The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 66, July 1962 - April, 1963 Page: 236

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

McLane does not agree with his father in some details of orthog-
raphy, as when he uses the spelling "Luckett" instead of "Lucket"
and "Gregg" instead of "Greg."
Most unfortunately, the biographical data provided for the hero
of the novel seems to be made of whole cloth. The novel says that
the hero was born in Scotland and came to North America at the
age of ten. His father was manager of the New Orleans branch
of a trading house of Glasgow and Liverpool and later a junior
partner in the firm. The hero joined the expedition at the age
of twenty-one. On the other hand, the United States Census sched-
ules for Bexar County, Texas, for the year 1870 show a William
McClain [sic] to have been born in Pennsylvania and to have
been eighty-three years of age, which would have made him ap-
proximately twenty-five in 181 2.
William McLane, one of the last survivors of the Magee-Gutier-
rez expedition, was born in Pennsylvania in 1787 or 1788.5 He
joined the expedition in the summer of i812 and returned to the
United States in the late spring of 1813. In 1815 he turned up in
Indiana, operating a general store in Orleans, Orange County,
where, in 1816, he married a Miss Fisk or Fish." In 1817, he was
appointed lieutenant-colonel in the 18th Regiment of Indiana
militia.' Ten years later, he moved to Bedford, Indiana, where he
was, for a while, president of the Bedford branch of the old In-
diana State Bank and was owner of a large dry goods business in
Louisville, Kentucky. He amassed a fortune of $150,000 and
moved to Texas in 1854.8
William had five children, among whom were: Hiram H.,
author of Irene Viesca; Ann, who married McLane's partner
Alexander H. Dunihue in 1834; and Emily, who married Robert
Kelly and provided a home for her father after the death of her
4U.S. Ninth Census, 187o, Returns of Schedule 1, Population, for Bexar County,
Texas (microfilm, Library, Texas Western College, El Paso, Texas).
5Ibid.
6History of Lawrence and Monroe Counties, Indiana (Indianapolis, 1914), 177;
Orange County, Indiana, Marriages 1816-1826 (MS., Indiana State Library, Indi-
anapolis, Indiana) .
7Dorothy Riker (ed.), Executive Proceedings of the State of Indiana, z8z6-z836
(Indianapolis, 1947; Indiana Historical Collections, XXIX).
8History of Lawrence and Monroe Counties, Indiana, 177.

236