Grimes County Historical Commission
Issue 3 Volume 1 January 2017 Meetings of the Grimes County Historical Commission are held on the Second Monday of the Month at 7:00 pm in the Courthouse Annex in Anderson, Texas Contact Information Joe King Fultz joe@tpfinc.com Visit us on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Grim esCountyHistoricalCommission
Photo of the Month
Grimes County Historical Commission Executive Board Chairman Joe King Fultz Vice Chairman Vacant Secretary Vanessa Burzynski Treasurer Joe King Fultz
COMMITTEES Historical Markers Denise Upchurch
Navasota City Hall Navasota, Texas
Historic Preservation Sarah Nash Newsletter & Publicity Vanessa Burzynski
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
Navasota, Texas Navasota was founded in 1831 as the stagecoach stop of Nolansville. Its name was changed in 1858 to Navasota, a name perhaps derived from the Native American word nabatoto (“muddy water”). The earliest settlers to come to Navasota were James Nolan, Sr., James Nolan, Jr., I. M. Freeman and wife, D. Fisher and wife, Mrs. P. A. Smith, J. J. Creagor, W. T. Smitheal and wife, W. J. Peterson, Mrs. W. E. Bigger, Mr. and Mrs. Giesel, Charles Ahrenbeck, Chris Froehligh and A. Rainbow. To Judge James Nolan goes the distinction of being Navasota’s earliest citizen. According to his granddaughter, Dorothy Clark Bednar, he came to Navasota from Mississippi right after Texas became a state, probably as early as 1846. He had no grant or certificate of any kind, but picked out a likely place to live and squatted. The place he chose for his first home happened to be land later owned by Mr. Bob Blackshear. James Nolan brought with him in his oxen drawn wagon his father and mother, a daughter and at least one slave. Aunt Maria Nolan, who lived to be almost a hundred years old and never deviated in her affection for “Ole Master’s folks.” Besides his family, he brought with him a brown pet bear. His equipment consisted of several tents, a few crude pieces of furniture, a few pots and pans, bedding, farming tools, and seed. Besides vegetable seed he brought cotton and corn seed. He lived in tents until about 1855 at which time he began to buy up land. He bought 133 acres from M. L. Duke for 77 cents an acre. He bought other land as cheap as 50 cents per acre. He built his first real home at the back of the property, which is now the old Brosig home place and where Mrs. Watts Brown and Miss Nettie Brosig live. It was a double log house. Judge Nolan sunk a 60-foot water well on the corner of the place. He struck such a strong current of water that people came from all around and hauled the water away in barrels. Travelers too stopped to water their thirsty horses and to quench their own thirst. Judge Nolan planted 15 acres in cotton. This land embraced the region extending from his log house covering the entire area about our churches except a plot of 4 acres that had been deeded by Dickson Greer and Jackson M. Duke to the school trustees for school purposes. It extended to
PAGE 2
the Camp properties on the south. He built a log cabin under a big oak tree, which still stands in the yard of the Crittenden Hardy’s home. Here the Negro women who worked the crop left their babies on pallets and at intervals one or another would return to the cabin to see about them. Aunt Maria Nolan went in one morning and found her baby dead, a wildcat had gotten in and eaten the baby’s face entirely away. James Nolan built a large hotel on the Washington Avenue corner where J. W. Brosig later built a fine, large hardware store, and which is still owned by the Brosigs. Many families have moved to Navasota by this time and the Nolan hotel was filled to capacity most of the time. Every day after the noonday meal at the Nolan hotel, a floorshow was put on for the guests or anybody else who cared to come. It was free and Navasota’s first floor shows though it was not then known as such. The big brown bear was brought out and fed a bowl of honey. That was his pay-off and he wouldn’t budge until he had eaten it. Then he’d go through the gamut of his tricks. He waltzed, boxed and played dead. His partners were the Negroes who worked about the hotel. They loved it because the guests tossed them coins. In August 1859 Mr. Nolan deeded to the H & TC Railroad 80 acres of land to be used as a right of way and subdivision. He gave land to the Jewish citizens and the Negroes for burial purposes and to the Christian peoples he gave the south end of Oakland Cemetery. Atchinson gave the rest. Judge Nolan was never actually a Judge but on one occasion he presided at a case when the populace wanted to lynch a criminal. Since then he was called Judge Nolan. After September 1859, when the Houston and Texas Central Railway built into the town, Navasota became important as a shipping and marketing center for the surrounding area. Whereas nearby Washington on the Brazos protested the coming of the rails, the old historic town forfeited its geographic advantage, and it began to decline as many of its businesses and residences began a sure migration to the new railhead across the Brazos River at Navasota.
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
Slaves were a large part of the local economy, as they were imported, traded and used to work in the many local cotton plantations. Guns were made in nearby Anderson, and cotton, gunpowder, and shoes were made, processed and stored there for the Southern Confederacy during the American Civil War. By 1865 the population was about 2,700. All during the Civil War, all the marketable goods produced in the region were brought to Navasota, then the furthest inland railhead in Texas, to be shipped south to Galveston, where it could be transported by steamboat from the Texas coast and up the Mississippi River to the war effort, or exported to Mexico or overseas to Europe. Navasota suffered a series of disasters in the mid1860s that severely depleted its population. In 1865 a warehouse filled with cotton and gunpowder exploded after it was torched by vagrant Confederate veterans; the blast killed a number of people and started a fire that destroyed much of the original downtown, and damaged many buildings, including the post office. Not long afterward the town was struck by a deadly cholera epidemic, which was followed in 1867 by an even more dangerous epidemic of yellow fever. As many Navasota citizens, including the mayor, fled to escape the disease, the town population dropped by about 50 percent. Mid 1860s skirmish between Navasota disgruntled freedmen and Confederate veterans broke out in the Brazos Bottoms near Millican, after a race riot there threw the whole region into a panic. An informal militia rallied in Bryan, gathered arms, and caught the train southward towards the angry mob of armed freedmen who were marching on Bryan, a city to the north of Navasota. Many men were left dead and many were wounded after this little-known battle, perhaps the greatest race battle ever fought in Texas. This led to the formation of numerous private militias, and ultimately during the late 1860s the KKK in Navasota, and on one occasion a tense confrontation between federal soldiers and a crowd of local white citizens occurred there. Later the White Man’s Union was formed, which sought political solutions when possible to the power struggles in Navasota.
PAGE 3
During these days, Navasota was considered a wild and wooly place, where it was not considered safe for women and children to go downtown in broad daylight. The downtown buildings were teaming with lawless ruffians, gamblers, prostitutes and drunks. Lawmen had to hide and watch, and often were afraid of the streets at night. There were many saloons and gaming halls, and every Sunday morning the undertaker hitched up the buggy and went downtown to collect the bodies that were anticipated to be there, from another wild Saturday night. By Spring of 1861 Navasota had grown by leaps and bounds. It resembled a young metropolis. Then came the war. Everything stopped dead off. Business was at a stalemate. No new industries came in. Few buildings were built and trade had stopped. Most of the young men had gone off to war, leaving behind the women and children., the very old and the disabled. By the time four years had elapsed, the time it took to lose the war, Navasota was in a sad state. Slaves had been freed, many of its choicest young men had been killed in battle; others chose to settle elsewhere. Everywhere was chaos, confusion, dilapidation and want. Soldiers who had returned were naked, barefoot and penniless. They were disgruntled at losing the war; they were disgusted at not being able to get any pay so they felt justified in seizing anything that belonged to the government in lieu of the debt, which they considered the government owed them. A few military stores consisting of kegs of gunpowder, cotton, bayonets, salt and swords were stored in Parker Smith’s warehouse. The soldiers burst into the warehouse, broke open the powder kegs and scattered the powder all over the place onto the adjacent sidewalks. One soldier filled a shell with powder, struck a match to it and rolled it toward the warehouse. There followed a terrific explosion followed by roaring flames. Some of the adjacent buildings were blown to bits, and the flames consumed the others. The conflagration was so terrific that the bucket brigade was helpless. A few buildings by some freak of circumstances were not burned. The platform about the depot and Clough’s warehouse in back of the depot was burned. The Nolan Hotel was burned to ashes.
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
The depot and Mrs. Loftin’s hotel were not burned. Bales of cotton were hurled 300 feet into the air and were found in remote parts of town. All the warehouses about the depot were destroyed and all the stores in what used to be known as the Templeman block were destroyed. A Mr. Henepin was known to have been blown to bits and two unidentified skeletons were found in the ashes of the Glass and Brigance warehouse. Across the railroad the Ackerman store and post office were destroyed and Mr. Ackerman had to pay the government $140 for stamps that were burned. Navasota was plunged in deepest gloom after the fire but not for long. Pioneers wishing to make their town work, threw off their depression and began building better and stronger than before. People came from other places to fill in the gaps, homes and store buildings were built, new enterprises were bringing with them new money. Cotton was selling for 25 and 35 cents a pound. Gold and silver money were in abundance. Once more Navasota was on the up and up. Navasota received its first charter in 1866. In 1873, it applied for and received a re-incorporation charter. A Mayor and a board of aldermen governed the city. There was a justice of peace, city marshal, tax assessor and collector and superintendent of streets. There has been no visitation of famine at Navasota so far as written records reveal. However, other devastating experiences have come this way. Tradition has it that two major floods have wrought havoc in and around Navasota. The one occurred in 1889 and the other in 1913, according to evidence reported. For a few years following the great fire, all went well. Navasota was emerging from her swaddling clothes and was making rapid strides in growth. In 1866, cholera broke out. Before it could be controlled, 30 persons had died, mostly colored. Just a year later, when the people had ceased to fear, a far worse epidemic broke out. People became ill with very high fever accompanied by a jaundiced condition. It was pronounced yellow fever. By the middle of August there had been 15 deaths, all white people but wo. In October, there were 119 deaths, all white but 14. In all cases where colored people died, they were mulattos. No black person was known to have died. In November, with the cooler weather, the worst was
PAGE 4
over, there being but three deaths that month. The panic that the epidemic created was terrific. Out of a population of 3,000 only 400 remained in town. The people fled precipitously on foot, in carriages, in wagons and carts, buggies and drays, just any way at all, just so long as they got out of the pestilent stricken city. Some died before they reached their destination. Others had no destination, just a thought to get away. The mayor W. E. Jones fled in great haste, leaving the government in a state of great confusion. The panic that the epidemic created was worse and did far more damage than four years of war. Every crisis develops its heroes and this was no exception. R. H. Giesel, a brave and forthright young man, only 24 years old assumed the duties of mayor and tried heroically to calm the terrified populace. He nursed the sick, encouraged the well, and helped bury the dead. He went far out into the country to help if he heard of a new case of fever. He died at the age of 39. Most of the doctors stayed on the job. The ones who remained worked until they were exhausted. Dr. Joseph H. Baylor was stricken with the fever. He went to his sister-in-law’s (Mrs. Ellen Matthews) home and directed her to fix him a cup of castor oil. He swallowed this down and wrapped himself in a heavy blanket. Then he lay down to either died or sweat the fever out. In 24 hours, he was clear of fever, the shortest case of yellow fever on record. The Matthews home was in sight of the cemetery. Dr. Baylor said that he lay all night with a burning fever and could not sleep. He said he watched the eerie lights bobbing up and down in the cemetery and heard the thud of clods as they were shoveled into the graves. It was a ghastly experience for the stricken man, but burying the dead had to go on night and day. F. W. Brosig, father of Mrs. Eleanor Brosig Brown, Wallace Brosig, Nettie Brosig, Joseph Brosig, grandfather of Edith Salyar Canada of Missouri, and Helen Salyer Anderson and Walter Salyer and Isadore Bock, affectionately known as “Uncle Bock” were untiring in nursing the sick and burying the dead. Mr. Brooks had a lumberyard. He and Mr. Joseph Backloupe, father of Will Backloupe and Beulah B. Blackshear made coffins night and day.
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
They did not leave the shop and they took turns in getting a little sleep. Mr. Backloupe had been in apprentice cabinet maker in Richmond, Virginia for seven years. He was born in Genoa, Italy and came with his parents to Tennessee. He came to Navasota in 1866. He served with the 38th Tennessee Infantry in the Confederate Army. While on furlough, he was detailed to nurse the sounded and even did amputations. For these, he used a little saw. This he preserved together with his gun, saber and bullet mold as mementos of the war. The coffins that he and Mr. Brooks made were merely boxes put together of rough lumber. The victims were wrapped in a sheet or blanket and buried as early as possible. There is a story that Mr. Backloupe tied a piece of raw meat outside the shop door. The air was so contaminated that in a short time the meat had turned completely green. Will Curtis, for almost fifty years a sexton at Oakland Cemetery, told me that people were buried so hurriedly that no record was kept of who was buried where. He said that he dug up one skeleton of a woman that had turned over on her face. This might be a tall tale but it could have happened. By 1868 the epidemic was over and Navasota had to rebuild almost from scratch. In 1908, Navasota was a lawless boom town, wracked by violence: "shootouts on the main street were so frequent that in two years at least a hundred men died. "Twenty-four-year-old Frank Hamer resigned from the Texas Rangers to become the City Marshal and moved in and created law and order. Hamer faced down, chased down, and beat down the Navasota toughs until the streets were quiet, and children could once again go downtown. He relentlessly fought the various power factions, and one day fought one perceived local warlord in the mud on main street, throwing him in jail and defying all comers, as the rest of the troublemakers began to search for cover. He served as marshal until 1911. Hamer became more widely known in 1934 as one of the men who shot Bonnie and Clyde. In 2012, the Navasota city council voted to commission a local sculptor to erect a statue of Frank Hamer in front of the new city hall building.
Portions of this story was taken from the “Navasota Bluebonnet” book originally published in 1954. This book was reprinted in 2001 by the Grimes County Historical Commission.
PAGE 5
Frank Hamer
Francis Augustus Hamer (March 17, 1884 – July 10, 1955) was a Texas Ranger, known in popular culture for his involvement in tracking down and killing the criminal duo Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow in 1934. In a career that spanned the last days of the Wild West well into the automobile age, Hamer acquired legendary status in the Southwest as the archetypal Texas Ranger. He is an inductee to the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame. Frank Hamer was born in Fairview, Wilson County, Texas, where his father operated a blacksmith shop. He was one of five brothers, four of whom became Texas Rangers. His family moved to the Welch ranch in San Saba County, where he grew up. Hamer later spent time in Oxford, Llano County (now a ghost town), which formed the basis of his joke about being the only "Oxfordeducated Ranger." In his youth, Hamer worked in his father's shop, and as an older teenager worked as a wrangler on a local ranch. He began his career in law enforcement in 1905 while working on the Carr Ranch in West Texas when he captured a horse thief.
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
The local sheriff was so impressed that he recommended that Hamer join the Rangers. Like the cowboys of earlier generations, Hamer was at home on the open Texas prairie and understood the signs and patterns of nature. He interpreted men in terms of animal characteristics: "The criminal is a coyote, always taking a look over his shoulder; a cornered political schemer is a 'crawfish about three days from water'; a [man moving carefully] reminds him of a sandhill crane walking up a river-bed." He savored the challenges of investigating and solving crimes. Describing his method in tracking Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, Hamer said that he learned their statistics, but "this was not enough. An officer must know the habits of the outlaw, how he thinks and how he will act in different situations. When I began to understand Clyde Barrow's mind, I felt that I was making progress." Hamer was a Ranger off and on throughout his life, resigning often to take other jobs. He first joined Captain John H. Rogers's Company C in Alpine, Texas on April 21, 1906, and began patrolling the border with Mexico. In 1908 he resigned from the Rangers to become the City Marshal of Navasota, Texas. Navasota was a lawless boom town, wracked by violence: "shootouts on the main street were so frequent that in two years at least a hundred men died." Though he was only 24, Hamer moved in and created law and order. He served as marshal until 1911, when he started working as a special investigator in Houston, then as an officer for Harris County. Hamer rejoined the Rangers in 1915 and again was assigned to patrol the South Texas border around Brownsville. Because of the constant unrest in Mexico, the Rangers dealt most seriously with arms smugglers, but also more ordinary bootleggers and bandits who plagued the border. On October 1, 1917 Hamer was wounded in Sweetwater by Gus McMean, who was shot and killed. During this period, Hamer left the Rangers again to accept a position as a federal agent in the Prohibition Unit, where he served for about one year. Though Hamer's service as a prohibition agent was brief, it was nevertheless eventful. Stationed in El Paso, the scene of countless gunfights during the Prohibition-era, Hamer participated in numerous raid and shootouts. In one
PAGE 6
particularly notable incident in March of 1921, Hamer was involved in a gun battle with smugglers that resulted in the death of Prohibition Agent Ernest W. Walker.[7] Returning to state service in 1921, Hamer transferred to Austin, where he served as Senior Ranger Captain. In the 1920s, Hamer became known for bringing order to oil boom towns such as Mexia and Borger. Records from that time indicate that there were complaints about some of Hamer's methods, but the same sources said the area was so lawless extreme measures may have been needed. In I'm Frank Hamer, Hamer was quoted candidly discussing the restrictions that upstanding citizens would seek to put on a lawman, not understanding that they were in effect asking him to fight with one hand tied behind his back. Beginning in 1922 Hamer, as senior captain of the Texas Rangers, led the fight in Texas against the Ku Klux Klan. During his long career, he saved fifteen African Americans from lynch mobs. The story of his battles to protect blacks in Texas was unknown until the 2016 publication of John Boessenecker's biography of Hamer. In 1930 Hamer and a handful of Rangers protected a black rape suspect from a mob of 6,000 in Sherman, Texas. He personally shot and wounded two of the mob's leaders and forced the lynchers to flee the courthouse. However, the mob set fire to the courthouse and the prisoner died in the raging inferno. Hamer thus became the first and only Texas Ranger to lose a prisoner to a lynch mob. In 1928 Hamer put a halt to a murder for hire ring, and his extraordinary means of accomplishing this made him nationally famous. The Texas Bankers' Association had begun offering rewards of $5,000 "for dead bank robbers — not one cent for live ones." Hamer determined that men were setting up deadbeats and two-bit outlaws to be killed by complicit police officers; the officers would collect the rewards and pay the men their finder's fees. But his investigation hit a stone wall: the police refused him support and the Bankers' Association's position was that "any man that could be induced to participate in a bank robbery ought to be killed." Spurred by urgency to thwart the next set of killings as well as personally infuriated, Hamer wrote and signed a detailed exposÊ of the racket, which he
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
termed "the bankers' murder machine," then went to the press room of the State Capitol and handed out copies. A firestorm of public outrage led to indictments. Hamer retired in 1932 after almost 27 years with the Rangers. He left one week before Miriam "Ma" Ferguson "and her husband" recaptured the governor's office. At least forty Rangers resigned rather than serve again under Ma, who in her first term as governor of Texas had proven herself brazenly corrupt; indeed, one of the triumphant Ma's first acts of her second term was to fire all the remaining Rangers and replace them with her own appointees. A year later Hamer flatly summarized his reason: "When they elected a woman governor, I quit." The commander of the Texas Rangers allowed him to retain a Special Ranger commission even after his official retirement as an active Senior Ranger Captain. The special commission is listed in the state archives in Austin. During the 1930s Hamer applied his skills in keeping the civil peace on behalf of various oil companies and shippers, generally as a strike breaker. At the outbreak of war in Europe in 1939, he and 49 other retired Texas Rangers offered their services to King George VI, to help protect the United Kingdom in case of Nazi invasion. A son, Billy, joined the U.S. Marine Corps and died during the Battle of Iwo Jima. In 1948 he was called again to Ranger duty to play a small role in a notorious episode in an election acknowledged to have been one of the most corrupt in Texas history. Hamer was hired by Governor Coke Stevenson, whose name by now was synonymous with old-school Texan conservative integrity, to accompany him to the Texas State Bank in Alice, the county seat of Jim Wells County in South Texas. Stevenson wanted to examine the tally sheets for ballot box 13, which held ballots for his opponent, then-Representative Lyndon Johnson, he knew were fraudulent, and not in a way that favored him. Outside the bank stood two glowering groups of armed men. Hamer got out of the car. He approached the first group and said, "Git." They did. To the second group blocking the doors of the bank he said, "Fall back." They did. In the end, Johnson won the election, even though the Johnson campaign stuffed the ballot box with over 300 nonexistent
PAGE 7
voters. This is clearly stated in "Texas Ranger" by John Boessenecker. Frank Hamer retired in 1949 and lived in Austin until his death. In 1953 he suffered a heat stroke and though he lived two more years, never regained his health. He was buried near his son in Memorial Park Cemetery in Austin. In his life he was wounded 17 times and left for dead four times. He is credited with having killed between 53 and almost 70 people.
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
Navasota City Hall The corner of Farquhar and McAlpine streets in Navasota has been the center of city government in Navasota for 78 years and counting. Two structures have stood on the corner. The first City Hall Building was built in 1903, the second was built in 1957, after the old one was torn down. There’s not much recorded on the construction of the original City Hall building but a copy of a March 1957 issue of the Navasota Examiner-Review reveals local citizens uncovered the contents of the old cornerstone. Inside was a copy of the Sept. 24, 1903 issue of The Navasota Tablet. The Tablet states: “A large crowd attended the ceremonies and Lt. Gov. Neal of Navasota officiated. There was also a parade led by the Navasota Band, which marched up Railroad Street up Washington Avenue to Fanthorp Street and then on to City Hall.” The Tablet also noted the ceremonies were delayed one and half hours due to the late arrival of a train from Madisonville bearing Masons from there and Bedias. Also inside the cornerstone was the original contract between the City Commission and J. R. Hargrave, general contractor, a $10 Confederate bill, and copies of the Galveston Weekly Times (June 23, 1887), The Daily Examiner (Sept. 22, 1903), and the Weekly Review (Sept. 17, 1903). Other contents included a letter listing the members of the Navasota ISD school board. There were 11 grades in the white school and five grades in the black school for a total of 750 students. There was also a letter listing the Navasota Board of Trade. They included Ward Templeman, president; Denton Randolph, first vice-president; John M. King, second vice-president and George T. Garvin, secretary. The single outstanding feature of the two-story structure was its tower, which contained the town clock and 1,000 lb. bell, installed by Joe Bednar in 1903. Before the Old City Hall Building was torn down, local residents conducted a fund-raising campaign to finance moving the town bell and clock to the Masonic Building. The move was completed by January 1, 1958. When the wrecker crews finally toppled the structure in March of 1957, Bob Whitten, publisher and editor of the Examiner was on hand to snap a picture of the falling tower. The photo was published world-wide through the Associated Press and Whitten received the Headliner’s Club Award for outstanding news
PAGE 8
photography. It took almost another year for the second City Hall Building to be built. It was ready for occupation in December, 1957. Formal dedication ceremonies were held April 18, 1958. The buff colored brick building had marble flashings and granite slabs on the inside. Besides containing the various government offices, the building also had room for a fire station and living quarters for the truck driver and a patio located in the center. The contractor was Martin B. Semands, and Wyatt C. Hedrick was the architect/engineer. H. N. Sandall was the mayor of Navasota at the time. In 2011 this building was torn down and a new City Hall Building costing $6.7 million dollars was built almost identical to the first one built in 1903. The entire project, which includes downtown landscaping, antique lampposts and sidewalk improvements costs $10.8 million dollars. The city will be using tax dollars and utility monies to pay for the bond they're using to fund the project.
Navasota City Hall, razed in 1958 Photo courtesy Navasota Examiner
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
News from the Past Brenham Daily Banner-Press February 6, 1923 Navasota City Hall Clock Stopped by Freeze For the first time this year, and one of the very few times in recent years, the clock in the city hall tower was stopped by the freeze yesterday. As there is no protection on the hands of the big clock the accumulation of ice makes it impossible for the hands to pass on the dial. It was explained today that it would be useless to clear off the ice and start the clock again until the freezing weather is over, but when the temperature rises again it will be started. – Navasota Daily Examiner
The Daily Examiner (Navasota, Tex.) November 24, 1900
Death of Dr. E. A. Thompson “In the midst of life, we are in death” is a quotation old and true. Death must visit every habitation someday. Nor is immunity vouchsafed to any of God’s earthly creations. Yes, even the world shall some time pass away. This morning the wires brought to Mr. McDonald Meachum the sad intelligence that at 7:30 o’clock yesterday evening the spirit of Dr. Ernest A. Thompson had softly fled; and gave instructions for interment upon the arrival of the noon Central train which bore the body from Galveston. Later this was changed and the funeral occurred from his late home at the residence of Mrs. G. W. Sanders at 2:30 this afternoon. The funeral being under the auspices of the Masons and Woodmen of the World, of which orders Dr. Thompson was a honored member. Rev. C. A. Hooper officiated as minister. The body was laid to rest in the city cemetery by the side of his little daughter, who died last spring, and the ceremony was attended by a very large number of people. Deceased was a son of the late J. P. S. Thompson and born about 30 years ago (Feb. 10, 1870) in Greensburg, La. The family removed to Galveston, thence to Seguin, and in 1878 they settled in
PAGE 9
Anderson in this county. His mother died in that place. And there it was that he learned practical lessons in real life and gathered the rudiments of schooling that enabled him later to enter and graduate with high literary honors from the Southwestern University of Georgetown. He came to Navasota in 1890. His ambitions far exceeded limits set by a meager purse and here his indomitable energy and natural business ability stood him in good stead. He engaged in a small jewelry jobbing business about the country, thereby soon accumulating means sufficient to take him through the State Medical college; in this course his close, studious disposition and natural turn of mind gave him great advantage. He grasped the opportunities, and when he was authorized to go forth and heal the sick, about the year 1895, he was really an able physician. As such he was recognized and almost immediately was accorded a profitable practice here. He still continued a student and received several diplomas in post graduate courses from leading institutions of the north. He was united in marriage with Miss Anna Waller at the Methodist parsonage on the evening of May 25, 1896; and leaves her to bitterly mourn his untimely demise. He also leaves a sister in Arkansas, and a brother, Kemp Thompson in Navasota. In his death, this county loses an upright, honorable man, an able and careful business man and an eminent physician and surgeon. His family suffers an irreparable loss and have the sympathy of all the people. Before dissolution he made a confession of faith.
This angel sits upon the grave of Dr. Thompson’s little girl Elizabeth Cleo Thompson born October 9, 1897 and died January 11, 1900 buried in the Navasota City Cemetery.
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
Hal J. Palmer, M. D. This energetic gentleman, who, at the age of seventyeight years, with the vigorous step and active mind of a man of sixty, still attends to the details of his large professional interests, and keeps himself abreast in knowledge and sympathy of the new generation amongst whom he survives, first came to Texas in 1857 and has been identified with the medical fraternity of this state in the main since that time. Now, in "a hale old age, he is enjoying the fruits of a busy and well-ordered life and sharing the wonderful progress which has been made in this phenomenal commonwealth, almost under his own eyes. Dr. Palmer was born September 20, 1836, and comes of a Southern family and of secession sympathy, and his father, John Palmer, who still survives at the age of one hundred and one years, is "fighting the Civil war yet.� The latter was born in the city of Richmond, Virginia in 1813 and is a college graduate and a member of the Eclectic school of medicine. He went to Kentucky from his native state when a boy, and after spending some years at Danville went to Bowling Green, where he married Miss Hannah Curry, the daughter of a big planter of that county. Later he moved to Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and then to Montgomery, in that state, and has since made that his home. His only child is Dr. Palmer of this review. Hal J. Palmer took up medicine first in New York City, as a student under the preceptorship of Dr. John Sneed, right across the street from the Little Church Around the Corner, Plymouth, and there began the practice under his preceptor when he was a lad of but sixteen years. His first medical education was in the regular school and he practiced Allopathy for twenty years, then taking Homeopathy at the Hahnemann Medical College, Chicago, and graduated there in 1869. Subsequently he attended a course of lectures in the medical department of the University of Missouri, in 1872, and annually for years took post graduate work at different institutions both of the North and South.
PAGE 10
He began his career as a specialist before the Civil War, traveling extensively through the Southern states, treating cancers and chronic diseases of women and children. His special studies have been chronic diseases and diseases of females, especially those of the genital organs. After the death of Dr. Sneed, Dr. Palmer returned to the South and to Texas, in 1860, and located in Burleson county, where he was located at the time of the outbreak of the Civil war. He at once enlisted as an assistant physician and surgeon with Hood 's Brigade, serving under Chief Surgeon Cantrell in and about Galveston, where he was present at the capture of that city by the Federal troops. Following the close of hostilities, he began a tour of medical practice which took him to Little Rock, Arkansas, thence to Fort Smith and out into the Choctaw Nation, and practiced among the Indians at Muskogee. He went then to New Orleans, and subsequently practiced at different points in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas until 1870, when he returned to Texas. At that time, he established himself at Tanglewood, Burleson county, and he has since practiced at Houston and Galveston, at different points in Harris county, and in Johnson county, and has spent many years at points in Grimes county. During a portion of his long career he has been interested in infirmary work at Brenham with Dr. H. C. Weeks, and in a private sanitarium at Plantersville. He is now established in another at Navasota, and has been eminently successful in his work. He has had no time for politics. His step is still lively, and his energy youthful, his ambition still active and his love for his profession as consuming as in the early years of his practice. He has firmly established himself in the confidence and esteem of the people of his community, and his professional standing is equally high. Dr. Palmer married Minnie C. Meineke on July 27, 1899 in Lee County, Texas and they had one son, Whitmore H. Palmer born in 1904. Dr. Palmer passed away on March 6, 1920 at the age of 87 and is buried in the Oakland Cemetery in Navasota, Texas.
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
First Baptist Church of Navasota Historical Marker 8574 Navasota, Texas Erected 1977 SE corner of Church St. and Holland St.; Navasota. In the spring of 1860, six men formed this church, one of the first of any faith in the railroad town of Navasota. By fall there were 52 members, and growth continued. Services were held in the town's schoolhouse, and then in a Methodist church, until the Baptists received a site as a gift from the Houston & Texas Central Railway, and built a small frame sanctuary about 1872. A permanent edifice of native stone was started after Mrs. A. E. Baten, wife of the pastor, drew plans in 1889. Funds came from members and non-members, sometimes as donations of cattle, and a 46' x 67' x 37' x 67' stone building with a steeple was completed in 1890. By 1925 more room was needed; a 2-story annex was constructed. Although a new, larger sanctuary was erected in 1955, the 1890 building is still used. In 1969, it was converted into a fellowship hall, and after a disastrous fire the next year was restored in 1971. The congregation-- now numbering more than 900 members-- founded and financed one local mission that became self-supporting, and now underwrites another. During the church's first 116 years, it has been served by 35 pastors.
PAGE 11
First United Methodist Church of Navasota Historical Marker 1984 Navasota, Texas Erected 1984 SW corner of Wood St. and Holland St.; Navasota. The first worship services of the Methodist church in Navasota were held in 1853 in the community schoolhouse. The Rev. T. W. Blake served as parttime pastor for most of the antebellum and Civil War years. In 1866 the Houston & Texas Central Railroad deeded land at this site for use by the Methodist congregation. In that year, a frame building with shuttered windows was constructed for the fellowship. It was named Robert Alexander Chapel in honor of an early Methodist circuit rider in Texas. The chapel was also used by Navasota's Presbyterian congregation. In 1891 a rock building replaced the frame structure and was used until 1912, when a brick sanctuary was built. The current sanctuary was completed in 1959. Although the size of the congregation is relatively small when compared with that of other churches in the area, the First United Methodist Church of Navasota has served as host to the Texas Annual Conference of Methodist Churches. Throughout its history, this congregation has provided significant service and leadership to the community and has continued to uphold the ideals and traditions of its pioneer founders.
First Presbyterian Church of Navasota Historical Marker 8577 Navasota, Texas Erected 1970 Corner of Nolan and Holland Streets; Navasota. Organized in 1866, drawing members from old church at Washington, Texas. First building, erected in 1876, was replaced in 1894 by this Victorian edifice finely crafted in the taste of its English builders. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark – 1970
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
Masons in Grimes County "Texas Masonic History" At a celebration of the Festival of St. John the Baptist in 1844 at Portland, Maine, R.W. Brother Teulon, a member of the Grand Lodge of Texas, in reply to a toast complimentary to the Masons of that Republic, observed "Texas is emphatically a Masonic country: all of our presidents and vice-presidents, and fourfifths of our state officers, were or are Masons; our national emblem, the 'Lone Star,' was chosen from among the emblems selected by Freemasonry, to illustrate the moral virtues -- it is a five-pointed star, and alludes to the five points of fellowship." The first known Masonic meeting ever held in Texas was in February 1828 when Stephen F. Austin, Ira Ingram (who had his land in what would be Waller County) and 5 other masons met in San Felipe. They met to draw up a petition to get a dispensation to form a new masonic lodge in San Felipe Texas. The petition was submitted to the grand lodge in Mexico City. The petition was never acted on. The second effort was organized in Brazoria County in March of 1835 for the purpose of establishing a lodge in Texas. After meeting under an oak tree near the town of Brazoria the six Masons attending decided to apply to the Grand Lodge of Louisiana for a dispensation to create a new lodge in Texas. After the dispensation was issued the first Texas lodge, called Holland Lodge No. 36, was formed and opened. It was named after John Henry Holland who was the Grand Master of Masons in Louisiana. John M. Allen delivered the charter for the new lodge to Anson Jones, the first Worshipful Master of Holland Lodge No. 36, just before the battle begin at the San Jacinto battleground. Holland Lodge No. 36 was later changed to Holland No. 1. Two additional Texas lodges were formed, and each given a dispensation and charter by the Grand Lodge of Louisiana. They were: Milam Lodge No. 40 in Nacogdoches, and McFarland Lodge No. 41 in San Augustine. Both of these lodges were formed in 1837. Representatives from the two new lodges, and
PAGE 12
Holland Lodge No. 36, met in Houston and established the Grand Lodge of the Republic of Texas. Anson Jones who was the fourth and final President of the Republic of Texas was elected as the first Grand Master of Masons in Texas. By the time the first meeting of the Grand Lodge of the Republic of Texas was held in Houston on April 16, 1838 the list contained 25 lodges. The following is a list of those lodges: Holland No. 1
Houston
Milam No. 2
Nacogdoches
McFarland No. 3
San Augustine
Temple No. 4
Houston
St. John's No. 5
Brazoria
Harmony No. 6
Galveston
Matagorda No. 7
Matagorda
Phoenix No. 8
Washington
DeKalb No. 9
DeKalb
Perfect Union No. 10 *
San Antonio
Milam No. 11
Independence
Austin No. 12
Austin
Constantine No. 13
Bonham
Trinity No. 14
Livingston
Santa Fe No. 15 *
Santa Fe (N.M.)
Friendship No. 16
Clarksville
Orphan's Friend No. 17
Anderson
Washington No. 18
Washington
Forrest No. 19
Huntsville
Graham No. 20
Brenham
Trinity No. 21.
Crockett
Marshall No. 22
Marshall
Clinton No. 23
Henderson
Red Land No. 24
San Augustine
Montgomery No. 25
Montgomery
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
Navasota Lodge No. 299 Ancient Free & Accepted Masons got off to a late start because its members formerly belonged to Washington Lodge No. 18 at Washington, Texas. When a charter was requested in 1867 the reason given was that mud was two feet deep in the river bottom and Masons in Navasota could not attend. The new charter naming Navasota Lodge No. 299 AF & AM was granted in 1867. The Washington Lodge was demised in 1887. Navasota Lodge No. 299 has had three homes, the first two were destroyed by fire and some of the records were lost. The first lodge building was where the Post Office now stands and their building was also used for the school. The second home was on the corner of 202 W. Washington and after a fire the present home was constructed at 304. E. Washington in 1929. Two payments were made on this building before the Stock Market crashed and no lending institution could carry the notes. A group of outstanding individuals carried the notes until they were paid almost 40 years later.
PAGE 13
Mallett. Mr. H. Fresnole donated the site for the new lodge. The lodge suffered damage in 1900 from a storm and the following were placed on the repairs committee; John Henry Sollock, Worshipful Master, D. L. Gurrant, Senior Warden John R. Davis, Junior Warden and J. N. Mize, Treasurer. Singles were purchased for $3.50 per thousand with a 10% deduction. D. L. Gurrant stored the lodge carper until repairs were made. In 1908 the lodge was moved downtown. The lower floor was leased to the Zion Methodist Church for $12 a month. The lodge laid the corner stone of the Iola School in 1909. That building was destroyed by fire in 1929. In 1912 money was raised for the construction of a new lodge hall. This building was completed by March 8, 1913. The first to be initiated here were Jess Hicks, Edgar Sollock, and Carl Maxwell on May 12, 1913. In 1916 the dues were raised from $1.50 per year to $3.00. Later in 1919 they were lowered to $2.00. Clue Rogers was paid $150 for painting the lodge in 1916 and the Rev. T. A. Gray in 1930 for $115. The centennial of the lodge was held July 21, 1969 with the Grand Worshipful Master of the State of Texas J. Guy Smith, present. He presented the lodge with a certificate to commemorate the occasion as well as a gavel made from the Masonic Oak at Brazoria. A total of 325 attended the ceremonies.
Other lodges in Grimes County are: Orphan’s Friend Lodge No. 17 – Anderson Zion Lodge No. 313 – Iola Bedias Lodge No. 661 – Bedias Richards Lodge No. 1116 – Richards The first meeting of Zion Masonic Lodge #313 was held October 10, 1868 at the Stonewall Jackson Institute 21 miles northwest of Anderson. The charter members were F. W. Harmes, George W. Redding, John Vernon, Reubin White Keith, G. W. Hargroves, J. A. Duncan, W. W. Williams and W. H. McRee. F. W. Harmes was the first Worshipful Master. The yearly dues were set at 60 cents. The first to be initiated was Howell Mallett. The Lodge received its charter June 18, 1869. In 1880 the Lodge moved to Iola. Those appointed to secure a new lodge site were John Henry Sollock, L. M. Neeley and Arthur M. Darby which was purchased from L. P. McWhorter for $350. Not long after this the site was sold and a new committee appointed in the persons of Arthur M. Darby, John Henry Sollock and Howell
The old building was judged unsafe in May of 1970 and a new hall was built to the rear of the existing one at a cost of $12,500. The corner stone was laid March 23, 1973 by Clifford Ransdell, Grand Orator of the Grand Lodge of Texas. Those first initiated in this new structure were John Allen Hensley, Delbert Finch Ross and John R. Maxwell who was the Worshipful Master when the final payment was made on the building in 1979. A barbeque was held at the Iola School at which time the note was symbolically burned by John R. Maxwell, Worshipful Master; John Childs, Senior Warden and J. P. Brown, Junior Warden.
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
Felix Winchester Magee, Sr. Felix Winchester Magee Sr. was the founder of the Orphans Friend Lodge No. 17 in Anderson, Texas. Felix Winchester Magee married Martha Cureton Dickson.
PAGE 14
Neville Waul's Brigades in the Trans-Mississippi Department. However, before he had an opportunity to participate in any of the regiments' engagements, Felix was discharged from the service on July 17, 1862. Even though he had enlisted for a year, it is believed that, at 17 years old, he was too young to serve in the Army and was discharged upon the realization of his age. The next year, on his 18th birthday, April 9, 1863, Felix reenlisted. This time he joined his father's unit, Captain George W. Durant's Company, which later became known as Company B, Madison's Regiment, Texas Cavalry; the 3rd Regiment, Arizona Brigade; Phillips' Regiment; and the 3rd Texas Cavalry Regiment, Arizona Brigade. The Arizona Brigades, numbers one through four, were originally formed to recapture the Confederate Territory of Arizona, which had been lost by General John Robert Baylor in 1862, but, instead, were used to defend East Texas' rich cotton lands from the encroachment of Union General Nathaniel P. Banks' Red River Campaign.
Felix Winchester Magee, Jr. (1845~1924) Felix Winchester Magee, Jr., Confederate veteran, was born April 9, 1845, in Grimes County, Texas, to Felix Winchester and Martha C. Magee, both of whom were from Mississippi. Following the outbreak of the Civil War, Felix, who was only 16 years old, enlisted in Company D, 12th Regiment, Texas Infantry, on January 17, 1862. The 12th Regiment, which was also known as the 8th Infantry and Young's Regiment, was organized and mustered into Confederate service in Waco and was assigned to Colonels Overton C. Young's and Thomas
Felix, and the men of the 3rd Regiment, under the command of Colonel Joseph Phillips, participated in numerous battles, including those at Donaldsonville, June 28, 1863; Cox's plantation, July 12 - 13, 1863; Stirling's Plantation, September 29, 1863; Bayou Bourbeau, November 3, 1863; and those in the Red River Campaign, which included Wilson's Farm, April 7, 1864; Sabine Crossroads, or Mansfield, April 8, 1863; and Pleasant Hill, April 9, 1863. Since only a few pages of Felix's Compiled Military Service Records are available, it is difficult to discern in which battles he participated. However, after successfully preventing General Banks from invading Texas, the men of the Arizona Brigades returned to Texas, where they were ultimately surrendered by General E. Kirby Smith. Felix, who had worked his way through the ranks to a sergeant, was paroled on July 11, 1865, in Millican, Brazos County, Texas. After returning from the War, Felix married Miss Amanda E. Smith on February 14, 1869. Amanda, who was born March 29, 1848, in Butler County, Alabama, had come to Texas in 1855, most likely with her parents. Shortly after their marriage, according to the 1870 Census, they had one child, Sarah, who was born in 1869. However, she was not listed among their five other children in the 1880 Census. The 1880
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
Census also listed Felix and Amanda as living in Brazos County, Texas, where he was working as a farmer and she was keeping house. By this time, they had five children: Emma, who was born in 1870; William E., who was born in 1872; Mary A., who was born in 1874; Byron, who was born in 1876; and Ida M., who was 14 months old. By 1884, it appears that Felix and Amanda had returned to Grimes County, as he was appointed Postmaster of the Darby community on April 23, 1884. However, this may not be Felix, Jr. Since he and his father shared the same name, it could quite possibly have been Felix, Sr. The 1900 Census, listed a Benjamin Franklin Polk and his children as living with Felix and Amanda. Polk, who was listed as a widower, had been married to Felix's daughter, Emma. They were married in Grimes County on November 5, 1890. In 1905, at age 60, Felix successfully applied for a Confederate Pension from the State of Texas. Claiming that he was no longer able to work, he eventually, by 1920, moved in with his grandson, Ruble E. Polk, and his family. This information was taken from the 1920 Census, which also stated that he was a widower. This, however, appears to be incorrect, as Amanda was still living after Felix passed away in 1924. Eventually, due to his advanced age, Felix went to Austin to live in the Texas Confederate Home. Amanda, who was also eligible to live in the Home, stayed in Singleton. After moving into the Home on September 24, 1923, Felix remained there until his death, on May 23, 1924. He was buried soon after in the Texas State Cemetery. As stated earlier, Amanda continued to live in Grimes County, where she successfully applied to receive Felix's Confederate pension from the State of Texas. Amanda died on September 28, 1924 in Singleton and was buried in Lake Grove Cemetery in Iola, Texas.
PAGE 15
GRIMES COUNTY HISTORICAL COMMISSION NEWSLETTER JANUARY 2017
PAGE 16
We have copies of the Navasota Bluebonnet on sale for only $30 each. This book was published in 1954 and has 100 years of Navasota History. This book was reprinted in 2001.
Grimes County Cemetery Books Volumes 1 thru 4 are $30 each or you can purchase the set for $100 Volume 1 - North (Bedias/Iola/Keith) Volume 2 - Central (Anderson/Shiro/Roans Prairie/Singleton) Volume 3 - South (Courtney/Plantersville) Grimes County History Book
Volume 4 – Navasota
The Grimes County Heritage and Progress History Book is a great addition to your family library. It contains the history of our county as well as family histories of Grimes County Residents. Each book is $75 each.