The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 72, July 1968 - April, 1969 Page: 523

Book Revzews

system employed will bother some people-footnotes are marked with
asterisks and references to documents are numbered and keyed to the
bibliography.
All parish records prior to 1900 were destroyed in a rectory fire;
thus the compilers worked under a considerable handicap. Persons
wishing information about the memorials in Christ Church, the names
of leaders in the parish, and incidental insights into the personalities
of the rectors of the parish will find this a useful tool.
Church Historical Society, Austin JOHN M. KINNEY
On This Bluff: Centennial History, 1867-1967: First Presbyterian
Church, Corpus Christi, Texas. By Margaret Lasater Clark. Cor-
pus Christi (Renfrow and Company, Inc.), 1967. Pp. 190. Illus-
trations by Jerry Seagle, appendix, bibliography, index. $6.50.
In 1859 eleven Texans organized a Presbyterian Church in Corpus
Christi. The dissension and division occasioned by the Civil War gave
short life to their plans, for when the war ended so had the congre-
gation. In 1867, however, the First Presbyterian Church became a
reality. The members erected a frame building on the bluff over-
looking the city and the half-moon bay, despite a yellow-fever epidemic
that took toll of the few members and caused much of the "dressed
lumber" at the church site to be hammered into coffins for burial of
the dead.
This handsome volume is a careful, often detailed, account of the
beginning, the struggles, the growth and activities of this Church in
which both author and illustrator have deep family roots and ties.
The history has three divisions: The Church on the Frontier (1867-
1901); The Church and the City (1901-1929); The Church with a
Mission (1929-1967). Each section is concluded with photographs of
individuals and events, and the first two include early maps. Footnotes
to indicate the source of the many quotations are missing, although a
bibliography lists some excellent primary sources. An appendix gives
chronologically the succession of ministers, officers, and communicants,
and an index follows, giving all the names that occur in the text.
The names of many people are found whose lives intertwine with
the history of Corpus Christi: J. B. Mitchell, Eli T. Merriman, Perry
Doddridge, G. R. Scott, Felix A. Blucher, D. M. Burney, J. E. Garrett,
Edwin Flato, Ennis Joslin; and with the history of Texas: Richard T.

423