Victoria, Texas

“ Imagine such an extent of territory open to new settlers! A republic nearly eight times as large as the state of New York, nine times as large as the state of Ohio, and six times as large as all New England put together!
There was no longer any surprise in my mind that the people who made up the government of Texas would be willing to give six hundred and forty acres to every man with a family who would settle there, when, within their boundaries, they had more than two hundred million acres. ”

“ A mild West show, which would be equally accurate, would surprise him even more; at least, if it was organized in the wildest part of Texas between San Antonio and Corpus Christi.
When he leaves this first city and touches at the border of Mexico, at Laredo, and starts forth again across the prairie of cactus and chaparral towards “Corpus,” he feels assured that at last he is done with parlor-cars and civilization; that he is about to see the picturesque and lawless side of the Texan existence, and that he has taken his life in his hands. ”

“ It is the region behind them which most interests mankind, and the Government has begun, none too promptly, a series of expeditions for exploiting it. As for the cities, the chief among them and the capital, Victoria, has an estimated population of 22,000. Its business district wears a prosperous, solid, and attractive appearance, and its detached dwellings—all of frame, and of the distinctive type which marks the houses of the California [288] towns—are surrounded by gardens. ”

“ You will, therefore, find negro servants, more or less, all over the country; but more, on the lowlands, to [Pg 201] wards the bays and seacoast. Large cotton plantations, in this section of the country, are cultivated by negroes; and here also are found some good houses and rich farmers.
Texas lies between the twenty-seventh and thirty-fourth degrees of north latitude; and between sixteen degrees thirty minutes, and twenty-seven degrees west longitude from Washington; and contains probably about one hundred and fifty thousand square miles—as large as all New-England and the State of New-York. ”

“ One of the driving wheels of the great commercial wagon of the United States stands at Galveston, and the steam of progress is driving the mighty vehicle westward, keeping pace with the "star of empire."
When that network of railroads which but for secession would now have been thrown over all Texas, east, west, north and south, tapping the wheat regions of Northern Texas, the lumber regions of Eastern Texas, the stock regions of Western Texas, and the cotton and sugar regions of Southern Texas ”

“ As we had nothing to do there, we turned our horses' heads towards the tavern, and the barking of a pack of hungry dogs soon called around us a host of the Bostonians.
It is strange that the name of city should be given to an unfinished log-house, but such is the case in Texas; every individual possessing three hundred acres of land calls his lot a city, and his house becomes at once the tavern, the post-office, the court-house, the gaol, the bank, the land-office, and, in fact, everything. ”

“ They will illustrate the fertility in buried treasure legend of all that stretch of Texas, for the most part yet unploughed, lying towards the Rio Grande and populated by Mexicans and by Texans of frontier stock. McMullen County itself has as yet neither railroad nor bank. The people are as yet unhackneyed by the plow or commercial secretary. They still talk a language seasoned with Mexican idiom and honest with the soil’s honesty; they have their old-time dances; they welcome heartily any decent stranger. ”

“ I see around me, widespread and beautiful, the free State of Texas. Below me, clad in flowers and bathed in mellow light, lies Austin. Crowning the hills, on which fifty years ago the Red Man dwelt in his wigwams and hunting-lodges, are stately government buildings, mansions, and churches. The enclosing gardens, rich in the herbs and blossoms of a semi-tropical region, are fair under the over-arching blue sky. In their midst, crowning its own hill-tops, stands the University planned by the Republic in 1839. ”

“ VICTORIO BECOMES A GOOD INDIAN
As soon as the summer rains had begun in 1880 and green grass and water were plentiful, old Victorio again began his raids. He appeared at Lake Guzman, Old Mexico, then traveled east to Boracho Pass, just south of the Rio Grande. This old chief was then reported making for the Eagle Mountains in Texas. The Mexican Government communicated this information to General Grierson at Fort Davis, Texas, and Lieutenant Baylor was asked to cooperate in the campaign to exterminate the wily old Apache. ”

“ It was on the banks of the Colorado River, on the then extreme frontier. Two or three pioneer cabins already stood there, and the little settlement bore the proud name of Waterloo. But bands of savage Indians still roamed the hills and prairies adjacent. It was necessary to place guards about the grounds to protect the masons and carpenters while they were at work on the capitol building. Among the buildings erected was a blockhouse, as a refuge for the women and children in case of an Indian raid. The new capital was named Austin, in grateful memory of the Father of Texas. ”

“ Voice of New English The five poems immediately following indicate the intense feeling of the friends of freedom in view of the annexation of Texas, with its vast territory sufficient, as was boasted, for six new slave States.
Up the hillside, down the glen,
Rouse the sleeping citizen;
Summon out the might of men! ”

“ One must of necessity be for or against slavery, building of railroads, immigration, and similar movements.
In December, 1855, Considerant presented a petition to the House of Representatives and the Senate setting forth his appeal for grants of land in Texas. [26] In this he said that in returning to Texas for the second time he found there had been considerable change: in the public sentiment toward foreigners; in that all vacant lands in the north part of the state had been taken 81 up by settlers, located on by speculators, or reserved to the Pacific Railroad Company. ”

“ Its beautiful site, overlooking the city, is this summer to be crowned with its comely edifice, which, beyond the outer shell, is to await the incoming of funds for its completion. This trip has resulted with me in a profound impression as to the need of this institution and as to the grand sweep of its future usefulness. Nothing better can be done for the Freedmen of Texas. This empire, stretching a thousand miles on the Rio Grande and eight hundred miles eastward to the Sabine, calls mightily for such an institute to train those who shall be the teachers of her sable children. ”

“ The enormous internal resources of Eastern Virginia, her proximity to free soil, the arrogance and insubordination of her inhabitants, render her peculiarly fitted for colonization. Not less attractive is Texas—a State which, be it remembered, is capable of raising six times as much cotton as is now raised{661} in the whole South, and which, if only settled and railroaded-ed, would, in a few years, become the wealthiest agricultural State in America. But let our army once settle in the South, there will be little danger of its not retaining its possessions. He who can win can wear. ”

“ In the physical world Time is accounted the destroyer; though in the moral, it is oft the restorer. Nowhere has it effected greater changes than in Texas—during the last decade—and especially in the settlements of the Nueces and Leona.
Plantations have sprung up, where late the chapparal thickly covered the earth; and cities stand, where the wild steed once roamed over a pathless prairie. ”

“ The undersigned would respectfully invite the attention of capitalists, at home and abroad, to the manufacturing facilities of the City of Jefferson and its surroundings, with a view of securing such co-operation as our railroad prospects and natural advantages seem to warrant. We say railroad prospects, because our city will shortly become the Great Railroad Center of Northeastern Texas. ”

“ The United States army post is there as of old, with the stars and stripes proudly waving over its fine buildings.
“To east and southeastward are Goliad and Gonzales, sacred in the pages of Texas history; and the river La Vaca, up which La Salle and his men sailed to build ill-fated Fort St. Louis; and the San Jacinto, washing the reedy edge of the famous battle-ground. There are Houston and Columbia, whose streets in the early days were trod by the fathers of the Republic. There is Nacogdoches; and there is the Old San Antonio Road, which is still a traveled highway ”

“ Increase of cotton grown in the United States, from the year 1802 to 1831.
It may be asked: how is it, as Texas is so far south, that a white population can labour there? It is because Texas is a prairie country, and situated at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. A sea-breeze always blows across the whole of the country, rendering it cool, and refreshing it notwithstanding the power of the sun’s rays. ”

“ Indeed, if Texas, with her 274,356 square miles of area, with her salubrious climate, and fertile soil, already worked to a great extent by free labor, were a free State, she would, in time, contain a larger population than any State of the Union. Texas has much more than five times the area of England proper, and, with the same population to the square mile, would contain more than one hundred millions of people. ”

“ In the days following the Civil War Jefferson had a population of 25,000. It was the trading point of East Texas, and all roads led to Jefferson.
A natural barrier in Red River backed water into Cypress Bayou to an extent that navigation was possible as far as Jefferson. Steamboats landed in Jefferson from New Orleans, La. and points on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. River traffic in Jefferson goes back as early as 1845. ”

“ Because the state was in an early phase of settlement, the population of 420,891 white persons included a great majority of people who had been born in other states or in foreign countries. Barely one-third of the whites had been born in Texas, while over ten percent of them were originally from countries other than the United States. Most of the settlers from other states were from the South. [2] Thus far these hardy individuals had organized counties along the entire length of the Rio Grande and, elsewhere, as far west as the 100th meridian frontier line. ”

“ Returning to his Indians, he made his way to a new field which promised much adventure. This was Texas, of whose condition in those early days something has already been said. Houston found a rough American settlement, composed of scattered villages extending along the disputed frontier of Mexico. Already, in the true Anglo-Saxon spirit, the settlers had formed a rudimentary state, and as they increased and multiplied they framed a simple code of laws. ”

“ The winter was spent more agreeably than the summer had been. There were occasional parties given by the planters along the "coast"—as the bottom lands on the Red River were called. The climate was delightful.
Near the close of the short session of Congress of 1844-5, the bill for the annexation of Texas to the United States was passed. It reached President Tyler on the 1st of March, 1845, and promptly received his approval. When the news reached us we began to look again for "further orders." ”

“ These Texan towns generally60 consist of one large plaça, with a well-built courthouse on one side and a hotel opposite, the other two sides being filled up with wooden stores. All their budding prosperity has been completely checked by the war; but every one anticipates a great immigration into Texas after the peace.
We crossed the Colorado river, and reached Alleyton, our destination, at 7 p.m.
This little wooden village has sprung into existence during the last three years, owing to its being the present terminus to the railroad. It was crammed full of travellers and cotton speculators ”

“ In 1836 the townsites of Houston, Texas, and Jefferson, Texas, were established, similarly on the banks of bayous. Houston, the largest of Southern ports today, was founded on Buffalo Bayou and Jefferson, Texas equally important as a center of trade and commerce during its brief reign in the days before and following the Civil War, was located on Cypress Bayou. ”

“ The lands destined for its reception, which are the richest, and most advantageously situated in all Texas, are now granted to settlers, principally from the United States; the only persons who have examined the country, or indeed, it may almost be said, ever visited it, except momentarily. ”

“ I have travelled nearly five hundred miles across Texas, and am now enabled to judge pretty correctly of the soil and resources of the country, and I have no hesitancy in pronouncing it the finest country, for its extent, upon the globe; for the greater portion of it is richer and more healthy than West Tennessee. There can be no doubt that the country east of the river Grand, of the North, would sustain a population of ten millions of souls. My opinion is that Texas, by her members in Convention, will, by 1st of April, declare all that country as Texas proper, and form a State Constitution. ”

“ The remark is still more true of the Southern and South-western cities; where the “saloon” and “bar-room” are the chief places of resort and rendezvous.
The company, too, is there of a more miscellaneous character. The proud planter does not disdain—for he does not dare—to drink in the same room with the “poor white trash;” often as proud as himself.
There is no peasant in that part of the world—least of all in the state called Texas; and in the saloon of “Rough and Ready” might often be seen assembled representatives of every class and calling to be met with among the settlements. ”