This Day In Texas History - August 7

[joe817]

1839 - The schooner San Antonio was commissioned into the Texas navy. The ship was armed with five cannons. She and her crew were lost at sea in 1842. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/qts01 ]

1852 - Alexander Cockrell paid $7,000 for the portion of the John Neely Bryan homestead that included the Dallas townsite and the Trinity River ferry concession. Bryan, a Tennessee native, had settled at a natural ford on the east bank of the Trinity in 1841. In 1844 he persuaded J. P. Dumas to survey and plat the site of Dallas; he was also instrumental in the organizing of Dallas County in 1846 and in the choosing of Dallas as its county seat in August 1850. Cockrell, born in Kentucky in 1820, first came to Texas in 1845 and later established a claim on 640 acres in the Peters colony, about ten miles west of Dallas. He and his wife moved to Dallas in 1853 and began operating a brick business, one of several Cockrell enterprises that established the main lines of trade and development in Dallas. Cockrell replaced the toll ferry with the first bridge across the Trinity River; to protect the toll bridge, Cockrell acquired hundreds of acres of land on the river. In 1858, Cockrell was killed in a gunfight with a city marshall. Bryan died in the State Asylum in 1877.

1854 - Lowry Scrutchfield was elected the first Bosque County judge. Scrutchfield was born in Nacogdoches in 1824. Some ten years later his widowed mother moved her family to Nashville-on-the-Brazos in Milam County, where they lived in the home of her oldest son, John C. Pool. Here Scrutchfield spent his late childhood and met Maj. George B. Erath, from whom he learned Indian scouting and surveying. He accompanied Erath in 1845 to the South Bosque valley, where he met the Neil McLennan family and moved into their home. Scrutchfield assisted Erath in laying out the townsite of Waco village. In 1851 Scrutchfield married Nancy Proffitt, and the couple moved to Bosque Territory, settling on the east side of the Bosque River several miles north of the site of present Valley Mills. One of the first original settlers in Bosque Territory, Lowry Hampton Scrutchfield emerged as the leader of the small group of pioneers who explored, settled, and organized Bosque County. He served as county judge until 1858. During the almost fifty years that he lived in Bosque County, Scrutchfield played a leading role in its political affairs. He died in 1900.

1878 - The Greenback movement was a part of the agrarian unrest of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The movement had its start in Texas in 1876, when Greenback clubs were organized with the aid of the national Greenback party, which by 1878 had 482 clubs, including seventy for African Americans. A convention at Waco on August 7 nominated a full ticket for state offices, with Gen. William H. Hamman of Robertson County as candidate for governor. The platform, which closely followed that of the national party, denounced the law making greenbacks only a partial legal tender and the acts establishing the national bank system, exempting national bonds from taxation, and resuming specie payment for greenbacks. The platform urged the national government to issue greenback money as full legal tender and to redeem treasury notes and bonds with such greenbacks. [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/wag01 ]

1883 - L. C. (Uncle Luke) Coleman officially registered the Shoe Bar brand on August 7, 1883. At its peak the Shoe Bar ranch covered 350,000 acres of leased land and 110,000 acres of land bought in Donley, Hall, and Briscoe counties. The cattle numbered around 50,000 head, with an annual calf crop of 14,000.

1935 – Members of the International Ladies’ Garment Workers Union in Dallas gained notoriety when they protested low wages by stripping 10 non-union dressmakers.

1954 - While in Air Force training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio during 1950, Johnny Cash met Vivian Liberto. On this date in 1954, just one month after his discharge from the Air Force, Johnny and Vivian were married in San Antonio. They soon moved to Memphis, Tennessee where Cash sold appliances. There he auditioned with Sam Phillips' Sun Records, and made his first recording.

1989 - A small plane carrying U.S. Congressman Mickey Leland, D-TX, and 15 others disappeared during a flight in Ethiopia. The wreckage of the plane was found six days later. There were no survivors. Terminal D at Houston Intercontinental Airport was named in Leland's honor.

2004 - Oil Well fire fighter, Red Adair died at a Houston hospital of natural causes. During his career, Adair fought hundreds of oil well fires, some which had burned out of control for months. Born in Houston, Adair also helped to put out the many fires set by Iraqi forces during the first Iraqi war. Anywhere in the world, under any conditions, where there was an oil well fire, Adair could expect a call. His life was depicted in a 1968 John Wayne movie called "Hellfighters". [ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fad29 ]

[joe817]

1838 - Late in the summer of 1838 a group of Nacogdoches citizens accidentally uncovered a plot of rebellion against the new Republic of Texas. This incident, known as the Córdova Rebellion, at first appeared to be nothing more than an isolated insurrection by local malcontents. Later evidence, however, indicated the existence of a far-reaching web of conspiracy. A volatile mixture of political and social forces existed in the Nacogdoches area during the 1830s. For the most part, former citizens of the United States controlled the newly formed government of the republic. They lived in constant fear of repression by the Mexican government, from which they recently had declared independence.

After being informed on August 7 that at least 100 Mexicans led by Córdova were encamped on the Angelina River, Thomas J. Rusk called up the Nacogdoches squadron and sent a call to nearby settlements for reinforcements. On August 8 Houston issued a proclamation prohibiting unlawful assemblies and carrying of arms and ordered all assembled without authorization to return to their homes in peace. Two days later the leaders of the rebellion replied with their own proclamation, signed by Córdova and eighteen others. It stated that they could no longer bear injuries and usurpations of their rights. They had, therefore, taken up arms, were ready to die in defense of those rights, and only begged that their families not be harmed. (Note: There's much more to this story)
[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/jcc03 ]

1906 - The Colorado County Feud, a series of gun battles between members of the Townsend family of Columbus, started during the 1898 Colorado County sheriff's race. The election pitted incumbent sheriff Sam Reese against his one time deputy, Larkin Hope. Former state senator Mark Townsend, who directed a political machine that had backed the winning candidate in each of the last nine sheriff's elections, dropped his backing of Reese and endorsed Hope. The move seemingly assured Hope of victory.

But on August 3, 1898, Hope was killed by an unknown assailant in downtown Columbus. Immediately, suspicion centered on Jim Coleman, a close friend of Sam Reese's sons, Walter and Herbert. Townsend picked a new candidate, Will Burford, and, with feeling running high against the Reeses, Burford won the election. Less than a year later, on March 16, 1899, Sam Reese was killed in a gun battle on the street near where Hope died. Even though the best evidence suggests that Reese had provoked the fight in which he was killed, his sons vowed to get revenge. In five more gunfights-on May 17, 1899, January 15, 1900, July 31, 1900, June 30, 1906, and May 17, 1907-five more men were killed and several others wounded. The dead included Reese's brother Dick, Burford's son Arthur, Will Clements's brother Hiram, and Jim Coleman. Also dead was another innocent bystander, Dick Gant. No one was ever convicted of any of the murders.

The feud had a direct effect on the economic wellbeing of Columbus. Boehme, a farmer, had been in town buying supplies when shooting erupted and he was killed. His death persuaded many area farmers to buy their supplies elsewhere. The peaceful citizens of Columbus, trying to end the feuding, asked the city council to reestablish the office of city marshal, which had been abolished some years earlier. For financial reasons, they refused. On August 7, 1906, the citizenry voted to abolish the corporation of the city of Columbus and turn the administration of the town over to the county. The town remained unincorporated for twenty years.[ https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/jcc07 ]