Copyright USGenNet Inc., 2013, All Rights Reserved U.S. Data Repository Please read U.S. Data Repository Copyright Statement on this page: Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott for the US Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/ ========================================================================= U.S. Data Repository NOTICE: These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or presentation by any other organization. Non-commercial organizations desiring to use this material must obtain the consent of the transcriber prior to use. Individuals desiring to use this material in their own research may do so. ========================================================================= Formatted by U.S. Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott All of the above information must remain when copied or downloaded. =========================================================================== SOURCE: East Texas, its history and it makers New York, Lewis Historical Pub. Co., 1940 [Page 822] BOWIE COUNTY --------------- The first American settlers came into this section as early as 1814, and a number of families were established on both sides of Red River when the Territory of Arkansas was organized in 1819, and the boundary treaty between Spain and the United States was signed. These settlers believed themselves to be under the American flag, and accepted the authority of Arkansas when that Territory set up a county government in this section. Some settlers on the north side of the river were ordered to move when the government set apart the country for the Indians. Some of them crossed to the south side, and others sent word back to Washington that they had built homes and planted crops, and did not intend to either give up their homes or be cut off into the Indian country. The sur- veyors were thereupon ordered to lay off the territory line farther west, taking the sturdy pioneers north of the river into Arkansas. After 1826 settlement south of the river was authorized under the Milam and Wavell colonization contracts. COLLIN McKINNEY came here from Kentucky in 1824, and nearly a dozen years later entertained the redoubtable DAVY CROCKETT before he marched away to glory at the Alamo. BEN MILAM, who had aided Mexico in attain- ing independence from Spain, received a colony grant in this region in 1826, and actually began developments, only to learn that he was trying to establish a colony of Mexico partly within the territory of the United States. MILAM located at Lost Prairie (now in Miller County, Arkansas) and found a sweetheart in what is now Bowie County, but while he was away in England looking after the business affairs of his pro- posed colony, and buying rich presents for his affianced, she married another man. All the settlements along Red River were nominally under the jurisdiction of Nacogdoches, but if ever a Mexican alcalde or jefe politico showed his credentials in this remote precinct, we have no record of it. The confusion incident to the mistaken location of the Milam and Wavell colony left the whole region open to "squatter sovereignty" for many years. Some of the settlers paid taxes and sued each other in Arkansas courts, but they sent representatives to the Texas conventions in 1835-36. It was not until the Republic of Texas had been in existence several years that the boundary line was marked out and those near the border ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [823] knew whether they were in Texas or the United States. The entire region was known as the Red River district before the Revolution, and became Red River County under the constitution. In 1840 the area comprising Bowie County was detached from Red River County and formally came into existence as a legal entity in 1841. The original Bowie County included the present Counties of Cass, Marion, Titus, Franklin and Morris; Cass and Titus taking most of its territory in 1846. Bowie County was in the path of two routes of migration, one by way of Red River, the other southwestward across Arkansas, crossing Red River at Pecan Point, or Fulton, by the land route from Little Rock. That many remained is shown by the fact that the population increased forty-three percent between 1850 and 1860. In 1856 there were post- offices at Boston, the county seat, Mill Creek and Myrtle Springs. Dalby Springs was settled in 1839, but did not acquire a postoffice for some time. Up to the time of the Confederate War, Bowie County was a slave- holding community and about half of the total population was made up of slaves. General economic conditions were geared to that institution, and the entire industrial system was overturned by emancipation, followed by a marked decline in population and wealth. Adverse condi- tions continued until the coming of the railroads in the 70's, which was the principal factor in rehabilitation. Construction work on the Memphis, El Paso and Pacific had started three years before the war, near Texarkana. It was not until about 1870 when nearly fifty miles of this road was in operation, west of Tex- arkana. When this line became part of the Texas and Pacific, a branch known as the Trans-continental Division was constructed between Tex- arkana and Marshall in 1875. In 1883 Texarkana also received railroad facilities from the Texas and St. Louis. Other railways followed, and today Bowie County is served by the main lines and branches of the Texas & Pacific, Cotton Belt and Kansas City Southern, together with various bus lines that maintain regular schedules, and trucking companies. Texarkana, which is located in both Texas and Arkansas, was founded in 1873, the name recognizing the two states in which it lies, and Louisiana a few miles away. When complications arose in governing the town because part of it was in one ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [824] state and part of it in another state, the citizens organized a law and order league and elected temporary officers. The City of Texarkana, Texas, was given a charter in June, 1874. The city began to grow in the early 80's, when new industries came in. Up to this time, the chief resources of the city had been the rail- roads, a cotton compress and the stock yards. When natural gas became available for commercial use, further impetus was given to general in- dustrialization. Texarkana in 1938 had 43 manufacturing establishments and produced goods annually valued at about four million dollars. It had 18 wholesale houses and the radius of its retail trading area has been estimated by various market research agencies to be about 62 miles. Among the peculiar conditions that prevail, Texarkana is the county seat for Miller County, on the Arkansas side, but it is not the county seat of Bowie County. The United States postoffice sits astride the State line, which also runs through the railroad station building. On the Texas side is a handsome monument to JAMES BOWIE, with the following inscription: "Hero of the Alamo. 'They never fail who die in a Just Cause.' Love of adventure brought the young South Carolinian to Texas with JAMES LONG in 1819. Romance made of him a Mexican citizen and won for him in San Antonio a Spanish bride, URSULA VERAMENDI. Dreams of fabulous wealth lured BOWIE to the San Saba Region, where he met an unexpected Indian attack with unflinching courage. Against the political and military tyrant who threatened the freedom of Texas, his arm was repeatedly raised until he fell, among the last defenders of the Alamo, March 6, 1836." After the railroads came the lumber industry throve, there being more than two billion board feet of virgin oak and shortleaf pine in the county, and this contributed to the rehabilitation of the county in an economic sense while agriculture was slowly recovering from the upset of its established pattern. From an actual decline in population between 1860 and 1870 the county reversed its trend and doubled between 1880 and 1890. At the 1900 census it had 26,676, and in 1930, 48,563, with the trend still upward. There are more than five thousand farms in the county, with somewhere around 150,000 acres in cultivation. Outside of the ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [825] river valley, where the plantation type survives, the farm lands are largely sandy and sandy loams, well adapted to truck and fruit crops, most of which is grown for nearby markets. There are sweet potato curing houses, however, which fit that crop for distant markets and extend the selling season until well along toward spring. The county occupies the dividing ridge between the Sulphur and Red Rivers, and the altitude ranges between about 250 to perhaps 450 feet; though no abrupt slopes occur, De Kalb lies at 405 feet and Texarkana at 295. The rainfall is well distributed throughout the year, and averages 39-40 inches annually, and the growing season (between killing frosts) is about 240 days. Texarkana (on the Texas side of the line) has some 18,000 population and a considerable industrial development, employing around 3,000 people and ranking twenty-fourth (1935 data) in the State in the total pay- rolls. Clay, chemical, machine shops, lumber and woodworking industries furnish most of the employment. The original railroad center was laid out well within Texas, but the Cairo & Fulton Railroad, which was expected to furnish through con- nections to the east, failed to secure a charter in Texas. The Texas & Pacific therefore built from its Curve City terminus to the State line and a new townsite was laid out, the lot sale beginning in December, 1873. Soon afterward lots were also platted and offered for sale on the Arkansas side, and lacking legally constituted authorities, the people organized a law and order league which was as effective on one side of the line as the other. The Texas city was chartered in June, 1874, and grew rapidly during the next decade, when it became the second great railroad gateway to and from Texas. New Boston became the business center after the railroad passed Bos- ton by, but the latter remains the county seat. De Kalb, with about the same population as New Boston (estimated 1,000 to 1,200) is the princi- pal town in the western part of the county, and Maud is the largest along the Cotton Belt in the southern part. Other towns and villages are Hooks, Redwater, Dalby Springs, Simms, Oak Grove, Corley, Bassett. The JAMES BOWIE consolidated high school on Highway 67 is one of the most modern and complete rural school plants in the State, in the open country. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [826] Historical Markers - Near New Boston are markers indicating the home sites of - RICHARD ELLIS - "A Virginian by birth and education; Jurist and Statesman of Alabama, 1813-1825; came to Texas, 1825; President of the Constitutional Convention, March, 1836, and Member of the Congress of the Republic of Texas; born February 14, 1781; died here December 20, 1846." HARDIN R. RUNNELS: 1820-1873 - "Governor of Texas, 1857-1859; the house was built in 1853; destroyed by fire in 1914. Here Governor RUNNELS died. He was buried nearby. His remains were later removed to the State Cemetery at Austin." On the Sulphur River, 4 miles south of Corley, is the site of - EPPERSON'S Ferry - "At this crossing, constructed by nature and used by Caddo Indians, early French and Spanish explorers, and travelers over Trammel's Trace, MARK EPPERSON before 1837 established a Ferry used until the construction of a wooden bridge antedating the modern struc- ture erected in 1924." STEPHENSON'S Ferry, 8 miles south of Bassett was - "established about 1838 by JOSEPH A. STEPHENSON on whose grant it was located and whose name it bore; remained in operation until about 1910." JAMES BOWIE - The man for whom Bowie County was named died heroically at the Alamo, fighting from a sick bed. So much tradition has been attached to his name, and so many versions of the "BOWIE knife" have passed current, that fact and fiction mingle in the public mind when the name of BOWIE is mentioned. Even the state of his nativity is not cer- tainly known, Thrall saying he was a Georgian, another assigning him to the Edgefield district, South Carolina, and still another claiming Elliott Springs, Tennessee, as his birthplace. All agree, however, that his parents settled in Louisiana while he was a youth, and here, in Catahoula Parish, he and his brothers, REZIN and JOHN, grew up and were educated. In that frontier environment, where resourcefulness and enterprise were the price of survival, and Spanish restrictions on trade between her subjects and their neighbors in the United States made contraband trade respectable, it is not sur- prising that the BOWIE brothers took it up. During Lafitte's regime on Galveston Island he took slaves as well as other loot from the ships he captured - ostensibly Spanish ships only. There was a ready market for slaves in Louisiana, and the BOWIES are said to have made a small for- tune (for that time) in buying Lafitte's negroes at $1 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [827] a pound and reselling them in the plantation country. Thus JAMES BOWIE became acquainted with Texas, and joined LONG'S expedition to free it from Spain. Though LONG failed and was murdered in Mexico City, BOWIE, as well as several others of his party, remained in or continued to visit Mexican territory afterwards, and some of them were there when the Anglo-American colonziation was begun. BOWIE became a naturalized citizen at Saltillo in 1828, and soon afterward married URSULA, the beautiful daughter of Vice-Governor VERA- MENDI, at San Antonio. He received a concession to install a mill, and to exploit the traditional San Saba silver mines. His fight with Indians in 1831, while seeking the famed mines, was one of the most trying ordeals in the history of border warfare, and can be read in Wilbarger, or other histories. His wife and infant fell victims to an epidemic, and BOWIE thereafter took little interest in affairs until the break between the Texas colonists and SANTA ANNA became imminent. He had a part in the Nacogdoches affair of 1832 against PIEDRAS, and was commissioned to take the prisoners to San Filipe, whence they were sent back to Mexico. In 1835 he joined the Texan army and was second in command at the Battle of Conception, afterwards being attached to the army at Goliad. HOUSTON sent an order for him to lead an expedition against Matamoros, but the order was not delivered and BOWIE returned to San Antonio, placing himself under the orders of Colonel TRAVIS. When the Mexican attacking army arrived on the scene, BOWIE was unable to rise from his bed, and, according to the story, asked that others lift his cot across the line to join TRAVIS in his determination to never surrender the fort. According to one biographer BOWIE was then about fifty-one years of age. Senora CANDELARIA, who claimed to have nursed him before and during the siege, lived in San Antonio until within the present century, and was said to be the last survivor of those within the walls of the Alamo when SANTA ANNA'S soldiers slaughtered its defenders to the last man. REZIN BOWIE always insisted that neither he nor JAMES ever fought a duel. The famous "sand bar" fight in which several men were killed is said to have resulted from an enemy shooting at JAMES BOWIE from ambush. The BOWIE knife was designed for hunting, not fighting, purposes, but on the one occasion referred to, it did its deadly work, and popular tradi- tion afterward romanticized it as a weapon rather than an implement. =========================================================================== If you've reached this file through a SEARCH, you can access the rest of our growing collection of FREE online historical/genealogical information by going to the following URL: http://www.us-data.org/ ===========================================================================