Stirpes, Volume 34, Number 1, March 1994 Page: 46

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other ship, The Teutonia, called and picked
us up.
We children enjoyed our stay in
Coruna. It was a new, warm world to us.
Such bright sunny days, which were never
long enough for us to wander around over
the rocky coast. The high tides would fill the
rock basins with clear, salty water, which
made delightful wading pools. It was strange
to our English-trained ears to listen to the
children talking in their mother tongue.
A large number of passengers were
taken on there, all Spaniards, going to Havana.
There were very few English-speaking
children, and we had a great time trying to
manage Spanish. Sarah, Emma, and I started
talking to an English boy just a little older
than Sarah. He was part of the ship's crew,
the captain's boy. We told him we were going
to Texas to a big farm. He said he
wished he could go with us, so one day I
asked Father if Phillip (his name was William
Phillip Phillips) could go with us. Father
absentmindedly said, "All right, love."
The rest of the journey we were all
planning what we would do and how he
would get away. We thought, how wonderful
to at last have a brother. When we reached
Havana the Spanish passengers landed there
and we went on to New Orleans, which was
the end of our ocean traveling. Phillip was
hiding behind some bales of cotton and came
out when we were passing. Father had forgotten
all about my asking if Phillip could
come with us, and Mother had heard nothing
of it. Their surprise must have been great
when he was announced as our brother and
was going with us. Father said he could not
take him without his parent's consent. Phillip
said he was an orphan and did not know
where any of his family was living. He had
several brothers and two sisters; they were
all sea-faring people. Phillip said he could
not go back to the ship as he would be called
a deserter. Father and Mother held a short
conference and decided that one more could
not matter, so he came along with us.
We took a train from New Orleans
to Morgan City. The Southern Pacific Rail

road did not go farther west at that time.
From Morgan City, we went by boat around
to Buffalo Bayou, to Clinton. I do not remember
how we went from there to Houston.
From Houston, a narrow gauge road
took us to what we all pictured "a land
overflowing with milk and honey." But, we
reached there in the middle of the night,
eaten up by mosquitoes. We were herded
like cattle into a barracks-like place, a big
square building, crudely put together. The
partitions in the rooms only went part-way
up. We were crowded into two small rooms.
Across the railroad track was a huge cattle
pen. The night was made hideous with the
bellowing of the cattle, which had been
driven in and de-horned, ready for shipping
away.
The journey from Houston was long
and tedious, as stops had to be made along
the way to take on wood. All the men passengers
helped load and almost shoved the
little train along. We got our first sight of
lightening bugs at that time. As night came
on they appeared to the great astonishment of
the strangers.
Soon Father had his land located,
which was out on the baldest prairie one ever
saw, nothing so far as the eye could see but
the distant line of the far horizon. A desolate
one-room cabin was on the place. The windows,
very few of them, were full of holes
from the cowboys shooting at them as they
rode by. The nearest town was Eagle Lake
Mother and Father went there to get
a few needed things, a spring wagon and a
team of horses. Father and Phillip made
sawhorses for us to put planks on for our
beds. We made mattresses and filled them
from the dried grass on the prairie. Mother
partitioned off the room with sheets, so as to
have a little privacy. The wild hogs made
their nightly stopping place under the house
and would stretch their razor-like backs on
the beams. They left no end of fleas and
other vermin to make life a little more unbearable.
Father and Phillip hauled water for
our use from the Station, a distance of miles
I am sure. We did not stay there very long.

46

CTITP!I'C

MARCHDP 1004

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Texas State Genealogical Society. Stirpes, Volume 34, Number 1, March 1994, periodical, March 1994; San Antonio, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth39868/m1/48/ocr/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Genealogical Society.

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