True stories of old Houston and Houstonians: historical and personal sketches / by S. O. Young. Page: 131
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HOUSTON AND HOUSTONIANS 131
waited to see what the cook would do, but he waited in vain. He
saw nothing of her. Finally his wife wanted her for some purpose
and, receiving no reply to her calls, went out to investigate.
She found the room empty. The cook had crawled out
of a back window, had climbed over a high board fence and had
made her escape into the street. That evening a drayman
came for her things, but she herself never did show up again,
not even to get a small amount of wages due her.
Right after the war there was a little old negro here who was
known to everybody as "Crazy Harry." He was very eccentric
and would abuse and curse whites and blacks with equal impunity,
for no one paid any attention to what he said or did.
The negroes got it in their heads that he was a great hoodoo
doctor and that he could summon the devil to help him whenever
he chose. They feared and hated him, but they treated him
with marked consideration and courtesy whenever he was around.
Harry recognized his advantageous position and did everything
to add to his evil repute.
Some of his capers were amusing in the extreme and at some
future time I intend devoting an entire article to him and his
doings, for he was a character whose memory deserves preservation.
I 'will say here that his leading characteristic was
hatred of the Yankee soldiers who were in possession of Houston,
right after the war. He hated every one of them, from the
commanding general down to the lowest private, and played no
favorites when he distributed his abuse of them. But enough
of Old Harry for this time.
RELICS OF THE WAR.
W
ALKING down Main Street the other day I saw in one
of the show windows an assortment of shot and shell
which, according to an attached card, were taken
out of the bayou near the Milam Street bridge. These had all
been nicely cleaned and painted,black, so that they looked as
good as new, in spite of the fact that they had remained so
many years in the mud of Buffalo Bayou.
One would naturally suppose that they had been thrown in
the bayou to keep them from falling into the hands of the Federals
who at that time were expected to invade Texas. Such,
however, was not the case. Lee had surrendered; Johnson had
surrendered and the Trans-Mississippi department of the Confederate
states was alone in its glory to represent the Confederacy.
However, the soldiers of the Trans-Mississippi department
did not care for such an, honor and those stationed at Galveston,
Houston and other points on the coast, having no enemy
in sight to whom to surrender, concluded' to 'take matters in
their own hands and Just quit. Having quit they concluded to
take with them everything movable that belonged to the Confederacy.
Horses, wagons, guns and ammunition were seized
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Young, Samuel Oliver. True stories of old Houston and Houstonians: historical and personal sketches / by S. O. Young., book, 1913; Galveston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth24646/m1/131/: accessed April 24, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.