Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 6, Number 1, January 1996 Page: 44
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Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal
Dewees may have coveted the property ever since 1823, when he accompanied
Stephen F. Austin, who at the time had designs on establishing a city there, to the site. Mose-
ley, who may have rented the property from the Tumlinsons, certainly already lived in the
area. So did Martha Hill Bostick and her family, who had lived there since 1832. Dewees,
who, because evidence indicates he lived on the site before completing purchase of it, may
also have rented some of the Tumlinson land, was firmly established there by the end of
1834. For the next two or three years, though some people called it Moseley's, the site
would be most often referred to as Dewees' Crossing.17
Shortly after acquiring the place, Dewees initiated his own plan to establish a
city on it. Just what happened next is not altogether clear. Certainly, no progress as regards
the construction of buildings was made. Travelers began crossing the river, apparently with
increasing frequency, at Dewees', and with decreasing frequency at Beeson's. Dewees may
have toyed with the idea of resurrecting the name of Montezuma for his proposed town,
and indeed may have marketed lots under that name. Whatever the case, by the end of 1835,
the incipient town, not yet stout enough even to be called a fledgling, had acquired the name
Columbus.'8
The first mention of the town by name occurred in a December 30, 1835
petition, signed by 54 men, asking the provisional government to create a new municipality,
the Municipality of Colorado, with its seat of government at the town of Columbus. The
Quarterly, vol. 22, no. 1, July 1918, p. 80; Texas Gazette, January 30, 1830 and other issues through March
20, 1830; Colorado County Deed Records, Book J, p. 626, Book A for Bonds and Deeds, p. 36.
17 Benjamin Lundy refers to the place as "Dewees' ferry" as early as August 12, 1834, or nearly a
month before Dewees purchased the land (see Earle, comp., The Life, Travels and Opinions ofBenjamin Lundy,
p. 123). Moseley was in Brazoria when the local newspaper ran advertisements offering the Tumlinson estate
for rent; therefore it is reasonable to speculate that he saw the ads. As, by 1833, he was living on the property
and as there is no record that he owned it, it is reasonable to speculate that he might have rented it (see Texas
Gazette, May 8, 1830, July 3, 1830 for advertisements by Moseley, and Texas Gazette, January 30, 1830 through
March 20, 1830 for Tumlinson advertisement). William Barret Travis witnessed the division of the Tumlinson
property. His diary confirms that Moseley, Beeson, James Wright, James J. Ross, and Martha Hill Bostick all
lived in the immediate vicinity, and that the recently deceased William Robinson had also lived nearby (see
Davis, ed., The Diary of William Barret Travis, p. 91).
18 It will be remembered that the name Montezuma had been applied to the place where the Atascosito
Road crossed the river, a few miles south of the site where Columbus would be established. Several later writers,
including, apparently, Dewees himself, equate the site of Montezuma with that of Columbus. Dewees, or some
other unknown writer, did so in an advertisement for lots in the town of Columbus that appeared in the Telegraph
and Texas Register on June 8, 1837 and on several subsequent dates. No satisfactory explanation for the adoption
of the name Columbus has yet emerged. The most likely explanation is, quite simply, the enormous celebrity
that had recently been achieved by Christopher Columbus via the publication of Washington Irving's
unimaginably popular, fictionalized biography entitled A History of the Life and Voyages of Christopher
Columbus. The book, which was published in 1828, did nothing less than rescue Columbus from obscurity. That
it was known in Texas cannot be denied, for the Texas Gazette of February 27, 1830 carried a poem entitled
"The Burial of Columbus" that was inspired by the Irving book. As we have seen, Robert J. Moseley, who lived
near Dewees when he presumably named the town, had lived in Brazoria when the poem was published in its
newspaper. He may have urged adoption of the name.44
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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/m1/44/: accessed April 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nesbitt Memorial Library.