Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas Page: 62 of 894

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

patriot who fell at Shiloh on the 6th of April, 1862,
was Secretary of War; Louis P. Cooke, who died
of cholera at Brownsville in 1849, and had been a
student at West Point, was Secretary of the Navy;
Dr. James H. Starr, of Nacogdoches, was Secretary
of the Treasury; John Rice Jones was PostmasterGeneral;
John P. Borden was Commissioner of the
Land Office; Thomas J. Rusk was Chief Justice of
the Supreme Court, the Associates being the District
Judges of the Republic; James Webb was
Attorney-General; Asa Brigham, Treasurer; E.
Lawrence Stickney, Stock Commissioner; Wm. G.
Cooke, Quartermaster-General; Hugh = McLeod,
Adjutant-General; Wm. L. Cazneau, CommissaryGeneral;
Jacob Snively, Paymaster-General;
Peter H. Bell (afterwards Governor), InspectorGeneral;
Edward Burleson was Colonel commanding
the regular army; Charles DeMorse was Fund
Commissioner, or something of that sort.
These men arrived in Austin as the government,
in September and October, 1839. Austin was the
outside settlement on the Colorado and so remained
until annexation was perfected on the 19th of
February, 1846. Through those six ,years it
remained exposed to the forays of all the hostile
Indians in upper Texas, from which many valuable
lives were lost and quite a number of women and
children carried into savage captivity. Just completing
my eighteenth year, I became a denizen of
Austin at its birth, setting type on one of the two
newspapers then started, and so remained for a
considerable time, in which it was my privilege to
make the personal acquaintance of each of the
gentlemen named as officials of the government,
and ever after to enjoy the friendship of nearly all
of them, the exceptions arising from early and permanent
separation by distance.
No new town, in this or any other country, ever
began its existence with a larger ratio of educated,
talented and honorable men, especially of young
men. A few of the latter now, in the fiftieth year
afterwards, still live there. Among them are James
H. Raymond, John M. Swisher, Joseph Lee, James
F. Johnson, James M. Swisher, Fenwick Smith,
Wm. S. Hotchkiss. Among those known or believed
to be living elsewhere, are Henry H. Collier,
in Canada; *Thomas Gales Forster, in Cincinnati;
Wm. B. Billingsly, in Bastrop; Archibald C. Hyde,
of Uvalde County (the first postmaster and one of
the first justices of the peace at Austin); John P.
Borden, of Colorado County; Gen. Geo. W. Morgan,
of Mount Vernon, Ohio (then Captain in the Texian
army); *Rev. Joseph A. Clark, living at Thorp's
Spring, and founder of Ad Ran College; Parry W.
Humphries, of Aransas Pass; John Adriance, in

Columbia; Alex. T. Gayle, Jackson County; and
ex-Governor Bell, living in North Carolina. Of
those who are dead I recall George J. Durham, who
died in 1869; James M. Ogden, Thos. L. Jones
and *Martin C. Wing, all of whom drew black beans
and were put to death in Mexico, March 25, 1843;
Capt. Ben. Johnson, killed by Mexicans near the
Nueces soon afterwards;
Dodson and
Black.
killed by Indians opposite Austin, in 1842; Henry
W. Raglan, Richard H. Hord, died in Kentucky;
George D. Biggar, Capt. Joseph Daniels, died in
San Francisco in 1885; M. H. Nicholson, *Joel
Miner, *Alexander Area, *William Clark, Ambrose
B. Pattison, died in Onondaga Hollow, N. Y.;
Maj. George W. Bonnell (editor, and killed
as one of the guard at Mier, December 26,
1842); *James Glasscock (a Mier prisoner);
*
McClelland, died in Tyler; *William Carleton,
Wm. H. Murrah, Alex. C. McFarlane, George
K. Teulon (editor), died in Calcutta; Maj. Samuel
Whiting (founder of the first paper in Austin),
died in New Jersey; Rev. Edward L. Fontaine,
died in Mississippi; John B. Ransom (poet),
accidentally killed in 1841; John W. Lann, died a
Santa Fe prisoner; Thos. Ward and Col. Thomas
Wm. Ward, Dr. Richard F. Brenham (killed in
the rescue of the Mier prisoners at Salado, Mexico,
February -1843); Horace L. Upshur, M. H.
Beatty, M. P. Woodhouse, Wm. H. H. Johnson,
James W. Smith (first Judge of Travis County),
killed by Indians in sight of Austin, in 1843;
Harvey Smith died in Bell County; Thomas W.
Smith (their father), killed by Indians near
Austin in 1841; Francis P. Morris, died a distinguished
Methodist preacher in Missouri; *W.
D. Mims, Dr. Moses Johnson (first Mayor of
Austin), died in Lavaca; Charles Schoolfield, killed
by Indians; Henry J. Jewett, Judge Luckett,
Alfred W. Luckett, Wm. W. Thompson, died in
Arizona; Wayne Barton (the first sheriff), killed
in Washington County in 1844; Capt. James G.
Swisher, 'George W. Noble, died in Mobile; Musgrove
Evans, Charles Mason (respectively first and
second Auditors), James Newcomb, L. Vancleve,
Capt. Mark B. Lewis, killed in 1843; Jesse C.
Tannehill, Jacob M. Harrell, Wm. Hornsby, Nathaniel
Townsend, Samuel Browning, Capt. Stephen
Crosby, Abner H. Cook, Alfred D. Coombs, Neri
Chamberlain, Joseph Cecil (both arms shot off),
Massillon Farley, John Green, Joseph Harrell,
Anderson Harrell, Mrs. Angelina Eberly, died in
Kentucky; Mrs. Eliza B. Logan, Mrs. Anna C.
* All those marked thus *, including myself, were
printers.