Recollections of Early Texas (2 page)
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Authors: John Holmes Jenkins
After the Texas victory and capture of Santa Anna, Jenkins took his mother and family back to their home in Bastrop County, and successfully protected them through all the hardships and dangers of pioneer life. Bastrop then was actually beyond the frontier. There was as much danger of Indian attack from the east as from the westâand the little settlement received far more than its share of raids and thefts from the hostiles.
The story of those Indian depredations and the Mexican invasions is recounted in this book. After Texas became a thriving and populated state of the Union, and Jenkins had retired with his wife to a quiet life on his farm, he was requested by his children and neighbors to set down his recollections of early Texas. He began by writing, with the help of his daughter-in-law, a series of articles made up of his own personal reminiscences of life in pioneer Texas. These were published in the Bastrop
Advertiser
during 1884 and 1885. He then began to collect the reminiscences of other old TexansâCaptain Rufus Perry, John Morgan, Captain Dan Grady, Captain Claudius Buster, William Clopton, Captain Samuel Highsmith, Judge N. W. Eastland, and many others. Most of these were published by the
Advertiser
at various times between 1884 and 1889. Jenkins' death on November 30, 1890, ended his research, but he had already contributed much toward the preservation of historical data of colonial Texas.
John Holland Jenkins was born on September 16, 1822, near Demopolis, Marengo County, Alabama. At the age of six or seven he moved with his parents, Edward and Sarah (Parrent) Jenkins, to Texas as members of Stephen F. Austin's Third, or Little, Colony. The family first lived with the William Bartons on Barton Creek, near Rosanky, while Edward Jenkins and Thomas H. Mays were surveying a league of land for the Jenkinses, which was granted to each emigrant family. In the spring of 1830 they began their new life on their league, which lay on the west bank of the Colorado River, about thirty-five miles below Austin.
Indian depredations were constant, and young John frequently saw the savages skulking about. Occasionally a band of Indians claiming to be friendly would appear to trade with the colonists, but more often than not it would be found the next day that some livestock or other property was missing. Then, in 1833, while working out in a field, Edward Jenkins was murdered, supposedly by marauding Indians, although no conclusive proof was ever found. This left the widowed mother, who was four months' pregnant, with three defenseless children. She was forced to move into the town of Bastrop with friends and sell half of her husband's land.
Bastrop then was a thriving settlement. It was one of the largest towns in Texas, for at that time Houston, Austin, and Dallas had not even been laid out. Located where the Old San Antonio Road crossed the Colorado River, it was in one of the most fertile and beautiful areas in Texas. Stephen F. Austin, speaking of the Bastrop area, recorded in his journal:
Tuesday, August 7 (1821). Came to the Colorado Riverâpoor, gravelly ridges and near the river heavy pine timber, grapes in immense quantities on low vines, red, large, and well flavored, good for Red wine. The Colorado River is sometimes less than the Brazos, banks very highâgenerally clear of
overflowâbottom and banks gravelly, water very clear and well tasted, current brisk, the river very much resembles Cumberland River, except that there are no rocks and it is some larger.
The bottom where the road crosses is about five miles, mostly high prairie, clear of overflow, land rich, timber Pecan, Ash, Oak, Cedar, abundance of fish.
*1
The town of Bastrop was established about 1829, when Martin Wells settled there with his sons, and grew steadily until 1839, when Austin was laid out and made capital of the Republic. From that time on, progress in Bastrop was small.
In 1835 Mrs. Jenkins remarriedâto James Northcross, a Methodist minister from Virginia. They had one son.
After Northcross' death in the Alamo, John Jenkins took his mother and the rest of the family back to their half-league of land across the river from Bastrop, where he cared for his mother until her death in 1840, and raised his younger brothers and sister. On October 29, 1845, he married Mary Jane Foster, daughter of another old pioneer family. They had six sons and one daughter.
Much of the material in the Jenkins reminiscences has appeared in other works, usually without acknowledgment, but the memoirs themselves present such an interesting and enlightening view on pioneer life in early Texas that publication in full is long overdue.
The book has its shortcomings. The original reminiscences are rough and loosely connected, words and names are frequently misspelled, and there are some confusing grammatical errors. It seemed desirable, however, to preserve the original flavor of the narrative; hence revision has consisted mainly in correcting spelling and grammar and rearranging the
articles for the sake of continuity. Critical and explanatory notes have been added.
Noah Smithwick was used as much as possible for comparison of accounts, rather than John Henry Brown, Frank Brown, James DeShields, or J. W. Wilbarger. Smithwick moved to California in 1861 and lived there the rest of his life. Hence there is little chance of his narrative having been influenced by Jenkins, who was first to attempt to assemble a history of the Indian hostilities in Texas. The two Browns, DeShields, and Wilbarger, however, used Jenkins' reminiscences freely and many of their narratives are exact repetitions of the Jenkins accounts. Wilbarger, particularly, quotes Jenkins word-for-word without acknowledgment.
It is hoped that the succeeding pages will not only be of value to the historian as a reference but will also prove as entertaining and as exciting to those who are interested in understanding and reliving the lives of their forefathers as it has to this young Texan.
J
OHN
H
OLMES
J
ENKINS, III
Beaumont, Texas
Acknowledgments
My sincere and grateful thanks are due to many persons throughout the state who assisted me in the preparation of this book. First, I give my most heartfelt thanks to my greataunt, Mrs. W. T. Decherd of Austin. She it was who showed me the Jenkins reminiscences and who, instead of laughing at the thought of a fifteen-year-old writing a book, encouraged me to do so. Fostering the love of Texas and of history in general which I share with her, she gave much of her time telling what she knew of her grandfather and her mother, who copied by hand the original memoirs.
Next I thank Miss Claire Andrews, Mrs. Harriet L. Willis, and my Grandmother Lila of Beaumont, who helped me make this book a surprise for my mother and father.
In Bastrop, Texas, Tignal Jones allowed me the use of the probate and deed records, and Hartford Jenkins spent much time showing me the exact location of many of the places mentioned in this book. Misses Grace and Nell Fitzwilliam permitted me to use material belonging to the Bastrop Historical Society, as well as their own personal data on Bastrop County.
An important necessity in writing a book is a place to work without interruption and where books and papers may be scattered about without danger of their being “straightened” or put in neat little stacks by some helpful elder. For
arranging such bachelor quarters for me, my love and thanks go to my Gran and Grandaddy Chalmers of Bastrop.
Essential material was gathered during two summer vacations at the Archives Collections of the University of Texas Library and the Texas State Library. The Archivists of these two libraries willingly gave me much helpful information. I especially appreciate the trust that they reposed in me and the liberties they granted me in the use of their invaluable source material relating to Texas history.
I also thank Mrs. Carl Swanson of the Austin Public Library for the use of the Frank Brown papers and for trusting me with other valuable Texas books.
I received constant encouragement and valuable advice from Mr. J. Frank Dobie, who very graciously wrote the foreword to this book. Words cannot express the deep appreciation I feel for the time he gave to me.
Contents
IV. Brushy Creek and Plum Creek
V. Comanches, Caddoes, and Cherokees
VIII. The Texan Santa Fe Expedition
XIII. From the Sublime to the Ridiculous
Illustrations
John Holland Jenkins,
Frontispiece
Sam Highsmith in Santa Anna's uniform
Placido, Chief of the Tonkawas
Texas Rangers, Company D, in 1887
Home of A. Wiley Hill in Bastrop
Home of Campbell Taylor in Bastrop
Home of Col. Washington Jones in Bastrop
Home of John Holland Jenkins in Bastrop
John Twohig residence in San Antonio
RECOLLECTIONS
of Early Texas
R
EPUBLIC OF
T
EXAS.
From Stanley Siegel,
A Political History of the Texas Republic, 1836â1845,
1956
CHAPTER I
Austin's Little Colony
About the middle of October in the year 1828
1
my father left his old home in Alabama and came west, intending to grow up with the new countryâat least in a financial point of view.
I was then a mere child, but the scenes and incidents of those early times are very clear and distinct in my mind even now, although more than fifty years with many and great changes have worked upon my life since then, and I look around me in vain for those who accompanied us on our journey westward.
2
One by one they have tired upon the journey of life and
have gone to their long rest, until no signs of the old stirring times are left, except here and there an old man recounts to his children and to his children's children the many thrilling experiences of the old Texans.
Standing now and viewing the populous and thriving cities, together with the vast expanses of fields and pastures wrought by man's hand in this half-century, a description of our State as those early settlers found her seems as a “tale that must be told.”
The broad prairies covered with rich grass and wild rye and her dense forests teeming with game are indeed a thing of the dead past. Memory recalls her as a proud and happy queen, holding forth her rare treasures of grand and beautiful scenery, and bright prospects to those hardy children who came thus upon her virgin soil, facing so many hardships, deprivations, difficulties, and dangers.
Surrounding our small band of pioneers was one vast and magnificent solitude with no sight nor sound of human kind, except the wandering tribes of Indians in their raids against each other and against the slow but sure inroads of civilizationâwhich had driven them from their native hunting ground. I can recall many tales of horror concerning Indian cruelty and treachery upon the eastern portions of the Republic of Texas, and as we journeyed we found substantial proof of their truth. Near Captain James Ross's
3
on the Colorado River, thirty-five miles from Bastrop, which was
then called “Mina,”
4
we found human bones lying “grim and ghastly on the green grass.” Upon inquiry they were found to be the skeletons of Indians who had come to Captain Ross's, first under pretense of peace and friendliness, then growing more and more aggressive until they gradually revealed false and murderous designs, until at last for self-protection the whites collected and killed them.
While here, we heard of a murder by Indians of rather recent date. An old man by the name of Tumlinson*
5
was at
work, tanning or dressing hides some distance from the home. A party of Comanches, finding him there alone and helpless, killed and scalped him with the relentless cruelty which characterized this tribe. Coming on to Woods' Prairie,
6
we found similar bones, bleaching and seeming to point to coming strife, and possible death. Besides, the few families who had preceded us and were in a measure settled there, could give accounts of many deeds of bold and unwarrantable cruelty by the Indians, who were most evidently resenting the coming of white men upon their hunting grounds. All this would naturally fill the minds of the women and children with terror and alarm, which increased as we came farther westwardâfor we knew full well that the frontier settlers would be most exposed.
