Family History by Robert Monroe Fleming (Sr.)

Notes on Fanily History by Iva Causey Fleming
(Part 16)

Transcribed by Robert M. Fleming Jr.


In 1835 there was living in our immediate neighborhood a family by the name of Louis. The oldest son in this family was named George Washington Louis. He was called always by his middle name. In March 1836, Washington Louis volunteered at the same time that my Father enlisted. And they both joined Captain William Patton's company. In the battle of San Jacinto, Washington was shot down. My Father saw him fall. George Wright, Claiborn Rector, James Bayr, members of the same company were near by at the time and these four picking up a blanket from the abandoned baggage of the routed foe, went to get Washington and carry him to the rear. He had fallen and was lying on his face and had not recovered consciousness. They spread the blanket by him and turned him over towards it. As they did so he came to himself and recognized them. His first words were, "Boys, I fired my gun thirteen times and I saw twelve of the yellow bellies fall". He was shot through the right lung. Straight through from front to back. And at every rspiration the bloody breath escaped through the wound. For many years after this I knew him well. And I have heard my Father relate as I have written the fact and circumstances of Washington Louis being shot through and through on the field of San Jacinto. In the list of wounded in that battle now on file in the office of the comissioner of Statistics and History at the State Capitol, the name of Washington Louis appears. In the list of the privates in Captain Patton's company the name of G W Lewis appears. Following the fore going record, John Henry Brown in his history of Texas names Washington Lewis in the list of severly wounded and G W Lewis as a private in Captain Patton's company. The name Washington Lonis or G W Lonis no where appears in either record. It is a clear mistake not unnatural, but none the less cruel. Mr. Lonis married Margaret Cowan, moved to Western Texas and reared a family of children. I have never met any of them and do not know if any of them are now living. His brother James Lonis also married and had descendents. And his sister Matilda, a very handsome and interesting young woman, married William Cannon with whom she lived in Brazoria County many years till her death, an active useful life. And left children, one, a son, bearing his Father's full name, William Cannon was a gallant soldier in the Confederate Army. And for more than thirty years that have since passed he has led in his native area an active, useful life enjoying the respect and esteem of all good men who knew him. The record at the Capital should be corrected.

During the first year of which I have any recollection and for many, a number of years,( I know not how many before that), Mr Isaac T Tinsley was one of our neighbors in the Chance's Prairie settlement. He was a prominent actor in public affairs in 1835 and 1836. He was a member of the Committee of Safety and Correspondence appointed by the convention that met in Columbia August 15, 1835. He was for that time and locality quite a wealthy man. He kept a family carriage and a full supply of the best fresh flour, for his family use. And had hot biscuits on his table always twice each day. These were then and there badges of wealth. He did not have a large force of slaves. He was a good farmer, had good land and made large crops for the force he worked. But his family was a side issue. He had made much of his wealth in trade in Tennessee and Alabama. In a few years, when interest bearing Texas treasury notes were circulating as money, but had greatly depreciated in value, Mr Tinsley sold his farm in Chance's Prarie for a great price. Payable in these notes. He locked the notes up in his safety deposit vault and let them sleep there, drawing interest. From which sleep they awoke ten years later as good as gold, as large as life, and twice as natural. He opened a new farm on the Brazos, five or six miles above Columbia, on which he resided with his family. This took them farther from us but the intimacy of our families continued and increased as the children in each increased in number and grew up towards maturity. His oldest child, a son named Jack, was a few months younger than I. We were always chums at school or away from school, until after Annexation. When his Father sent him off to school at Poughkeepsie, New York. He had returned and was at home in March, 1850, when I returned home from school in Washington County and was soon sent to Centre College, Kentucky. We had seen very little of each other during the last four years. And soon after my arrival home he came to our house and paid me a visit of several days. of a happy duration. He wished me to go home with him and continue our reunion there but I could not. And Jack had to go with out me. His road home passed through the town of Columbia where he made a short stop, not exceeding half an hour to see his tailor. Whom he found with a fever on him. The tailor's illness proved to be small pox. The tailor recovered but from this exposure Jack, who had not been vaccinated, contracted the desease and died a few days after leaving our house. One of Jack's brothers, the oldest of those now living was named for my Father, Joseph McCormick. He now resides at his native home on the Brazos. One of Mr Tinsley's daughters, Miss Caledonia, married my friend, the late Hon John T Brady of Houston, Texas.

From my early boyhood Mr George Armstrong lived at or near the confluence of the two Linnville Bayous, a little way in the woods from the head of Chance's Prairie and about five miles from the dwelling of our family. For more than thirty years from my early recollection till his death Mr Armstrong was my Father's friend and my friend. Often tried and always true. He was a native of Tennessee and had inherited weak lungs, with a tendency manifested in his youth, to pulmonary consumption. This he escaped by moving to the softer climate of the Gulf Coast. And secured more than thirty years of active useful, happy life. He lived a bachelor for a number of years. Until his health having become rugged in his mature manhood he visited his native state and married. The woman of his choice was a charming character, made to complement his and to complete and adorn his home. He went to his reward more than twenty years ago leaving two children, a son and daughter who have followed him across the river. And now of this ideal family the childless widow is left alone.

A few miles above us, on the Bernard, was the residence of Colonel William Hall. He had married the widow Phillips, who was the daughter of Thomas Westfall, of the Gulf Prairie settlement. She was a widow the seond time when she married Colonel Hall. Having been first the wife and widow of James Brown Austin, the brother of the empresario. But was still young and very attractive. She had been educated in the best schools in the "States". Was handsome and highly intellectual. She received from her first husband a large estate. Colonel Hall and his family lived sumptuously at their Bernard home. Which was known every where by the name of "Waverly", which he had given it. He loved company and organized his home with the view of indulaging his taste in that direction. And so that he might entertain much company well and easily. After he had been living at Waverly a number of years he and his family were one day visitors at Madam Bells when she casually made allusion to some of the inconveniences of living on the public road. "Think, Madam,' he said,'what it must be at the end of the public road". He left Waverly soon after this and opened a new plantation and built him a home thereon. Between East Columbia and Orazimbo on a tract of land most fertile and most secluded. But his new home soon became the end of the road as public as that which led to Waverly. Mrs Hall's oldest brother, James Westfall, a gentleman of finished education and culture, active and prudent in business. Probably the most promising man of his age then in Austin's colony. Fell a victim to the "Big Cholera" in 1833. One of her sisters was the wife of Mr John Greenville McNeel, who was a member of the Committee of Safety and Correspondence in 1835. A member of the convention that framed our State Constitution in 1845, and a State Senator in the first Legislature. The work of which was so fundamental and has proved so durable in the construction of our State politically. Next neighbor to Mr Thomas Westfall in the Gulf Prairie settlement, lived Mr Munson, the Father of the Honorable Colonel Mordello S Munson. Who having graduated, the honor man in his class at Transylvania University at Lexington, Kentucky, entered the legal profession at Brazoria, and in 1858 commenced his career as a public man by service as a member of the legislature. And during the period of hisvigorous manhood has served his state in civil and in military life. Second only to General John A Wharton in military achievement. And easily chief of all in civil leadership in that portion of the State.

The fore going are a few of the more prominent of the neighbors in the midst of whom my Father's lot fell in 1832. And to whom he became joined by such ties of amity that he was moved to say in his later years to one of his many friends, the late Honorable Robert J Calder. "If I can endow my son with the friends I have secured it will be to him a richer inheritance than any amount of pecuniary wealth I could leave him."

Early in March 1836, the government called for one half of all the able bodied men West of the Trinity River to form an army to meet the invaders under Santa Anna. My Father and the other members of Captain William H Patton's company volunteered at once. Thelittle field at the new little home had been well prepared and planted in cotton and corn. Both of which were up to a good stand. And the corn had received one working. Having carefully inspected his fences and righted them up and strengthened them where such precautions were deemed needed, the volunteers set out with his comrades. They crossed the Colorado River at Cayse's Ferry. And joined General Houston's column on it's retreat from Gonzales to Burnham's, where the patriot army arrived March 17, 1836. And posted, with the view to hold the Colorado if possible. Squads of other volunteers poured in daily until they formed a force respectable for it's numbers and the individual qualities of the men. Full of raw enthusiasm and patriotic rage. Fighting men certainly, and each well trained to the use of arms. But utterly ignorant of the first principle of drill, the simplest evolutions of military forces. Or the primary means of vital essence of subordination. At first word or sign indicating that the patriot army would be ordered to fall back from the line of the Colorado a shiver of disappointment and disgust convulsed all the ranks. I have seen and heard my Father try to express the sense of honor and shame which he experienced when he saw the torch put to Dewee's fodder stocks. On the evening of March 26, the retreat began. Then followed twenty six evil days full of toil and anxiety to the retreating army. But full also of that useful experience and discipline which won the crowning triumph. April 21, the day the battle came. It was decisive. My Father passed though it un hurt. Volunteers from East of the Trinity began to arrive the day of the battle. The orders of the captive Dictator were respected by General Fisiola and the Mexican forces not engaged and killed or captured at San Jacinto were concentracted and withdrawn from Texas never to return except in small raiding parties that advanced only to San Antonio in 1842. Captain Robert Calder carried to the refugee camps on Galveston Island the news of the victory and the women and children who had been removed to that point from their exposed homes in Brazoria and the adjoining countries were brought back the the steamboat, "Yellowstone" to East Columbia and other points on the lower Brazons. My Mother, my infant sister and I were with those refugees. Mt Father on furlough, reached our home a few days before we did. It had not been disturbed by the enemy. During my Father's absence, Mr Sweeney had sent a squad of his salves to our little place and had the crops of corn and cotton properly worked. On his arrival home my Father started his plow and thus with happy content and joyous expectation awaited the return of his family who were in charge of Uncle David and Br Bell. And would be home soon. When they did arrive my Father was plowing in the field, laying by his corn crop. The little field never yielded a more abundant crop than it did that year. At the time required by his furlough he reported in person at Goliad. Butbeing no longer needed he was then discharged.


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©2009 Robert M. Fleming Jr.

This page was last revised on 29 September 2009.