The Corpus Christi Star. (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 1, No. 17, Ed. 1, Saturday, January 13, 1849 Page: 2 of 4
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X
THE CORPDS CIIRISTI STAR.
PUBLISHED EVERY SATURDAY HORNING BY
JOHN H. PEOPLES.
Subscription $5 per" annum'. .Wverliscmcnls SI 00
for the first and 50 cents for subsequent insertions of B lines.
CORPDS CHRISTI SATURDAY JANUARY 13.
JEf The first of the year coming in the day af-
ter our last issue" we concluded to "put it through"
and in that determination so very religiously did
wo observe it that we were too proud to think of
working and consequent'' to think of a newspaper
for the week. If any of our subscribers think they
lost any thing by the Star not shining at its usual
hour on Saturday last they have but to read the
poetry on the Spanish side to be compensated for
its non-appearance at the usual time.
o
The Cholera. On our outside wc give an article from
tlic Victoria Advocate from which it will be scon that the
cholera now happily fast abating was confined entirely to
the eoldicry. Wc have heard that some of'thc people about
Victoria and .Lavaca arc incredulous as to its being cholera
and a few attribute it to the pork with which the soldiers arc
fed. Whatever the disease be it has sn cpt ofl some hun-
dred and fifty of the troops.
0
Col. Hat's Rcrfmr. Wc promised the report which
col. flays made to our readers in this number but wc confess
with regret that crcry exertion on our part to obtain a copy
was unavailing. We received a copy from Lt. Goodall cut
out the report for safety and stored it away but so securely
that wc ourselves could not find it again. Wc regret this
on another account than that of our subscribers: wc had
spoken of it such a way that justice to the Colonel deman-
ded lliat wc 'should publish it. Wc will be obliged to our
friend Cronican if he will send us a paper containing it.
JrJ On Monday night there will be a incelinT
of the young men at Major Bryant'sUnion House)
for the purpose of organizing the Thespian Society.
The meeting will take place at 7 o'clock.
o
San Antoxio Trade. The last two weeks has
convinced us that what we prophesied was true
when we said that sooner or later the goods or the
greater part of them for San Antonio would be
landed at this nlace The advantages of this nlnm
arcoo apparent to business men to be overlooked I
when in search of a depot for San Antonio and if
everything else were thrown aside the feasible road
at all seasons would throw the preponderance in the
scale of Corpus Christi. The packet steamer has
broughfgoods here each trip for San Antonio and
wc expect soon that the great bulk of that trade will
pass through here.
o
Mann's Wharf. Mr. Mann's wharf is now
finished and extends to eight feet water. The car
is on the rails and has been used nearly all the
time during the week in transporting to ticrra firma
the freight from the different craft alongside. The
wharf is a decided improvement to the place and
the enterprising projector is entitled to the thanks as
well as the support of its citizens.
oo
Cave Johnson. Cave your time is short and
if we had nothing else to hope for in General Tay-
lor's elevation to the Presidency it would be un-
bounded consolation to know that you will shortly
startup salt river and that your place will be filled
by some one whose political prejudices will never
like yours suffer a large and populous section of.
country to be without mail facilities because the in-
habitants are of a different creed in politics. We
are ashamed of you as an American as one of Ame-
rica's unprincipled politicians who stooped to sub-
terfuge and chicanery before the election in the
hope of gaining votes and after those votes were
cast and not for you nor yours then and not till
then to come out and refuse those mail facilities
which Congress empowered you to give us. -It
shows a littleness beneath the smallest hot-house
politician and shows also that it is well for the peo-
ple that a cabinet officer who could stoop to it is
soon to have that trust taken from him. As wc
have stated before this place and all of Texas is
cut off from thc'populous counties of the Rio Grande
because .you did not do what Congress authorized
you to do. When we told you this before the elec-
tion you addressed us a letter saying that no bids
had been received and intimated that so soon as any
.should be received the routes should bo put in ope-
rationthis j-ou said Cave for Buncombe. After
tho election you write to ono of the proposal isls
that thejoutes can't be put in operation till spring
this you done for sjiite. Cameron and Nueces
voted for old Zach as Webb'would have done had
there been mail facilities and the county organized
therefore such voters should not communicate eh?
Had wc a dog that would act so unprincipled we'd
drive him amongst the prairie wolves. But never
mind it now for
There's ajgood time a coining
There's a good time a coming
There's a good lime a coming
When Cave you'll have to go.
Lt. Goodall who came in from near Laredo a day or two
n" reports ths mails in excellent condition and the train
from this plate gating smoothly on.
CALIFORNIA THE-GOLD FEVER.
Never did cholera -yellow fever or any other fell
disease rage with half the fury with which the gold
fever is now sweeping over the land. In the first
named diseases there arc remedies to overcome
them and all are not subject to attack but this comes
down on communities in ono fell swoop sparing
neither age sex nor condition. It is the rage the
all-absorbing topic throughout the broad expanse of
our country. The newspapers arc filled with it
and few conversations that arc not interlarded with
" California" " Gold" etc. Every port nearly in
the United States is fitting up its vessels for El
Dorado freighted with implements for disembowel-
ling the metal from the earth and numbers of young
men to perform that labor. Besides the vessels
that have already sailed from New York Boston
Philadelphia and Baltimore by the last dates wc
see that about seventy more arc up in those places
for the different ports bordering tho gold region.
This number does not include those up : way down
East" and few of those dollar loving yankecs will
fail to send off their fleets at New Orleans and
all the southern ports. Independent of tho vessels
fitting up expeditions arc getting up in all the
southern and western slatei of the union for a trip
overland to the golden shores of the Pacific and
before the middle of April hundreds of companies
will be on the prarics from Missouri Arkansas
Louisiana and Texas.
We as a people in limes past were wont to
condemn the Spaniards in their rapacious conquests
attributing their crusades more to a desire for the
g.dd of Montezuma in Mexico and of the Incas in
Peru than to that religious zeal which they them
selves pointed to as the incentive. But does not
the present occasion show that we who condemned
that lust for gold which characterized the followers
of Cortcz and Pizarro did not know our own
hearts ? The same temptation is now before us
the virtuous indignation felt and expressed whilst
reading of the Spaniards' progress gives way and
we are found hazarding as much for the lucre as did
the one around the Aztec capital or the other iu en-
snaring the Peruvian Inca. Men in crazy barques
in which they would under other circumstances;
hesitate to cross the Gulf of Mexico have started
around Cape Horn fretting at ever' wind that does
not bear them bows under more speedily to their
goal; whilst small bands arc wending their way over
the prairies and mountains alike regardless of dan
ger privations and hunger nil v lured on by the
light held aloft by the god of mamon.
One editor estimates that by tho first day of May
near 25000 men will have left for the gold regions
of California. Wc opine that the women of our
country will be hard up for husbands and that in a
few years at such a ratio they will be hard to get
at any price. Well " it's an ill-wind" -etc. old
bachelors will be the more marketable. It offers
too a good speculation to the democrats and we
expect that many a one will steer for those diggins
after the 4lh of March instead of going up salt river.
Many whigs will of course stay at home to fill the
different offices of the government but should there
be a scarcity of the anti-ultras wc will hold our
selves in readiness for a place in the cabinet.
Even pur own State whose sons have so often
seen tho elephant and whose north-western portion
is lined with the curse of Peru has not escaped the
epidemic on the contrary it rages with unexampled
fury. Companies are organizing in Nncogdoches
Houston Austin Victoria and Brownsville to take
up the line of march in a short time for " Las Re-
giones Doradas" and the captain of the steamship
Fanny expects to bring down the next trip a com-
pany from New Orleans to start from Corpus Chris-
ti whirh company will receive considerable aug-
mentation here.
For the information of those who are going by
land and who arc unacquainted with the coun
try from the coast of Texas to the gold regions we
will sketch out a route which wc sincerely believe
is more direcrand attended with less difficulty and
danger than any other that can be founl from any
pail of Texas or from Arkansas or Missouri.
We have demonstrated the fact from documentary
evidence and actual observation that by following
up the banks of the Rio Grande on this side or near
to them that there is little impediment to be met
with until more than fifty miles beyond the Pucrco
is reached. Fronrithcncc toPrcsidio del Norte
and to El Paso del Norte we cannot speak from
authority of actual observation but our informants
were so certain that the only difficulty between this
place and El Paso del Norte was to and across the
Puerco that they returned perfectly satisfied of the
feasibility of the whole route after finding the re-
ported unacccssiblc portion so good.
Mr. Powers went up with wagons without any
difficulty to. Las Moras finding abundance of grass
and water for the oxen. Frdm Las Moras Mr. Ev-
crton explored the country as high up as fifty miles
above the mouth of the Puerco. He reports tho
route favorable for.wagons aud accompanies his re
port with a map which can be seen by any compa-
nies going on to California. After passing the Pu-
crco it never was considered difficult to reach El
Paso del Norte. On the route up from this point
.companies would have to deviate but little from the
proper course and would always be in the vicinity
of good grassland water.
Arrived at El Paso a company could in two days
over an open country W.N.W. strike the trail of
Col. Cook who left Santa Fc for California in Dec
'36 and who camo down the Rio Grande to near
El Paso before taking his course west. A map of
his route is also in our hands. Tho route as laid
down is simple following generally the Gila to its
junction with the Colorado and thence to San Diego.
Wc probably could not do better than to give the
report of Col. Cook and to recommend it in con
nection with the one from Corpus Christi to El
Paso as being fir more feasible than any yet tra-
velled and sketched out:
MAJOR COOKE'S REPORT.
Wc have received fiom Washington says the N.
Y. Courier and Enquirer and publish exclusively and
in advance even of its official publication the follow-
ing report made by Major Cooke of an exploring
tour over what proved to be a practical wagon road to
San Diego on the Pacific Ocean. This is a most im-
portant discovery and must prove of great service
especially if that portion of Mexico should hereafter
be annexed to the United States as a railroad would
in all probability be built over the roatc.
The report brief as it is will be found highly inter-
esting and important :
Washington Dec. 6. 1847.
Sir I have tho honor at your request to address
you a brief memoir on the subject of the district of
country in Sonora Mexico winch 1 passed over in
November and December last with a wagon train
when I deviated in search of a practicable route from
the mule trail of Brig. Gen. S. W. Kearny on his
inarch from New Mexico to California
When he turned off from the Rio Grande opposite
the Copper Mines and the heads of the Gila river for
thirty miles to me soutii anu making a southern bend
turned again toward the north and struck his route
as surveyed by Mr- Emory of your corps jtit above
the village of Pirro and Alaracossa Indians an esti-
mated distance of 414 miles.
Immediately below the point o'f deviation on the
Rio Grande the country bordering tho river became
sensibly flatter and less broken. I left the liver when
in view of a point marked on the common maps as
"San Diego" and the distant view toward "El
Passo" proved the country to be unbroken and com-
paratively level. From the river I ascended to the
table land of Mexico by an almost insensible slope
over a smooth prarii. For 150 miles on this smooth
level table land which is studded with isolated hills
or mountains I journeyed without any difficulty.
53" The Houston Telegraph in speaking of the
indefensible slate of the frontier says that there arc
no settlements on the coast below the Guadalupe
and that citizens west arc forced to live together in
communities for protection against the Indians. The
editor no doubt meant well in his article to the West
but the shaft has struck his friends. We live a good
way below the Guadalupe and live in quiet. No
Indians have troubled us for a long time nor have
they been in this section of country. A few days
ago we were on the Nueces above San Pantricio
and found a man settled on the river who has been
living there in uninterrupted quiet for a long time.
He has large herds of cattle and is perfectly easy
on the "score of Indians. Th istwc state.Tearing that
the statement of the Telegraph may have some in-
fluence with those who are now seeking homes in
this beautiful section of country.
Thespian Company. A number of the young
men of Corpus Christi are forming a society for the
purpose of getting up dramatic representations.
We trust they will succeed for such societies 'arc
both instructing and cntcrtaing. They would also
be highly conducive to tho morality of the place as
study would occupy the greater portion of that time
which in our younger days are devoted more or
Irss to dissipation. Even those who are not partial
to the diama or who have been taught to look
upon it as folly must needs say it i3thc least of fol-
lies and should exclaim with Herrick
" Come let us go while wc arc in our prime
And take the harmless fully of the time."
The Austin Democrat which by the way we arc sorry to
see is to be suspended gets its Information tint the Arte-
sian well which Col. Ward was boring in that town and
which was to he done in three weeks from the Uouston
Telegraph. Tho Doctor was as much ahead of the mail
then as he was when he stated that the Indians were very
annoying in this neighborhood.
-0
HciTi Blow. Yesterday morning between 1-2 and 1
o'clock tho wind blew a violent gale from the South-east
precccded by a thunder storm. " Jove's dread clamor" and
the viiid flashes of lightning that issued from the niuiky
clouds as in their lowness they barely escaped the house
tops would hac done honor to any thing of the sort gotten
up in the tropics.
Wor.Tiu or Sheridan. On one of the first nights of
lisslshcl D.ckimnii'd cnaigemcnt at the Broadway the-
atrCi she appeared in the "Eton Boy" in the character of" a
man. uer appearance is exceedingly masculine. Alr.Fnr-
ri'st was aclinv on the same orenian. and mi'dinir in il.
passing over but three hills in two cases I know in I wing'i a personage whom ho supposed to be a male and in
the third 1 believe unnecessarily. I then uneipect- I hjs way he very rudely and abruptly applied the strength of.
cdly and suddenly arrived at a great break off to a
lower level of country; the descent to which was
broken and rough mountains for fifteen m les.
I found however that' I had at that moment fallen
into an old wagon trail which led I was told from
Yanos. I was able to get my wagons through fol-
lowing a stream all the way and descending in the
fifteen miles possibly a thousand feet. This was tho
head of thoHuaqui river which empties into the
California Gulf. 1 was told that this was called the
pass of Guadalupe. I then passed an unbroken
country about eighty miles when I fell upon the Sau
Pedro river which empties into the Gila. J descend-
ed this without difficulty of ground about eighty miles.
In turnintr off. there is an ascent to nearly level coun
try of perhaps above an hundred feet but it could be
made very gradual. It is then about forty-eight miles
to Fueston a town of about 500 inhabitants with a
fort and garrison. This distance is overmuch smooth
ground maintaining the same general level. Fueson
is in a rich and well cultivated valley where there is
also a dense forest of Magquite timber. From Fues-
on it is some seventy-five miles to the Gila ; it is a
level plain generally of clay where my wagons and
footmen water being very scarce passed at the rate
of about thirty miles a day.
On the map which I made and which is in your
bureau is marked a route considerably to the north
of 'the Guadalupe Pass which some of my guides
believed would avoid that broken descent and be
found to be nearly level throughout to the San Pedro
at that point where I turned off from that beautiful
little river. The most sensible and experienced of
these men Deroux who lives in Taos "Sew Mexico
and who had trapped on tho Gila and passed in a
different direction over that country was decidedly
of this opinion ; but his knowledge on the other hand
was sufficient to forbid the attempt to explore it in
my situation on account of scarcity ot water.
The Rio Grande bottoms for a hundred miles
above and at the point where 1 left it are well tim-
bered there is none on the table land save upon tho
small mountains which aro every where to be seen ;
this is cedar and pine but of small growth ; rock is
every where to be had ; secondary rocks of almost
nvnrv k-inil lint uv mis wunueriuny lutci uuiu iiiu
continent may bo passed with scarcely a vein of
granite. As far as ueson tne gama grass is aoun-
dant and it will fatten cattle whilst working and in
the winter. The route from Feuson passes through a
country abounding in exceedingly rich Gold Mines.
I am very respectfully sir your obedient servant
P. ST. GEORGE COOK Maj. 2d. Drag.
his arm to the person of the said Miss DicVininn nml n..-rl
knocked her into not exactly the middle of next week the
orchestra. The lady retired to the dressing room and wept
over the indignity.
" But my dear .Wiss" said one of tho actresses " Mr.
Forrest did not know that you was a lady."
" No" was the reply worthy of Sheridan " but he might
have taken mcfor a gentleman."
The causticity and point of that rcsponso arc seldom
equalled.
0
From the Rio Grande. Judgo Newcomb
came in from the Rio Grande on Thursday last.
To him we arc indebted for a late copy of the
Brownsvillo Flag. We find nothing in the paper
worth transferring to our columns. Judge N. speaks
in high terms of the improvements on this side the
Rio Grande from its mouth up to Micr. He says
there arc between 7 and 800 .Mexican troops in
Matatnoros.
. o
A good Idea. The Boston 'California emi-
grants in meeting on December 8th adopted laws
to govern their expedition. Each member is to
furnish $300 capital and binds himself not to gam-
ble or use intoxicating liquors on peril of expulsion.
A president vice president and eight directors
elected for one year to financier and govern the
concern.
Felon Association in London. There is a society
in London which professes to take into consideration
applications for parties who had been formerly convic-
ted of crime but who were now anxious to rctiro
from the scene of their former misdeeds and enter
upon a new course of life. The society has a fund
which is used to procure a free passage to the United
States for applicants such as are here described. In
point of fact tho whole thing is designed as an ar-
rangement to get rid of the felon population of Lou-
don as far as possible by securing to that class of
characters an easy conveyance to the United States-
The active agent of the association whose name
is Jackson styles tho concern the " City Mission."
A case having recently occurred in which the opera-
tions of the "City Mission" and its agent were in-
volved an inqniry was had into the nature and objects
of the association and in reference to this the London
Times says :
It came out in the course of the investigation that
Mr. Jackson and his friends had met with great suc-
cess in throwing thieves of various degrees of stand-
ing in the profession upon tho United States. They
plumed themselves upon the success of their exer- .
tions. Mr.. Jackson asseverated over and over again
to the magistrate that. " the positive belief that the
parlies shipped had led the life of often convicted
criminals was entirely essential for their applications
to be entertained arid that there was no reason to sup-
pose the vigilance of the association had ever bean
in fault except in the instance then before the court."
It had turned out that of tho two emigrants whoso
fortunes were then under discussion the ono had
never been convicted of any offence at all. and the
other simply of some infringement of the hackney
coach act. " Tho success however with which they
stimulated crime and made themselves out objects for
tho favorahle interposition of the society may be ta-
ken in itself as a very pretty act of rascality and must
have gone a great way in removing any apprehension
lest the bounty of the association had by mistike been
dispensed upon worthy objects.
It would be merely frivolous to waste any thing like
reasoning upon such a scheme as this. We are pre-
pared to admit that the directors and supporters may
be mistaken but benevolent men but all considera-
tions apart of the tolerable injury they are so unjust-
ifiably inflidtingupon the United States what will
be the effect of their proceedings upon the criminal
population at home 1 A free passage to America is a
signal boon to be conferred upon the honest and in-
dustrious it has been the daily and nightly thought of
thousands and hundreds of thousands who in tho
midst of infinite temptation have never swerved from
the ptth of reciitudc and honesty. It would be in vain
for such men to present themselves at the board of
Mr. Jackson's association. It would be useless fur
them to number up their years tlieir children tho
temptations they have withstood and the honest' acts
they have performed. They have' not been dragged
to the station-house and the police court; they have
never seen the lnsiae oi tne prison van nqr exercised
their limbs upon the treadmill ; the penitentiary the
hulk and the convict colony aro to them unknown ;
they have no claim upon the bounties .of the associa-
tion ; let them stand aside and end their lives as they
began in the tnidstof ceaseless toil of bodr and cur-
jiuding anxieties of spirit.
k.
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The Corpus Christi Star. (Corpus Christi, Tex.), Vol. 1, No. 17, Ed. 1, Saturday, January 13, 1849, newspaper, January 13, 1849; Corpus Christi, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth80211/m1/2/: accessed July 17, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting The Dolph Briscoe Center for American History.