In 1900, the recollections of Dilue Rose Harris were published in the Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association. (Vol. IV, Southwestern Historical Quarterly) Dilue's reminiscences were combined with journal accounts kept by her father, Dr. Pleasant W. Rose. The journal dates, 1833 – 1837, offer readers an intense, vivid pictorial of the "Runaway Scrape," the scramble by Texas colonists to the Louisiana border and protection in the United States. Photo of the Runaway Scrape Oak, where Sam Houston camped during the first night of the Texian retreat from Gonzales.
The Rose family farm was located on the east bank of the Brazos River, (Fort Bend County), west of present day Houston. The Roses' were friends of Colonel William B. Travis and after hearing of the deaths of he and his men at the Alamo began making plans to flee Santa Anna's approaching Santanistas. Mrs. Rose's brother, James Wells, made preparation to join Houston's army and Dilue recounts how her mother sewed James two striped hickory shirts, while she (Dilue) melted lead in a pot to be used in the molding of bullets for her uncle. In Mid- March, the Rose family left home hauling their possessions on a sled pulled by a yoke of oxen. Upon reaching the San Jacinto River crossing, they became part of an exodus of five-thousand people. The ferry crossing took three days.
Dilue recalled how her mother reminded the children that a hundred-mile walk with thousands of people was not frightening compared to the family's other travails in Texas, shipwrecked on the coast, attacked by wolves, and a most unsettling visit to their farm by an escaped slave, known locally as The Wild Man of the Navidad. Dilue's account of the Trinity River crossing provides a powerful chronicle of the hardships placed on the fleeing farmers. A rising Trinity ran over its banks stranding the family for several hours. During their crossing, one of Dilue's young sisters, sick when their journey began, went into to convulsions and died later. The Roses' buried the child in Liberty, Texas.
On April 22, while proceeding to the Sabine, a courier named McDermot, arrived with a dispatch from Gen. Houston telling the colonists that Santa Anna's army had been defeated at San Jacinto and it was safe to return to their homes. McDermot, an actor, stayed in the Rose family camp that night relating the Battle of San Jacinto in great theatrical fashion . . . but that . . . well that's a whole 'nuther story . . .
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Copyright 2009 Mike Kearby
