The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 91, July 1987 - April, 1988 Page: 276
619 p. : ill. (some col.), maps (some col.), ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
The Hardins represented other families who settled in Mexican
Texas. Blackburn, the first on the scene, arrived in 1825 in flight from
murder charges in Tennessee. In short order, his father and four broth-
ers joined him for reasons also related to Tennessee law.
The clan put down roots in the Atascosito District, later Liberty
County, and participated in full measure in the events of their time and
place. Two of the brothers marched with Stephen F. Austin to put down
the Fredonian Rebellion; three of them sojourned in various Mexican
prisons; William rallied the Texans at Anahuac in 1832; Blackburn
signed the Texan Declaration of Independence; Frank stormed San
Antonio with Ben Milam and fought with Sam Houston in the battle of
San Jacinto. Their descendants fought in the Civil War and endured
the trials of Reconstruction. Along the way, the family acquired vast
tracts of land, and the brothers expanded the family circle by marrying
into large families.
Unlike most Texans of the period, the Hardins and their extended
family were avid letter writers, and fortunately, some of them were
letter savers. One of their descendants, Camilla Davis Trammell, has by
diligence and a few turns of luck collected many of those letters and
put them together in this book, which usually lets the principals tell
their own story. The matriarch of the clan called her husband, her five
sons, and her son-in-law her Seven Pines. A son later named a resi-
dence Seven Pines, hence the title of the book.
The letters range in content from one written by Frank Hardin
shortly before the battle of San Jacinto to a series of letters written by a
school girl from Galveston. Like other letters never intended for the
public eye, they give candid and informal insight into the period. Many
picture the changing social and economic scene. A few contain memo-
rable quotes. For example, there is the message Joseph Bryan sent his
fourteen-year-old son, Tom, who was marching with Sam Houston to-
ward San Jacinto: "Tell Tom Howdy for me and that he must act like a
man even if he is but a boy" (p. 35). Interwoven with the text is the story
of the blacks who were a part of the Hardins' extended family. A collec-
tion of rare photographs of both blacks and whites further enhances
the book.
The author is sometimes uncertain about historical and geographical
facts, and the reader often becomes lost in the tangle of genealogy.
Even so, this saga of an early Texas family enriches the body of primary
material for the period.MARILYN MCADAMS SIBLEY
276
Houston, Texas
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 91, July 1987 - April, 1988, periodical, 1987/1988; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101211/m1/316/?rotate=90: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.