Recollections of Early Texas (33 page)

E
LIJAH
I
NGRUM
was in Texas as early as 1829, when he served in Captain Abner Kuykendall's company during the pursuit of some Indian robbers. He had a league and labor of land in Williamson County and received a bounty warrant for one year's ranger service. Burlage and Hollingsworth,
Abstract of Land Claims;
for Ingrum's Indian encounters see Brown,
Indian Wars,
88–91; DeShields,
Border Wars,
48–49; Smithwick,
Evolution of a State,
227–228.

W
ILLIAM
A. J. J
ENKINS
was born in Marengo County, Alabama, May 16, 1828. He served in Highsmith's company in 1847 under Colonel Jack Hays, but as his service was confined to the frontier section of the state he did not participate in the Mexican War. He was, however, in many battles with Indians. He served as a teamster in the Confederate Army. After the war he farmed in Bastrop, Caldwell, and Frio counties and in 1889 retired and moved to Smithville, Texas. Jenkins married Evaline Faith on September 6, 1849, and they had eight children. Lewis Publishing Company,
History of Texas,
XII, 726–727.

W
ILLIAM
E
DWARD
J
ENKINS,
the oldest son of John and Mary Jane Jenkins, was born in 1847. He served as sheriff of Bastrop County from 1876 to 1884, the period when the sheriff was the most important man in the county, and when gunfights were common. With his brothers Holland and Joe Jenkins as deputies, he earned a respect somewhat like that accorded Pat Garrett of New Mexico. Resigning as sheriff, he was immediately elected to the office of County Clerk, which he held for sixteen years. He married Martha Aldridge on December 27, 1888.

J
AMES
L. J
OBE
came to Texas in the early 1830's, settling on a 320-acre farm in Bastrop County. He and his brother were in Captain James Gillespie's company in 1842 when the Texans met at San Antonio to repel Vasquez's invasion. He died early in 1848, leaving an estate consisting of fifty-four head of cattle, six hogs, his land, and a chest of carpenter's tools. Sarah Ann Jobe, his wife, married a man named Jackson within a year of
Jobe's death. Brown, “Annals of Travis County,” IX, 12–13; Burlage and Hollingsworth,
Abstract of Land Claims;
Probate Records, Bastrop County, File J-1.

W
ILLIAM
L
ENTZ
and his wife Sarah lived in Missouri prior to their emigration to Texas. While in Missouri they had three children, Henry C., born 1820, Eunice, born 1823, and Mary J., born 1827. In Texas they had Ann E., born 1833, Amanda, born 1835, and Thomas H., born 1837. In the autumn of 1842, while Henry C. Lentz had gone out to look for some oxen, William was surprised and killed by Indians. His wife survived him at least eight years. Brown, “Annals of Travis County,” IX, 24; Korges, “Bastrop County, Texas: Historical and Educational Development” (Master's Thesis, University of Texas, 1933), I, 73;
U.S. Census,
1850, Bastrop County, 189.

J
OHN
L. L
YNCH
lived in Bastrop County in 1838, where he was paid a debt of $187.75 on October 15, 1838, by L. C. Cunningham. He was in the battle with Vicente Cordova on March 29, 1839, and in July of that year was a proprietor of the town of Montopolis, now a part of Austin. He was killed while leading a charge in the battle with Young Bowles and the Egg on December 25, 1839. Brown,
Indian Wars,
68; L. C. Cunningham Papers (Archives Collection, University of Texas Library); Hardy, “A History of Travis County, 1832–1865” (Master's Thesis, University of Texas, 1938), 43; Ray,
Austin Colony Pioneers,
307–308; Sowell,
Early Settlers,
12–13;
Telegraph and Texas Register
(Houston), April 7, 1839; Wilbarger,
Indian Depredations in Texas,
173.

W
ARREN
L
YONS
was born in Ohio in 1826. He was captured by the Indians during the summer of 1837. Eleven years later, in 1848, he returned. His hair had been cut short on one side—punishment and disgrace, he said, because he had run in a fight between the Indians and some Mexicans. He resumed civilized life, married Lucy Boatwright, and raised a family. He died in Johnson County on August 11, 1870. DeShields,
Border Wars,
228–231; Captain D. W. Roberts, “The Restoration of Warren Lyons,”
Frontier Times,
IV, 24;
U.S. Census,
1850, Fayette County, 85.

H
UGH
K
ING
M
C
D
ONALD,
who lived on a 500-acre farm at Hills Prairie, was born on February 8, 1816, in North Carolina. At the age of five he moved with his father, John McDonald, and family to Maury and Giles counties in Tennessee.

In 1851 McDonald moved to Texas and ran a ferry and a saw mill at Bastrop until 1861. During the war he bought cattle and supplies for the Confederate Army. During the Reconstruction period he was forced to sell first his ferry and then his saw mill. In 1868 he moved to his land at Hills Prairie, where he lived with his wife, Elizabeth (Gill) McDonald, and their seven children. His wife died in 1881 and his children went their separate ways, leaving the old man alone on his land until his death in the 1890's. Lewis Publishing Company,
History of Texas
(1893), XII, 766–767;
U.S. Census,
1860, Bastrop County, 508.

W
ILLIAM
H
ARRISON
M
AGILL
(often spelled McGill) was born in Madison County, Kentucky, on January 3, 1813, and came to Texas in 1834. On September 16, 1834, with his partner William Redmond, he received one-half league of land located in Wharton and Goliad counties. He joined Jesse Billingsley's Mina Volunteers and was elected second sergeant, the position he held at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836. In 1837 Magill was administrator of the estate of his friend Conrad Rohrer, who had been killed by Indians. He married Rebecca Pensana in Bastrop County on May 27, 1838. He served on a jury at Bastrop in August, 1838, was in the battle with Cordova on March 29, 1839, and participated in the Battle of Plum Creek under Burleson on August 12, 1840.

Magill moved to Burnet County in the early 1850's. He was married a second time on December 21, 1854, to Elizabeth Alice Hedrick while visiting in Kentucky. His first wife had evidently just passed away, for he had seventeen children by her between May 27, 1838, and December 21, 1854. In November of 1855 Magill was on a committee giving a Know-Nothing Party Ball in Travis County. Other committee members were John S. Ford, Edward Burleson, Jr., and Dr. James W. Robertson. His 13-year-old son Billy killed an Indian in an affray at Burnet in 1859. Magill commanded a company of Home Guards from Burnet County in the Confederate Army. He died in 1878 at
the age of sixty-five. Brown,
Indian Wars,
62–65; Hardy, “A History of Travis County, 1832–1865” (Master's Thesis, University of Texas, 1938), Appendix C, 235; Kemp, San Jacinto Roll; Police Court Records, Bastrop County, A, 31; Probate Records, Bastrop County, File R-1; Register of Spanish Archives; Smithwick,
Evolution of a State,
313, 329.

B
ARTHOLOMEW
M
ANLOVE
was born in Delaware about 1776. In 1832 he came to Texas from Arabella, Kentucky. Later his wife, Aberilla, a native of Maryland, and their children joined him and they settled on their league near the mouth of Cedar Creek. In May, 1835, he was a member of the Committee of Safety and Correspondence at Mina, the first step toward organized resistance against Mexico. The committee consisted of Manlove, D. C. Barrett, John G. McGehee, Edward Burleson, and Samuel Wolfenbarger. Manlove was elected a delegate to the Consultation of 1835. He went to Columbia, where the session was supposed to have been held, but the meeting place was changed to San Felipe. He returned home without attending any of the meetings, disgusted at having been made to travel all the way to Columbia in vain.

In October of 1837 he was serving as first Mayor of Bastrop, though there were only a few families there. The town had been sacked and burned by Mexicans during the Texas Revolution and raided several times by Comanche Indians during the Runaway Scrape. Most of the settlers did not return to the settlement until 1838. In November he bought a lot in Bastrop from the estate of Richard (Big Dick) Andrews, who was killed in the Battle of Concepción on October 28, 1835. Manlove opened a hotel in the town and was elected mayor again in 1838, 1842, and 1845. In the census of 1850 he was listed as a farmer with a 200-acre farm valued at $2,407. He was still living in 1858.

Manlove prided himself on his horses, among which were the best work horses and some of the fastest horses in Austin's Colony. Once two favorites were stolen by Comanches who, being hotly pursued, placed one warrior in the rearguard position on Manlove's biggest horse, thinking it to be the fastest. Burleson got Chief Placido, who lived with his Tonkawa tribe on Burleson's farm, to send several of his men to recapture the
horses. They soon overtook, killed, and scalped the rear Indian, who instead of being on Manlove's fastest horse, was riding his best, but slowest, work horse. The Tonkawas returned home and held a scalp dance over him. They placed the flesh from the Comanche's body in a large pot with corn and potatoes. Then they cooked their “stew” and every member of the tribe came around the pot and ate part of the meat of the dead Comanche. Afterward the men formed a circle and danced around the pot. A squaw would then present one of them with an arm or leg of their foe, which would be snatched and shaken in their teeth as a dog shakes a bone. This was repeated until the warriors were forced to desist from sheer exhaustion. This ceremony was witnessed and later recorded by Noah Smithwick. Placido's son later recovered Manlove's other horses.

Another tale is told about this enormous work horse. It was stolen again one evening by Indians, and Manlove ran to the door just as the savage rode off. He became so indignant and excited that he promised his daughter Dolly to a young suitor if he could get back the horse. The man, who had been trying for some time to gain Manlove's consent to marry Dolly, took out after the Indian, rode all night, and finally killed the Indian and recaptured the horse. He returned it to Manlove and was given Dolly's hand in marriage. What Dolly had to say about being traded for a horse is not known. Jesse Billingsley Papers (Archives Collection, University of Texas Library);
Biographical Directory of Texas Conventions and Congresses,
134; Brown,
History of Texas,
I, 296; Burlage and Hollingsworth,
Abstract of Land Claims,
38; Grace Fitzwilliam, “Early Election Held in Bastrop in 1831,”
In the Shadow of the Lost Pines,
42; Korges, “Bastrop County, Texas: Historical and Educational Development” (Master's Thesis, University of Texas, 1933), I, 74; Perkins, “The Local History Approach . . . Bastrop, Texas” (Master's Thesis, University of Texas, 1954), 53; Ray,
Austin Colony Pioneers,
349; Smithwick,
Evolution of a State,
245–246; Sowell,
Early Settlers,
54, 311–312;
Telegraph and Texas Register
(Houston), October 31, 1835;
U.S. Census,
1850, Bastrop County, 170; Wilbarger,
Indian Depredations in Texas,
231.

J
AMES
M
ANOR
was born in North Carolina in 1805. He and
his brother Joseph settled at Webber's Prairie, where they opened a saloon, or what was then termed a “grocery.” Once a man referred to it as “Hell's Half Acre,” and the “Half Acre” part stuck. It became famous during ante-bellum days. The town of Manor, ten miles east of Austin, is named for him. Brown, “Annals of Travis County,” XI, 9–10; Hardy, “A History of Travis County, 1832–1865,” (Master's Thesis, University of Texas, 1938), 88, 143–144;
U.S. Census,
1850, Travis County, 21.

A
LSEY
S. M
ILLER
was from Gonzales. An experienced Indian fighter, he served in many campaigns against the savages and was a participant in the Battle of Plum Creek. When news of Woll's invasion reached him he set out to join his old comrade-in-arms, Ben McCulloch. He first joined Jesse Billingsley's company, but when Billingsley decided it was useless to attempt to reach the Texas forces encamped on Salado Creek, Miller switched over to Dawson's company. He was immediately sent forward as a scout to locate Colonel Caldwell. Returning, he was attacked by three Mexican skirmishers, killed one of them, and made his report to Dawson, who determined to fight. Brown,
History of Texas,
II, 180, 212, 226–228; Sowell,
Early Settlers,
25, 313, 414; Weyand and Wade,
An Early History of Fayette County,
157–159.

J
OHN
H
ENRY
M
OORE
was born in Rome, Tennessee, on August 13, 1800. He ran away to Texas in 1818 but was caught and returned home by his father. In 1821 he returned to Texas and settled on the upper Colorado River. He formed a partnership with Thomas Gray as one of Austin's Old Three Hundred. They received title to a league in Brazoria County and a labor in Colorado County on August 16, 1824. About 1827 he married Eliza Cummins and in 1828 he either built or bought from James J. Ross the twin blockhouse which became known as Moore's Fort. It was located on the site of the present city of La Grange, which Moore laid out, named, and received title to on May 17, 1831.

Moore built a home and plantation eight miles north of La Grange in 1838, where he raised his family, and where he died on December 2, 1880. For details see
Handbook of Texas,
II,
229–230; also see Brown,
Indian Wars,
83–84; Burlage and Hollingsworth,
Abstract of Land Claims,
638;
Telegraph and Texas Register
(Houston), August 17, 1842;
Texas Sentinel
(Austin), November 14, 1840; Weyand and Wade,
An Early History of Fayette County
(1936).