True stories of old Houston and Houstonians: historical and personal sketches / by S. O. Young. Page: 59

HOUSTON AND HOUSTONIANS 59
for him, however. Of course, he hid out as much as possible and
was not given to parading up and down Main Street in those
days, but while this modesty on his part saved him some
trouble, it did not save him all. the time and he had some remarkable
experiences.
On one occasion several hundred of the Irishmen went in a
body to his residence. They yelled and hooted and made lots
of noise, but finally contented themselves with tearing down
his fence and carrying away the pieces. Finally they got tired
of making demonstrations against him and, entering into the
spirit of the game, they backed him up and went to work. /
Mr. Bremond knew that when the road reached Hempstead
it would begin to earn money, so he turned all his great energy
towards constructing it to that point as rapidly as possible. It
took him five years of the hardest work any man ever had, but
he accomplished it in 1858, and at once entered on a period
of comparative ease. It was a wonderful performance and
not one man in 10,000 could have done it.
In two years more the road was completed to Milcan and, the
war coming on, it stuck there. In the meantime the Buffalo
Bayou and Brazos Railroad had built into Houston. It used to
come down San Jaclnto Street and had an engine house and
turntable at the foot of that street, right where the bridge
is now. It had a long wooden depot at Polk Avenue and San
Jacinto Street, 'where all the cars stopped, but the locomotive
would come down to San Jaginto to turn round and go into the
engine house.
A lot of New Yorkers backed Abe Gentry up and. he began
the construction of the road to New Orleans. This road had
money and credit too, and while it began construction later
than the Houston, and Texas Central and the Buffalo Bayou and
Brazos roads, when the war broke out it had as much line constructed
as
either of them, and had trains running to Orange.
I don't suppose there ever were such railroads as those leading
out of Houston became by the second and third years of the
war. Schedules and time-tables became farces. The talns
came and went as they could, and spent almost as much time off
the tracks as they did on them. I remember on one occasion
pulling out of Columbia on the Buffalo Bayou and Brkzos road,
at the same time that a company of cavalry left there for
Houston.
During the whole day we were never out of eight of that
company. Sometimes we would be. ahead and sometimes they
would lead. It was see-saw all day, for it took from early in
the morning until dark to make the trip of 50 miles. Finally,
just at dark, we reached Brays Bayou and lost sight of the corn-