Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 6, Number 1, January 1996 Page: 12
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Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal
Judging by an affidavit which characterized him as "base" and a "dangerous
man," and which was signed by fourteen of the colonists, three of whom had been jurors
at his trial and four of whom had been witnesses for the defense, Wilson, after his crime,
did not have many friends in the colony, The punishment he was accorded seems to have
been regarded as light. When, shortly after Wilson was exiled, the Colorado settlers had
occasion to punish another criminal, they did so themselves, in a manner which no doubt
concurrently with the John Motley, and dropping off, among others, the man who had owned it when it made
its first voyage, William Kincheloe. Then it returned to New Orleans to pick up provisions and more settlers,
arriving on July 11 and departing on or about July 23. By this time, it had apparently been purchased by Joseph
Hawkins. It was back on the Texas coast in August or early September, when it deposited the cargo that was
to be plundered (see Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical
Association, vol. 6, no. 3, January 1903, pp. 236-237, The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 476, 502, 521, 648. That
it was in New Orleans as late as July 23, 1822 is confirmed by the letter that is transcribed on pages 532-533
of volume 1 of The Austin Papers. That letter, which mentions Musquiz, was sent to Texas via the Only Son).
Kuykendall remembered that the guards were murdered and the vessel looted shortly after the landings in June
1822 (see Kuykendall, "Reminiscences of Early Texans," The Quarterly of the Texas State Historical
Association, vol. 6, no. 3, January 1903, pp. 237, 247). His memory was apparently wrong. The Dewees book
states that the settlement was alerted to the crime shortly after he arrived on the Colorado in the fall of 1822,
and, in an apparent attempt to differentiate it from the vessel which arrived in June, that the cargo that the
murdered men were guarding had been left by "the second vessel that had landed at the mouth of the Colorado"
(see Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, pp. 30-31). The Cloppers, apparently by oral tradition,
believed that the theft and murder occurred in October 1822. Because the bodies were never recovered, for a
time Clopper's family held out hope that he and his friend White had been captured (see Clopper, An American
Family, p. 109). Dewees does not mention Clopper or White by name, and remembered that only one man had
been left to guard the ship, but he does say that the body was not found. He accounted for the missing body by
concluding that the Indians, who, since they had already acquired a reputation as cannibals, must have been
Karankawas, had eaten it (see Dewees, Letters from an Early Settler of Texas, p. 32). The papers generated by
the court in the trial of Stephen R. Wilson associate the Cloppers with the camp at the mouth of the Colorado
where the guards were killed, specifically stating that it was the camp of Seth Ingram and Nicholas Clopper
(meaning, apparently, Nicholas Clopper, Sr.) (see Province of Texas v. Stephen R. Wilson, Minutes, March 8,
1823; and Decree of the Court, San Fernando de Bexar, April 8, 1823, Bexar Archives, The Center for American
History, University of Texas, Austin. The older Clopper was certainly alive in 1823, for he testified at Wilson's
trial). The Clopper family story and particularly the October 1822 date is lent further credibility because
Trespalacios did not mention the incident until November 13, 1822 (see Letter of Jose Fel1ix Trespalacios,
November 13, 1822, Bexar Archives, The Center for American History, University of Texas, Austin) and by
the fact that Tumlinson's report on the investigation of the incident was written on January 7, 1823 (see John
Tumlinson and Robert H. Kuykendall to the Commandant General of Texas, Bexar Archives, The Center for
American History, University of Texas, Austin). It is most likely, of course, that the investigation occurred
shortly after the incident rather than months later.
Further evidence that the Only Son made at least two voyages is provided by the business dealings of
Littleberry Hawkins. On October 7, 1824, Hawkins wrote a long letter to Austin regarding his dealings in Texas.
Among his complaints was that he had lost provisions that had been landed at the mouth of the Colorado but
subsequently had been "taken from the encampment by those Americans," meaning presumably Wilson, Moss,
and Park (see The Austin Papers, vol. 1, p. 918). The provisions that the Only Son carried on its second voyage
had been obtained in New Orleans by Victor Blanco, Francisco Madero, and Ramon Musquiz. Madero,
however, could not pay for his share of the provisions, so he borrowed money from Hawkins. Hawkins, and
later his representative, Phillip Dimmitt, were unable to collect the debt, and Hawkins thereby acquired a share
of the provisions themselves (see The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 532-533, 648-649, 917-922).12
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Nesbitt Memorial Library. Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 6, Number 1, January 1996, periodical, January 1996; Columbus, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth151396/m1/12/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nesbitt Memorial Library.