Davis was born at Rancho and married Francis Polan December 4,1873. She was the daughter of Granberry and Mary Gloss Polan. Their children were: Martha Jane (October 24, 1874); Amanda (April 19,1876); Lemuel Claude Jr. (February 20, 1878); George Washington (May 30, 1880);Andrew Jackson (June 25, 1884); Callie Dora (June 13, 1886); Fannie (March 28, 1887); Cory Greenleaf (May 23, 1888); and Thomas Leslie (June 28, 1899). Lemuel was a farmer, but he went several times up the Chisholm Trail with his brother-in-law John Duderstadt taking cattle to the Kansas railheads. He belonged to the Forest Home Alliance and was a Mason, a member of Lone Star Lodge at Smiley. He died January 23, 1891 of pneumonia and was buried in the Seidel Cemetery near Smiley. After Lemuel's death, Francis married Zack Pearson and they had one son John L. born August 28, 1898. She died August 3,1939 and was buried in the Nixon Cemetery. Andrew Jackson Davis married Mary Rosella Carpenter June 26, 1909. She was the daughter of Wiley and Anne Hoggett Carpenter. He was a farmer and lived most of his life near Nixon. They had six children: Ruby (January 11, 1910) weighed only two and one half pounds at birth, married James D. Smith, and had two children, James Daniel Jr. and Peggy Sue; Owen (July 16, 1912) married Genevia Worthy, had two daughters, Kathryn and Arline; Andrew (November 12, 1914) married Anne Young, had three children, Joan, Bobby and Andy who died at an early age; Gracie (March 22, 1917-May 17, 1919); Joy Lee (February 25, 1919-March 2, 1919); and David E. (December 18, 1926, died the same day). Andrew Jackson and Mary Rosella were buried in the Nixon Cemetery. Peggy S. Pate (In large part adapted from The History of Gonzales County, Texas by permission of the Gonzales County Historical Commission). The identity of John Davis, son of Daniel and Elizabeth Davis, in later life is unclear and surrounded by controversy among descendants and historians. He is probably the "Jack Davis" referred to in an incident in 1836 in Nichols diary, Now You Hear My Horn. A John Davis was a voter in the election for delegates from Gonzales to the Texas Consultation of 1835, a John Davis was present in Capt. Kuykendall's Company in the rear guard of Houston's Army at San Jacinto and a John Davis was a member of the Gonzales Alamo Relief Force who died in the Alamo. Sister Eliza Jane Davis Guthrie McKinney [also reflected in memoirs of her daughter Johnnie Elizabeth Thornton] insisted to her death that her brother John Davis was the Gonzales Ranger that joined the Alamo Relief force and was killed in the Alamo. Others believe that John Davis went to Harrisburg during the Runaway Scrape, held power of attorney over John's estate and sold his land in Lavaca County to Oran and Eliza Jane Davis Guthrie in 1848.
DAVIS. According to colony land records, James C. Davis arrived as a single man 28 Mar 1829 and received a quarter sitio land grant on the Lavaca River near the Zumwalt Settlement in current Lavaca County south of Hallettsville and Petersburg. He served as alcalde and treasurer of the Gonzales Ayuntamiento of 1834. He married Eliza DeWitt, oldest daughter of Empresario Green DeWitt. Under his leadership, the Ayuntamiento made numerous ordinances and promoted activities stimulating the economic and commerce activity of the community. His name was commonly on deeds related to purchases of lots within the Gonzales town tract in the period. He was killed by Indians in current Lavaca County in 1834. DAVIS. J.K. Davis arrived in the DeWitt Colony as a single man in 1830 according to land grant records. He received a quarter sitio on the east bank of the Guadalupe River northwest of Gonzales next to grants to Green DeWitt and W.W. Arrington. He was deeded two lots in the inner town and it is unclear if he improved or lived on them. According to Eggleston family records, he helped build their "dog-run" home in the 1840's in Gonzales that is a current historic landmark in Gonzales. Davis was a private in Capt. William H. Patton's company, 2nd Texas Regiment under Col. Sherman in the Battle of San Jacinto. Jesse Kincheloe Davis was born in Kentucky January 11, 1802, the son of Warren Davis and his wife Molly Kincheloe. Both the Davis and Kincheloe families were in Kentucky before the American Revolution when it was a county of Virginia. It was not known when Jesse K. Davis and a number of his relatives left Kentucky but his name appeared on many legal documents in Booneville, Missouri between 1820 and 1830. While in Booneville Jesse joined the Masonic Lodge and was made secretary. It was recorded in his hand in the minutes that he and Warren Davis, who could have been either his brother or his father, resigned the lodge. Later he presented himself for membership with the Masonic Lodge No. 30 in Gonzales, Texas. In 1832 Jesse K. Davis received a Spanish land grant in DeWitt's Colony. He married Eliza Davis May 5, 1835 in Brazoria County, Texas. She was born May 11, 1819 in Alabama, the daughter of Kinchen W. Davis and Frances Pleasants who were married in Wake County, North Carolina July 29, 1815. Kinchen and Frances Davis had a Spanish land grant in Brazoria County in Austin's Colony dated 1828. It was in 1833 an epidemic of cholera killed both Kinchen and Frances Davis. Jesse Kincheloe Davis answered the call to arms and fought for the independence of Texas. While he fought in the Battle of San Jacinto, Eliza, his wife, watched from the vantage point of a tree. She had left their first-born, a son one month old, on the ground with a nurse. There were twelve children in all born to Jesse and Eliza Davis: Thomas Jefferson (February 29, 1836-1850); Kincheloe Kompton (October, 1838-1841); Frances Marie (1840) married Doctor McGahan; Warren (1842); Stephen Tippett (July 13,1844-April 3, 1919) married Sarah Jane Hodges December 26,1867; William (November 1845-1848); Louise Adaline (December, 1847) married Doctor Edward P. Belieu; Pelina (April or June 1849-July, 1849); George Tennelle (March 17, 1851-March 4, 1935 Roswell, New Mexico) married Ado Byron Wildy in 1888; Henry Carroll (August 9, 1853) married Addie Bouldin; John B. (March 1856-1858); Jesse William (1861-1864). Jesse Kincheloe received several allotments of land from the Republic of Texas for services to the Republic. He died at his home December 28, 1869 and was buried in the Gonzales Masonic Cemetery where the State of Texas placed a marker in 1936 in his honor. Eliza Davis died January 11, 1875 and was buried at his side. Naomi Dobson Mangum. (From The History of Gonzales County, Texas. Reprinted by permission of the Gonzales County Historical Commission). In 1932, Mrs. B. B. Hindman, daughter of Jesse Davis, of Cost, GonzalesCo, Texas wrote L. W. Kemp:
EDWARD. (From the New Handbook of Texas). David Barnett Edward (1797-1870), early Texas settler, teacher, and writer, was born in November 1797 in Forfarshire, Scotland. He emigrated from Scotland and lived in the West Indies and in Colombia for several years before moving to the United States in 1819. He taught at an academy in Alexandria, Louisiana, and in 1830, with a party of five persons, toured Texas. He subsequently moved his wife, Eliza, and three children to Gonzales, in Green DeWitt's colony, where he served as principal of a local academy, Gonzales Seminary. In 1834 he applied for a copyright for a book entitled Observations on Texas, Embracing the Past, the Present, and the Future, as having been published by the firm of Smith and McCoy in Alexandria, Louisiana. No copies, however, exist, and Texas bibliophile Thomas W. Streeter stated that it was unlikely that the book was ever published. While a citizen of Gonzales, Edward wrote The History of Texas; or, the Emigrant's, Farmer's, and Politician's Guide to the Character, Climate, Soil, and Productions of That Country; Geographically Arranged from Personal Observation and Experience, which was published in Cincinnati in 1836. Although Edward claimed to be objective, he was clearly pro-Mexican and anti-Texan in his reporting and was the subject of heated criticism. Stephen F. Austin branded the book "a slander on the people of Texas." Edward was also excoriated for plagiarizing entire passages from Mary Austin Holley's Texas (1833). He also made liberal use of several other published sources without giving credit to the authors. Edward's book managed to offend almost everyone in Texas. Texas boosters, eager to present their country as a place of limitless opportunity, were aghast when Edward asserted, for instance, "There are no poor people here, if land makes rich; and none rich, if money is wealth." He alienated Houston and other supporters of President Andrew Jackson by proclaiming that the Mexican dictator was "a `Jackson' of a fellow." Material for Edward's bitter condemnation of "shouting and howling" Texas Methodists may have come from experiences at Gonzales Seminary, which was operated by the Methodist Episcopal Church. He not only related scandalous anecdotes about several Methodist ministers, but also printed their names. As a leading spokesman for the Tory position, Edward maintained that American settlers had "by their perverse conduct, forfeited every claim to protection from the civil law; and therefore must either come under military control, or altogether be expelled from the [Mexican] Republic." Edward's suggestion that the martyrs of the Alamo and Goliad had been driven by the "wrong motives" and his praise of "enlightened" Mexican immigration policies was more than most Texans could abide. Even so, Edward provided a valuable service in that he quoted the full texts or significant extracts from Mexican regulations relating to colonization, justice, and trade. Also reprinted are one of the first English translations of the Constitution of 1824, the full text of the proposed Constitution of 1833, and a note reporting the death of Benjamin R. Milam during the siege of Bexar. The book's perspective generated such intense enmity in Texas that Edward found it advisable to take his family permanently out of the fledgling republic during or soon after the Texas Revolution. Thereafter, little is known about his activities. He died in Wheelersburg, Ohio, on March 18, 1870. EGGLESTON. Horace Eggleston came to Texas as a single man and was issued a title for a league of land on 16 Jul 1835 in the Ben Milam Colony on which is thought to be the current town of Blanco in BlancoCo, TX. Eggleston was deeded two lots in inner Gonzales in block 28 and operated a store as early as 1834 on a lot deeded to G.W. Davis west of the Fort on St. John St. His name is on numerous land transactions in the period including a tract of land in Gonzales transferred to him on 3 Aug 1837 by Moses Baker. Eggleston was also deeded 4 lots on the San Marcos River in outer Gonzales town west. Thirty-five year old Horace Eggleston married 15 year old Sarah Ann Ponton 3 May 1835 by bond issued by Judge Bart McClure in Gonzales. Sara Ponton Eggleston and brother Andrew Ponton obtained title to their deceased father William's league (killed by Indians 20 May 1834) of land north of Hallettsville in the Austin Colony just as they were forced to flee the Mexican Army in the Runaway Scrape. Horace Eggleston joined the Texas Republican Army at San Jacinto. In 1837 the Egglestons returned to the William Ponton league on the Lavaca River and began to improve it receiving title to 1107 acres of it in 1839. Sometime in the 1840's Horace Eggleston with the help of slaves, friends and family and skilled builder Jesse K. Davis build a "dog-run" house from Guadalupe River bottom logs sawed in a pit with a whip saw. The "Eggleston House" is one of the outstanding few early Texas homes that has been preserved and is on current display in Gonzales. Widowed matriarch of the Ponton clan, Isabella Moreland Ponton (wife of William Ponton), made her home in later years with daughter Sarah Ann and Horace Eggleston in Gonzales. Author Ruby Millicent Burkett Fisher in her Concise Genealogy of David Burkett and Horace Eggleston: An Allied Family writes that daughter
Horace Eggleston (1800-1855) was born in East Bloomfield, Ontario County, New York August 22, 1800. He was an attorney and citizen soldier, the son of Sidney Horace Eggleston and Sarah Harwood and grandson of John H. Eggleston and Belle Newton. About January 16, 1819 he married Elizabeth Putnam in New York state. They later separated and he went to Texas. On May 3, 1835 a marriage bond was issued for him and Sarah Ann Ponton who went to Texas with her parents William Ponton, son of Joel Ponton and Hannah Ravenell of Amherst County, Virginia, and Isabella Mooreland, daughter of Andrew Mooreland, natives of Pennsylvania. They were married January 12, 1801 in Amherst County, Virginia. Sarah Ann died May 3, 1837 at San Felipe, Republic of Texas. Horace Eggleston died March 10, 1855 in Gonzales County, Texas. Horace served in the Texas army for the Battle of San Jacinto April 21, 1836 and as a citizen soldier, he joined a group under Adam Zumwalt September 12, 1840 as a member of a citizen army under Colonel Matthew Caldwell. They arrived too late for the battle that was fought the previous day six miles east of San Antonio. In July 1842 Kidder Walker, sheriff of Colorado County, sent word to James Brown to intervene and settle a matter between Alexander M.C. Hughes and John Clark. John Clark had threatened to kill Hughes over some trouble they were having, and Brown asked Horace Eggleston to assist him in settling the matter. Horace owned a store and land in Gonzales County. Horace and Sarah Ann had six children: (May 2, 1836 across the river from the Battle of San Jacinto ground); William Ponton (June 29, 1838 San Felipe, Austin County, Republic of Texas-February 13,1870); Mary Jane (May 27,1841 Gonzales County, Republic of Texas); John H. (December 17, 1842 Gonzales, Republic of Texas-February 11, 1867); George Tyler (July 8, 1845-August 2, 1852 Gonzales, Texas); Newton Harwood (March 15, 1848 Gonzales County, Texas January 5, 1932), married May 11, 1870 Esther Ann Compton (December 8, 1848 May 27, 1925) and had eight children. In 1845 Horace Eggleston purchased a site for a home, and on that site in 1848 with the help of friends he erected his home. That home became known as the Eggleston House, oldest in the City of Gonzales. It was standing on city property in 1984. B. Elmer Spradley (From The History of Gonzales County, Texas. Reprinted by permission of the Gonzales County Historical Commission). Soon after the burning of Gonzales ordered by General Houston during the evacuation after the Alamo defeat in San Antonio, Eggleston filed the following petition which is in the Claim Papers, Archives, Texas State Library, Austin:
The family is listed in the 1850 census of GonzalesCo, Town of Gonzales: Eggleston, Horrice, 50, m, $5,000, N.C; Eggleston, Sarah, 30, f, Mo; Eggleston, Wm. P., 13, m, Texas; Eggleston, John H., 8, m, Texas; Eggleston, Jage T., 4, m, Texas; Eggleston, Newton H., 1, m, Texas; Ponton, Issabella, 68, f, Penn; Patrick, Sary Jane, 17, f, Texas. After Horace Eggleston's death in 1855, widow Sarah Ann Ponton Eggleston married Benjamin A. Minter, a native of Kentucky, on 15 Oct 1857. Sarah died 25 Feb 1880 in Gonzales. FISHER. Henry Fisher | John Fisher | William Fisher | Samuel Rhoads Fisher. Henry Fisher was a brother to John and William S. Fisher from Virginia. He was the purser on the Texian ship Liberty in 1835 and among the signers of the statement arising from a meeting in Brazoria on 9 Aug 1835 calling for a general convention to "quiet the present excitement and to promote the general interest of Texas." He was appointed a Second Lieutenant in the Regular Texian Army by General Council on 10 Mar 1836. From John Henry Brown's Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas (abt 1890). In the revolutionary days of Texas there were three men of prominence bearing the name of Fisher. The first and the earliest immigrant to the country was Samuel Rhoads Fisher of Matagorda. He was a native of Philadelphia, and a man of education, who came about 1830. He was a leader in local affairs, holding municipal position, and the husband and father of one of the most intelligent and refined families in a community distinguished for refinement and intelligence. Capt. Rhoads Fisher of Austin is the junior of his two sons. He represented Matagorda in the convention of 1836, and signed the Declaration of Independence; and on the installation of Gen. Houston as President of the Republic in October, 1836, he appointed Mr. Fisher Secretary of the Navy. In 1838 he lost his life in an unfortunate personal difficulty, greatly lamented by the country. His memory was honored by the high character of his family. William S. Fisher, the subject of this chapter, was a brother of John and, like himself, a native of Virginia. He was also a man of finished education and remarkable intelligence and one of the tallest men in the country. As a conversationalist he was captivating, ever governed by a keen sense of propriety and respect for others---hence a man commanding, esteem wherever lie appeared. His first experience as a soldier was in the fight with the Indians on the San Marcos, in the spring of 1835 sixteen men against the seventy Indians who had murdered and robbed the French traders west of Gonzales, in which the Indians were repulsed, with a loss of nine warriors. His first appearance in public life was as a member of the first revolutionary convention (commonly called the Consultation) in November, 1835. He was also a volunteer in the first resistance to the Mexicans at Gonzales and in the march upon San Antonio in October. [William Fisher was the President of the Gonzales Committee of Safety and Correspondence in summer 1835 according to archival correspondence. In that capacity, he appealed to Col. S.F. Austin in San Felipe for reinforcements on 3 Oct 1835 after the confrontation at Gonzales. He signed the Declaration of the People of Texas at the consultation of Nov 1835 in San Felipe. On 2 Mar 1836 in his capacity as customs collector at Velasco, he impounded vessels bearing African slaves and asked Provisional Governor Smith for instructions their disposition. On 13 Mar 1836 from Velasco, he informed his brother John Fisher that he will resign because he cannot carry out his duties to his satisfaction. On 2 Apr 1836, he sat on a court martial at headquarters on the Brazos in which several private soldiers were tried for desertion and neglect of duty.] In the campaign of 1836, he was early in the field, and commanded one of the most gallant companies on the field of San Jacinto [Company I, First Regiment of Texas Volunteers], in which he won the admiration of his comrades. He remained in the army till late in the year, when he was called into the Cabinet of President Houston to succeed Gen. Rusk as Secretary of War, thereby becoming a colleague of Governor Henry Smith, Stephen F. Austin and S. Rhoads Fisher in the same Cabinet, soon to announce the death of Austin in the following order:
[Fisher represented Gonzales in the House of Representatives of the First Congress of the Republic and chief recruiting officer for the Regular Army of the Republic in Dec 1838] The services of Col. Fisher were such that when provision was made for a regular army by the Congress of 1838-9, he was made Lieutenant-Colonel of the only permanent regiment, of which the veteran Burleson was made Colonel. In this capacity he commanded the troops engaged in the Council House fight with the Comanches on the 19th of March, 1840, and rendered other important services to the frontier [Fisher participated in the Cherokee campaign in summer of 1839]; but in the summer of 1840 he resigned to become a Colonel in the Mexican Revolutionary Federalist army in the short-lived Republic of the Rio Grande [in support of Col. Antonio Canales]. But the betrayal of Jordan and his command at Saltillo, in October of the same year, followed by the latter's successful retreat to the Rio Grande---an achievement which has been likened to that of Xenophon was followed by the disbandment of the Federal forces and the triumph of centralism, upon which Col. Fisher and his three hundred American followers returned to Texas. His next appearance was as a Captain in the Somervell Expedition to the Rio Grande in the autumn of 1842. The history of that campaign is more or less familiar to the public. There were seven hundred men. From Laredo two hundred of them, under Capts. Jerome B. and E. S. C. Robertson, returned home. At the mouth of the Salado river, opposite Guerrero, another division occurred. Two hundred of the men (of whom I was one) returned home with and under the orders of Gen. Somervell. The remaining three hundred reorganized into a regiment and elected Col. Fisher as their commander. They moved down the river, crossed over and entered Mier, three miles west of it, on the Arroyo Alcantra, leaving forty of their number as a guard on the east bank of the river. They entered the town at twilight on the 25th of December, amid a blaze of cannon and small arms, in the hands of twenty-seven hundred Mexicans, commanded by Gen. Pedro de Ampudia, and for nineteen hours fought one of the most desperate battles in American annals-fought till they had killed and wounded more than double their own number, and till their ammunition was so far exhausted as to render further resistance hopeless. Then they capitulated, to become the famed Mier prisoners, or the Prisoners of Perote; to rise upon their guard in the interior of Mexico and escape to the mountains---there to wander without food or water till their tongues were swollen and their strength exhausted, to become an easy prey to their pursuers---then to be marched back to the scene of their rescue, at the hacienda of Salado, and there, under the order of Santa Anna, each one blind-folded, to draw in the lottery of Life or Death, from a covered jar in which were seventeen black and a hundred and fifty-three white beans. Every black bean drawn consigned the drawer to death---one-tenth of the whole to be shot for an act which commanded the admiration of every true soldier in Europe and America, not omitting those in Mexico, for Gen. Mexia refused to execute the inhuman edict and resigned his commission. But another took his place and the seventeen men were murdered. The entire imprisonment of the survivors (some of whom being, in advance, were not in the rescue and therefore not in the drawing) covered a period of twenty-two months. They were then released and reached home about the close of 1844. In 1845 Col. Fisher married a lady of great worth, but soon afterwards died in Galveston. Neither he nor his brother John left a child to bear his name, but the county of Fisher is understood to be a common memorial to them and S. Rhoads Fisher. GIBSON/GIPSON. DeWitt Colony regional records refer to multiple families Gibson and Gipson and in cases both spellings refer to the same individuals or families. Land records indicate that a James Gibson arrived in the DeWitt Colony married on 1 Aug 1830. He received a prime labor of land just southeast of Gonzales town on the Guadalupe River in the Burket-Zumwalt-Dewitt tract between tracts granted to Samuel Highsmith and Esther Berry. He received title to a league of land on the current border of Gonzales and Fayette counties on 12 Jun 1832. James Gibson was a participant in the confrontation with the Mexican government at Velasco in 1832, a voter in the Feb 1835 election for delegates to the 3rd Texas Independence Consultation in San Felipe and in Mar 1836 signed along with Horace Eggleston an appraisal document for a horse belonging to Dolphin Floyd to be used in the Texian military service. James Gipson was granted relief on tax payments on a town lot by the Gonzales Town Council in 1840 and representated the county court in Jan 1841 when he petitioned to purchase the corporation's interest in the court house. A James Gipson participated in the Battle of Plum Creek in Aug 1840 in GuadalupeCo. In Mar 1831, James Gibson, thought to be the one above, married Eliza Cottle, daughter of Isaac and Mary Ann Williams Cottle. Eliza was the former wife of cousin and subsequent Alamo casualty, George Washington Cottle, they were married in Gonzales Nov 1830. In Oct 1834 a bond was filed between James Gibson, Eliza Cottle and George Washington Cottle declaring "for certain reasons" the 1830 bond between George and Eliza Cottle to be null and void forever. The reasons for such action were not given and were never determined. Eliza Cottle had one child Melzenia (b. abt 1832) with George Washington Cottle. The Gibson marriage resulted in children Samuel, Amanda (m. Benjamin Lane), Marion, James B. and Sara Jane Eliza (m. Vates D. Light), and Rachel. Eliza died sometime after 1860. The Eliza Gipson family was living in Gonzales town proper when listed in the 1850 census of GonzalesCo, TX: Gipson, Eliza, 36, f, $2,500, MO.; Gipson, Malzina, 18, f, Texas; Gipson, Samuel, 10, m, LA; Gipson, Amanda, 6, f, LA; Gipson, Marion, 3, f, IL; Gipson, James B., 1, m, IL. Eliza Gipson was assigned guardianship of the minor heirs of James Gipson which were listed as Rachel and James Gibson. It is noteworthy that Samuel and Amanda are listed as born in Louisiana and Marion and James B. as born in Illinois indicating that the family moved considerably. James Gibson apparently died or left the family before the 1850 census. Eliza married for the third time, James Bird, and then had fourth and fifth marriages with John Z. Headstream and Lorenzo D. Cottle, respectively. A James and Sarah Gipson came to Texas from Kentucky in 1839 who were the parents of Bathsheba Gipson who married Miles Squier Bennet, son of DeWitt Colony pioneer Valentine Bennet. Bathsheba Gipson married Miles Bennet in the home of her parents on 20 Feb 1845 in MontgomeryCo, TX as related in his Bennet's diary:
The relationship of this James Gipson family to the other James Gipson/Gibsons in the area records is not clear, however, James Gipson, father-in-law of Miles Bennet, and an Archibald Gipson were brothers as related by Miles S. Bennet in his description of events surrounding The Battle of Salado and pursuit of the retreating Mexican army:
Bennet noted the care offered by the James Gipson family in general to those in need:
An article about the McCoy family in the History of Gonzales County Texas states that an Archibald Gibson/Gipson married Elizabeth McCoy Williams in GonzalesCo, TX. Elizabeth McCoy was the daughter of Joseph Hill and Catherine Clark McCoy, very early DeWitt Colonist who arrived before 1828 from Missouri with patriarch John "Devil" McCoy and family. She first married DeWitt Colonists Christopher Williams who arrived single in the colony in 1831 and received a quarter sitio grant on the Gonzales-FayetteCo line next to James Gibson. This marriage record has not been found in the Gonzales archives by family researchers. Archibald Gipson is listed on the Gonzales taxrolls of 1837and 1838. In addition to the above from the writings of Miles Bennet, Archibald Gibson/Gipson appears frequently in descriptions of the Battle of Plum Creek and The Battle of Salado as one who was at the forefront of action and wounded in both encounters (see descriptions by Robert Hall, Nathan Burkett and Rufus Perry. The Gibson/Gipson family. A synthesis of information provided by Shannon Clyde, author of Gibson/Gipson Family History and Genealogy (Copyright 1998 Shannon Clyde. All rights reserved. Information used by permission). James and Archibald Gipson Jr. of the DeWitt Colony were brothers, the sons of Archibald (1758-1855) and Basheba Cole (1758-1855) Gibson. Archibald Gibson Sr. was born in PittsylvaniaCo, VA and died 13 Feb 1855 in Jamestown, BooneCo, IN, and according to descendants of Scotch-Irish origin. The couple had children Enoch, Hiram, Owen, Zachariah, Martin, James, Sarah, Ezekial, Jesse, Nathaniel, Charity, Archibald Jr. and William. James Gibson was born in either MadisonCo, KY in 1794 and died in GonzalesCo 1 Jan 1855. He married Sarah Davis 18 Nov 1819 in FloydCo, KY. Sarah Davis died in GoliadCo, TX Jun 1879. Son Archibald Gibson Jr. was born in WilkesCo, NC abt 1799 and died in 1881 in GonzalesCo. James Gibson came to Texas about 1829 and received a land grant. Archibald apparently immigrated to the DeWitt Colony area at or after the war of independence in Apr 1836. Family stories related by descendant Jules Gipson, second great grandson of James Gibson, passed to him by his grandfather, John Ray Gipson in DeWittCo, relate the following about the Gipsons. James Gipson left his wife in Indiana, came to Texas and took an Indian woman as a wife while in Texas. James and his wife Sarah and seven children arrived in Texas via Port Lavaca. A daughter, Rachel was born in Texas. James Gipson died in 1855 in Gonzales while his father and mother also died in 1855 in Indiana. James Gipson had a son named Thomas Jefferson Gipson which was Archibald Gipson's neighbor in the 1850 census. James Gipson also named a son, Archibald Gibson, after his father and brother. One of James' daughters married a Putman and they settled in and around Bernie, Texas where their descendents can still be found. James died intestate and the court assigned administration of the estate to Jesse Pilland, a son-in-law. Daughter Rachel was awarded 1/9 of the estate and the other children awarded part of the estate have not been indentified. After James Gipson's death, most of the family migrated to Montana and became scattered throughout the West and Northwest. According to descendant Mr. Jules Gipson, Archibald Gipson Jr. was a colorful character. One story goes that on a Saturday after he got paid, Arch got drunk and passed out under a tree, two little girls plastered his beard, of which he was very proud for its curls, in chicken shit. When he came to, he switched the girls bare legs with cow nettle. Archibald's employer was not happy about this incident and Archibald went to Texas with brother James while he was on a trip to Indiana. He related that Arch Gipson's wife is mentioned in the history books in stories of the Putman children kidnappings. Archibald Gipson was referred to by descendants as "a mean old son of a bitch." On the Rio Hondo, as a member of Hays' Rangers, Arch Gipson participated in the charge against the artillery of General Woll's rear guard and was shot in the eye and a cheekbone was shattered by a musket ball. The wound bothered Archibald over the years and he apparently left Texas at one point and "went back East to see if something could be done" with his eye. Archibald never forgave the Mexican race for the wound he received fighting them in attempts to take back the Republic of Texas in the 1840's. Archibald was a freighter, driving his wagon filled with supplies between Gonzales and other Texas towns. He would approach oncoming wagons and if the driver were a Mexican, Arch would turn and flick his bullwhip sometimes around the driver's neck. With a jerk, he would unseat the driver from his wagon. Archibald became a Mason while the family was living near Indianapolis. He once attended a gathering of old veterans from the Texian Army. At one point, a rather large old comrade in arms slapped Arch on the back and stated "Why Arch Gipson, I would have thought you were long dead and buried by now. Good to see you." Archibald also met General Sam Houston at the gathering. According to descendants, Archibald was still living at 76 years of age in 1875. According to current descendant Gipson, Archibald had two sons, John Lee Gibson and Tolliver, but he was unaware of a Richard Gibson, who is listed in Archibald's family in the 1850 census, and knew of no daughters. Tolliver Gipson's family settled around around Bastrop, Texas and he probably died abt 1915-1920. The Gipson family hold an annual reunion, usually on the last Saturday in September at the Blanco County Fair Grounds. A James Gipson family lived in DeWittCo and is listed in the 1850 census of the county as: James Gipson, 50, M, Farmer Virginia; Sarah Gipson, 50, F, Virginia; Jo Gipson, 18, M, Farmer, Indiana; James Gipson, 16, M, Farmer, IL; Mary Gipson, 14, Iowa; Rachel Gipson, 10, F, Texas. A James L. Gibson married in 1865 widow Emily Busby Brown from the William Solomon Busby family of DeWittCo:
SONS
OF DEWITT COLONY TEXAS |
