The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957 Page: 347
616 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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James Bowie, Big Dealer
the Indians, down into Mexico, across the settled parts of Texas,
back into Louisiana, up into Mississippi. He and Ursula lived
with her parents in the Veramendi house, later called "palace."
Here, as witnesses in a lawsuit over the league of land on the
Navidad River testified a third of a century later, 7 Bowie was
"treated as a son and furnished with money and supplies without
limit," while, "without regular occupation," he hunted for "mines
and mountains of gold or silver."8 When he made trips east, he
lived "like a man who had plenty of money. It was furnished by
Governor Veramendi."
He was on an extended trip east when, between September 5
and 8, 1833, his wife, their two infants, her father and her mother
all died from cholera, at Monclova, where the Veramendis had
a summer home. Bowie was not aware of the catastrophe when he
executed his will at Natchez, on October 21 following.19 In it he
designated as his sole heirs Rezin P. Bowie and their sister Martha
Bowie Sterrett and her husband; his wife, he explained, had al-
ready been provided for. He stipulated that $4,000 be restored to
a friend who had advanced him that amount of money to invest
in lands and $4,000 more to another friend who had secured a
loan to him for that amount. He must have believed or hoped-
with him somewhat synonymous-that his land deals would pay
off, for he stipulated that a niece and nephew be educated out of
17For details on how Bowie lived with the Veramendis in San Antonio see testi-
mony in the case of M. A. Veramendi, et al., vs. W. J. Hutchins. The full original
record of the case tried in Colorado County is in the vaults of the Supreme Court
of Texas, No. M-7968. Digests are in Cases Argued and Decided in the Supreme
Court of the State of Texas, XLVIII, 531-554, and LVI, 414-422.
18"Many years" before 1900, A. J. Sowell discovered, between the Dry Frio and
the Frio rivers, a shaft and near it a rough circle of rocks that looked to have
been made for fortification. He connected the shaft and rocks with an account
that his father heard Bowie give in Gonzales about 1831. Bowie said that "while
prospecting for gold and silver in the mountains west of San Antonio he sunk a
shaft where there were indications of silver. He had about thirty men with him,
and, anticipating attacks from Indians, they fortified their camp by piling up
large rocks," about a hundred yards from a spring of water. A. J. Sowell, Early
Settlers and Indian Fighters of Southwest Texas (Austin, 1900), 405-408.
19Bowie's attested will, which was recorded in Harris County, on August 11,
1852, though it had been acknowledged at Houston in 1839, was introduced in
the case of Heirs of James Bowie vs. H. & T. C. Railroad Co., et al. A full report
of the case, including a certified copy of the will, as tried in Travis County, Texas
(1890o), before it went to a higher court, is in the vault records of the Court of
Civil Appeals in the capitol at Austin. For a digest see Case No. 133, Texas Court
of Civil Appeals, Southwestern Reporter, XXI, 304-305.347
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957, periodical, 1957; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101163/m1/376/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.