OF TEXAS. FROM ITS DISCOVERY AND SETTLEMENT WITH A description of its principal Cities and Counties, and the Agricultural, Mineral, BY J. M. MORPHIS. NEW YORK: UNITED STATES PUBLISHING COMPANY, 13 UNIVERSITY PLACE. 1875. DEDICATION. To the people of Texas and the United States, this work is respectfully inscribed, with the fervent hope that it may, in some degree, lead to a better understanding of the past, and tend somewhat to the diminution of all unpleasant feelings engendered in their hearts by their mutual sufferings and calamities during the late contest between the Northern and Southern States. In a history of Texas, it is impossible to omit the four long weary years of war, yet the writer has not treated these at any length, nor attempted a description of a single one of the many bloody engagements of the war, hoping that they may be remembered alone to prevent their recurrence. The settlement of Anglo-Americans in Texas, and the causes which led to the Texas Revolution, and the establishment of the Republic of Texas, with a narrative of the principal events which occurred during its existence, constitute the main part of this volume, and vindicate the citizens of Texas as well as those of the United States from the unjust charge of Mexicans, that by might, not right, Texas was wrested from Mexico, and made one of the United States. Although the Comanches and other Indians were in the peaceable occupation and enjoyment of most all of Texas in 1836, the writer has not investigated their title, but admits that of Spain and Mexico to have been good, and claims, through the latter, as the United States claim their soil through Great Britain, by the right of revolution and self-preservation. In this volume, the author's intention has been to show plainly and clearly to the world, that Texans were not only right in throwing off the government of Mexicans (who had invited them to colonize their wild lands with the promise of equal rights with themselves, and after inducing them through empresarios, or colonial agents, to leave their homes in the United States and endure the hardships and privations incident to the settlement of a country bordering on warlike savages, and, afterwards faithless to their promises, attempted to enslave them), but that they deserve the praise of all good people for changing a wilderness into green fields and happy homes, founding prosperous cities in the whilom haunts of the cruel Comanches, and, after ten years' warfare against vastly superior numbers, adding a great State (more than five times larger than the State of New York, and containing more than a million inhabitants) to the American Union, which, may the great, wise, and most merciful God, forever shield, protect, and advance, in power, wisdom, and happiness! PREFACE. IN the great arena of human life, whether in the cause of virtue and progress, or in that of vice and immorality, wise men have agreed that "The pen is mightier than the sword." Whenever a free and elevated press has attacked any public abuse, or any public policy in a government of the people, it will be observed that it has been changed. ( Thoughts that breathe and words that burn," are sent out by the press to eagerly waiting readers, who may be benefited or injured thereby. The personification of a virtuous thought may arrest the hand of a would-be assassin, humble the proud heart of the monarch on his throne, and lead one who is far astray from the lovely paths of rectitude and happiness, to the worship of the pure, the beautiful and the good. A story well told, of noble and generous action, may thrill the hard heart of an obdurate miser with admiration, and cause him to give his hoarded treasures to the relief of the distressed. But while good thoughts come to us from the press as rain from heaven, causing us to be "gentle, mild and kind" be wise as serpents but harmless as doves"-alas, it often |