The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957 Page: 355
616 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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James Bowie, Big Dealer 355
reveal something of Bowie's purported property; the Texas records
indicate that his heirs received nothing beyond the lands granted
his estate for services in war.
What relatives do over a dead man's body is not necessarily a
judgment on him, but may be pertinent. In donating lands to
veterans of the Revolution and their heirs, the Republic of Texas
in 1840 and the state of Texas in 186o donated land certificates
for a total of 4657 acres to the heirs of James Bowie. The patents
were scattered over several counties. In 1890o the descendants of
Rezin P. Bowie and of Martha Bowie Sterrett and her husband,
the legatees designated in James Bowie's will, sued the Houston
and Texas Central Railroad Company for trying to survey out of
existence 2097 acres of land patented in Hardeman County to the
heirs of James Bowie.
At this juncture Martha Bowie Burns showed up. Formerly of
Mississippi she currently lived in Dallas; she was the daughter of
John J. Bowie, the star in the Arkansas land frauds. She and eight
kinsmen not only joined in the suit against the railroad company
but claimed to be joint heirs of James Bowie. A district judge
ruled that the will had not been "properly probated." Then in
a judgment confirmed by the Court of Civil Appeals, Martha
Bowie Burns, et al., were made joint owners of the land, and the
railroad company was ousted. A total of sixteen Bowie heirs ap-
peared in this case.31
Only ten years later, in 1900, Martha Bowie Burns showed up
alone, except for the company of a jackleg lawyer, claiming to be
the sole survivor of all James Bowie's brothers and sisters and to
be the rightful heir to the section of Bowie land that had in 1840
been sold by order of the San Antonio probate court. It had been
patented in La Salle County in 186o and had been resold several
times. The go900 owner considered it cheaper to pay Martha Bowie
Burns-and the attorney-$16o to quiet his title than to fight the
case through court.32 The owner of a section of land away down
in the brush of La Salle County would not know of the existence
8aHeirs of James Bowie vs. H. & T. C. Railroad Co., Case No. 133, Texas Court
of Civil Appeals, Southwestern Reporter, XXI, 304-305.
82The complete history of the La Salle County section of Bowie land (Abstract
No. 80) was prepared for the writer by Richard Dobie, attorney at Cotulla, Texas.
A copy of this history has been placed in the Archives of the Eugene C. Barker
Texas History Center at the University of Texas.
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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/m1/384/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.