Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas Page: 466 of 894

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

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ing, they erected commodious brick buildings in
Hallettsville, and added to their business a banking
department, which from its inception has met with
a liberal patronage from the business community.

Mr. Wm. Von Rosenberg was married at Belleville,
Texas, May 9, 1889, to Miss Metta Brossmann,
daughter of Mr. C. H. Brossmann, County
Treasurer of Austin County.

FRANCISCO DE PAUL GONZALES,
GALVESTON.

The subject of this sketch, Francisco De Paul
Gonzales, was born at Guanajuata, Mexico, on the
9th day of April, 1826. His grandfather and
father were both officers in the Spanish army,
having gone to Mexico, from Spain, with the Spanish
troops, at the time of the expedition of Barradas,
and subsequently settled here.
Mr. Gonzales, with his younger brother Thomas,
received his elementary English instruction in the
State of Illinois, but while still quite young, he was
sent to Spain, to complete his education in the
Monastic College of his ancestral home, at Valladolid.
Here he was received with the demonstrative
hospitality, the pomp and ceremony usually
accorded to the sons of the old Spanish Grandees.
Returning from Spain, Mr. Gonzales made his
home in New Orleans, where his mother was already
living. His rare grace and charm of manner, his
fine conversational powers, and the dignity of his
distinguished presence, soon won for him the esteem
and admiration of the fastidious citizens of that
metropolis of the South.
After a period, fired by the spirit of adventure
and enterprise which at that time stirred the hearts
of so many young men, Mr. Gonzales resolved to
seek his fortune in the new State of Texas. Accordingly
he located at Brownsville, and for many
years carried on an extensive and lucrative trade
with the interior of Mexico.
It was during this time of commercial prosperity
and happiness, that he married the acknowledged

belle and beauty of the Lone Star State, Miss
Martha Anne Rhea, the granddaughter of Governor
Sevier, and the daughter of the late Judge Rhea,
who, at that time, was Collector of Customs at
Point Isabel. In 1856, Mr. Gonzales, with his
family, moved to Galveston, and for years was a
prominent cotton factor. After the death of his
wife, in 1874, he retired from active business and
devoted his time exclusively to his children and his
consular office--as during the entire time of his
residence in Galveston, he was Consul for Mexico.
He had five children, two sons
Francis Edward,
who died August 9, 1885, and Joseph Maurice,
who died March 28, 1893
and three daughters,
Marie Therese, Helen, and Martha, still living.
Helen, married to Theodore Demetrius Murcoulides,
has two children, Theodore Demetrius, Jr.,
and Marie Stella Murcoulides. Mr. Murcoulides,
who was born and educated in classic Athens, but
now a citizen of Smyrna, a city in Asiatic Turkey,
is in Galveston, managing the business of the
world-renowned Rails House.
Mr. Gonzales was by faith and practice a Roman
Catholic. With an inflexible belief in the dogmas
of his Church in the broadest sense he obeyed its
commandments.
With strict principles and exclusive tastes, he
devoted himself to his children and his friends with
an ardor second only to that which he bore to the
divine symbol of his faith. Francisco de Paul
Gonzales died January 16, 1890.