Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAboutLife in Brazos County 1840sGetting the New County Underway: Life in Brazos County in the 1840s by Bill Page 9/10/07 Good morning. Today I want to talk with you about the lives of the first settlers in Brazos County. European settlement in this area began in the 1820s, with the arrival of Stephen F. Austin's colonists. However, only a few families moved to what would eventually become Brazos County in the 1820s, and even as late as 1840 this region was only sparsely settled. Even so, the people who lived here became increasingly vocal in asking that a new county be created. All too often high waters in the Brazos or Navasota Rivers cut them off from the existing courts, post offices and merchants that lay on the other side of those rivers. Something had to be done. In January 1841, the Republic of Texas answered their petitions by creating Navasota County. Most of its land came from Washington County, with a small part being taken from Robertson County. The boundaries of the new county were the Brazos River, the Navasota River, and the Old San Antonio Road. Families living here 1841 included such familiar names as Carter, Curd, Evetts, Farquhar, Ferguson, Hanover, Henry, Jones, Millican, Mitchell, Payne, Reed, Seale and Wooten. Even before county residents had time to build a courthouse, they held the first meeting of the district court. In 1841, that court met for the first time west of Bryan, at the home of Joseph Ferguson on the Navasota River. Soon afterwards, a committee laid out the first county seat, named Boonville for Mordecai Boon. County residents had an old-fashioned log rolling to build the courthouse. In January of the following year Navasota County was renamed Brazos County. No one knows why they changed the name, but my own theory is that Navasota was just too hard to spell. Early Brazos County was sparsely populated, and most residents were ranchers, growing only enough crops for their own use. How rural was it? In 1847 Texas took a state census, which gives us a good snapshot of the county. In that year, 355 whites and 80 slaves lived in Brazos County, for a total population of 435. That was less than one person for every square mile in the county. In contrast, the county included about 300 horses, 4,000 hogs, and 5,000 cattle. That's 10 hogs and 11 cattle for each and every person. Many of those animals were driven to neighborhing counties and sold. Crops grown in 1847 included 40,000 bushels of corn, 300 bushels of oats, 3,250 bushels of sweet potatoes, 100 bushels of rye, and 245 bales of cotton. Most of the corn was being used to feed livestock. The reason so little cotton was grown was that it was just too expensive to transport it to market in Houston or Galveston. By 1848, local farmers had begun experimenting with raising wheat and Irish potatoes. That same year few sweet potatoes were grown because of a drought. By the end of the decade, the county's population was beginning to increase. The 1850 census showed a population of 614 souls, white and black, fora 41% increase since 1847. In 1841, there were only two towns in the county, Boonville and Millican, and neither of them had a post office. In fact, Boonville was located some twenty-five miles from the nearest post office. In November 1841, local residents sent a petition to the Congress of the Republic of Texas asking that a post office be established at Boonville. Within two months the Congress acted, and Boonville got its post office. The first postmasters at Boonville were Hiram Hanover, followed by William Boyles. In 1849 Arthur Edwards was appointed postmaster at Millican. The earliest religious activity recorded in Brazos County history took place during the Texas Revolution, in the summer of 1836. Area residents had just returned from the Runaway Scrape, when they had fled the Mexican Army. Local settlers decided to hold a big camp meeting. They built a large brush arbor near °Richtor Rocks" on the Brazos River south of Millican. The preaching went on for three weeks. By the end of the meeting, 35 converts awaited baptism. Following the custom of the times, the minister baptized these people in the Brazos River. The first three baptisms went as expected. The fourth convert was asixteen-year-old girl. The preacher dipped her into the water, and then she slipped out of his hands. He searched for her, and was soon joined by many of the onlookers. But their efforts were unsuccessful -they couldn't find her. Finally, the minister raised his hands and said, °The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Now fetch out another one." Not surprisingly, none of the remaining 31 converts were willing to be baptized that day. Circuit riders failed to meet the needs of county residents. Between 1841, when Brazos County was established, and 1849, 49 marriages were performed by justices of the peace, nine marriages were performed by the County Judge -and only six marriages were performed by ministers. In 1842, the first church was established in Brazos County. In March of that year Elliot and Elizabeth Millican gave land to a Methodist Church for the purpose of building a meeting house and parsonage. Even after that congregation had a meeting house, they continued to rely on traveling preachers or lay ministers. Preachers would not begin to settle in Brazos County until well into the 1850s. The history of Brazos County schools begins two years before the county was officially organized. When Harvey Mitchell arrived in Texas in 1839, he boarded with the Richard Carter family and tutored the Carter children. Thus, to Harvey Mitchell falls the honor of being the first school teacher in Brazos County. In 1841 Colonel Mitchell moved to Major Eli Seale's home on Cedar Creek in the northern part of the county, where he continued teaching to supplement his income. Harvey Mitchell soon took office as the first superintendent of public instruction in Brazos County. In 1842 Colonel Mitchell was instrumental in building a hewed log school house with a plank floor, the first of its kind in the county. Mitchell taught school in it twelve months for $200, which was paid by the parents of the students. During the 1840s no attorneys lived in Brazos County. Maybe that was a good thing. Citizens depended on lawyers who lived in neighboring counties. In 1844 two attorneys living in Brenham advertised that they would practice law in the courts of Austin, Brazos, Colorado, Milam, Robertson and Washington Counties. Those early lawyers had to be just as good at riding horseback as they were at reading legal books. The sparse population of Brazos County created problems. The first lawsuit to go to the State Supreme Court from this county arose because a man settled on land in 1842, believing that no one owned it. He failed to have it surveyed until 1848, however, because the office of Brazos County surveyor had never been filled. Only then did he discover that land actually belonged to someone else. That, of course, led to a legal dispute which eventually ended up in the Texas Supreme Court. In the 19th century, the pace of life was slower. The district court was held just twice a year, in March and September. In 1844, an interesting case occurred involving two slaves named Granville and Squire. John Millican accused these men of stealing a horse. I was surprised to discover that the local court treated these slaves fairly. First, the judge dismissed the charges, noting that the original complaint was inadequate. Charges were refiled, but then a jury of °twelve good and lawful men" found the two black men innocent of the charges. The matter did not rest there, however. A man named Joseph Ferguson then accused one of the men, Granville, of stealing a bolt of calico cloth worth $8. This time the jury found Granville guilty, and he was fined five dollars, plus the court costs. The frontier status of the county was reflected in the 32 criminal cases prosecuted in 1845. In that year, 15 men were charged with assault and battery, 6 with playing cards (presumably for money), 6 for selling liquor without a license, 2 with obstructing a public highway, 2 with fighting in public, and 1 with operating a ferry without a license. In the 1840s, each Texas county had a militia company. These men primarily were responsible for fighting Indians and dealing with possible invasions from Mexico. In 1841, when the county was created, the threat of Indian attacks was not just hypothetical. Only a few months earlier, in September 1840, a group of Indians visited the Millican home. Mrs. Elizabeth Millican was at home by herself, her husband, Dr. E.M. Millican and the other men having gone hunting. Without warning, nine Indians walked into her house -they never said a word. Silently, one of them picked up her young child, Lucinda Jane. He raised Lucinda up in front of him, and passed her around the group. Elizabeth was certain that the Indians would kill her and Lucinda. She poured a cup of coffee, drank a sip, and offered it to the Indians. They passed it around the room, each taking a sip. Then they left. When Elizabeth's husband returned home, it took him some time to calm her. This was repeated six days later, when the Indians returned without warning, and everything happened as before, including passing the coffee cup around the room. That was the last time Indians ever visited the Millican community. But Indians continued to be feared in this area well into the 1840s, with attacks taking place in Robertson County and points north. That was too close for comfort, and local residents sometimes took part when militia companies pursued those Indian raiding parties. Another threat came from the west. In 1842, Mexican troops crossed the Rio Grande, and occupied the city of San Antonio. A number of Brazos County residents enlisted to fight the Mexicans, including Captain James Evetts, Robert Johnson, John H. Millican, James M. Price, William Vess, and others. During its early years, Brazos County had trouble meeting its quota of militia members. When President Sam Houston complained about the poor showing of Brazos County men, a response quickly followed, pointing out that many residents had enlisted in either the Robertson County or Washington County militia companies. One of the ongoing problems faced by early residents were floods. Newspaper articles in 1843 described the situation then in this way: Brazos -This river has been higher during higher during the last five or six days, than it has been at any time since the great freshet of 1833. It has overflowed its banks in many places ... and its current is so rapid, and so much driftwood floating that the ferrymen are unwilling to cross it .... The planters on the river above and below Washington estimate the damage from this freshet at ten thousand dollars per mile. In the bottom opposite Washington the water was fifteen to twenty feet deep, and extended out of the hills a distance of nine miles... Whole farms are inundated -houses and fences have been swept away, and large quantities of cotton and corn destroyed. A rare glimpse of early family life in Brazos County is recorded in a family history written by author J. Evetts Haley. In it, he recounts how, in 1844, his ancestor James Evetts, a widower, married a widow named Arsena Millican. In setting up house for his new wife, Mr. Evetts had bought a bureau with a fragile mirror. On the Texas frontier, mirrors were quite a rarity. One of James Evetts'sons, afourteen-year-old boy named Bill, came up with the idea of taking his father's favorite fighting rooster into the house, and putting it on the bureau in front of the mirror to see what would happen. The rooster did exactly what was expected of a fighting bird, and the looking glass was shattered. The father's temper flared up, and Bill's new stepmother started to give the fourteen-year-old boy a whipping. A family scene ensued, which ended with Bill mounting a pony and heading west on his own. He eventually settled with an uncle in Bell County. In the 1840s, there were only two physicians in Brazos County - Elliot M. Millican and Alvah Payne. This lack of doctors meant the early residents mostly had to do without professional medical care. To make matters worse, Millican was active politically and spent much of his time in Austin. In January 1843, Brazos County residents petitioned the Texas Congress, asking that a law be passed regulating doctors' fees. The petition asked for protection °against the exorbitant charges too frequently made by medical gentlemen for their services." The Texas Congress took no action on this request. The early settlers had a real need for medical assistance. In addition to all the usual broken bones and other injuries that pioneers faced, infectious diseases were a serious problem. During the winter of 1844-1845, an epidemic swept through Brazos County. This disease was marked by fever and congestion of the lungs. Many residents died during that time. Two years later, in the winter of 1846-1847, a pneumonia epidemic spread throughout all of east Texas. This disease sickened many in Brazos County and killed an unknown number of residents. During the 1840s, the number of slaves in Brazos County peaked at 172, in 1843. After that, the number declined, in part due to epidemics in the area, but more importantly due to the migration of several families north, as the threat of Indians diminished and new lands became available. One of the more important commercial institutions in the new county was Millican's Ferry. Lewis Millican owned and operated this ferry across the Brazos River. The ferry was not just a public service, it was also quite profitable. On several occasions, for example, Millican received payment from the Republic of Texas for carrying Indians across the river as they traveled to or from the Texas capitol at Washington-on-the-Brazos. To give just one example, in 1843 the Republic paid Millican $10 for ferrying a group of Delaware Indians and their pack horses across the river when they went on an expedition against the Comanches. These are just a few of the facts concerning life in early Brazos County. I hope this has given you a bit of insight into lives of the first settlers in this region.