Mike Kearby's Texas: March 2009

Monday, March 30, 2009

Travis's Last Messenger

On Saturday evening March 5, 1836, James L. Allen volunteered to deliver Col. William B. Travis's final plea for relief to Col. James Fannin at Goliad. The twenty-one year-old courier arrived in Goliad on March 8, but was unable to obtain any assistance from Fannin. Allen then rode to Gonzales where on March 11, he learned that the Bexar garrison had fallen. Image - Messenger James Butler Bonham Arrives Back at the Alamo on March 3.

Alamo Legacy, author, Ron Jackson tells in his book of an interview with F.C. Proctor who claimed to have heard Allen's own account as a young boy. Proctor's account was later verified by Allen's daughter, Mary L. Cunningham.

" . . . Travis told Allen he would be the one to make the attempt to carry the message to Fannin because he had the fleetest mare. Shortly after nightfall, Allen grabbed the reins on the bridle of his horse and mounted bareback. A gate was opened and off he rode. Allen bent low and hugged the horse's neck, providing a lesser target as he dashed through the Mexican lines . . . "

After learning of the Alamo's fall, Allen realized he owed his life to his horse.

A month later, Allen served as a scout with Deaf Smith and helped burn bridges around San Jacinto dooming any thoughts of retreat by the Mexican army.

After San Jacinto, Allen rode with the Texas Rangers under Captains Ward and Bell.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Allen worked as a tax-assessor-collector for Calhoun County. Refusing to take an oath of allegiance to the Union, Allen was arrested and detained on Saluria Island where he escaped and fled to Port Lavaca . . . but that . . . well that's a whole nuther story.

Read more about James L Allen at the handbook of Texas online:

www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/AA/fal20.html

Wednesday, March 4, 2009

Dilue Rose Harris

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 . . .