^if rW^- PROMINENT WOMEN OF TEXAS BY ELIZABETH BROOKS MANUFACTURED BY THE WERNER COMPANY, AKRON, OHIO !>' 3^u Copyright, 1896, BY ELIZABETH BROOKS. PREFACE. ^^HE women of Texas, like the women of every geograph- ical division of the globe, and in every age of the world, have played their part in the drama of human progress. Like their co- workers of the other sex, only the comparatively few have filled niches in the pantheon of greatness, but these few, of both sexes, had added to the light of the world's illumination some of its purest rays, and have given to history some of its lessons of great- est value. By way of proem to the story of female achievement in Texas, it may not be unprofitable to recall a few of the women, who, in their day, and by their mental prowess, contributed to human advance- ment. In the dawn of history, and among the most favored of the race, though subordinated to her lord by civil and religious law, woman began her intellectual work. In the person of Deborah we find one of the thirteen judges who successively ruled in Israel, and one whose wise administration vindicated her claim to the ofiBce. When Jeremiah, the prophet, and Hilkiah, the high-priest, and Shaphan, the scribe, all faltered in their interpretation of the Divine will, only Huldah, the prophetess, could reveal to them the mean- ing of the book of the law. In the Golden Age of Athenian learn- ing, a woman, as preceptress, unfolded the philosophy of Socrates, and formed the rhetoric of Pericles. Sappho entranced cultured Greece with the charm of her lyric verse. Hypatia was famed for her knowledge in astronomy, and for the profoundness of her phi- losophy. In more modern times, the Marchioness of Pescara and (V) ■vi Prominent Women of Texas. Margeritte Clothilde de Surville eclipsed all other lights in the field of poetry and belles-lettres; while Elizabeth, Lady Jane Grey, and Signora Joan of Arragon, made themselves famous as scholars and linguists. In theology and eloquence Isabella de Kesara dis- played powers that electrified her cotemporaries; and Elena Lucre- zia Piscopia, as linguist and mathematician, rose above all the men of her time. Even as rulers of great nations, women have held ■with firm and skillful hand the reins of government, and the throne tas been exalted by their wisdom. From Artemesia and Semiramis and Zenobia to Elizabeth and Victoria, the crown lost none of its splendor while adorning the brow of a woman. In art, as in science, she has excelled. When Rosa Bonheur with her brush made the canvas to glow with the consciousness of its charm ; when Prosper- sia Rossi with her chisel startled the formless rock into life ; when the female Herschel with her lens brought down to our sphere the secrets of the stellar hosts, the world applauded and confessed that painting and sculpture and astronomy found expression in woman's genius equal to that displayed by her gifted brother. As his help- meet she has also given signal proof of collaborative efEort. Grote, the historian, Carlyle, the essayist, John Stuart Mill, the political economist, and Agassiz, the scientist, only wrote in part the works that made them famous ; their wives were the partners of their toil, and they helped to build the pedestals on which these great men stand. These examples of feminine achievement are proof of potential force, of inherent aspirations; they reveal in female nature the qual- ities of strong patience, trustful energy and tenacious purpose. They give woman place in the palestra of intellectual contest, for there she has asserted her readiness to struggle for the prize, and has even shown her proud scorn for the palma sine pulvere — the crown of victory without the dust of contention. The very obstacles that nature and social laws have placed in her way have proved incen- tives to her effort. Themistocles, in his exile, said that his ruin had Preface. vii made his fortune; woman, clothed in the disabilities of her sex, may well claim that her fetters have given her liberty and honor. The women of Texas, like their sisters in other climes, have an experience and a renown of their own. The scene of their lives is laid in a land that was pressed by the adventurous foot of the white man a hundred years before the Pilgrims touched the Plymouth shore — a hundred years in the van of the Mayflower did the battered bark of Cabecja de Vaca cast forth the wanderers who were first to spy out this land of our Canaan. From that time till now, with scarce a day of interruption in her story, has Texas been the scene of adventure sprung from avarice, or born of the spirit of conquest and discovery. In all her epochs she has attracted the immigrant and home-seeker, and, whether, as Province, Republic or State, her visi- tors have come in family groups in which the women have borne no small share of the labors and dangers of the new life. Beginning thus in the generation of the pioneers, these women displayed in- trepidity begotten of the perils in which they lived — perils that made martyrs of some, heroines of all; pursuing still their wonted vigor and high resolve, their successors of to-day have culminated in a generation whose powers and culture place them in the front ranks of modern progress. The bibliography of Texas is bright with female names. Whether in the domain of history, travels, romance, adventure, poetry, or other learning, women have equally shared the laurels with the other sex. Mrs. Holly's " Texas," Mrs. Helm's " Scraps of Texas History," Corine Montgomery's " Texas and Her Presidents," and Melinda Perkins' " Texas in 1850," are all reliable and entertaining narratives of the country. Mrs. Houstouns' four volumes of " Trav- els and History," Cora Montgomery's "Life on the Border," and Mrs. Eastman's " Romance of Indian Life," are all charming contri- butions to Texas literature. Mollie E. Moore's poems, and Au- gusta J. Evans' " Tale of the Alamo," have become famous among readers everywhere. Mrs. Fairchild's adventures of herself, and viii Prominent Women of Texas. Mrs. Kelly's "Experience" contain the thrilling recitals of their sufferings while in captivity among the Indians. Mrs. Young's "Flora of Texas" is the repository of much valuable knowledge from the natural history of the State. Mrs. Viele's " Following the Drum " is the delightful production of a Texas author. These are among the female writers who have adorned our literature ; others are in the field; and still others are equipping themselves by col- legiate training for the fascinating pursuit. In introducing The Women of Texas to our readers, it is appro- priate to state that many distinguished in their several spheres have been necessarily omitted, and among these the annals of Texas do not furnish a brighter story of heroism in the cause of human liberty than that of Mrs. Jane Herbert Long, the " Mother of Texas," and champion of her freedom. Her husband, the illustrious Gen. James Long, was the first to proclaim the independence of Texas. This he did at the town of Nacogdoches in the memorable year of 1819, and forthwith began the work of organizing a provisional govern- ment. Forced by superior numbers of Spanish regulars to retreat, he fortified himself on Bolivar Point opposite Galveston, being aided by the famous Ben Milam and Capt. John Austin. Here he placed his wife, proceeded westward, captured Goliad, and marched to San Antonio where he made a treaty whereby he was constituted provisional Governor of Texas under the new government of Mexico. He was soon after arrested and carried to the City of Mexico, where he was assassinated. Meantime the General's soldier wife remained at the fort on Bolivar Point, and this she held though the garrison deserted their post. She resisted all threats and entreaties to com- pass her surrender, occasionally firing a gun to deter the Indians from assault ; and in all this peril she was alone with her infant child and one servant. Not until she was convinced of her husband's death could she be persuaded to abandon the post he had committed to her keeping; then she retired, and finally became a member of Austin's colony. This ardent patriot made her final home in Rich- Preface. ix mond, Fort Bend County, where she died in 1880, thus living for many years to enjoy the discomfiture of her enemy, and the freedom and progress of her beloved land. The women of Texas have given their share of representatives to the Congress of the distinguished women of the world, and the fol- lowing pages will be their commission to accept the tribute and the homage that, in every enlightened land, is paid to culture, energy and good works. Prominent Women of Texas. CHAPTER I. "WIVES OF TEXAS PRESIDENTS. MRS. SAM HOUSTON — MRS. ANSON JONES. Mrs. Sam Houston. — Sam Houston and Texas are as indissolubly linked in the chain of history as Philip and Macedon, Caesar and Rome, the Norman Conqueror and Eng- land ; and the splendid achievement at San Jacinto crowTied its hero with bays as imperishable as those that fame has placed upon the brow of the victors of Cheronsea, Pharsalia, and Hastings. Sam Houston was of Celtic origin, and was born in Vir- ginia in 1793. When a youth he moved with his widowed mother to Tennessee, in which State he grew up and earned both miUtary and civil distinction — commanding its militia as Major-General, representing one of its districts in the Fed- eral CongTess, and filling the gubernatorial office at its capi- tal. For reasons that he never divulged, he resigned the executive oflfice and silently left the State to live among the Cherokees in the Indian Territory. From there, in 1832, he went to Texas, then a Mexican province and a constituent part of the Mexican State of "Coahuila and Texas." Arriv- ing in Nacogdoches, he found it the center of a popular move- ment to compel the parent government to divorce Texas from her uncongenial partner and clothe her with the functions of independent Statehood. In pursuance of this object, a con- vention was called at San Felipe in 1833, of which General Houston was a member. The usurpation of the Mexican (11) 12 Prominent Women of Texas. government by Santa Auua had, in the meantime, changed the purposes of the people. They now clamored for inde- pendence, and to that end convened the General Consultation at San Felipe in 1835, for the object of forming a provisional government. General Houston was a conspicuous member of that body, and when hostilities with the mother country resulted from its acts, he was placed in command of the Texan forces in the field. He Avas also a delegate to the con- vention of 1836 that assembled at Washing-ton, and, on the 2nd of March of that year, promulgated its famous Declara- tion of Independence. Two days later he was elected Com- mander-in-Chief, and marched to the front Avith a small force to meet the invading army of Santa Anna. The Fabian strategy that resulted led the enemy to his fate on the plains of San Jacinto, where the independence of the country was brilliantly won. On the permanent organization of the Ke- public. General Houston was elected its first President, and, at the end of his term, was chosen to a seat in the Con- gress. It was during this term of Congress that he visited ]Mobile, Alabama, and there first met Miss Margaret Moffette Lea at the home of her brother. Col. M. A. Lea. One year later. May 9, 1840, he was married to her at the town of Marion in that State, the home of her parents and the place of her birth. At the third general election General Houston was chosen President a second time by an almost unanimous vote of the people. Two years after the conclusion of this service he was elected to the convention that annexed Texas to the United States, and, in 1846, he was elected by the first State legislature one of the two United States Senators, to Avhicli high post he was reelected the following year and again in 1851. The national importance he acquired is part of the political history of the country. Two years after retiring from the Senate, he was elected Governor of Texas, the first year of his term being the stormy period that immediately preceded the Civil War. Entertaining convictions opposed to those held by the majority in power on the question of secession, and refusing to subscribe the oath of allegiance to the Confederate States, he was deposed from his office in Prominent Women of Texas. 13 March, 1861. Saddened by the events that foreboded the disruption of the Union, to which he was zealously attached, he withdrew from the scenes of his public life to find solace in the quiet of his home at Huntsville. He died there, July 26, 1863. Such, briefly told, was the eventful hfe of one of the most famous men of America ; General, President, Governor of two States, Senator, and Representative in the United States Congress, soldier, orator and statesman. At the age of forty-seven, and a widower, he married Miss Lea, who though twenty-six years his junior, scarcely realized the dis- parity in the abundance of her practical wisdom and in the earnestness of her zeal for the public good. Mrs. Houston was born April 11, 1819, and is descended from one of the cultured families of Alabama. She remained under her father's careful instruction until old enough to enter Pleasant Valley Seminary, where her school education was completed, and where she developed the marked literary talent for which she was distinguished in after life. She early evinced the religious tendencies that became more pronounced as she advanced in years, and, at an age when most girls give least thought to the serious side of life, she joined the Baptist Church, of which she was ever a consistent member. Her marriage ^^^th General Houston excited in her mind less the pride of honorable alliance than senti- ments of responsibility and obligation attaching to the grave trust of her high position. Her example, she felt, should be the incense of her dail}' offering at the shrine of social progTess, and her wifely devotion the precious oil of gladness to lighten the toils of her husband. Pursuing these generous impulses, her household became the nursery of every domestic virtue, and her husband's public cares were daily sweetened by her s^nnpathy and her smiles. She was his constant companion, except during the years of his senatorial service, when she remained at home, preferring the tender charge of her little children to the pleasures of society at the nation's capital. During these years, as well as before and after them, her home Avas the almost contin- uous scene of genial and unassuming hospitalit3^ While 14 Prominent Women of Texas. residing at Austin, her health visibly failed, and, in conse- quence, the public enjoyed fewer of her pleasant offices. Her removal to her home at Huntsville, following the retiracy of her husband from public office, would, it w^as hoped, bring rehef mth the promised repose. The hope was fallacious, and the gloomiest event of her life, two years later — the death of General Houston — added to her pain the burden of desolation. After this bereavement Mrs. Houston returned to a former home in Independence, with a view to educating her children at Baylor University, then located at that place. Four years later Mrs. Houston felt herself summoned to new fields of labor. The Yellow Fever, in epidemic form, entered Texas, and to the relief of its victims she devoted herself, with tireless energy and with undaunted and heroic courage. She hved and labored through the fearful scourge, though prostrated by excessive vigils, toils and anxieties. She survived her work only a few weeks, and died December 3, 1867, a true martyr in the cause of humanity. A beautiful life thus came to a fitting end ; its morning and meridian gilded by bright skies, its sunset made glorious by the splendor of its own sacrifice. Mrs. Houston's body lies buried at Independence; that of her husband lies in the cemetery at Huntsville. The dust of the dead, whom love united in the past and hope reunites in the future, ought, in the present, to be gathered in the same urn and be reverenced by a common memory. The children born of this union are eight in number, four sons and four daughters, here named in the order of their birth: Sam, a physician, married Lucy Anderson, of Wil- liamson County; Nannie E., married J. C. Morrow, of Wil- liamson County ; Margaret Lea, married W. L. Williamson, of Washington County; Mary W., married J. S. Morrow, of Chambers County; Nettie Powers, married Prof. W. L. Bringhurst, of Bryan; Andrew Jackson, married Carrie G. Purnell, of Austin, after whose death he married Elizabeth Good, of Dallas ; William Roger and Temple. In her maternal relation, Mrs. Houston displayed qual- ities of surpassing power and tenderness, through which she Peominent Women of Texas. 15 inspired in her children sentiments of profound reverence and affection. They never felt the power, they knew only the love that guided them. Like Achilles among the maid- ens, wearing their garments, she moved among her children, clothed in their simplicity, veihng from them the subtle force b}^ which they were led into paths of virtue, honor, and uprightness. All through life her children counseled mth her as with a friend, and, above all, they never failed to seek in her sympathy the consolation that, in the words of Isaiah, made them feel "as one whom his mother com- forteth." The gentle tribute to her memory by Mrs. Bring- hurst, her gifted daughter, reveals the sweet influence of a mother's holy life and its und;ydng power, even in death. Other scenes may fade and other lessons be forgotten, sings the heart of this daughter : " But the words of my mother still lingered Like the echo when songs die away." Mrs. Anson Jones. — The wife of the last President of the Republic of Texas was Mary Smith, born July 24, 1819, in Arkansas, then a Territory. Her father was a Virginian, and she the eldest of his five children. When in her fifteenth year, she emigrated to Brazoria County, Texas, with her mother, who had become a widow, and who there entered in second nuptials ^^1th John Woodruff, and there died in 1845. Mary was thus left in charge of the young family, and, upon the death of her stepfather two years later, was further en- trusted with their sole support and education. The rugged discipline to which she had been subjected in the twelve years of Texas life preceding the loss of her parents, prepared her for the duties she was to assume. The country had been in an almost uninterrupted state of revolution ; hostile invasions of Indians and Mexicans had frequently left in their track the cruel work of fire and sword and scalp- ing-knife ; the men and even the boys were bearing arms in distant fields, and the women and children were often left alone to defend the home that sheltered them. It was in 16 Prominent Women of Texas. 1836, after the fall of the Alamo and the massacre of Fan- nin and his men at Goliad, that consternation fell upon every household in the route of the invaders and drove the helpless to places of greater safety. Among these was the family of John Woodruff, which fled eastward and remained in their refuge till their enemy, "The Napoleon of the West," had found his Waterloo in the field of San Jacinto. About the close of this year the famih^ resolved to leave the dangerous highway on which they lived and moved to the new town of Houston, then in the infancy of its municipal life. There, in July of the following year, Mary Smith was married to Hugh McCrory, a soldier, who had but recently come with General Felix Huston in the gallant band of volunteers from Mississippi. In less than two months the young husband died, and the bride was a ^ddow at eighteen. Two years after this she removed with her parents to Austin, the new seat of government, where she met Dr. Anson Jones, and to whom she was married in May, 1840. Dr. Anson Jones was a native of Great Barrington, Mas- sachusetts, and was born in 1798. He was a physician, began his medical career in Philadelphia, and from there went to South America where for two years he practiced in Venezuela. From there, in 1833, he went to Brazoria, Texas, and engaged in the active duties of his profession. From this business he was early diverted by the pervading spirit of the revolutionary times, and he finally abandoned it for the more congenial pursuits of military and political life. He enlisted as a private in the Texan army, and, after brief service, was commissioned surgeon of Burleson's regiment. In 1837 he was elected Representative in the House of Con- gress ; the following year he was appointed minister from the Republic of Texas to that of the United States, and while absent on this mission he was elected to a seat in the Senate by which body he was chosen its presiding ofiicer in the absence of the Vice President. He was Secretary of State during Sam Houston's second presidential term, and at its close was elected President of the Republic. He qualified and took his office in December, 1844, and the constitu- Prominent Women of Texas. 17 tional term of his service was three years, but, owing to the annexation of Texas to the United States, he served less than half his term, and, on the 19th of February, 1846, sur- rendered the government to James Pinkney Henderson, first Governor of the State. Retiring to his plantation in Washington County, which he called " Barrington," in honor of his birthplace, he there lived in close seclusion from public life until he sold the place in 1857. In that year he entered the lists as a candidate for the United States Senate and was defeated. This disappointment, superadded to the popular neglect he suffered while in his retreat at Barring- ton, so preyed upon his mind as to render it morbidly averse from every social pleasure, from every hopeful view of life. In this state of gloom, existence to him became a burden— as it had been to the philosophic Aristotle, the virtuous Cato, the powerful Clive— incurable melancholy seized him, and, on the 7th of January, 1858, he fell its victim by his own deliberate act. ]\Irs. Jones thus, in the eighteenth year of her marriage and the thirty-ninth of her age, became a mdow the second time. With her four children she moved to Galveston, and thence, the same year, to a farm in Harris County which she managed with skill, industry and success. There she super- vised the education of her children, and gave to them the training that distinguishes a practical, sensible, and pious mother. Her two eldest sons, Samuel E. and Charles, volun- teered in the Confederate army ; the latter fell at Shiloh, and the former, after meritorious service, returned home, studied dentistry, and is now in the enjoyment of a successful practice. The youngest son, Cromwell Anson Jones, became a lawyer, and, after winning distinction at the Houston bar, was elected Judge of the County Court of Harris County, in which ofiice he dispensed justice with gentleness, ability and uprightness. He died in 1888, leaving his stricken mother crushed under the burden of this added sorrow. Her only daughter, Sallie, married R. G. Ashe, and to this daughter and her children, and to her remaining son, Mrs. Jones now looks for the only earthly joys that can bring solace to her W. of T.— 2 18 Prominent Women of Texas. broken life. Her faith in the promises of her Christian belief is to her the fountain of perennial consolation in her dis- tress, and through this faith she has learned to regard her sea of sorrows as the sacred pool in whose troubled waters her wounded spirit is made whole. Her religious fervor, her strong character, and her unconquerable will, rescue her from the despondency under which so many shattered hearts have sunk. As far as the infirmities of age permit, she gives active help to those around her, and in her daily conversa- tion she exhibits the patriotic sentiment she has ever felt for the State she dearly loves. In her office of president of the "Daughters of the Republic of Texas" she zealously fosters the purposes of the order, and lovingly infuses her ardor into the hearts of its members. The evening of her life is hallowed by the memories of its youth, and in her lat- ter days are reflected the warm glow of a life chastened by afliiction and softened by the grace of abounding charity. CHAPTER n. WIVES OF MILITARY HEROES. MRS. RUSK — MRS. LAMAR — MRS. FANNIN — MRS. SHERMAN AND MRS. WHARTON. Mrs. Thomas J. Rusk. — Biographical literature has, in all ages, been occasionally enlivened by the contradictions and paradoxes of human experience. Calamities have, not infrequently, been harbingers of triumph ; losses have been productive of gain ; sorrows have been messengers of peace ; storms have stranded their victims on golden shores. The common soldier Artaxerxes, banished from the ranks of the last king of the Parthians, sought asylum in hostile Persia, and found a throne. At the court of this same empire, the exiled hero of Salamis found favor and fortune, where he pleaded only for refuge; and it was there he said: "I should have been undone had it not been for my undoing." Thomas Prominent Women op Texas. 19" Jefferson Rusk, through a dishonest agent, lost all his hard- earned substance, and, in seeking to recover it, found fame, affluence and honor; and Texas, through this same untoward event, acquired one of the most interesting, useful, and versa- tile characters of her history. General Rusk had removed from his native State of South Carolina to Clarksville, Georgia, to practice law. He there married a daughter of General Cleveland, a prominent man in his section, and there formed business connections — among others, one with a company of miners and land speculators. In this the managers proved faithless and absconded to Texas with the funds of the corporation. He pursued the fugitives beyond the Sabine, but failed to recover any portion of his stolen property. This was in 1835, and his pursuit led him to the town of Nacogdoches. He found the country aflame with the spirit of revolution ; every man a soldier, every house an arsenal. His sympathetic nature caught the infection, and, forgetting all else, he made the cause of the patriots his own. From the ranks of a gallant little company he soon advanced to its command, and from that to the leadership of the Republic's undisciplined but formidable battalions. Obeying the voice of the people, he temporarily laid down his sword to enter the memorable convention of 1836 that declared the independence of Texas. From this body he took service in the new government as its first Secretary of War, in which capacity, as director of operations in the field, he stopped Houston's retreat before Santa Anna, brought on the- eventful battle of San Jacinto, and distinguished himself in that action as one of the military heroes of Texas history. Retiring from the cabinet and acting under a Brigadier Gen- eral's commission, he placed himself at the head of the troops, and followed in the retreating footsteps of the inVaders; arriving at Goliad, he collected the bones of the three hundred and thirty victims of Urrea's treachery, and, before giving them honorable burial, delivered a funeral oration that, for eloquence, pathos, and patriotism, had not been excelled since Pericles pronounced his splendid eulogy to the memory of the slaughtered Greeks. In Houston's administration he ■20 Prominent Women of Texas. was again called to the cabinet, but soon retired from it for a seat in the Texas Congress. In the intervals of his con- gressional service he fought the Caddos, the Cherokees, and other hostile Indians, and, on the disappearance of danger from that source, he was appointed Chief Justice of the Re- public. After brief service on the bench he resigned to resume his practice at the bar. He favored annexation to the United States, and, in 1845, was president of the con- vention that formed the constitution of the then future State of Texas. In the following year he was elected by the State's first legislature as one of her United States Senators, and he was retained in that high position till his melancholy death in 1857. In every act inspired by the manifold zeal of this soldier, jurist and statesman, his devoted wife was always his sympa- thizer, oft(m his counselor and sometimes his active helper, and her experiences in these turbulent times — if not as rugged or as perilous as those of her brave husband — were of a nature to evoke the self-denial, composure, and courage that distinguished her through life. It was in 1836 that occasion first offered to put these qualities to the test. The little army was scattered through the West, fighting the hordes from Mexico ; and the hostile Indians, taking advantage of the defenseless situation of the Eastern settlements, were combining for bloody onslaught on the unprotected women and children. These latter, among whom were Mrs. Rusk and her young family, fled for safety toward the United States frontier, leaving between them and the savages only thirty men under General M'Leod, who garrisoned the little fortress at Nacogdoches. In their terror, these panic-stricken refugees threw away everything that could impede their progress, and, but for the calm and comforting assurances of Mrs. Rusk, many would have fallen by the way. "As long as the brave M'Leod or one of his men is living," she said, "we have nothing to fear." The fright of this trembling crowd was, from time to time, appallingly increased by a flying poltroon over- taking and passing them. On one occasion a dastard, of Prominent Women of Texas. 21 whom there were then fortunately but few in Texas, took time in his flight to scream out: "Hurry up or the Indians will scalp you." Mrs. Rusk, with undisturbed serenity, and with something of humor in her retort, replied to him : "You will save your scalp if your horse holds out." Mrs, Rusk had seven children of whom the only survivor is John C. Rusk, of Ben Wheeler, Van Zandt County. Her only daughter, Helena, died young at Nacogdoches. Of the others, Thomas J. and Alonzo died in infancy, Benjamin died at Austin, Thomas D., died in Harrison County, and Cicero was killed in the Confederate army. The care of these children was the exclusive office of their mother, and their home her supreme sphere. She hallowed its precincts by the example of a useful and holy life; she brightened its hearth- stone with cheerfulness ; she adorned its altars with domes- tic virtues; and taught her children to reverence its sanctity. She dispensed its hospitality with generous but prudent hands, and she made it the refuge of the indigent, the afflicted, and the friendless. She thus became the idol of her household, and endeared herself to the people in the homes of whose descendants her memory still lingers as a sweet savor of the gentle charities of life. Mrs. Rusk died in 1856, in the forty-seventh year of her age and the twenty-ninth of her married life, and infinitely sad were the consequences of this great bereavement. The strong, brave husband, whom no danger could appall, no calamity overwhelm, fell shattered under the stroke, and in deep despondency he languished until, heart-broken and mind-broken, his own hand finished the cruel work. Mrs. Rusk was a devout Christian and inculcated the pre- cepts of her faith wherever she felt they might "bring forth fruits meet for repentance." Her heart was the hearth of the graces, and there they were warmed by the love that inspired her daily work, and in her daily work she was ever cheerful, genial and happy. The lines of Leigh Hunt might have been written for her. "Death, of its sting disarmed, she knew no fear, But tasted heaven e'en while she linp-ered here." 22 Prominent Women of Texas. Mrs. Mirabeau B. Lamar. — The wife of the first Vice President, and the second President, of the Republic of Texas, was the bright and beautiful Henrietta Maffitt, daughter of the celebrated Methodist minister, JohnNewland Maffitt, and sister of the gallant Fred. Maffitt, commodore of the Confed- erate navy. She was married in 1851 to General Lamar, who was fifty-three years of age and a widower, and who had already achieved fame in both the civil and military history of the country. He came to Texas from Georgia, his native State, in 1835 ; rendered splendid service as commander of cavalry at the battle of San Jacinto ; was President Burnet's Secretary of War, signalized his great ability in the presi- dential office, at the expiration of which his influence was most salutary in the councils of the nation ; and fought in the Mexican War, where his reputation was augmented by brilliant conduct at the storming of Monterey. Such was the record of the brave man of Georgia who united his for- tunes with the beautiful woman of Texas. Mrs. Lamar and her twin sister Matilda, when almost in their infancy, came to Texas with their mother, and lived in Galveston ; there she was married, and there, also, was mar- ried her sister to R. D. Johnson, of that city. So nearly had her life been passed in Texas, and so unal- terable and undivided was her devotion to the State, that Mrs. Lamar, though not to the manor born, was loath to admit any other place to that distinction ; when questioned on the subject she always answered with diplomatic evasion and with Spartan brevity : "I am a Texan." Immediately after her marriage, Mrs. Lamar moved with her husband to their plantation home near the historic town of Richmond, on the Brazos. There she became an active •element in society, and gave zealous support to the Episco- pal Church, of which communion she w^as a member. In 1857, General Lamar reluctantly accepted a mission to one of the American Republics. Accompanied by his wife, he went to AVashington for credentials and instructions, in- tending to proceed from there to his post abroad. During their visit to the Capital, Mrs. Lamar was greatly admired Prominent Women of Texas. 23 for her charming persoiiaHty, and was the recipient of many flattering attentions— including an entertainment at the White House by the courtly niece of President Buchanan. In the midst of these gaieties, and of her preparations for resi- dence in foreign countries, she was seriously attacked by a bronchial affection— so seriously, that her medical attend- ants forbade the voyage, and urged her immediate return to Texas. She obeyed the warning, and her husband was thus condemned to go alone to his distant mission. The soft cli- mate of southern Texas soon restored Mrs. Lamar to her wonted health, and she resumed her accustomed place in the social and religious circles of Richmond. Superadded to these were the responsible and onerous cares of a plantation. The duties were new, but she performed them with marvelous skill ; she, moreover, fitted herself for the work she was des- tined so soon to direct and administer alone. After two years' absence. General Lamar returned to his home, but he had hardly entered upon its enjoyment before he was fatally stricken with apoplexy. The marriage of General and Mrs. Lamar, though marked by the jjroverbially inauspicious circumstance of disparitj^ of age, was exceptionally favored by conditions not always conspicuous in the marital relation. They were united in the bonds of mutual confidence, affection and esteem. A daugh- ter, Loretta, was the issue of this marriage. She has in- herited the personal features of her mother, and unites in her character the most pronounced qualities of both parents. She is the wife of Samuel Douglas Calder, of Richmond, and the mother of two children. Mrs. Lamar's bereavement dissolved, in a measure, the ties that bound her to society, though it strengthened her affiliations with schemes for dispensing charity, and added fervor to the faith she enjoyed in happier years. During the four years of the Confederate War a vast field was opened around her for the exercise of the nobler qualities of human nature ; she entered with unhesitating step. South- ern soldiers and their suffering families found in her a minis- ter of comfort and in her stores an exhaustless source of 24 Prominent Women of Texas. helpful charities. Lonff will she be remembered for her boun- tiful goodness to the victims of the lost cause, and imperish- able in their influence are the lessons of her life. She died October 8, 1871. Unfeigned was the sorrow that followed her to the tomb, and generous as her gifts will ever be the homage offered at the shrine of virtues like hers. Mrs. James W. Fannin. — To few names in history attach so mournful an interest, so pathetic a memory, as to that of Col. James W. Fannin. He was born in Georgia, educated at West Point, married in his native State, and from there, in the autumn of 1834, removed to Texas with his wife and two little daughters, Pinckney and Minerva, respectively two and four years of age. He established his home at Velasco, one of the twin towns that sentinel the mouth of the Brazos, and he there heard from every breeze that war was in the air. Mexico was gathering her armies, and Texas w^as arming to meet them. He was foremost among the patriots of his sec- tion and raised from their number a troop for the relief of Gonzales, the Lexington of the Texas revolution. A month later he was further to the front, and in the first engagement on the march to San Antonio was crowned hero of the battle of Concepcion. He then led his fated expedition westward, met Urrea with a force five times greater than his own, fought valiantly, and surrendered his force to be treated as prisoners of w^ar. The capitulation was made to save his men from a worse captivity if not from useless slaughter, and to this humane conclusion he was even urged by the pious entreaty and soft courtesy of his '^ily foe. The treaty was reduced to writing and stipulated that officers should be paroled, pri- vates returned to their homes, personal property respected, besides other usual conditions of civilized w^arfare. This was on Sunday, March 20, 1836; one week from that day, the Christian's festival of Palm Sunday, these Christian con- querors led their beguiled captives to the bloodiest and most atrocious massacre of modern times. Urrea, the Fra Diavolo of his age, achieved by this refinement of mediaeval perfidy the applause of his swashbucklers and the commendation of Pkominent Women of Texas. 25 his master who was then marching to his Waterloo on the San Jacinto. The number of victims who fell under Urrea's remorseless fusilade was not less than three hundred and thirty; Fannin was reserved to give the crowning joy to this collation of blood. Knowing that he would refuse, he was offered his life on conditions that he scorned; he only asked that his last messages of love should be conveyed to his family, that his watch should be sent to them, that he should be shot in the breast and not in the head, and that his body should be buried. His wishes were observed in the manner peculiar to his executioners; he was shot in the head, his body was left unburied, his messages were not sent, and his watch was stolen by the officer to whom it was confided. After the foul assassination of Colonel Fannin, the bereaved family was received in the home of Col. Wilham H. Jack, near Yelasco, where Mrs. Fannin soon died comfortless and heart- broken. The eldest daughter, Pinckney, died in 1847, at the age of seventeen ; the youngest daughter, Minerva, long sur- vived her sister, but only to lead a life more pitiless than death. Born with a blighted mind, she groped in intellectual darkness from the cradle to the grave. No care and no skill could ever illumine with a single ray the long night of her clouded life. In 1862, when thirty years of age, she was en- tered as a private patient in the Asylum at Austin where, by act of the legislature, she was placed under the guardian- ship of the superintendent. She there died July 27, 1893, and her body now lies in the cemetery provided by the State for its honored dead. Texas holds in her keeping the dust of the hero of Con- cepcion, and of all those he loved in hfe. It is not unrea- sonable to hope that, by some unscrutable law, she may be exalted through their afflictions, blessed through their suffering. Mrs. Sidney Sherman. — Neither the story of the tu- mults and wars of Texas nor that of her growth in the arts of peace and progress can be fully told without a mention of the fame that belongs to Sidney Sherman. He came into 26 Prominent Women of Texas. Texas and met her enemy in the crisis of her struggle, brought arms and men to her support, fought with splendid valor in her decisive battle, then, in the peaceful years that followed, helped to develop her industrial life, and thereby rear the structure of her permanent greatness. He was a lineal decendant of Roger Sherman, of whom Jeiferson declared that he "never said a foolish thing in his life." The offspring inherited much of the wisdom imputed to his great ancestor. He was born in 1805, in Massachu- setts, moved when quite a j^outh to Cincinnati, and thence to Newport, Kentucky, where he engaged in business. On the 27th of April, 1835, he was married at Frankfort to Catherine Isabella Cox. She was born April 27, 1815, in Franklin County, Kentucky, in which State her grandfather, Cornelius Fennick, was one of the earliest pioneers from Maryland. Through him she was decended from the first Lord Baltimore, grantee of the fair land destined to be the cradle of the family in America. After this marriage Sidney Sherman and his bride moved into the home at Newport prepared by the provident bridegroom. There, after a few months, the cry of the distressed Texans reached them from the far West, and both were aroused to what they conceived the supreme duty of the hour. Encouraged by his wife, even assisted by her in the work of recruiting men, he raised and equipped a company fifty strong, and, on the last daj^ of 1835, embarked with them for the scene of their future ex- ploits. Mrs. Sherman accompanied the expedition as far as Natchez ; from there she returned to her parents in Frankfort, and Captain Sherman pursued his march to Texas. He ar- rived on the Brazos in February, 1836, and at once hastened westward to relieve Travis, who was besieged in the Alamo. Finding relief impossible with his small force, he fell back to the Brazos, where a regiment was organized and he elected its Colonel. Still receding before the enemy, in pursuance of the Texan policy, he led his regiment to the last stand of the Texans on the San Jacinto, There on the 20th of April— the day preceding the famous battle — he dashed into the enemy's lines with a reconnoitering force of eighty-five men Prominent Women of Texas. 27 aud fought in gallant style the skirmish that was destined to be the harbinger of the country's glorious triumph. On the memorable 21st he opened the battle, aud his war cry, like that of the brilliant Navarre at Ivry, added fury to the fire of the patriots, and carried terror into the ranks of their enemy. " Remember the Alamo ! " was the avenging message of the martyrs, and it was borne on the clarion notes of a thousand echoes to the trembling legions of the tyrant. The furious charge, the frenzied rush, the deadly onslaught, gave to these legions the wings of terror. In less than twenty minutes, retribution had done her effectual work, and the independence of Texas was won. After participating in this splendid achievement of the Texan army, Colonel Sherman followed it to the western frontier, but finding, after several months, that no new invasion was imminent, tendered his resignation, and asked permission of the government to return to Kentucky. Pres- ident Burnet, in lieu of his acceptance of the resignation, issued to him a Colonel's commission in the regular army, with orders to raise a regiment in the United Sta,tes. The Secretary of War, " as a testimonial of his gallant conduct," ])resented to Mrs. Sherman, through an official note, the stand of colors he had brought to Texas. This flag she had her- self, in the name of the ladies of Newport, presented to her husband's company on its departure for Texas ; both it and the Secretary's note are still preserved in the family as very precious relics. After many delays occasioned by sickness, Colonel Sher- man joined his wife at Frankfort, and from there they pro- ceeded to their home at Newport. He enlisted new recruits under his commission and sent them to Texas, and he also collected and forwarded the much-needed apparel for the men in the field. In December, 1837, he again set out for Texas taking with him his wife and her young brother, Cor- nelius Cox, and also his own brother, Dana Sherman ; after a month's travel the party reached the eventful battle ground of San Jacinto, and there camped one night. The following day Colonel Sherman and his wife paid a visit to 28 Prominent Women of Texas. ex-President Burnet, at whose instance they bought a home on San Jacinto bay. There they lived several years. His brother Dana settled near them, and within a year, and on the same day, both he and his wife died, leaving their infant daughter to Mrs. Sherman, who cared for the orphan until seven years of age, then gave her in charge to Colonel Sher- man's sister. In 1842 Colonel Sherman was elected to Congress from his district, and several years later he w^as elected by popular vote Major-General of the Texan army, and this position he held till Texas was annexed to the United States. He then removed to the site of Harrisburg, burned by Santa Anna eleven years before; this move was made for the purpose of rebuilding the once promising tow^n, and of developing the fertile country that lay around it. Directing his wonted en- ergies into these new channels of enterprise, he overcame a world of obstacles and achieved for Texas her first triumph in the era of her new life. He rebuilt Harrisburg; and he constructed the first railway in Texas, the road from Har- risburg on Buffalo Bayou to Richmond on the Brazos. Only one road, and that only a few months before, had preceded his west of the Mississippi, so that he was not only the father of railroads in Texas but one of the " early fathers " of the entire system from the Great Valley to the Pacific. In 1853 occurred a series of conflagrations of which Gen- eral Sherman was most singularly the victim. His sawmill, a valuable one, w^as burned; his dwelling at Harrisburg, handsome and costly, was burned ; the railroad ofiice to which he had removed his family was burned; and in the several fires was consumed much personal property and many historical papers of priceless value to the country. None of these losses were covered by insurance, and they embraced all the earnings of a life of diligent and saga- cious toil. Following these calamities Mrs. Sherman visited her par- ents in Kentucky for the first time since leaving them seven- teen years before. On her return to Texas the family moved to Galveston, where General Sherman sought to retrieve Prominent Women of Texas. 29 his fortunes in the hotel business, which he conducted until 1862. At this time the Confederate war was surging toward Galveston. He had previously sent his three eldest daugh- ters, Caroline, Belle and Sue, to their grandparents in Ken- tucky. He now removed his wife and their three remaining children to the less exposed position of their first home on the bay of San Jacinto. While there, the tide of war swept the Island City, and among its defenders fell young Lieut. Sidney Sherman, the General's eldest son, only nineteen years of age. Six months later the parents were called to mourn the death of their youngest child and only remaining son, little David Burnet Sherman. These crushing blows, added to the memory of the death of their little Cornelius at Harrisburg, so wrecked the mother's heart that she quickly passed beyond the hope of human cure. General Sherman, trusting to the recuperation that rural life might bring, bought a farm on the Brazos, near Richmond, to which the beloved invalid was removed. While on a visit from there to her sister, Mrs. Morgan, at Houston, she died January 20, 1865. The body was taken to Galveston and there laid by the side of her deeply mourned son. There the sorrowing- husband, near the ashes he revered, fixed his new home, and gathered about him the five children that remained to him of the eight born in his happy marriage. Of these five chil- dren, three are now living: Mrs. J. M. O. Menard, of Galves- ton, and Mrs.W. E. Kendall and Mrs. L. W. Craig, both of Houston. General Sherman died in 1873. During the eight years he survived his wife, his daily walk bore the marks of his irreparable sorrow^ Mrs. Sherman's life is singularly instructive in the rela- tion that proclaims the fellowship of man. With a heart overflowing with sympathy, and a mind strong in its intui- tions of right, she was moved by every cause that appealed to her gentleness and her judgment. The current of loving kindness that flow^ed through her nature was fed from foun- tains that gave to it the vigor and freshness of a perennial grace, and to these fountains she ascribed the best inspira- tions of her life. A firm believer in the creed of the Catholic 30 Prominent Women of Texas. Church, and a devout worshipper at its altar, she sought to exemplify its teachings in her daily acts, and to appropriate its consolations in the hours of her distress and bereavement. Its trinity of graces, its faith and hope and love, were to her the unfaihng sources of comfort in affliction, of confidence in the improvement of her fellow man, and of compassion for all the miseries that afflict his daily life. Mrs. Wm. H. Wharton. — Mrs. Wharton's maidenname was Sarah A. Groce, and she was the daughter of Jared E. Groce, who came to Texas in 1821, and located on the Brazos near the present town of Hempstead, where he opened a farm known to all oldTexans as '' Groce's Retreat." He brought with him seed corn and cotton seed, the latter being the first introduced in Texas ; he also built the first cotton gin erected in the country. His daughter, at an early age, married Wil- liam H. Wharton, a brilliant 3^oung lawyer who was born in Virginia, and came to Texas from Nashville, Tennessee, in 1629. Richly endowed with inherent powers, and possessed of a zeal adequate to put them in motion, he soon became a prominent figure in the Republic. He was president of the convention of 1833, called for the purpose of dissolving the bond that united Texas to Coahuila in Mexican statehood; two years later he was in the Texan army at San Antonio, from which he was summoned by the general consultation to proceed to the United States as one of the three commis- sioners appointed for that purpose; and, in the year follow- ing, he was sent to that government as the accredited min- ister from the Republic of Texas. On his return from this service, he was elected to the Senate of tlie Republic, in which body he achieved distinction. In 1839, he met with an acci- dent that terminated his honorable and useful life. His brief but brilliant career forms a bright page in Texas history. When he came to Texas in 1829 he was accompanied by his brother, Col. John A. Wharton, no less talented than himself, and who rendered splendid service in the field, the cabinet, and the congress of the country. He was never married, and \ when he died in 1838, President Burnet, in pronouncing the Prominent Women of Texas. 31 funeral oration, said of his death in terse and touching symbol: "The keenest blade of the field of San Jacinto is broken." Mrs. William H. Wharton's only child was named for this lamented brother, and to the rearing of the child — the future Gen. John A. Wharton of the Confederate army — she devoted the energy, the wealth, the culture, and the affection, with which she was richly endowed. He was born in Tennessee while the mother was there on a visit, was educated at the University of South Carolina, married a daughter of Gov- ernor Johnson, of that State, served with distinguished ability in the Civil War, and, at its close, was killed in a per- sonal rencounter at Houston. His widow and their httle daughter did not long survive him, thus leaving Mrs. William H. Wharton the sole representative of an illustrious Texas family, and rendering its name totally extinct at her death. She is remembered as a forceful personality in both social and political life, and she is described by a writer of her time as "a model of womanly dignity, courtesy, and liberality." She gave freely of her bounty to alleviate the sorrows of the poor, to promote the cheerfulness of society, and to advance the cause of national freedom. There are still extant some of her letters addressed to prominent public men in the days when doubts darkened the prospects of Texan independence, which breathe a spirit of fervor, of energy, and of patriotism worthy the noble women of Saragossa in this century, and those of Carthage in the heroic ages of the past. Her appeals in the cause of human liberty were not unheard by the reso- lute, nor unheeded by the wavering, and she lived to rejoice in the fulfillment of her supreme prayer that the Texans, then grappling with tyranny, should become "a great and happy people." 32 Prominent Women of Texas. CHAPTER III. PIONEERS— HARBINGERS OF CIVILIZATION. MRS. CHARLOTTE WOODMANCY MITCHELL — MRS. CHARLOTTE M. ALLEN — MRS. ISABELLA GORDON — MRS. ELIZABETH CANTERBURY. Mrs. Charlotte Woodmancy Mitchell. — In the first year of the nineteenth century, at Elizabethtown, New Jersey, was born the subject of this memoir. While yet a child she was taken by her parents to Pennsylvania, w here, at the age of sixteen, she married Mr. Jennings, who lived only three weeks. The young widow, in the year fol- lowing her bereavement, was married to Asa Mitchell, whose fortunes she shared and whose name she bore to the end of her brief, but eventful life. The young couple moved to Kentucky, from which State, in 1822, they embarked in a flat boat down the Mississippi, destined for the wilds of Texas, to which they w^ere allured by the eloquent agents of Austin's colony. Arriving in New Orleans with little else besides the youth and hope and energy that inspired their brave quest of adventure, they were joined by kindred spirits, all at- tracted to the new El Dorado in the West. A schooner was chartered by the party, numbering about thirty, and largely made up of young men, and the voyage begun. After a sail of forty days down the Mississippi, and westwardly on the gulf, they entered Matagorda Bay, and landed near the mouth of the Colorado River, upon a point on which is now- situated the town of Matagorda. The schooner, after dis- charging her passengers and cargo, sailed away and left the intrepid colonists upon an unexplored shore, cut off, by their own resolute choice, from return or retreat, and irretrievably committed to a fortune as unknown as the strange coast on which the}- stood. The country was wild, desolate and uninhabited, save by hostile savages ; the first step of the colonists, therefore, was to study their environments and reconnoiter the land Prominent Women of Texas. 33 that lay beyond. In one of their excursions they encoun- tered a party of Mexican traders from whom they bought a few horses, and, with these to bear their burdens and assist their locomotion, they resolved to explore the interior. Leaving a force of eight young men to guard the provisions and baggage, they moved slowly northward along the west bank of the Colorado, bivouacing at night and closelj' senti- neled, until they reached the beautiful bend of the river where now is built the town of Columbus. They there pitched their camp and began to construct shelters from the rude lumber they hewed from the forest around them, and in one of these Mrs. Mitchell was comfortably housed. Havingthen found the haven of their search, and provided it with tem- porary security, a few men were detailed for its protection, and the rest, mounted on the horses they had bought, re- turned to the coast to bring the provisions and the guard that had been left behind. Great was their consternation, on reaching the Bay, to find nothing but a plundered camp, and not even a trace of the eight men left to protect it. Neither the goods nor their custodians have ever since been heard of. It was then and is still believed, with almost conclusive proofs, that the Carankawa Indians were the dep- redators, and that the unfortunate men who fell in their hands w^ere sacrificed in the savage carnivals of the can- nibal captors. This man-eating tribe then infesting the gulf coast, w^ere experts with the canoe and subsisted principally on fish; it numbered about a thousand braves whose his- tory is an unvarying record of thefts and murders perpe- trated on all who happened in the path of their bloody forays. They were of large stature, of brawny strength, and of mar- velous skill in the use of the bow ; they were cruel, crafty and cowardly, and to the same extent that they were feared by weaker tribes did they become a terror to the members of Austin's colony. It was, therefore, resolved to extirpate them. In 1825 they were vigorously pursued in their westward flight beyond the San AntonioRiver, where, through the inter- cession of a friendly priest, they were permitted to enter into a convention wherein they solemnly promised never again to W. of T— 3 34 Prominent Women of Texas. enter the territory or disturb the peace of the white men. As might have been expected, the faithlessness of the barba- rians made short work of the truce, and the war of exter- mination was revived. While it was still waged, the Catholic Church undertook the conversion of these heathens, and, for that purpose, the Mission of Refugio, previously built by the Franciscans, was devoted to their instruction. This mission was situated on the San Antonio River, about thirty miles south of the town of Goliad, then known as the settlement of La Bahia. Neither the canons of the Church nor the guns of the colonists, though the methods of conversion peculiar to each were vigorously exerted in their own way, succeeded in bringing a single penitent to the altar of civilization. They persisted in their atrocities, and their enemies persisted in organized efforts to destroy them ; their numbers grew less from year to year until, in 1842, they had dwindled to less than half a hundred men, women and children; these took refuge in Mexico, and there they ceased from their troubling until not a single Carankaw'a is left to tell the story of his tribe. Such were the savages whose bloody hospitality so early clouded the lives of Asa Mitchell and his companions. The men from the camp, appalled by the calamity that was pictured to their mind, hurried back to their camp, resolved to abandon their desperate enterprise and go back to the civilization they had left behind. For the purpose of raising- money to defray the expenses of their return, Asa Mitchell, and a few others, went West and bought mules which they took overland to Louisiana, and there sold at a profit. They proceeded to New Orleans and invested their funds in supplies suitable for colonists, and recruited about thirty young men for a new colonizing adventure beyond the Rio Grande. They chartered a schooner and cleared for Matamoras, Mexico, intending to stop at Matagorda Bay, and there take on board Mrs. Mitchell and the other colonists who had been left with her, who were to be brought down from the camp for em- barkation. After entering the gulf, the schooner encountered a storm and was finally cast upon the beach near the mouth of the Brazos River. All hopes for the Matamoras scheme Prominent Women of Texas. 35 had now to be abandoned. From the wreck the men rescued their supplies, also the ship's two yawls and enough of its timbers to build a secure retreat from danger and exposure; this latter was constructed on the east bank of the river, on the site of the present town of Velasco, and was often used as a rampart of defense against the dreaded Carankawas. While Asa Mitchell and his companions were passing through these experiences, Mrs. Mitchell, who had been left in the camp on the Colorado, was exposed to perils equally as exciting, and none the less dangerous. The Carankawas made frequent forays into the neighborhood of the encamp- ment, and on one of these massacred an entire family. Alarmed for her own safety, and that of her two little child- ren, she at last procured a guide and sought safety in flight,, going eastward till she reached a block house built and oc- cupied by one of the first pioneers. This was on the west bank of the Brazos River, and upon a spot now forming part of the town of Richmond. Thus, after months of separation and perilous adventure, Mrs. Mitchell and her husband found themselves, driven by calamity, at places of which neither, on parting, had any knowledge, and yet at places watered by the same river — he at its mouth, and she not more than sixty miles above it. After vigorous search, Mrs. Mitchell's retreat was located, and her husband ascended to it in one of the schooner's yawls. Both came dow^n the river in safety, notwithstanding hostile Indians on either shore, and landed in the Yelasco camp, Avhere, for the first time during her peregrinations,. Mrs. Mitchell was comfortably and securely quartered. Asa Mitchell here left his family, and, with a few men, reascended the river to examine the land on its shores. About thirty miles from the mouth they landed at a place now covered by the town of Columbia ; made a clearing and planted corn, vegetables, and tobacco ; from the sale of the latter, to the Mexican traders, they realized the snug sum of twelve hun- dred dollars. This was in 1823. In the year following Asa Mitchell went to San Felipe, where Austin's colony had opened its office, and enrolled himself as a colonist, receiving 36 Prominent Women of Texas. his head-right certificate for a league and labor of land. This certificate he at once located at the mouth of the Bra- zos, where Mrs. Mitchell had been previously provided with a home. Colonists now began to arrive in large numbers from the States, and lands were located and cultivated by them all along the fertile valley of the Brazos. These accessions proved too formidable for the prowess of the Indians, who soon ceased to be dangerous, and, in time, altogether disappeared. Mrs. Mitchell lived in her new home on the site of the present town of Velasco, and enjoyed its security and abundance for ten years from the date of her arrival. She died there in 1832, leaving four children, of whom the only survivor is the venerable and respected Na- than Mitchell, of San Antonio. She was buried with a newly- born babe, in the soil for which she had struggled and suf- fered. Her life was pure, brave, and active, and her memory is fragrant with the incense of good and noble deeds. To use the words of one of her biographers, she was "a brave, intelligent, and Christian woman." Mrs. Charlotte M. Allen. — The bright and busy city of Houston owes her name and much of the nurture that gave the initial impulse to her infantile years to Mrs. Char- lotte M. Allen. She and her husband were the owners of the land on which the city is built, having acquired their title by purchase from the widow of John Austin. At this time their home was in the town of Nacogdoches, where they dispensed their generous cheer to all who came within their gates. It was on the occasion of a visit of Sam Houston to this home that occurred the incident which determined the name of the beautiful city then not in embryo. General Houston, who was then wearing the laurels of San Jacinto, was a guest of the Aliens, and was discussing with them the possibilities of their proposed enterprise to found a town on the land they had purchased, when he asked Mr. Allen what name he in- tended to give it. Mrs. Allen, before he could answer, said that she should claim the honor of naming the new city, and that the name should be "Houston." This settled the MRS. CHARLOTTE M. ALLEN. Prominent Women of Texas. 37 matter, and the future infant, like the predicted Immanuel, was named before it was born. The General, with the grace and fervor that were his by nature, acknowledged the com- pliment of his hostess, and, in a sentiment that proved prophetic, wished that the new town might expand in its growth to the magnitude of a great city, and become the pride of the Lone Star Republic. Mrs. Allen was the daughter of Doctor Baldwin, of New York; was born in 1805; and was married at the age of twenty-six to Augustus C. Allen, who was one year her junior. Two years after their marriage he moved to Texas and set- tled in Nacogdoches, where, the year following, his wife joined him. Two years later — just after the battle of San Jacinto, they bought the tract of land to which reference has been made. To this land the young couple removed, and began with the young town to build up the destiny for which they were reserved. All her later years were passed within its limits; her life winds its course like a thread through the web of its history ; the hopes of both were bound up in its destiny. In 1837, the Texas Congress, then sitting at Columbia, honored the new city by making it the temporary capital of the Republic. This was mainly effected through the energetic efforts of Mr. Allen, aided and supplemented by the winning influence of his wife. He and his brother, John K. Allen, built the statehouse that sheltered the government until the removal of the capital to Austin in 1839. Several years after the annexation of Texas to the United States, Mr. Allen was sent as consul to Minatitlan, Mexico, w here he officiated until the Civil War. He then proceeded to Washington to settle his consular accounts with the govern- ment, and there died in 1863. During the eleven years of his absence Mrs. Allen had remained at Houston, developing the interests left in her charge, and dispensing the amenities and charities of life for which she was greatly distinguished. After a widowhood of thirty-two years, Mrs. Allen died in her home in Houston, on the 3rd of August, 1895, at the venerable age of ninety years. She was 38 Prominent Women of Texas. the mother of four children, only one of whom, a daugh- ter, lived to reach the age of mature years. A single