He arrived in Nacogdoches on September 25, 1825, and posted notices on street corners to all previous landowners that they would have to present evidence of their claims or forfeit to new settlers. This naturally offended the older settlers. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/jcf01 ]
1829 - The Texas Gazette was published between 1829 and 1832, first at San Felipe de Austin and then at Brazoria. It was a typical frontier newspaper of four pages an issue, three columns a page; it usually measured 9½ inches by twelve inches and was printed in small type. The paper was generally in English but sometimes in Spanish. Although advertised as a weekly, it was very irregular. Godwin Brown Cotten began publishing the Texas Gazette on September 25, 1829, at San Felipe de Austin.
The three major contributors-Robert McAlpin Williamson, Stephen F. Austin, and Cotten-often held divergent views. The Texas Gazette, the first enduring Texas newspaper, was the earliest Texas newspaper of which more than one issue is now extant. As the first newspaper printed in Austin's colony, it depicted the life of the colonists and therefore the growth of the colony. It provided settlers with translations of Mexican laws, brought them outside news, and allayed their fears in time of crisis.
The writings of Stephen F. Austin in the Texas Gazette are of particular historical importance since they enable us to trace his policy of placating the Mexican government. The press's publication of Mexican decrees and orders adds to the historical significance of the Texas Gazette. In addition, Cotten contributed to the history of Texas printing by setting a standard for the craft of printing for later Texas newspapers. He also made the first printed statement of dissatisfaction with arbitrary official conduct in Texas.
1834 - William Caldwell Sublett, West Texas pioneer who discovered gold in the lower Pecos River region, the son of Caldwell and Nancy Sublett, was born on September 25, around 1834, in Tennessee, possibly in Franklin County. He first moved to Texas after the winter of 1857 and served as a Texas Ranger in Capt. Edward Burleson's company from January 20 until September 9, 1860. After eighteen months somewhere on the frontier he returned to the settled part of Texas to find the nation torn by the Civil War.
After late 1874 he moved his family to West Texas and took up buffalo hunting. About 1880 Sublett became an advance water scout and supplier of game meat for the Texas and Pacific Railway, which was pushing westward from Fort Worth. In early 1881, while operating from the temporary railhead at Colorado (later Colorado City), he discovered gold dust and nuggets somewhere in the Pecos River country at a site he contended was a mine; he would not divulge the location.
Throughout the 1880s and early 1890s Sublett made periodic trips to his gold source but continued to live frugally enough that he paid taxes on only $265 in possessions in 1891. Repeated attempts to track him to the site of the mine or wrench directions from him failed, and the location of his gold went with him when he died in Barstow, Ward County, on January 6, 1892.
His son, Rolth (or Ross) Sublett, became chief among the many who later searched for the Lost Sublett Mine. Rolth claimed that as a boy he once accompanied his father to the site, which he believed lay in the Guadalupe Mountains or in the Rustler Hills of Culberson County. All efforts at finding the mine have met with failure. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fsu17 ]
1835 - George Washington Davis, Texas patriot in the war for independence, son of Thomas and Ruth (Burk) Davis, was born near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 12, 1797. In 1830, having heard of the rich soil, fine climate, beautiful scenery, and abundance of cheap land in Texas, Davis determined to move again. He traveled by wagon to Louisville, put his family and possessions aboard a flatboat on the Ohio River, and undertook a six-weeks' journey to New Orleans.
From there he traveled by schooner to Matagorda, Texas; he landed on February 12, 1831, at Cox's Point on Lavaca Bay, opposite the site of present Port Lavaca. After bringing his family to Gonzales, Davis became an active participant in the movement toward Texas independence. He was named a delegate to the Convention of 1833. He was appointed secretary of the committee of safety for Gonzales and in that capacity wrote a letter dated September 25, 1835, to John Henry Moore, asking for help in protecting the residents' cannon against the Mexican army.
As a safety precaution, the cannon was temporarily buried in Davis's peach orchard. On October 2, 1835, as one of the original eighteen members of the Gonzales defense force, Davis took part in the first battle of the Texas Revolution, in which the cannon was successfully defended (see OLD EIGHTEEN and GONZALES "COME AND TAKE IT" CANNON).[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fda98 ]
1835 - John Henry Moore, one of the Old Three Hundred and a participant in the Texas Revolution, was born in Rome, Tennessee, on August 13, 1800. According to tradition he ran away from college in Tennessee to avoid studying Latin and went to Texas in 1818. He fought the Indians along the Colorado in 1823 and 1824 and went into partnership with Thomas Gray as one of Stephen F. Austin's original settlers. Moore and Gray received title to a league and a labor of land now in Brazoria and Colorado counties on August 16, 1824.
In 1834 he led an expedition against the Waco and Tawakoni Indians on the upper Brazos River, and in July 1835 he organized four companies of volunteers to attack the Tawakonis in Limestone County. In September 1835 he warned of the expected Mexican attack and was so outspoken in favor of Texas independence that he was ordered arrested by Martín Perfecto de Cos.
On September 25, 1835, the Committee of Safety at Gonzales asked Moore for reinforcements, and he marched to Gonzales to take command of the Texans in the battle of Gonzales on October 2. He is said to have designed the "Come and Take It" banner (the GONZALES "COME AND TAKE IT" CANNON). He was elected colonel of the volunteer army, and after serving as a member of the council of war called to discuss the best means of protection against the enemy, he was ordered by Austin to organize a cavalry company of the men who had pistols and double-barreled shotguns.(There's much more to tell about this interesting patriot: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fmo30 )
1837 - William Henry Walker, early Milam County settler and justice of the peace, was born in Alabama on January 22, 1805. He came to Texas in the early 1830s and married Sarah Wilhelm in Washington County on July 8, 1833; the couple had eleven children. Walker received a headright on Walker's Creek in Milam County on December 16, 1834. On June 4, 1836, the Walkers and three other families were attacked by Indians; they barricaded themselves in the Walker cabin and managed to fend off their attackers.
Because of the threat presented by the Indians, the Walkers moved to a site near Anderson in what is now Grimes County. From July to October 1836 Walker was a private in William W. Hill's company of volunteer rangers. He served as justice of the peace in Milam County in 1836 and 1837 and represented Milam County in the House of the Second Congress from September 25, 1837, to May 24, 1838.
In January 1839 he furnished supplies to the army volunteers stationed in Robertson County. The Walker family moved back to their home on Walker's Creek in 1847. Walker served as county commissioner of Milam County in 1848, 1852, and 1858, and was chief justice of the county in 1852. He died on September 14, 1864, and was buried in Salem Cemetery.
1837 - Isaac Watts Burton, soldier and legislator, son of William B. Burton, was born in Clarke County, Georgia, in 1805. He was appointed to the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1822 but withdrew in 1823. He traveled to Texas in January 1832 and took part in the battle of Nacogdoches. On November 29, 1835, he was appointed captain of a ranger company by the General Council and later served as a private in Henry W. Karnes's cavalry company at the battle of San Jacinto.
Thomas J. Rusk commanded Burton and his mounted rangers to watch the Texas coast from Guadalupe to Refugio to keep the Mexicans from landing supplies. On June 3, 1836, Burton and his command, near Copano, captured the boat Watchman, loaded with supplies for the Mexican army. After capturing the Comanche and the Fannie Butler, Burton's command became known as the Horse Marines. Burton served in the Senate of the Second, Third, and Fourth congresses, September 25, 1837, to February 5, 1840.
He was appointed commissioner to treat with the Indians on November 10, 1836, and served on the commission to select a site for a permanent capital of the republic. He practiced law in Nacogdoches for several years and was associated with Charles D. Ferris in publishing the Nacogdoches Texas Chronicle. In 1841 Burton moved to Crockett, where he died in January 1843.
1839 - The term French Legation refers both to the diplomatic mission of Alphonse Dubois de Saligny to the Republic of Texas from 1840 to 1846 and to the house in Austin built for him in late 1840 and early 1841. The legation has frequently been referred to as the "French Embassy," but Dubois de Saligny was merely a chargé d'affaires, considerably lower than an ambassador or minister in the diplomatic hierarchy.
The French government first expressed interest in recognizing the Republic of Texas in 1839, when it sent Dubois de Saligny, then a secretary in the French legation in Washington, on a mission of exploration. He stayed in Texas only briefly but wrote a strongly favorable report encouraging his government to recognize the new republic.
King Louis Philippe did so on September 25, 1839, when he signed a treaty of amity, navigation, and commerce. Dubois de Saligny was promoted to chargé d'affaires and sent to establish a legation in Texas. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ccf03 ]
1842 - Because of Mexico's refusal to recognize the independence of Texas after the Treaties of Velasco, the Republic was in constant fear of a Mexican invasion. The fear assumed reality on January 9, 1842, when Gen. Mariano Arista issued a statement from Monterrey telling the Texans that it was hopeless for them to continue their struggle for independence and promising amnesty and protection to all who remained neutral during his planned invasion.
Early in March, Goliad, Refugio, and Victoria were occupied, and on March 5 the Mexican troops under Rafael Vásquez appeared before San Antonio. The Texans retreated, leaving the town to the Mexicans, because John C. Hays found it impossible to gather enough men to make a defense immediately. On September 11, 1842, Gen. Adrián Woll, with a force of 1,200 Mexicans, captured San Antonio.
By September 17, 200 Texans had gathered on Cibolo Creek above Seguin and marched under Mathew Caldwell to Salado Creek six miles northeast of San Antonio. On September 18 Caldwell sent Hays and a company of scouts to draw the Mexicans into a fight; the battle of Salado Creek resulted. While the fight was going on, Capt. Nicholas M. Dawson approached from the east with a company of fifty-three men. These men were attacked a mile and a half from the scene of the battle and killed in what came to be known as the Dawson Massacre.
Woll drew his men back to San Antonio and retreated to Mexico by September 20. The reinforced Texans pursued him for three days and then returned to San Antonio. By September 25, 1842 a large number of Texans had gathered at San Antonio, and plans were made for a punitive expedition, the Somervell expedition, which evolved into the Mier expedition. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qem02 ]
1856 - Claiborne Walker (Clabe) Merchant and his twin brother, John, were born on August 31, 1836, in Nacogdoches County, Texas, where they spent their early years. On September 25, 1856, Claiborne married Frances Bell, who was sixteen. They had seven children. In 1869, having served with the Confederate forces in the Civil War, he entered the cattle business. In the late 1870s, when the railroads began to inquire about expanding into neighboring Taylor County, Merchant attempted to purchase land near the site of present-day Abilene.
In August 1880 at John N. Simpson's Hashknife Ranch he bought 1,700 acres in what later became central Abilene. In December 1880 a meeting was held that resulted in a contract between the cattlemen and the railroad. At this meeting Merchant gave the town the name Abilene, after the cattle-shipping center in Kansas, and earned for himself the nickname "Father of Abilene."
He moved his family to Taylor County in 1882 and the following year constructed an elaborate rock house in the 1200 block of Merchant Street in Abilene. He advocated building better roads to aid farmers in transporting their produce and was supposedly the first to call these farm-to-market roads.
1861 - The wreck of the United States Navy vessel USS Hatteras, sunk in an engagement with the Confederate raider CSS Alabama, lies in sixty feet of water about twenty miles south of Galveston, Texas. The site is one of the few shipwreck sites in the National Register of Historic Places. Its significance is twofold.
The vessel is a relatively early example of a steel-hulled, side-wheeled steamship representative of the transition between the wooden sailing ship and the modern steamship; and she is comparatively intact since she sank very rapidly and, unlike the majority of Texas shipwrecks, lies in deep water away from the destructive surf.
The Hatteras was a converted merchant ship of 1,126 tons, 210 feet long, with a draft of eighteen feet, formerly named the St. Mary. She was acquired by the United States Navy from Harland and Hollingworth of Wilmington, Delaware, on September 25, 1861. She was armed and fitted out at the Philadelphia Naval Yard and commissioned in October 1861. Her armament consisted of four thirty-two-pounders, two thirty-pounders, one twenty-pounder, and an eight-pounder. The Hatteras was sunk by Confederate captain Raphael Semmes after a short battle on January 11, 1863, only two months after her second captain, Commander Homer C. Blake, assumed command.
The wreck site is shown on nautical charts and has long been known to local divers and amateur historians. It has also been located by commercial treasure hunters, who filed a suit claiming to be, by right of discovery, the salvors and owners of the wreck. Because the wreck is a United States naval vessel, the federal government was able to keep control of the site and preserve it for scientific investigation.
This is one of the few cases in which the courts have found in favor of historic preservation and against commercial exploitation of a historic shipwreck site. The New Orleans Outer Continental Shelf Office of the Bureau of Land Management, as the responsible federal agency, has undertaken various investigations of the wreck.
1911 - The Houston Press was founded on September 25, 1911, and until its demise on March 20, 1964, it was the most colorful of the three twentieth-century Houston daily newspapers. It was a Scripps-Howard newspaper and had a general reputation for exposing the seamier side of life in Houston and for keeping Houston politicians on their toes.
The Press style of journalism was established by its first editor, Paul C. Edwards, and that style flourished under later editors Marcellus E. Foster, 1926–36, who had founded and edited the Houston Chronicle, and George Carmack, 1946–64. The Press began publication on the corner of Capital and Bagby streets; in 1927 it moved to Rusk and Chartres streets.
In 1963 it averaged a daily circulation of 90,000 and employed over 300 persons; however, it operated at a loss during the early 1960s. On March 20, 1964, president and publisher Ray L. Powers and editor Carmack announced to the assembled newspaper staff that it was preparing the last issue of the Press. The newspaper had been sold by Scripps-Howard to the Houston Chronicle for a price estimated in excess of four million dollars.
1921 - Jack W. Mathis, recipient of the Medal of Honor, was born on September 25, 1921, in San Angelo, Texas, to Rhude Mark and Avis C. Mathis, Sr. Jack and his brother, Mark, were raised in Sterling City. Jack enlisted in the United States Army on June 12, 1940, and saw duty with the Eighteenth Field Artillery at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
After learning that his brother had enlisted in the air corps, Jack transferred and was assigned with Mark to Goodfellow Field in San Angelo. Both were accepted as aviation cadets, trained as bombardiers, and commissioned second lieutenants. Jack was assigned to B-17s and went to the Eighth Air Force in England, where he was assigned to the 303d Bombardment Wing.
He flew fourteen missions. On the last of these he was just starting his bomb run as squadron lead bombardier over Vegesack, Germany, on March 18, 1943, when he was hit by a burst of antiaircraft fire. His right arm was shattered above the elbow, and he received large wounds in his side and abdomen. Although mortally wounded, he dragged himself back to his bombsight, dropped his bombs, and then died at his post of duty.
As the result of his courage and determination his squadron placed its bombs directly on the assigned target. He was awarded the Medal of Honor "for conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity beyond the call of duty."
1922 - WOAI, the oldest radio station in San Antonio, signed on the air on September 25, 1922. Broadcasting over frequency 1190 AM using a 500-watt transmitter, the station was touted as one of the “first super powered stations in Texas” and was the brainchild of founder G.A.C. Halff. A popular story tells that Halff wished to carry out a promotional gimmick of giving away hundreds of small radios in connection with his business, and therefore he had to put a radio station on the air so that his customers would have something to listen to.
Initial programming included a variety of information and also featured daily violin and piano selections. In 1926 the station increased to 2,000 watts and participated in the first successful chain broadcast with other stations across the United States.
It joined the world’s first network, the National Broadcasting Company, on February 6, 1928. WOAI continued to increase its broadcasting power with a 5,000-watt transmitter in 1927 and the legal limit of 50,000 watts in 1930, making it the only 50,000-watt station in South Texas. By the early 1930s WOAI had built its first radio newsroom and became one of the first stations to employ a local news staff.
News was a major focus along with broadcasting soap operas. In 1934 WOAI, along with WBAP in Fort Worth, WFAA in Dallas, and KPRC in Houston—the four largest stations in Texas, formed the Texas Quality Network. Connected by telephone lines, the stations established the capacity for simultaneous broadcasts and commanded a combined night-time power of 101,000 watts.
This shared programming allowed the radio stations to carry the highly popular Light Crust Doughboys radio show, for example. In 1941 WOAI became one of twelve radio stations in the United States to be designated its own unduplicated or “clear channel” frequency as part of an emergency information system. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/ebw02 ]
1982 - The USS Houston, a light cruiser of the Cleveland class built at the Norfolk Navy Yard, was the third United States naval vessel to be so named. She was originally launched as the USS Vicksburg on June 19, 1943, and was renamed Houston after the heavy cruiser USS Houston had been sunk in the western Pacific in February 1942.
The citizens of Houston, through the purchase of war bonds, subscribed sufficient funds for the construction of the new Houston as well as for a light aircraft carrier, the USS San Jacinto. A fourth USS Houston, a nuclear-powered attack submarine, was launched on March 21, 1981, by Barbara Bush, wife of George H. W. Bush, who was then vice president. The submarine was commissioned on September 25, 1982, at the Norfolk Navy Yard by Senator John G. Tower. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qth03 ]