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The Project Gutenberg eBook of Nacogdoches
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Title: Nacogdoches

Author: Robert Bruce Blake

Release date: April 23, 2016 [eBook #51839]

Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

Credits: E-text prepared by Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan, and

the Online Distributed Proofreading Team

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NACOGDOCHES

***
The Project Gutenberg eBook, Historic Nacogdoches, by Robert
Bruce Blake, Illustrated by Roy Henderson, Charlotte Baker
Montgomery, and George L. Crocket

Historic Nacogdoches

NACOGDOCHES
By R. B. BLAKE
Illustrations by Roy Henderson, Charlotte Baker Montgomery,
and Dr. George L. Crocket.

This booklet is an enlarged and revised reprint of two earlier 1

booklets, one prepared by Mr. Blake and the Reverend
George L. Crocket in 1936 as a part of the Celebration of the
Texas Centennial. The second booklet was published in 1939 by
the Nacogdoches Historical Society and dedicated to the memory
of Dr. Crocket, who, among the other labors of a singularly useful
and beneficient life, was an untiring student of the history and
traditions of East Texas. Since he was one of the earliest workers
in the field, much material which would otherwise have been lost
was preserved by Dr. Crocket’s industry and enthusiasm. The
demand for information concerning Historic Nacogdoches has
been so great that the supply has been exhausted. Many copies
have been furnished historians, school children, historical societies
and people generally interested in the rich, historical background
of this area. This third edition was financed by the Nacogdoches
Chamber of Commerce and will be supplied free upon request.

Published By
NACOGDOCHES HISTORICAL SOCIETY
and the
NACOGDOCHES CHAMBER OF COMMERCE

2
 Nacogdoches Speaks

BY KARLE WILSON BAKER

(By permission of the Southwest Press)

I was The Gateway. Here they came, and passed,

The homespun centaurs with their arms of steel
And taut heart-strings: wild wills, who thought to deal
Bare-handed with jade Fortune, tracked at last
Out of her silken lairs into the vast
Of a man’s world. They passed, but still I feel
The dint of hoof, the print of booted heel,
Like prick of spurs—the shadows that they cast.
I do not vaunt their valors, or their crimes:
I tell my secrets only to some lover,
Some taster of spilled wine and scattered musk.
But I have not forgotten; and, sometimes,
The things that I remember arise, and hover,
A sharper perfume in some April dusk.
3
 Nacogdoches The Indian Town

For the beginnings of Nacogdoches we must go back to the shadowy

times when heroic figures march with majestic tread across the
stage of tradition, obscured by the mists of centuries. Having no
written language with which to record the glories of their race, the
Tejas Indians recounted the tales of their beginnings around their
home fires, thus passing them down from father to son through the
long centuries before the coming of the Europeans.

Thus it is recounted that in the days of long ago an old Caddo chief
lived on the bank of the Sabine, the river of the cypress trees. To
him twin sons were born: Natchitoches, swarthy of features with
straight black hair and flashing black eyes; and Nacogdoches, fair of
complexion with blue eyes and yellow hair. As the old man neared
the end of his days, before being ushered into the happy hunting-
grounds, he called his two sons into his presence to receive his final
blessings. He commanded that immediately following his death,
Natchitoches should gather his wife and children together, turn his
face towards the rising sun, and after three days’ march should build
his home and rear his tribe; while Nacogdoches was instructed to
travel a like distance toward the setting sun, where he should rear
his children and children’s children. Thus the twin tribes of
Nacogdoches and Natchitoches were founded 100 miles apart, and
thus Nacogdoches was the father of the Tejas, the white Indians of
Eastern Texas.

The two tribes were a sufficient distance apart to prevent friction

over their hunting-grounds, and thus through the succeeding
centuries they were ever on friendly terms, the one with the other.
This friendly communication and barter between the tribes was such
that they beat out a broad highway between them and through their
confines, which became El Camino Real, extending from Natchez, on
the Father of Waters, to the Trinity river on the west, through
Natchitoches, Louisiana, and Nacogdoches, Texas.

During the succeeding centuries the Tejas lived on the 4

Redlands, building comfortable homes around the ceremonial
mounds which they had erected, where they left their wives and
children while they pursued the bison, the deer and the black bear.
Then another figure of heroic mold emerges from the mists of the
past, when Red Feather rules his people.

The story of Red Feather is delightfully recounted by Miss Adina de

Zavala, of San Antonio, Texas, in her “Origin of the Red Bird.” Red
Feather taught his people the gentle arts of husbandry—the
cultivation of Indian corn, beans, peas, melons and pumpkins;
taught the women to make preserves of the fruit of the persimmon
tree, and to store the fruits of the soil and the chase in their homes
for winter. Great was the mourning when Chief Red Feather died;
while his subjects reverently laid his body to rest on the chief mound
in Nacogdoches, his spirit soared upward on the crimson wings of
the first red bird, and hovered in the majestic trees above the
mounds, as if guarding his people from danger.

Less than fifty years after Columbus sighted America, Hernando De

Soto, in the winter of 1541-42, penetrated as far west as
Nacogdoches, where he spent the winter, sending out scouting
parties further west in search for the seven cities of the Cibolo. He
remained in Nacogdoches because he found here a well-settled,
hospitable Indian town, with an agricultural population, having well-
built homes, provided with comfortable furnishings.

Nearly eighty years after De Soto’s visit, on the borderline between

tradition and history, came the ministration of Mother Maria de Jesus
de Agreda, “the angel in blue,” teaching the Tejas tribes the Christian
religion, in 1620. So great was the influence of this saintly woman
that in 1690 the chief of the Tejas told Massanet that they wished to
do as she had done, and even wanted to be buried in blue
garments.

The first definite description of Nacogdoches and its aboriginal

population is in the account of LaSalle’s visit here in 1685. On this
visit Robert Sieur de LaSalle became desperately ill and remained in
Nacogdoches for a month, recuperating from disease. Here the
Frenchman received such hospitable treatment at the hands of the
natives that four of his men deserted and remained here when
LaSalle started back to Fort St. Louis.

LaSalle found numerous evidences of prior contact with both French

and Spanish here. Perhaps the Indian traditions pointed to the
presence here of DeSoto and Coronado, and the traditional
appearances of Mother Maria de Agreda, already referred to.

DeLeon and his followers, in 1691-1692, made the first serious

attempts to educate the Tejas Indians in European ways by taking
several of the young members of the tribes back to the College of
Zacatecas in Mexico. Among these were two children of the chief of
the Hainai Indians, living near what is now known as the Goodman
Crossing on the Angelina river, about eighteen miles southwest of
Nacogdoches. The young man, who afterwards became head chief
of the Hasinai Confederation, the Spaniards named Bernadino, which
name was also given to his father, the chief; the young woman they
named Angelina, and the river was named for her. She also 5
acted as interpreter between the Indians and the Spanish
explorers, including the followers of Captain Ramon in 1716, and
those of the Marquis de Aguayo in 1721.

First White Settlement

The first permanent European settlement in the town of
Nacogdoches was made in June, 1716, when Fray Antonio Margil de
Jesus founded the Mission Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe de
Nacogdoches on what is now North street, overlooking the valley of
the Banito, “little bath.” The Spaniards named the town Nuestra
Senora del Pilar de Nacogdoches.

In the struggle between the French and Spanish for mastery of

Eastern Texas (called the Province of the New Philippines), the
Mission Guadalupe had an eventful history. Deserted at times but
never permanently abandoned, it finally decayed and its very site
was utterly forgotten, though the information concerning its location
has been preserved in the ancient Spanish parchments of our
Nacogdoches archives.

When the Spanish settlers began making their homes in the old
Indian town, they found several mounds within the limits of the
town, relics of the centuries of Indian occupation before the coming
of the white man. Three of the larger of these mounds were located
on what became the Nacogdoches University campus, now the high
school campus. The importance of these mounds was not recognized
by those who founded the university, and they were razed in an
effort to level the ground of the campus. Only one now remains, on
Mound street, so named because of these monuments to the
antiquity of the town. A large oak tree, whose age has been
estimated at about two hundred years, grows from the summit of
this remaining mound.

Nacogdoches—The Spanish Town

With the French cession of Louisiana to Spain in 1764, the necessity
for the Spanish garrison in Nacogdoches ceased; and the town was
abandoned as a military post in 1773, to be refounded by Captain
Antonio Gil Ybarbo and his compatriots in 1779.
 The Red House
Built in 1827 for accommodation of Mexican officials. See
page 23.

The city of Nacogdoches, as a civic corporation, dates from that

year, in which that sturdy old Spaniard, Ybarbo, conducted his
harassed and bewildered followers from their experimental
settlement of Bucareli on the Trinity river, to the old Mission of 6
Guadalupe. The eastern boundary of Texas was at that time a
shadowy, uncertain quantity, somewhere between the Sabine and
Red rivers. Louisiana belonged to Spain, and the government was
but little concerned to mark out definitely the exact limitation
between its provinces.

Gil Ybarbo recognized the necessity of a commissary for the storing

of military and commercial supplies, and after applying to the
authorities in Mexico for such a building, and growing weary of the
endless delays and red tape, that industrious old Spaniard erected
on his own account what he and his followers called “The Stone
House,” now generally referred to as “The Old Stone Fort.” It was
not erected primarily as a fort, but as a house of commerce; and
that has been its main use throughout its varied history. But the
construction of its walls—almost a yard in thickness—made it
practically impregnable to the ordinary means of offense; so that it
naturally became a place of refuge and haven of safety in the
successive perils that visited the old border-town.

Gil Ybarbo, ruling his people as a benevolent despot, was officially

known as Lieutenant Governor of the Eastern Province of the New
Philippines and Military Comandante of the Post of Our Mother of the
Pilar of Nacogdoches. He promulgated the first Book of Ordinances
for the government of the city in 1780, the original of which is now
in the Nacogdoches Archives in the Capitol at Austin.

The new city grew apace, and by the beginning of the Nineteenth
Century embraced a population of several hundred souls. In 1792
General Don Ramon de Castro sent Don Juan Antonio Cortez,
captain of cavalry at LaBahia, to Nacogdoches for the purpose of
conducting an investigation of the irregularities of verbal land grants
made by Ybarbo, as well as of his illegal traffic with the French and
Indians. The result of the investigation was the removal of Ybarbo
from his office; he was sent to Bexar while the investigation
proceeded. Don Carlos de Zepeda succeeded Ybarbo as Lieutenant
Governor, and in turn was followed by a succession of officials who
had charge of the public business of the town, and superintended
legal and commercial affairs, in addition to leading what military
expeditions were needed in their infrequent exigencies.
Nacogdoches was at that time the second largest town in Texas.

Philip Nolan
In 1800 Nacogdoches was a loyal Spanish town, as was shown by
the part it took in the suppression of Philip Nolan’s expedition. Nolan
had been reared by General James Wilkinson, commander of the
United States forces at Natchez, Mississippi. In furtherance of the
schemes of Wilkinson and Aaron Burr (then Vice President of the
United States), Nolan invaded Texas with a small band of
adventurers, on the pretext of horse-trading. The population of the
town were largely behind Lieutenant M. Musquiz and his Garrison,
when they were ordered to pursue and arrest the little band.
Musquiz and his men were accompanied by William Barr, of the
trading firm of Barr and Davenport, who acted as interpreter
between the Spanish and Americans. Lieutenant Bernardo D’Ortolan,
a Frenchman by birth, was left in charge of the garrison here while
Musquiz was on his expedition; during this time he conveyed 7
titles to land to such settlers as applied for them.

Nolan was overtaken on the banks of the Blanco river, at the block
house he had built, and in the ensuing engagement he was killed
and the remainder of the expedition were captured and brought
back to Nacogdoches. They were placed in the Old Stone Fort, from
whence they were taken prisoners to Mexico; the sole survivor of the
band, so far as history records, was Peter Ellis Bean, one of the most
colorful and resourceful men Texas has seen.

Correspondence found in the possession of Nolan enabled Musquiz

to discover various ramifications of the plot of Nolan, Burr and
Wilkinson among the inhabitants in Nacogdoches. One of the local
leaders was a Spanish woman, Gertrudis Leal, and her husband,
Antonio Leal, who were tried for treason by Musquiz. The priest in
charge of Mission Guadalupe, Padre Bernadino Vallejo, was also one
of the conspirators, but the robes of St. Francis saved him from
punishment for his part in the plot. Samuel Davenport was also
found to be in some manner connected with the affair, but he was
shrewd enough to escape being tried, as was also a man by the
name of Cook, who then lived at Nacogdoches.

In the beginning of the new century the purchase of Louisiana by

the United States from the French, in consequence of the Napoleonic
upheaval in Europe, brought about a great change in the political
and military affairs of Nacogdoches. There was great jealousy
between the two countries, and a territorial dispute to be settled
before the old status of somnolent peace could prevail. The
Americans built Fort Jesup, west of Red River, near Natchitoches,
and in 1806, Governor Cordero, with 1500 Spanish troops, advanced
to Nacogdoches to meet the American threat across the Sabine. As a
result of the negotiations of Governor Cordero and General
Wilkinson, there was formed The Neutral Ground, a strip of territory
lying between the Sabine and the Rio Hondo, over which neither
government exercised dominion, and which consequently became
the rendezvous of the lawless, until the settlement of the present
boundary between Texas and Louisiana.

The Mexican Revolution Against Spain

The next band of adventurers found Nacogdoches in a very different
temper. In 1810 the Mexicans rebelled against the government of
Spain, and Nacogdoches lost no time in assisting in the formation of
the Magee-Gutierrez expedition, under the leadership of Lieut.
Augustus Magee, who resigned his position in the United States
garrison at Fort Jesup to take command of the American and
Mexican forces in their effort to throw off the yoke of Spain.

It is said that every able-bodied man east of the Trinity river joined
in this expedition. For a time it prospered, and by 1813 had
successfully driven the Spanish military forces from Eastern Texas
and pursued them to San Antonio, where Governor Manuel Salcedo
and most of the high Spanish officials there were butchered.

One of the interesting incidents of this expedition, to the whole

province as well as to Nacogdoches, was the publication of two
newspapers here, the first ventures of their kind in Texas; the first of
these, “The Gazette,” appeared in May, 1813, while the second, 8
“El Mejicano,” was published the following month.

Vengeance of Spain was swift, and the Spanish army sent into Texas
swept the inhabitants of Nacogdoches beyond the Sabine and into
American territory, where they remained until 1818-20. Erasmo
Seguin was sent by the new government of Mexico in 1821 to
Nacogdoches to invite the old settlers back to their former homes, as
well as to welcome Stephen F. Austin to Texas.

Dr. James Long—1819

The settlement of the boundary dispute between the United States
and Texas on February 22, 1819, by fixing the Sabine river as the
boundary, met with strong opposition in Arkansas, Louisiana and
Mississippi, as well as Eastern Texas. The American settlers had
contended for the Neches river as the true boundary, and Dr. James
Long, who had married the daughter of a wealthy planter at
Natchez, Mississippi, lost no time in exploiting his scheme of forming
the Republic of Texas. Leaving Natchez June 17, 1819, with 75 men,
he reached Nacogdoches with approximately 300, including Samuel
Davenport, Bernado Guitierrez de Lara, and many others who had
fled in 1813.

Upon reaching Nacogdoches, Long’s forces occupied the Old Stone

Fort, organized a provisional government, and issued a proclamation
declaring Texas a free and independent republic, and another
newspaper—the third in Nacogdoches as well as in Texas—was
published by Horatio Bigelow. It was called “The Mexican Advocate.”

It is very probable that Dr. Long’s expedition would have been

completely successful if it had been organized a year later, after the
revolutionary movement had begun in Spain but in 1819 the royalists
were in control in Mexico; and that fact, together with Long’s
division of his forces after leaving Nacogdoches for the West, so
weakened his fighting units as to cause them to fall an easy prey to
the successive onslaughts of the Spanish Army sent against him
under Colonel Perez.

With the capture of his block houses and forts on the Brazos, Trinity
and Red rivers, Mrs. Jane Long, who had been left at Nacogdoches,
fled across the Sabine, and her husband soon followed, thus ending
his first attempt at freeing Texas, in October, 1819.

Frost Thorne Home—Hart Hotel

Residence of Texas’ first millionaire. Built 1825. See page
12.

Nacogdoches—The Mexican Town

Under the leadership of Alcalde James Dill Nacogdoches soon
regained its former prestige as the largest town in East Texas, and
settlers from the United States began coming in increasing numbers
under the beneficient colonization laws of the new government in
Mexico; but things were much changed. In 1825 Haden and
Benjamin Edwards secured their ill-fated contract as empresarios.
When Edwards began to plant his colonists, sometimes on land
which had once belonged to the Mexican inhabitants and had been
abandoned temporarily in the flight of 1813, the friction between the
Americans and Mexicans increased. On the northwest of them also
had settled a tribe of Cherokee Indians, who claimed the right to
occupy a vast territory which had formerly been the habitation of the
friendly Tejas Indians.

This triangular situation bred distrust and antagonism that at last

broke out into open warfare, and threw the country into the wildest
disorder, in what is known as the Fredonian War in 1826. The coup
of Edwards was at first successful, and he and his followers were
able to seize the “Stone House” and fortify it; but the citizenship of
Nacogdoches and the surrounding country was not behind the
movement, and it was doomed to failure from its inception.

The Fredonian rebellion resulted in many of the prominent citizens of

the town being expelled in 1827—among whom were John S.
Roberts, Haden and Benjamin Edwards, Adolphus Sterne and Martin
Parmer. The Mexican general, Ahumada, who occupied Nacogdoches
upon this occasion, was a genuine diplomat, and with the assistance
and advice of Stephen F. Austin, who came to Nacogdoches with
Ahumada, soon had the old town peaceful again. However, the man
whom Ahumada selected as comandante here proved to be an
unfortunate choice, and Colonel Jose de las Piedras soon aroused
the hostility of the American settlers with his high-handed, arbitrary
methods, as was the case with Col. Bradburn at Anahuac.
 Adolphus Sterne Home
Where Sam Houston was baptized. Standing at corner
Lanana and Pilar street. See page 22.

The Battle of Nacogdoches

For the real cause of the Battle of Nacogdoches, we must go back to
Bustamente’s Law of April 6, 1830, forbidding further 10
immigration from the United States, while permitting
Europeans to come in unimpeded. Juan Antonio Padilla had been
appointed as commissioner general for granting land titles in East
Texas, assuming his duties on January 1, 1830. Upon the passage of
the law of April 6th, Padilla was unwilling to enforce its provisions,
and in the latter part of April he was ordered by Don Ramon
Musquiz, political chief in Bexar, to be imprisoned and suspended on
a trumped-up-charge of murder.

An outbreak was prevented in Nacogdoches only by prompt action

on the part of Col. Piedras, while the people of Ayish Bayou and the
Palo Gacho met and passed resolutions of an inflammatory nature.
Stephen F. Austin refused to cooperate in this opposition and thus
for a time the trouble was delayed.

The military force in Nacogdoches was doubled during 1830, and

passports of all immigrants going through Nacogdoches for Austin’s
colony, which was exempted by Bustamente’s Decree, were required
to be signed by Austin in person.

Under the dictatorship of Bustamente the military comandantes

continually encroached upon the power of the civil authorities, and
finally, in June, 1832, the settlers at Anahuac rebelled and ousted
Bradburn, Piedras arriving too late with troops from Nacogdoches
and Fort Teran. Becoming alarmed at the rising tide of opposition,
Col. Piedras, upon his return, ordered the people of Nacogdoches to
surrender all their arms. This order was followed immediately by an
appeal from the ayuntamiento in Nacogdoches, issued July 28, 1832,
to the neighboring communities to present an united front against
this action; copies of this resolution were sent to Ayish Bayou, the
Palo Gacho, Tenaha and San Felipe de Austin and met immediate
response from all except San Felipe. Two companies came from the
Ayish Bayou settlement, commanded by Capts. Samuel Davis and
Bailey Anderson, one from Sabine and one from Shelby and Capt.
James Bradshaw’s company from the Neches settlement; while the
people of Nacogdoches were led by Alcalde Encarnacion Chirino. On
the morning of August 2, 1832, these forces met in the eastern
outskirts of Nacogdoches and elected Colonel James W. Bullock as
commander-in-chief of approximately 500 men.

Colonel Piedras commanded approximately the same number of

Mexican soldiers, and proceeded to fortify the Stone House, the old
Catholic church and the Red House. An Ultimatum from the settlers
for Piedras to declare in favor of Santa Anna and the Constitution of
1824, or surrender at discretion to an officer to be selected by
Colonel Bullock, brought forth the answer that none of the demands
would be complied with, and that he was prepared to fight.

Colonel Piedras advanced to meet the Americans and the fighting

commenced in the eastern part of town about eleven o’clock. By
noon the Mexicans had retreated to the business part of town,
around the Stone House. Alexander Horton, a member of the
American forces, says: “We were armed with shotguns and various
other guns such as citizens used for hunting purposes, while the
Mexicans were armed with splendid English muskets; so we turned
north and marched down North street. As we began our 11
march we heard a French horn. When we had gotten about
opposite the Stone House the Mexican cavalry made a furious
charge upon us, pouring upon us a heavy fire of small arms; they
advanced to within a few steps of our lines, but were forced back
with considerable loss.” This cavalry charge met the American force
near the Catholic church, which had been used by Piedras as
quarters for his soldiers.

The Mexicans about mid-afternoon were driven out of the Stone

House, and the main body of their army was concentrated in the
cuartel or Old Red House, the older part of which was built of adobe,
and almost as strong as stone; it also had the advantage of several
dormer windows on the second floor, from which sharpshooters
could better defend the building. The fighting continued with
unabated fury until night separated the combatants. Colonel Piedras
evacuated Nacogdoches during the night of the 2nd, under the
protecting cloak of a heavy fog, retreating westward toward the
Angelina river.

The next morning James Carter, with seventeen volunteers, set out
in pursuit of the Mexican army, overtaking them at Durst lake, and
after a skirmish at that point, Carter and his men went further south,
crossing the Angelina at the Goodman Crossing, and marched
northward to the West side of Durst’s Ferry to oppose the crossing of
the Mexican troops. Here Piedras lost many of his men in an
unsuccessful attempt to cross the river. It was from this event that
the name Buckshot Crossing was given to this place.

During the following morning Colonel Piedras surrendered the

command to Captain Francisco Medina, who in turn declared for
Santa Anna and surrendered to James Carter the entire Mexican
force of some four hundred men.

Col. James Bowie, who reached Nacogdoches a few days after the
battle, agreed to convey the Mexican troops to San Antonio, and in
his report stated that there were 33 Mexicans killed and 17 or 18
wounded; the Americans losing three men killed and seven
wounded.

The Battle of Nacogdoches was the opening gun in the Texas

Revolution, and resulted in the expulsion of all Mexican troops from
the territory east of San Antonio, giving the Texans an opportunity to
hold their Convention without military interference of the enemy.
 Peter Ellis Bean Home
Built 1829. Standing 4½ miles east of Nacogdoches near Old
King’s Highway. See page 21.

Growth of American Influence

Nacogdoches now became more and more American in its character.
In 1834 the neighboring municipality of San Augustine was 12
organized, and the two sister towns grew in numbers and
influence. Nacogdoches was the capital of the department of the
same name, and held jurisdiction over all the region east of Trinity
River. The alcaldes who presided over the civil affairs of the
municipality from the first reorganization in 1820 had usually been
chosen from among the Mexican people living there, but after the
expulsion of the Mexican troops in 1832 Americans were selected to
fill that office, and the town gradually assumed a character more
American than Mexican. American customs prevailed over those of
former times, and the business fell into the hands of enterprising
merchants and tradesmen from the States. The Indians to the
northeast were impressed by the power and vigor of the new people
and left them unmolested, although they also had increased until
they greatly outnumbered the whites.

Business was thriving, the population was increasing, and new

settlers were coming into the town, or taking up land in the country.
Commerce was greatly aided by the communication with the other
colonies in the interior, and an era of prosperity seemed to have
dawned. But in the midst of all came more political troubles in the
republic of Mexico. Santa Anna, by a rapid series of measures,
overturned the constitution of 1824, under which the settlement of
the province by Americans had begun. The guarantees of liberty
seemed to be disappearing. In Austin’s colony there arose a “war
party,” which advocated resistance to these measures by force of
arms. Trouble began to arise at Galveston and at Anahuac. Still
Nacogdoches remained peaceful, hoping even against hope that all
would yet be well.

War Clouds
At length, however, the ambition of the Mexican dictator began to
unfold itself, and his designs against the lovers of freedom in Texas
became manifest. Even yet the mind of the people refused to move
towards complete independence. Delegates from the war party at
San Felipe visited the town, and by their persuasion at length
convinced the people that it was in vain to lie still any longer. Then
East Texas was ready to act, and from Nacogdoches and San
Augustine armed soldiers set forth on the long march across the
State to the threatened region around San Antonio.

With the coming of Sam Houston to Nacogdoches in 1833, followed

by such men as General Thomas J. Rusk in 1835; with the backing