This Day In Texas History - June 23

[joe817]

1819 - The Long expedition, named for its commander, James Long, was an early attempt by Anglo-Americans to wrest Texas from Spain. The expedition, the last of a series of early filibustering campaigns that included the Gutiérrez-Magee expedition and the expedition led by Francisco Xavier Mina, was mounted by citizens in the Natchez, Mississippi, area who were opposed to the boundary of the Louisiana Purchase as set up in the Adams-Onís Treaty. Financed by subscriptions said to total about $500,000, the expedition attracted recruits with a promise of a league of Texas land to every soldier. An advance force of 120 men, led by Eli Harris, crossed the Sabine River on June 8, 1819, and went on to Nacogdoches, where Long, a Natchez merchant and doctor who had been placed in command, arrived on June 21.

At Camp Freeman, citizens of Nacogdoches met to organize a provisional government with Long as its chief. On June 23 this "government" declared the independence of Texas. Its Supreme Council voted ten sections of land to each private and provided for selling Red River lands at prices ranging downward from fifty cents an acre. By the middle of July, Long had more than 300 men under his command. On October 9, 1819, the Supreme Council declared Galveston a port of entry, authorized the construction of a fort at Point Bolivar and made Jean Laffite governor of the island. At the end of September, Governor Antonio María Martínez sent Col. Ignacio Pérez with more than 500 men to drive Long out of Texas. A month later he had driven the American settlers out of East Texas.
[ There's much more to the story: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qyl01 ]

1839 - Harrisburg (Harrisburgh), on the right bank of Buffalo Bayou in eastern Harris County, was established before 1825 on the survey of New York entrepreneur John Richardson Harris. In 1826 Francis W. Johnson surveyed the town, and Harris formally named it Harrisburg, in honor, no doubt, of himself. A small sawmill cut local timber, and ships plied between Harrisburg and ports in the United States and Mexico. Freight for San Felipe de Austin went by water to Harrisburg and then moved overland to the Brazos River. On December 30, 1835, the General Council established Harrisburg Municipality and designated the town the seat of its government. Edward Wray, alcalde, and H. H. League and Nathaniel Lynch, judges, transacted municipal business in Harrisburg until April 16, 1836, when Antonio López de Santa Anna burned the entire town except the residence of John W. Moore.

Shortly after the Texas Revolution the city of Houston was laid out on the bayou above Harrisburg and became the seat of Harrisburg (later Harris) County and the capital of the Republic of Texas. Harrisburg recovered from Santa Anna's incendiarism and was incorporated on June 5, 1837. On June 23, 1839, the town was consolidated with Hamilton, on the opposite bank of the bayou, under a trust of Boston investors known as the Harrisburg Town Company. The population was about 1,400. The company functioned until 1849, first under the agency of Andrew Briscoe and later under that of DeWitt Clinton Harris.

In December 1926 Harrisburg, with a population of about 1,460, was formally annexed to Houston. By 1955 the community was part of the East End, a vaguely defined area bordered by the ship channel, Bray's Bayou, the railroad, and La Porte Road. The name Harrisburg is still attached to the vicinity, but Glendale Cemetery and a state historical marker alone remain at the former townsite.
[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hvh27 ]

1858 - The Washington County Rail Road Company was chartered on February 2, 1856, to construct a railroad from a connection with the Galveston and Red River Railway Company (later Houston and Texas Central Railway Company) to Brenham. Construction of the Washington County began at Hempstead on June 23, 1858, and by April 1859 the first section of slightly over eleven miles of track on both sides of the Brazos River had been completed. The railroad began operating to the east bank of the Brazos River, 6.6 miles from Hempstead, in February 1860.

However, it was another year before the bridge across the river was completed and train service extended to Chappell Hill. Brenham was reached in April 1861, at which time the company had 21.3 miles of main track. At that time the Washington County owned one locomotive, one passenger car, and fourteen freight cars. The former Washington County was subsequently rehabilitated and extended from Brenham to Austin by 1871. In 1961 and 1962 the Southern Pacific, as successor to the Houston and Texas Central, abandoned most of the track between Hempstead and Brenham, thus closing out over 100 years of operation.

1864 - Cristóbal Benavides, son of José Jesús Benavides and Tomasa Cameros, was born on April 3, 1839, in Laredo. He was also the great–great–grandson of Tomás Sánchez de la Barrera y Garza, who had established the village of Laredo in 1755. With the coming of the Civil War he enlisted as a sergeant in a company of local Tejanos being raised by his half-brother, Santos Benavides. Within a year he had achieved the rank of lieutenant. The company commanded by Santos was then reorganized into a unit called Benavides' Regiment.

Cristóbal Benavides was promoted to captain and given command of a company in his brother's regiment. On March 19, 1864, he fought to defend Laredo against Union forces that had advanced upriver from Brownsville intent on seizing or destroying some 5,000 bales of cotton stacked in St. Augustine Plaza in Laredo. On June 23, 1864, in the lower Valley at Las Rucias, he led an attack against a Union outpost. After having his horse shot from under him in the daring charge, he was singled out for bravery. At the end of the war, Benavides, along with his brothers, were among the last to surrender.

1865 - On June 23, 1865, the Twentieth Texas Cavalry Regiment was included in the surrender of Confederate Indian troops at Doaksville in the Indian Territory. The Twentieth Texas Cavalry was recruited and organized in Hill County, Texas, during the spring and summer of 1862. The unit was organized into ten companies of 850 officers and men that were primarily recruited from the counties of Anderson, Navarro, Kaufman, Henderson, Johnson, and Limestone. The Twentieth Texas Cavalry was assigned to the Trans-Mississippi Department and served almost entirely in the Indian Territory where it was confronted by Union forces. At times, it was the only non-Indian Confederate unit operating in the Indian Territory. The Twentieth Cavalry took part in more than thirty various engagements throughout the war in both the Indian Territory and Arkansas, the latter where it served on occasion. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qkt28 ]

1878 - William R. Cruger, frontier sheriff,was born on May 30, 1840, at Albany, Georgia. He moved to Shackelford County, Texas, in 1874, assisted in the county's organization, and named the county seat Albany for his birthplace. Fort Griffin was then a thriving town and had become a rendezvous for outlaws, thieves, and other desperate characters. In 1876 John M. Larn was elected sheriff and appointed Cruger deputy sheriff. Early in 1877, in an attempt to restore order in a Fort Griffin saloon, Cruger participated in a gunfight in which three men were killed and he and the county attorney were wounded. Larn resigned, and Cruger was appointed his successor on April 20, 1877. His jurisdiction over thirteen unorganized Texas counties extended to the New Mexico line. Acting on a warrant from the Albany court, Cruger arrested Larn, who on the night of his arrest, June 23, 1878, was shot and killed in an Albany jail, presumably by members of the Fort Griffin Vigilance Committee. This was the last vigilante killing in the county.
[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fcr39 ]

1931 - Wiley Hardeman Post, aviator, was born near Grand Saline in Van Zandt County, Texas, on November 22, 1898. Before his death in a plane crash in 1935, Post became one of the best-known fliers in the world, mainly because of a flight around the world with navigator Harold Gatty in 1931 and a similar solo flight in 1933. In addition, he was known for his pioneer work in high altitude flight, particularly his role in developing an early pressure suit. They departed on June 23, 1931, and returned on July 1, covering the distance in eight days, fifteen hours, and fifty-one minutes. The pair later recounted their experience in Around the World in Eight Days: The Flight of the Winnie Mae, (1931) a ghost-written account with an introduction by Will Rogers. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fpo27 ]