This Day In Texas History - September 28

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This Day In Texas History - September 28

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1805 - The only legal port in Texas for many years was San Bernard, a coastal region rather than a definite location. It was established by royal decree on September 28, 1805, and was renewed by the Spanish Cortes in 1820. In 1808 Spanish officials surveyed the Matagorda Bay area to obtain information for the establishment of a permanent port, but nothing was done, although agitation continued for such an establishment. There was no customhouse, the captain of Nuestra Señora de Loreto Presidio being designated as port official, and ships with business in Texas used any convenient shore for landing and taking on goods. This condition continued until Stephen F. Austin petitioned that the port of Galveston be made a legal port of entry.

1835 - Alexander Russell, soldier in the Texas Revolution, son of Levi and Sarah (Phips) Russell, was born in South Carolina on May 15, 1805. Russell and his brother, John H., moved to Texas in 1834 from Dade County, Missouri. In March 1835 the ayuntamiento commissioned Captain Russell to take the census and make an assessment of taxable property in the jurisdiction of Columbia. When the call for volunteers was issued at Brazoria, Russell joined the Texas army, on September 28, 1835. He defended Texas at Gonzales and Concepción and was camped with the main part of the army at San Francisco de la Espada Mission, where the force was attacked by Col. Domingo de Ugartechea on October 24, 1835. Russell was discharged by Stephen F. Austin on November 24, 1835, to return home to secure medical aid for injuries and illness. After the Civil War he moved to Salado, where many of the surviving veterans of the Texas Revolution lived. He purchased land on Salado Creek in the Sulphur Springs area, raised horses, and once briefly owned a historic landmark, the Stagecoach Inn at Salado.[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fru33 ]

1835 - William Hester Patton, soldier, surveyor, and legislator, was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky, in 1808. He moved to Brazoria County, Texas, in March 1832. As an early advocate of Texas independence, he served as a sergeant in Capt. John Austin's company at the battle of Velasco in June 1832. He enlisted in the Texas army on September 28, 1835, at the beginning of the revolution; commanded a company at the siege of Bexar, December 5 through 10, 1835; and was appointed to receive the weapons surrendered by Gen. Martín Perfecto de Cos's army. On December 21, 1835, Gen. Sam Houston appointed Patton acting assistant quartermaster with the rank of lieutenant and ordered him to Velasco to supply arriving volunteers and forward them to Houston's army. Patton was attached to Houston's staff as an aide-de-camp with the rank of major, and his company was led at the battle of San Jacinto by Lt. David Murphree. After the battle Patton was given custody of Antonio López de Santa Anna and was one of the commissioners selected to escort him to Washington, D.C. On July 14, 1836, Patton was one of eighteen officers who testified against President David G. Burnet on charges of usurpation and treason. In 1837 Houston appointed him quartermaster general of the Army of the Republic of Texas, and his nomination was confirmed on May 22. On August 26, 1837, Patton resigned from the army and settled in Bexar County, where he worked as a surveyor and served as justice of the peace.[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fpa54 ]

1838 - William A. Hurd, naval officer, commanded the armed schooner San Felipe, which returned Stephen F. Austin to Texas from New Orleans in August 1835 after his incarceration in Mexico. The ship also carried arms and ammunition for the Texas revolutionaries. On September 1, upon reaching the Velasco bar at the mouth of the Brazos River, the San Felipe engaged the Mexican revenue cutter Correo de México, which had been harassing ships out of the port of Brazoria. The more heavily armed Texas vessel, with a large force of volunteer "marines" aboard, badly damaged the Correo and wounded her captain, Thomas M. (Mexico) Thompson. The Mexican cutter took flight, but became becalmed during the night and was overtaken the next morning when the Texas steamer Laura towed Hurd's ship into position to rake the Correo's stern. Thereupon the Mexican cutter surrendered and was taken to New Orleans, where its captain and crew were tried on charges of piracy. The duel between the San Felipe and the Correo is regarded by many as the opening battle of the Texas Revolution. He died in New Orleans on September 28, 1838. He has been characterized by naval historian Jim Dan Hill as "arrogant" and "swashbuckling." [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fhu42 ]

1852 - Charles Edwin Anderson, rancher, the son of Winifred P. and James M. Anderson, was born on September 28, 1852, at Rusk, Texas. He attended the Waco public schools, Baylor University, and Eastman Business College in New York. After returning to Texas he was associated with the Day Land and Cattle Company and worked in the General Land Office. Later he went into the cattle business, established the Matagorda Land and Cattle Company, and became president of the Cattle Raisers Association (now the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association). He was an organizer of the Heywood Oil Company, of which he was vice president. Anderson married Myrtle Rogers Looney at Bastrop, and they had three children. He was a founder of the Austin Country Club and served on the Austin City Council. He died on February 27, 1924, in Austin.

1857 - Jefferson Van Horne, first commandant of the garrison that became Fort Bliss, was born in Pennsylvania. On July 1, 1823, he was appointed from Ohio to the United States Military Academy. He graduated on July 1, 1827, ranking thirtieth in his class of thirty-eight, and was brevetted a second lieutenant with the Third Infantry. During the first eighteen years of his military career Van Horne served in Missouri, Kansas, Louisiana, the Indian Territory, and Florida. He was promoted to first lieutenant on April 1, 1836, and to captain on December 1, 1840. Van Horne served in the military occupation of Texas in 1845 and 1846 and on recruiting duty in 1846 and 1847. In July 1848 Secretary of War William L. Marcy recommended the establishment of a military post on the north side of the Rio Grande, opposite El Paso del Norte (present Juárez), Mexico. Van Horne was ordered to implement General Order No. 58, and left San Antonio in late May of 1849, commanding six companies of the Third Infantry, 275 wagons, and 2,500 pack animals. Van Horne arrived in the area of present El Paso on September 8, 1849. He stationed two companies at the old San Elizario Presidio and four at Coon's Rancho, designating the latter the "Post Opposite El Paso [del Norte]." Van Horne and his troops were transferred to Fort Fillmore, near Mesilla, New Mexico, although a small detachment stayed behind to guard Magoffin's livestock until the autumn of 1852. The post was reestablished at Magoffinville in January 1854 and officially named Fort Bliss in March of that year. He died on September 28, 1857, in Albuquerque.
[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fva08 ]

1858 - Fort Quitman was eighty miles below El Paso and twenty miles southeast of the site of present-day McNary in far southern Hudspeth County. On September 28, 1858, Capt. Arthur T. Lee and companies C and H, Eighth Infantry, established the post on a barren and sandy plain 400 yards east of the Rio Grande to protect travelers and mail along the route from San Antonio to El Paso. It was named for Mexican War general John A. Quitman, who had died on July 17. Federal troops evacuated Fort Quitman on April 5, 1861. During the Civil War the post was intermittently garrisoned by Confederate and Union detachments and quickly fell into disrepair. Capt. Henry Carroll and Company F, Ninth United States Cavalry, reoccupied the crumbling adobe buildings on January 1, 1868, and on February 25 orders from headquarters of the District of Texas reestablished the fort. Over the next decade companies and detachments of black soldiers of the Ninth Cavalry and the Twenty-fifth United States Infantry guarded the mails and scouted for hostile Indians. Fort Quitman had a reputation as one of the most uncomfortable military installations in Texas. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qbf40 ]

1870 - Ossamus Hitch Methvin, Sr., founder of Longview, son of Richard R. and Martha (Perdue) Methvin, was born in Lowndes County (later Baldwin County), Georgia, on March 10, 1815. Richard and Ossamus came to Texas about 1848 and settled in Upshur County. Richard purchased 200 acres bordering the north side of the Cherokee Trace near the site of future Earpville. On April 7, 1870, Methvin deeded to the Southern Pacific Railroad 100 acres of land for one dollar, "believing that said road will enhance the value of lands along the line and near the same, and for the purpose of aiding therein, and opening up and developing the resources of the country." On September 28, 1870, he sold an addition 100 acres to the Southern Pacific for $500 in gold. During this time railroad surveyors, standing on the porch of Methvin's house on Rock Hill and looking out into the distance exclaimed, "What a long view!" Hence the name of the new town, which was incorporated in June 1871 and became the county seat.
[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fme57 ]

1875 - In 1870, when the Houston and Texas Central Railway Company was planning its route into Dallas, Waxahachie was asked to offer a bonus, but refused. The railroad ran east of Waxahachie, and the town of Ennis was established. The citizens of Waxahachie decided to build a railroad to connect with the Houston and Texas Central and chartered the Waxahachie Tap Railroad Company on January 25, 1875. The City of Waxahachie contributed $13,600 in bonds, and thirteen miles of track from Waxahachie to Garrett, three miles north of Ennis, were completed by September 1879. On September 28, 1881, the name of the railroad was changed to the Central Texas and Northwestern Railway Company. At the same time, the company secured the right from the Texas legislature to build into the Panhandle, but no additional construction was done. In 1901 the Central Texas and Northwestern was consolidated with the Houston and Texas Central Railroad Company.

1881 - The Trinity and Sabine Railway Company was chartered on September 28, 1881. The railroad was planned by local lumber interests to connect Trinity in Trinity County on the International and Great Northern railroad with a point seventy-five miles to the east, at or near the junction of the Neches and Angelina rivers. In 1882 the railroad built thirty-eight miles of track from Trinity east to Milepost 38. On December 9, 1882, Jay Gould bought the road and on the same day sold it to the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway Company. It was never connected with the main line and became known as the Orphan Branch of the Katy. The line was sold to the Waco, Beaumont, Trinity and Sabine Railway Company on April 8, 1924.
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