The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 29, July 1925 - April, 1926 Page: 96
330 p. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
first to encounter a raiding war party, to arrest its progress, and to
sound the alarm. A historian would therefore expect to find able
leaders and fighting characters recruited from the ranks of sur-
veyors. And such men there were.
Perhaps the two most successful and spectacular Indian fighters
of Texas history were Jack Hays and George Erath, both surveyors.
Jack Hays became a ranger captain who performed prodigies of
valor. He moved to California shortly after the discovery of gold
there in 1849. John Hayes Hammond, Sr., the noted engineer
of today is a nephew of Jack Hays. George Erath, a surveyor who
laid out Waco, and located much land in Texas, became ranger
captain, legislator and honored citizen.
Frank W. Johnson, who figured brilliantly in the storming of
San Antonio with Ben Milam in 1835, was a surveyor.
A surveyor named McLellan, fell in the storming of the Alamo.
Although his name is not on the roster of the Alamo dead, which is
admittedly incomplete, there is good authority (Noah Smithwick)
for the statement that McLellan met his death in this fight.
John H. Reagan, a Texas statesman and a member of the Con-
federate States cabinet, had been a surveyor.
With the discovery of gold in California in 1849 and the resulting
cross-continent migration, a new era in the exploration of the
Southwest began. The object was to find a short and practicable
route overland to the Pacific coast. The earliest work on this
project was done by the United States Army engineers. An
exotic and picturesque detail of this exploration was the use of
camels by a government surveying party in New Mexico. These
camels were a part of the herd introduced by Jefferson Davis, while
Secretary of War in 1857. The camels were kept at the military
post, Camp Verde, in Bandera Pass, Bandera County, Texas.
The civil war postponed the seeking of the route for the Pacific
Railroad for many years and the "Heroic Age" of exploration in
the Southwest came to an end.
The coming of the railroads in re-construction times completed
the winning of the country from the Indians. The surveyors of
the old days were gathered to their fathers. Some lived far into
another time, as did George Erath. He concluded his memoirs
with these words:- "My eyes have now failed me altogether, my
hearing is not good, but my memory of events is but slightly im-
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 29, July 1925 - April, 1926, periodical, 1926; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth117141/m1/110/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.