The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, Volume 2, July 1898 - April, 1899 Page: 175

Notes and Fragments.

175

above San Felipe, owed his distinguishing prefix to 'a large flock of
sheep, the first in the colonies. "Dog" Brown gained his unenviable
notoriety by appropriating another fellow's dog. "Cabris" Brown
having in like manner ,become possessed of a cabristo, or, as the
Americans pronounced it, "cabris"--a hair rope, -figuratbively
speaking expiated his sin at the end of a rope. Then there were
Billy Brown and "Buckskin" Billy, and "Little Buckskin" Billy
Brown.
Robert Williams,who lived out on the San Bernard, being a man of
property, with servants and "store" ,clothes, was distinguished from
the various other members of the Williams tribe by the sobriquet of
"Gentleman Bob." "Varmint" Williams, a member of Dewitt's
colony, was a collector of wild animals for menageries. His son
Napoleon was the only one of the family that I knew. "Pot" 'Wil-
liams, the first constable in San Felipe, becoming engaged in a
heated controversy with one Stafford while the two were in camp
together, grabbed a small cast-iron pot and smashed it over Staf-
ford's head; thereby earning for himself this euphonious appella-
tion. "Waco" Williams was the first white settler in the Waco
country.
Though the '"Smith" family was well represented, comparatively
few of them seemed to have attained that degree of prominence en-
titling them to a rechristening. Of these, Erasmus, or "Deaf," Smith
is the most conspicuous, not even excepting the governor. Deaf
Smith, however, was not, as I have seen it stated, stone deaf, though
his hearing was quite defective. The suggestive title of "Picayune"
Smith attached to the proprietor of a store in Victoria. 'Charles
Smith, a denizen of old San Felipe, was known everywhere as
"Beaver-trap," he having formerly been engaged in trapping.
There were two William Coopers, one of whom had a large stock
ranch on the east side of the Brazos below San Felipe de Austin,
and was consequently designated "Cow" Cooper. The other, from
having had an encounter with a sawmill, from which the came off
mangled out of 'shape, was called "Sawmill" Cooper. He, in com-
pany with one 'Cheeves, put up the first frame building in San
Felipe, using it for a saloon.
Robert Mitchell, who gave name to "Mitchell's Bend" 'on the
Colorado, below Austin, was the first man in the colonies to engage
in hog raising as a business, which circumstance gave him the name