The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 32, July 1928 - April, 1929 Page: 124

Southwestern Htistorical Quarterly

JOURNAL OF AMMON UNDERWOOD, 1834-1838"
CONTRIBUTED AND EDITED BY JAMES K. GREER
Marion 1st March 1836
In case of my death
the following pages are
to be forwarded with the
most Sacred care to my
Brother Lendol Underwood
Lowell or Dracutt Mass.
AMMON UNDERWOOD
JOURNAL
[1834]
On the 30th jan' 1834 I left my native abode and took my
departure for Texas. My youngest brother much to my gratifica-
tion offered to accompany me as far as Boston and to procure for
our conveyance a horse an[d] slay. Having proceded as far as Wo-
burn, [Mass.], the roads proving much worse than we expected
we concluded to stop for the night and the next morning left our
horse and slay and took the stage for the city whare we arrived
about 12 o'clock M.
*Ammon Underwood was born at Dracut, Massachusetts, February 13,
1810. He was the son of Asa and Mercy Durant Underwood. Asa was,
a farmer and believed in hard work but his son Ammon, one of eight
children was glad to go "adventuring." In 1834, at the age of twenty-
four, he took passage from Boston for Texas. He settled in Columbia
and for more than half a century witnessed the changes in the govern-
ment of his adopted state. He early engaged in the mercantile business
and prospered. But in the sixties his heavy investments in "King Cot-
ton" were so bound up in the fortunes of the Confederacy, that when the
cause was lost he was approximately one-half million dollars poorer.
This tremendous loss had not prevented this old merchant from render-
ing great service to Texas. (Moses Austin Bryan to A. Underwood,
Independence, July 19, 1877.) He was a member of the nineteenth Leg-
islature, representing Galveston and Brazoria Counties. He died be-
loved, respected, eldest citizen of Columbia, November 17, 1887. His
wife, two sons and two daughters, J. P. and J. C. Underwood, and Mrs.
Diggs and Mrs. Borden survived him. The original of this diary is
owned by Miss Laura Underwood, daughter of J. P. Underwood, Colum-
bia, Texas, but the Rosenberg Library, Galveston, Texas, possesses a
photostat copy, and has presented a photostat copy to the Library of
the University of Texas.

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