The Age, Volume 11, Number 2, February 1990 Page: 1 of 1
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VOLUME XI
WALLISVILLE, TEXAS
FEBRUARY 1990
VOL 2
THE AGE
Established at Houston May
15, 1871 by D. L McGary. Moved
to Wallisville March 15, 1897. Dis-
continued in 1908. Re-established
by the Wallisville Heritage Park,
December 1,1979. $1.25 per paper
$15.00 for one-year subscription.
Wallisville Heritage Park
P.O. Box 16
Wallisville, Texas 77597
The next day we killed lots of wild
hogs, to we came home that day - -1
was very glad to be home.
May 1870, the D.J. Lawrence family
moved from Old River to Barber's Hill.
Also the Ben Wilburn family moved to
the Hid the same year. The same year
the Que Bucks sold their place to my
half-brother, Frank Fitzgerald and moved
to Refugio, Texas, and later to Coleman,
Texas, where my cousin Lucinda
Dunman still lives (1934).
When I was about 18 I began
gathering cattle with my father and
brothers. We worked all day down in
the Cove.
Wednesday 17 September 1875 we
had a terrible Gulf Storm, that tore up
Galveston and Indianola Frank, Elmer,
Taylor, Winfree and I were gathering
cattle in the Cove, the wind blew so
hard we could hardly stay on our
horses so we put them in a pen at the
Hid. Thursday morning it was still
blowing and raining, by afternoon it had
cleared up, but the cattle were uneasy
and broke out We had to gather them
again Friday, and we took them to
Dunk's on the San Jacinto River. We
had about four hundred head. The
Rivers were all up and we couldn't get
across to deliver them to the man so
we had to turn them loose.
The last of September 1875, just
after the storm, Uncle Ben Barber, and
nephews, Rueben Barber and Emmet
buck made us a visit from Blanconia,
then went up through Tarkington's
Prairie to Big Thicket, where Uncle
Addison lived, got him and his family to
take home with them to take care of
them awhile, as my father had them on
his han^l for years. He never did do
anything but hunt, that's why he moved
to the Big Thicket so there would be
more deer and game to hunt They said
that the storm had been so bad, many
places they had to get out and chop
the trees up, and clear out a new road
to Uncle Addison's. They all came back
to our house for a few days and then
went back west, hoping to get the
family some work to support themsel-
ves.
I began riding the range in 1875,
and in 1878 I began riding for father,
and some of my own, but not enough.
The next year, February, 1878, I was
hired as a regular hand. We began in
February to gather 800 steers for a
Kansas man. We went down to the old
Sam Houston place at the mouth of
Cedar Bayou we ran them out and
rounded them up and began cutting out
the steers, most of them from 5 to 12
years old.
After we got our 800 we drove
them over to Old Man Dunk'and
penned them. It rained on us aN night
and nothing but a wagon and wagon
sheet, so we set up most of the night
with our slickers on to keep dry. Next
morning it quit raining. The cook got
out his things and cooked us breakfast
We took them to Dunman Prairie and
counted them out to the Kansas man.
We didn't get through that day, so we
had a little bunch to herd. It cleared off
and came a cold norther so we built a
fire. Robert Barrow and I were on the
first watch, but we went to sleep as we
didn't sleep the night before.
Buffalo Joe (Dugat) came on the
second watch, the cattle were ail scat-
tered about and found us and our
horses right in the middle asleep. He
told us to go on into camp, and then
he took charge.
Ed Pruett, of Dayton gathered
800, steers the same time for the
Kansas men, he brought his own hands
and drove them up the trail to Kansas.
That same spring 1876 we went up to
the head of Old River, Gerald Cove
where we had a stock pen, and
began branding the calves, we were
gone 28 days, we started at the forks at
Old River, Gerald Cove, then Dayton,
Then Loose Bayou, on the Trinity side,
hence to Huffman Settlement around to
Pine Island Cove on the San Jacinto
side of Loose Bayou, then down to
Emhoffs at the head of Cedar Bayou
from there to Dunks, hence to Shepard
Island (mott of trees) Gum Island,
Stocking's pen where we finished our
branding and went home, after 28 days.
We branded about 3,00 calves belong-
ing to my father, Joe, Bud (?) Robert
and D.J. Lawrence, Sol Fisher, Betsy
Barrow and a few others. As we brand-
ed turned them loose on the range.
In the fall of that same year 1876
we made the same trip that we called
our fall branding, but didn't have sor
many calves this time, and was gone
only two or three weeks.
In the spring of 1877 we started
out to get 1000 one and two year olds
before we started branding. I think we
camped at the Old Houston place the
first night and worked up. This time we
sold to GOnter and Childers of Ok-
lahoma and delivered them to Dayton
where they drove them off. We made
the same trip again in the fail of 1877.
About July or August 1877 we
started working cattle at Hickory
Island (wood8 cattle were wild), Frank,
Elmer, Robert Barrow, Taylor Winfree,
Larry Mackey, Joe Larry Dugat, Amos
Lawrence and I gathered for three days,
got 65 of those big woods steers,
spoiled and hard to handle. Some of
them had such huge wide horns we
couldn't rope around both horns, and
had to rope one horn and his neck.
After 3 days we had 65 fierce, wild
things in the pen. One day we turned
them out to water and graze them,
about 4 p.m. we started to put them in
the pen. Taylor Winfree was the boss
this trip but didn't know anything about
cattle, he was raised on a farm and had
never worked cattle before he married
Mary Fisher. He kept saying, "Crowd
them boys, crowd them", and they'd slip
right out past us, so we penned only 18
out of the 65 - the others got away. The
next day we took the 18 to Dayton then
up the Trinity woods up to Loose
Bayou - gathering all the time. Crossed
over to the Huffman settlement, back to
Emhoffs, head of Cedar Bayou, then
Williams Island and Wolf Island down to
the railroad at Ed Pruett's pen at Day-
ton. We had about 400 big old long
horns. Pruett was having a big horse
penning and about 25 hand there, they
all came out to help us. With so many
around, the cattle, nearly scared .them
to death, but we didnl lose a one.
The next day Pruett sent about 10
hands with us to get the steers through
Trinity bottom. We took them in the
woods between Pruett's and Old Man
Day's, which was a sweet gum thicket
and just cow trails, most of the trees
and rattan vines wrapped around them
and it was almost impossible to get
through there anyway.
After we got through to the open
bottom, something went wrong with the
head cattle, either stepped on a stick
or yellow jackets nest, they all stam-
peded, whirled and started back. We ail
had to get out quick ahead of the
cattle. We were fortunate, not a horse
fell or got tangled in that rattan thicket
.We got out first and rounded them up
out in the prairie and took them down
below Day's house into the bottom
where it was more open, drove them up
the bottom to the swimming pen, where
we would cut out a few at a time and
swim them across the Trinity. Some of
our hands would cross over on the
ferry and be there ready to herd the
cattle as they swam across. It took us
till 4 p.m. to get them all across. We
drove them up to Dover's prairie,
counted them and delivered them to
Jack Cole and Simmons, who disposed
of them in New Orleans.
Joe Larry Dugat was a lazy sort of
fellow - he didn't like to be left out with
the herd or do night herding at the pen.
He'd claim a headache. One time we
tried to pen some cattle at the stocking
pen, but the gap was on the east side
and we couldn't pen cattle facing the
sun, so we took them down a panel or
two on the West side and put them in
from that side o.k.
Another time we were trying to
cross some cattle, about 100 head of 1
and 2 year olds, at Lynchburg, .but
didnt have a swimming pen there. Sol
Barrow had some marsh cattle which
were mostly wild Brahmas and we were
trying to get them in the San Jacinto
River to swim them across, when they
turned and ran. Sol Fisher was off his
horse and right in the middle of them -
to save himself he turned to run with
them and grabbed a big steer by the
tail. He held on the steer took him
through safely -It was a funny sight
During the Civil War my brother Frank
joined Col. Ashbel Smith's Company on
Cedar Bayou, other families of that time
were Col. Gillett, of Baytown and Goose
Creek, Field Mitchell, of Goose Creek
and Cedar Bayou, Vivian Duke, ? Mann,
? Wiggins, Anson Jones, Col. John
Hare.
The Gillards moved there after the
War.
Sometime during the Civil War,
Mike Shaw a jeweler from Galveston,
shipped a lot of things up to my
father to be stored in his home when
an attack on Galveston by the Yankees
was expected. It was rumored they
would bomb Galveston.
Mike Shaw married Frances
Carmon, daughter of old man Carmon
of Old River, who was a big slave
owner and had a large plantation.
Mose Smith of Cedar Bayou
composed a little song:
"The Old Blockade
Her threats were made, She declared
she'd burn our town,
But Colonel Cook with fierce looks,
Declared he'd stand his ground.1
General Sam Houston was a
great friend of my fathers. His home
was about 18 miles south of us on the
Bay. Our house was about halfway
between Houston's place and Dayton.
On his trips to Huntsville he always
spent some time at our house, either for
dinner on his way to Dayton* or spent
the night if it was late. We always had
from 1 to 4 people there for supper,
spend the night there and for breakfast
colonel Gillett was often a guest, he
lived down near Cedar Bayou and
Goose Creek, but had an Orphan's
home near Goose Creek and always
stayed with us on his trips back and
forth.
Colonel Ashbel Smith, who was
President of the Medical College in
Galveston, was often a guest at our
house. He had a place near Gooee
Creek (years later many oH weds were
on his place). One day- my father
stopped in to see Mm and he was doc-
toring his arm where a rattlesnake pilot
had bitten him. He was experimenting
with his treatment for it Colonel Smith
organized the Company that D.J. and
Bud Lawrence joined in the Civil War.
Also my half brother, Frank Fitzgerald,
Ed Hartmann.
After General Houston moved back
to Huntsville, his son-in-law, Sim Mor-
row lived at his home on the Bay, and
when he moved away he brought Sim
a lot of General Houston's things to our
house and left them. Among them, I
remember a basket full of things, a
powder horn, two pairs of shoes, some
books and a carpet bag. Those things
stayed at our house for years, in fact he
never came for them, years later Ruf
Barber took the powder horn and let a
man have it who promised to get
money for it
General Houston's room was
upstairs over our main family room, it
was there for him whenever he came.
Dayton used to be called West
Liberty but they changed the name to
Dayton in honor of old man I.C. Day,
who lived there. His daughter, Mattie
Day married Joe Davis and some of the
family still lives around there. Another
daughter married Clay Chambers from
Anahuac.
Old man Beasley Pruett and Mike
Unney and Basil Warren lived at
Dayton, also Antoine Courville who
was French.
Once, father, Will McGar and I
went up to buy Durham cattle from a
man by the name of Robinson at Old
Waverly, we spent the first night in the
lower part of Tarkington's Prairie at the
home of a man by the name of Smith,
then stopped the next day in Cold
Springs. When we got to Old Waverly,
Robinson, who was a game chicken
fighter, had come to New Waverly to
fight some chickens. We spent a day
and a night there waiting for him to
come home. We finally got three head
of Durham from him. On the way home
we spent the night at Basil Warren's at
Dayton.
THE PROGRES8
A L Beason, Editor
& Manager
Friday, June 20,1911
TEMPERANCE RALLY
Rev. W. C. Dunn, of Houston,
district superintendent of the Anti-Saloon
League, an able speaker, will deliver
adresses at the following places: Ana-
huac, Saturday night June 24th, at the
Methodist Church at 8:30; Wallisville,
Sunday night June 25th; Smith's School-
house, Sunday, June 11th. No tirade, no
abuse! Everybody cordially invited.
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Wallisville Heritage Park (Organization). The Age, Volume 11, Number 2, February 1990, periodical, February 1990; Wallisville, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth404268/m1/1/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Chambers County Library System.