This Day In Texas History - August 28

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1767 - Hugo Oconór (O'Conor) held the rank of major in the regiment of Volunteers of Aragon. Irish by birth, he had flaming red hair that prompted the Indians to call him the "Red Captain." He was inspector general of the Provincias Internas of the east in 1765, when he traveled to Texas to investigate trouble between Governor Ángel de Martos y Navarrete and Rafael Martínez Pacheco concerning San Agustín de Ahumada Presidio. With the removal of Martos y Navarrete on August 28, 1767, Oconór became governor ad interim of Texas. He found the province in a deplorable condition because of the hostilities of the various Indian tribes; the Apaches were raiding San Antonio almost at will. Oconór reinforced San Antonio, brought order to the garrison at Los Adaes, and so thoroughly supervised the area that his return to Mexico in 1770 caused general regret to officers, soldiers, and citizens.

1837 - James Sanders Holman served as the first mayor of Houston from August 28, 1837, through November 1837. During the Civil War Holman served on the Texas State Military Board from April 1864 until the board ceased to function in 1865. After the war, while supervising construction of the Houston and Texas Central Railway, Holman recovered from a bout with yellow fever but caught pneumonia and died near Bryan, Texas, on December 8, 1867. Holman Avenue in Houston was named in his honor.

1845 - The Convention of 1845 was called by Anson Jones to meet in Austin to consider the joint resolution of the United States Congress proposing the annexation of the Republic of Texas to the United States. The convention assembled on July 4, 1845. Thomas Jefferson Rusk was elected president of the convention, and James H. Raymond was secretary. By a vote of fifty-five to one, the delegates approved the offer of annexation. Richard Bache of Galveston was the lone dissenter. Subsequently, the convention prepared the Constitution of 1845 for the new state. Considered the most able body of its kind ever to meet in Texas, the convention included men of broad political experience such as Thomas J. Rusk, James Pinckney Henderson, Isaac Van Zandt, Hardin R. Runnels, Abner S. Lipscomb, Nicholas H. Darnell, R. E. B. Baylor, and José Antonio Navarro.The convention adjourned on August 28, 1845.

1858 - Camp Van Camp, near the site of present Newcastle in central Young County, was a United States military outpost of Fort Belknap. It was established on April 30, 1859, and named in memory of Lt. Cornelius Van Camp, a topographical officer in Earl Van Dorn's expedition. Van Camp was killed in a battle at Wichita Village, Indian Territory, on October 1, 1858. The camp was abandoned on August 28, 1859. In 1936 the Texas Centennial Commission placed a marker at the site.

1902 - Point, TX is at the intersection of U.S. Highway 69 with Farm roads 47 and 514, eight miles northwest of Emory and sixty miles east of Dallas in northwest Rains County. It originated about 1880 as a flag station and post office on a section of the Missouri, Kansas, and Texas Railroad being built from Mineola to Greenville. Residents proposed the name of Rice's Point, in honor of William Rice, a Kentuckian who had settled the area in the 1840s when it was a part of Van Zandt County. In 1890 Point had fifty residents, a public school, and four churches. On August 28, 1902, ten men, led by newspaperman Isaac Newton Gresham, met in Point and signed a charter to establish the Farmers Educational and Cooperative Union of America. The Farmers Union, as it is generally called, became a national organization by 1905 and enrolled its one-millionth member three years later. The organization became so large that it had to move its headquarters to Mineola because the volume of mail was more than the Point post office could handle.

1922 - Forrest E. Everhart, Medal of Honor recipient, was born in Bainbridge, Ohio, on August 28, 1922. He entered military service at Texas City, Texas. Technical Sergeant Everhart was assigned to Company H, 359th Infantry, Ninetieth Infantry Division, United States Army. On November 12, 1944, he was commanding a platoon near Kerling, France, which was bearing the brunt of a predawn attack. German tanks and self-propelled guns penetrated his left flank and infantry forces threatened to overrun his remaining machine gun. He ran 400 yards through enemy fire, joined the gunner, and directed fire. When the infantry advanced, he carried out a fifteen-minute grenade attack that forced the enemy to retreat, leaving thirty dead behind. After returning to his now threatened right flank, Everhart began a grenade duel that forced the enemy to withdraw and leave another twenty dead. The "gallantryand intrepidity" of Sergeant Everhart was instrumental in stopping an enemy attack on the American bridgehead across the Moselle River. Everhart was awarded the Medal of Honor for the action, and Congress credited his award to Texas, his state of residence at enlistment.