The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 8, July 1904 - April, 1905 Page: 104
xiii, 358 p. : ill., maps ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Texas Historical Association Quarterly.
their four or five children), went to Berry's to spend the afternoon,
leaving Wightman alone at the cabins. Returning late in the day,
they found Wightman as described-yet warm in his blood. Hur-
rying back to Berry's with the tidings, the entire party started for
the Colorado, where they safely arrived, and were joined a few days
later by Deaf Smith and Hinds.
Durbin's wounds had already rendered him very weak, but his
only alternative was to reach the same place on foot, or perish by
the way. The weather was warm and there was imminent danger
of gangrene making its appearance in his wound, to prevent which
it was kept poulticed with mud and oak juice. Leaning on Betsey
Oliver's arm he arrived at Burnham's on the afternoon of July
6th, three days and a half after starting for that place.1
IV. The Settlement on the Lavaca River and Its Removal to
Gonzales.
Had Gonzales been the only center at which the colonists were
gathering, its destruction would have been much more disastrous to
the colony as a whole. But meanwhile another nucleus had been
forming on the Lavaca River, and to it the attention of these fugi-
tives and all newcomers was now directed.
Although De Witt in the beginning probably had no idea of lo-
cating permanently at the mouth of the Lavaca River, one of his
first steps on his return from Saltillo after having obtained his
grant had been the establishment near the river's mouth of a kind
of port to receive immigrants. The colonists who had come by
water landed at this place, and, on account of ignorance of the
country, fear of the natives, and lack of a guide, many had located
here temporarily. As a result, a little settlement, known familiarly
for years afterward as the "Old Station," had sprung up here about
six miles above the head of tidewater,2 and it had grown faster
than the settlement at Gonzales.
In July, 1826, the very month in which Gonzales had been
broken up, De Witt returned from Missouri with three families.3
1 Brown, History of Texas, I 126-127.
2 De Witt to Austin, September 3, 1826. Austin Papers, class A, no. 22.
8 Kerr to Austin, July 30, 1826 (Austin Papers, class P, no. 1) ; politi-
cal chief to De Le6n, September 5, 1826 (Bexar Archives). It was in
1826, probably at this time, that De Witt's own family arrived (see special
grant, appendix V). John Henry Brown makes several mistakes as to
where De Witt was during 1826 and 1827. De Witt left Refugio for
Austin's colony on his way to the United States in May, 1825 (- to
Austin, May 12, 1825. Austin Papers, class D). In October he was at
San Felipe (James B. Austin to Mrs. Perry. Austin Papers, class D,
no. 85). On November 12 he was at Trinity, and he then expected to re-
turn to his colony the next April (De Witt to Kerr, in Brown, History of104
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Texas State Historical Association. The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 8, July 1904 - April, 1905, periodical, 1905; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101033/m1/106/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.