The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 54, July 1950 - April, 1951 Page: 325
544 p. : ill., ports., maps. (some col.) ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Notes and Documents
By early summer of 1831 Lapham was in San Felipe, teaching
school, surveying, and living with the Thomas H. Borden family,
"a very clever family" who had treated him "with much kindness
so far."2 The association with the Bordens, especially with Thom-
as H., was to prove most agreeable, and young Lapham in Texas
never wandered from his father's advice to remain with the
family so long as it should "be a conveniency to them to have
you stay with them," even when "trifling considerations" might
tempt the twenty-three-year-old youth to seek his fortunes else-
where.
And there were "considerations." Lapham did not like most
of the San Felipe residents-"The society ... is such as to pre-
clude all satisfaction; drinking, gambling, swearing &c fighting."
When he wrote his father that he did not like the fictional
adherence to Catholicism which many colonists pretended,3 Amos
Lapham advised patience, reminding Moses that even in Ohio
he might find Protestant religious practice somewhat distasteful:
The Methodist have just held a roaring Campmeeting, made about
200 converts, killed a dozen dogs, fined an old woman for selling
liquor and driven her a great many miles from their holy ground.
If you have any conduct among the Catholics that is more ridiculous
than we have among the Methodists pray let us hear a description
of it the first opportunity.'
Lapham helped Thomas Borden with surveys until the middle
of 1832, when he returned to Ohio to remain until 1835. During
his three years' absence he never entirely forsook Texas, keeping
in touch through correspondence and resolving almost monthly
to return soon. The letters which Borden wrote his Ohio friend
from time to time are themselves revelatory. For example, in
February, 1833, Borden reported that "times in Texas is better
than I ever saw them and a greater stur of imigration than ever.
... Land has risen 50 per cent since you left."" In September,
1833, he wrote that "cotton is worth 20 cents a pound a cotton
2Moses Lapham to Amos Lapham, July 13, 1831. That Lapham was a good
schoolteacher may be doubted, as he talked so rapidly that most persons found
him difficult to understand. His father hoped that the Texas sojourn would at
least improve his speech by making him more likely to drawl.
slbid.
'Amos Lapham to Moses Lapham, September 8, 1831.
5T. H. Borden to Moses Lapham, February 1, 1833.325
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 54, July 1950 - April, 1951, periodical, 1951; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101133/m1/437/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.