Waco, Texas

“ The governor might have been influenced by the knowledge of the Phillip Nolan filibustering expedition in 1800 which spent itself at Waco-Texas vicinity. Nolan had for several years traveled westward from the Alexandria, Louisiana area and established a trail straight westward into the Texas-San Antonio area, where he was trading for and capturing wild horses and cattle. ”

“ During my visit they held their celebrated fete known as "The Maifest," which lasted two days, and the gay and fantastic procession in which all professions and trades were represented made it almost as gorgeous as a carnival.
From Waco we went to Dallas, which is located upon Trinity River, and is the Metropolis of Northern Texas. There was little to note in my stay there, except the amusingly antagonistic reasons assigned by two men for not giving me their patronage. Their business houses were upon the same side of one street, and not very remote from each other. ”

“ Schneider directed the negotiators' attention to the last page of the letter stating that it was "very important." The entire letter appears in the appendix to this report. The last page is as follows:
Learn from David My seals or, as you have said, bear the consequences. I forewarn you the Lake Waco area of Old Mount Carmel will be terribly shaken. The waters of the lake will be emptied through the broken damn. [sic] The heavens are calling you to judgment. ”

“ Henry Probasco Henry Probasco, 79, was born a slave of Andrew McGowen, who owned a plantation and 50 slaves in Walker County, Texas. Henry lived with his family, in Waco, until 1875, when he became a stock hand on Judge Weakly's ranch in Ellis County. In 1902 he came to Fort Worth and worked in packing plants until 1932. Since that time he has supported himself by any little work he could find and now has an $8.00 per month pension. ”

“ Waco is situated in a fertile farming region. In 1905 the factory products were valued at $2,979,800. The city was named after the Waco (or Hueco) Indians (Caddoan stock) , who had a large village here until 1830, when they were nearly exterminated by the Cherokees; in 1855 they removed to a reservation, and after 1859 became incorporated with the Wichita. The first white settlement was made in 1849. Waco was incorporated as a town in 1856 ”

“ They have long been hostile to the Mexicans, but are less so now; their hatred having been concentrated upon the Yankees and Texans whom they consider as brigands. They do not apply themselves to the culture of the ground as the Wakoes, yet they own innumerable herds of horses, cattle, and sheep, which graze in the northern prairies, and they are indubitably one of the wealthiest people in the world. ”

“ Then do the tropical birds spread their resplendent plumage—the flowers their dew-besprinkled petals—to receive his fervent kisses. All nature again seems glad, to acknowledge him as its god.
Resplendent as any bird that flutters among the foliage of south-western Texas—fair as any flower that blooms within it—gladdest was she who appeared upon the housetop of Casa del Corvo.
Aurora herself, rising from her roseate couch, looked not fresher than the young Creole, as she stood contemplating the curtains of that very couch, from which a Texan sun was slowly uplifting his globe of burning gold. ”

“ When I sought my berth that night, the third of the journey, we were still speeding across the boundless Indian prairies; but when I awoke, next morning, the beautiful plains, with vast herds of cattle feeding on them, and covered with flowers of every color, proclaimed our entrance into Texas. Diagonally across this grandest of States we drew a southward-trending line, and the thousand pictures that danced before our eyes—that appeared, vanished, and were replaced by others, which in turn waltzed away into space—were seen through the crystal plate of a hotel-car window. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To get out north of El Paso would take you across the Llano Estacado which in those days was considered a vast treeless plain, unbroken by any topographic changes, and completely devoid of water holes.
The accompanying map, published in 1856 in Yoakum’s History of Texas, shows clearly the political subdivisions and settlements of Texas in those times. A substantial part of the State, from the Panhandle to the upper Rio Grande, appears to be completely uninhabited and, therefore, politically unorganized. ”

“ The Burnt Prairie. On the great plain of Texas, about a hundred miles southward from the old Spanish town of San Antonio de Bejar, the noonday sun is shedding his beams from a sky of cerulean brightness. Under the golden light appears a group of objects, but little in unison with the landscape around them: since they betoken the presence of human beings, in a spot where there is no sign of human habitation. ”

“ The Wakoes, or, to say better, their villages, are unknown, except to a few trappers and hunters, who will never betray the kind hospitality they have received by showing the road to them. There quiet and happiness have reigned undisturbed for many centuries. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At that remote period Texas belonged, if not de facto, still de jure, to Mexico. Marvellously situated on the Mexican Gulf, endowed with a temperate climate and a fertile soil, which, if tickled with a spade, laughs with a harvest, Texas is assuredly one of the richest countries in the New World. ”

“ The people there produce little, and live on little. That is not the characteristic, I take it, of the people of the Eastern or of the Middle States, or of the Valley of the Mississippi. They produce a good deal, and they consume a good deal.
Again, Sir, New Mexico is not like Texas. I have hoped, and I still hope, that Texas will be filled up from among ourselves, not with Spaniards, not with peons; that its inhabitants will not be Mexican landlords, with troops of slaves, predial or otherwise. ”

“ 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 ”

“ The Texan's heart had gone out to her in her trouble and need.
Once again he found himself in his native territory, but in a country gone strange to him. Ranchers and ranches had come in overnight, it seemed to him. A year or two can make a big difference in the West. Two years ago, Indians—to-day, cattle! Twenty miles below rolled the muddy Rio. It was Texas—stern, vast, mighty.
And, if what Mrs. Thomas had said was correct, law hadn't kept pace with the country's growth. There was no law. Kid Wolf knew what that meant. His face was very grim as he left the wagon trail behind. ”

“ It wouldn’t take much insight to see that you aren’t very happy nowadays; and—well, I3 reckon your father wouldn’t want things going on as they’ve been—lately.”
The girl’s face changed swiftly. “Oh, I have been horrid, Uncle Cliff! But I—oh, I do so—hate it—here!”
“Hate it here! Hate the Blue Bonnet Ranch—the finest bit of country in the whole state of Texas!”
“I—hate the whole state of Texas!”
“Blue Bonnet!”
“I do. I want to go East to live. I—my mother was an Easterner. I want to live her life.” ”

“ The invaluable services of Nacogdoches and its people in opening up the great northern regions of Texas, after the expulsion of the Indians, had the result, unfortunate for it but inevitable, of diminishing the population and importance of the town. New centers of agriculture and trade sprang up and became towns which attracted more and more people to themselves, and new opportunities presented themselves for business enterprise. It was easier to fence in the prairies than to clear the forest lands of East Texas. ”

“ 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. ”

“ These became something of villages; but for twenty years their population has continually diminished; and the country at large does not contain half the Spanish inhabitants that it did at that time. They, like the Indians, dwindle away, or flee before the settlements of the Americans.
The Mexican government had three garrisons of soldiers stationed in Texas—one at Nacogdoches, one on Galveston Bay, and one at Velasco, at the mouth of the Brazos. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ White men who were willing to isolate themselves on a frontier ranch were scarce; but the natives, when properly treated, were serviceable and, where bred to the occupation and inclined to domesticity, made ideal vaqueros. My injured foot improved slowly, and as soon as I was able to ride, it fell to me to secure the extra help needed. The desertion of Quayle and Cotton had shaken my employer's confidence to a noticeable degree, and in giving me my orders to secure vaqueros, he said:—
"Tom, you take a good horse and go down the Tarancalous and engage five vaqueros. ”

“ But there are those who, conceding all this to be true, assume the ground that the true western boundary of Texas is the Nueces instead of the Rio Grande, and that therefore in marching our Army to the east bank of the latter river we passed the Texan line and invaded the territory of Mexico. A simple statement of facts known to exist will conclusively refute such an assumption. Texas, as ceded to the United States by France in 1803, has been always claimed as extending west to the Rio Grande or Rio Bravo. ”

“ When the Texas pioneers inherited the Spanish sitios and porciones of land, the leagues and labors, marked off by varas and pasos, they inherited too from the Spaniard and his Mexican successor something of the lure of ungained treasure. The imagination that images a cave in the Llano hills filled with five hundred jack loads of silver bullion is hardly so audacious as that which pictured the Seven Cities shining with their jeweled portals in the sun and peopled mostly by goldsmiths ”